Monday, October 25, 2010

SMART TALK

Having clearly defined goals is like having the picture for a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, according to Lou Tice in “Smart Talk”. Goals help you to figure out where the pieces fit, they heighten your awareness to people and opportunities that can move you forward, and they create the “constructive dissonance” that drives you to make adjustments to move from where you are to where you want to be. Goal setting sets energy in motion toward a desired outcome.

The problem most people have is that they don’t clearly define their goals.

Well thought-out goals create dissonance between what we want and where we are. And it’s that discord between the “better reality” and the “present moment” that inspires action, creativity and new ideas.

For many years, I was not an avid goal setter. During that season of my life, I let things come to me. That was a mistake. You either make things happen, or you let them happen. Guess which approach yields better results?

Great performers FOCUS on the result the want. To use a quarterbacking analogy, they selectively filter out the things they don’t need so they can find the man standing alone in the back of the end zone. That kind of focus pays off, and it’s a learned skill.

In Tice’s words, deliberately taking yourself out of your comfort zone is called "adventure". And to live life to the fullest, to make it an adventure, we must get comfortable being uncomfortable, because that is where discovery is found.