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2017 Goal Retrospective

I love yearly goal planning with my wife. It’s been an awesome practice that we started years ago thanks to The Best Year Ever program and the promptings of David DeWolf. It’s truly changed our lives: it’s amazing to see how many big, important goals you can hit each year if you have focus and clarity at the outset of the year. I try to do a retrospective in most areas of my life, but I especially enjoy doing one in regards to my yearly goals. I’ve found identifying and implementing small, incremental improvements to important aspects of life to be incredibly useful…

7 Categories to Help Guide Your 2016 Goals

Results follow clarity, and clarity comes from clear definition. Writing is the best way to clearly define your thoughts (one of the reasons you should start a blog!). Here are my goal categories, in order of long-term priority. Explicitly defining these categories has helped me during my goal planning process to identify which categories needs the most attention this upcoming year, and ensure that my goals align against these categories: Spiritual Marriage Health Intellectual Financial Work Relationships This ordering doesn’t mean that work won’t come before my intellectual life (i.e. reading, conferences, learning, etc)…

2015 Goals Retrospective

I’ve been making intentional yearly goals using Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever program for the last couple years. The simple workbook that Michael provides is effective in reviewing the past year, and defining goals for the upcoming year. A "retrospective" is a process common in Agile Software Development, but I’ve started applying it my personal life planning lately. I made a lot of progress on key goals this past year, but still made a lot of mistakes; below is a retrospective on my 2015 goals. Here’s what worked: Getting clear on my goals, and the reasons (or motivation) behind those goals. Adjusting my actions and strategies to align against my goals…

What a Freezing Cold Pond Taught Me

A couple weeks ago, I was on a hike in a state park with some old friends. Part of the hike included a small pond with a great dock. All of us walked out on the dock, and continued talking while enjoying the view. It was mid-November and was a really cold day. One of the guys stripped down and jumped into the pond. A couple minutes later a couple of the guys followed. After getting out of the pond and shivering for the next couple minutes, they all felt great; invigorated by the experience. It’s easy to get comfortable, and resist making a hard decision or a large change. This experience reminded me that it’s possible to do something incredibly uncomfortable or challenging and come out of it just fine, and in most cases much better…

Interrogate Your Reactions, Change Your Perspective

It’s easy to be negative, to feel busy, to perceive the current situation as mundane. Part of the reason that people that are consistently positive are often so enlivening is because it’s hard to be positive over the long term. It’s refreshing to meet those who are able to remain positive and magnanimous. My internal response to situations and tasks that arise can often expose thinking that needs to change. My reaction to when a client doesn’t understand a concept “yet again”, or when I feel like I just have to “deal with” a flaw in a friendship work relationship is a key indicator of where and what I need to change…

Call Your Old Friends: Four Reasons Why It’s Worth It

I’m horrible at keeping in touch with people who aren’t in my immediate daily life. If someone isn’t involved in my work or my local social circle, I generally won’t remember to give them a call. It’s easy for the busyness of life to eat away at the time available to keep in touch with old friends. Old friendships are worth fighting for. Yes, it’s impossible to maintain all your old friendships, but it is possible to cultivate a intentional few. For me, although the time is definitely a limiting factor, the real blocker is the fear of loss. To be frank, for me, time is just an excuse. It’s these questions and thoughts that create the real resistance: What if the conversation isn’t as good as I remember it?..

Category: Leadership