30 Days Ago
A few weeks ago, after listening to a few things, I was thinking about where I wanted to be in a year from now. I didn’t spend a ton of time thinking about it, but the thoughts wouldn’t go away. I would think of something going on in my life and I would think about how I wanted that area to be better a year from now. This happened three or four times in about a week. Then one single thought came to me, “how can I be better at anything a year from now, when I don’t even know if I am better than I was thirty days ago”. That made me think of something that used to be said at work years ago, “if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen”. I sat down with a few goals on my mind. I knew that a new month was about to start, so I wanted to write down a few things that I could do this month that would help me out. But the main focus of the month of August is going to be to really think about where I want to be in a year from now and how to get there. When I was thinking about what to do for August, I put a few things on my list where the main goal was to track something. I have to get into the habit of tracking things. If I want to get better, I need a baseline. The next thing I had to do was to go see my friend and ask if it had any advice for me. I went on to ChatGPT, this is what I asked, “What are some things you can do to get better at tracking daily habits”. Most of the things it said were very basic, that most people already know. A couple things I want to focus on right now. It gave me some apps I could use, not sure if this is the route I want to go down. I will probably do some research on each app and then decide if I want to use an app long-term. Part of the reason that I may not use an app is because one of the things on the list is “Make it Visual”. Part of me thinks that if I use an app, it’s just not visual enough. I need something bigger to look at than my phone. The next thing I thought was interesting was, “Define Clear Success”. I need to be better at this overall in life. I was reading a book this week and the author talked about definition of done. I think they are both saying the same thing. What does the end look like? What does a win look like? If I don’t know if I completed the task right or if I won the challenge, what’s the point? The last thing I want to bring up is “Reflect Weekly”. So many successful people do a weekly review. It’s a habit that I have always wanted, but I just can’t make it stick. The idea of sitting down each week and going over where I’m at sounds wonderful to me. The issue I seem to run into a lot is that I think I am focused on the wrong things during my review. I focus on things that need to get done, not things I want to get done. When I think about it, I think of it this way. You wouldn’t track if you ate this week or not, but you would track what you ate. I need to change my thought process on that if I want to be successful with weekly reviews. I think weekly reviews would be really motivating. You could see what you got done and how much closer you are to hitting your goal.
Focus for the Week
Now that I have what I want to work on for the month, I need to take some action. I encourage everyone to go out and pick a goal for the month. After that, make sure we follow the three things that I mentioned. How can you make that goal visual? I need to be able to look at it every single day. I shouldn’t have to go looking for it either, it needs to be right up front. I need to define what success would be at the end of the month. When the month is over, did I accomplish this? No gray area! Last, I need to have time each week this month where I sit down and see where I’m at and how far I still have to go. If I want this to work long-term, I can’t wait till the last week of the month and hurry up and finish. Feel free to email me and share the goal you want to focus on in August!