Most people out there approach each day with the best of intentions at making each day the most productive day possible, every day, myself included.  But practically speaking, it doesn’t happen too often.  Meanwhile, you see or hear of that overachieving peer or competitor of yours, waking up at early morning hours, and cashing in on the extra time they gain.  Moving easily through the afternoon hours, crushing the day on key projects, getting their work outs in, eating right, and even finding time to be on committees and other networking opportunities.  Then they can finish off the day early to attend key family functions, being the parent that never misses anything, or the spouse that does amazing things for their significant other.

How do they have that energy?  Where do they find the time to do all these things?  Who can possibly be so perfect and do everything that they know they should do every day?  What do they know that you don’t?  Why can’t you figure these things out and get more done?  What is their secret?

If you picked up on the typo in the title, then likely you also caught the reference to one of my favorite movies, “The Pursuit of Happyness” with actor Will Smith.  The pun is intended to capture your attention and remind us that the pursuit of Happyness is just that, a pursuit.  However, it doesn’t have to be a pursuit in vain.  Happiness is often alluded to as a place where everything is perfect, a euphoric place where everyone is just happy.  Well, I am here to tell you that place doesn’t exist, sorry to burst your bubble.

Last week, I wrote a blog reminding everyone that as of April 1st, we were officially 25% of the way into 2018 and I asked each of you to assess where you were with your goals for this year.  Now that you have taken time to consider where you are and how your goals are coming along, I thought I would share with you where I am at for my goals for 2018.  In full transparency, I am going to share what I started with and how things have progressed since the beginning of the year.

Can you believe it, it feels just like yesterday my wife and I were sitting at home on New Year’s Eve drinking our traditional bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, watching the ball drop, and trying to stay up until midnight.  Three months have passed, and the year is cranking along, we are now officially over 25% of the year completed.  So, with an opening like that, where do you think my article is going today?  Yep, you guessed it, time to talk about where you are with your goals…

You might have heard the old outdated cliché’s and received a lot of ceremonial lip service centered around this concept. Often, words like 'steadfast', 'determined' and 'committed' are loosely thrown around in conversations, as if it was commonplace. There is also a liberal excess of discourse around what it means to have perseverance and what are the true ingredients to success?  So, then how is this account any different? This anecdote comes in the form of colorful personal experience which is plentiful and relatable, so, let's get started...

According to groundbreaking research, announcing your New Year's resolution at the beginning of each year almost guarantees your failure in achieving them.  I’ve probably shared this with you before.  You see, loud proclamations in front of a crowd of loved ones or friends that you are setting off to accomplish some goal, makes you feel good for the moment. However, soon, you become complacent, and your goals start falling apart, which brings us to a fascinating topic; the difference between setting goals and finally achieving them.

Bad habits; we all have them. You are probably well aware of what they are and how they impact you in a negative way.  The problem is for the overwhelming majority of us, bad habits are a way of life and they are hard to break, sometimes we even feel powerless to break the chain of bad habits.  However, let me show you how important it is to your success that you not only squash bad habits, but create new empowering habits to replace them.  And, in the process increase your productivity tenfold.

I have decided to republish my first book “Success with Goals – Designing Your Life with Purpose” and I am asking all my previous employees, clients, and mentorees of the last 25 years, to please provide a testimonial of how my leadership, guidance, and coaching improved or enhanced your life.  I am looking for all stories that we can post on my website, but ideally, I would love to include many of them into my book, if you are willing.  We will have each story professionally edited and added to the republished book in the coming months and my hope is to have at least 100 testimonials from anyone and everyone who ever felt that I improved their life and would be willing to share that story on my website and/or in my book.

As many of you know, I attended my first book festival this past weekend in Tucson, Arizona.  It was a valuable experience, and although it was not exactly what I was hoping for, I did gain some good insight for further marketing of my book as well as my services as a whole.  One thing that was certain, was that few people were there to find books on Goals.  Most were looking for fantasy, adventure, or even some people were looking for historical books.  Only one person in a hundred plus entered our booth and showed any interest in my goal setting book.

There are days and times in our lives when everything gets obscure, life becomes challenging, and leading a cheerful life becomes more like a utopian concept and far out of reach. Questions such as; What is my purpose in life? Is what I am doing really worth it? What is success? Is success ever possible for me to achieve, or am I going to die a failure?
 
These negative questions are not empowering; and, they are not the problem. Giving in to them is the problem! An inclination towards negativity can lead to depression, mental illnesses, and suicidal tendencies. Therefore, rather than trying to revel in the abyss of negativity, learn to motivate yourself and move forward more powerfully!  Here are a few tips I recommend in helping to motivate yourself.

As many of you know, I am in the process of publishing my second book on Time Management.  Now, it’s not intended to be your normal time management book, as it is designed to be a complement to my Goal Setting book “Success with Goals – Designing Your Life with Purpose”.  However, it will have several of the tried and true concepts for effective time management.  The same principles and concepts I personally use and coach to with my clients and students.

I want to reach out to all of my loyal supporters and let you know I will be in a booth at the Tucson Festival of Books on Saturday and Sunday, March 10th and 11th, at The University of Arizona.  I’m going with some other published authors and aspiring writers to try and sell some books and introduce our books to more people.  It is my goal to attend four of these events this year and this is the first of those events for 2018!

I was thinking about how there are certain life lessons that everyone must learn to be able to achieve success in any endeavor and as I reviewed much of my own trials and circumstances, I realized that I worked through and “learned” most of these lessons, in some cases however, it did take a few times to get it.  Learning these life lessons will lead to some of your biggest break-through’s in your life and allow you to achieve those huge goals you have been chasing. Which ones have you already truly learned?

The other evening while working with someone on their goals, the topic of motivation came up and when they asked the question in the title, I wasn’t completely sure how to answer it.  Now, that’s not because I didn’t know the answer, on the contrary, I very well know how I would, and some of my mentors would, answer that question.  But, the bigger issue was this wasn’t the first time that this came up and I wanted to come up with a better way to support my answer or suggestions about motivation.

​“Success with Goals - Designing your Life with Purpose.” 
 
What exactly does that mean?  When I set out to write “Success with Goals”, I struggled because I did not want to write another typical “goals” book.  But because I had already envisioned a series of books, I was convinced that the first book had to be about goal setting, as it all starts there.  Without effective goals, you can’t know how to manage your time well.  If you don’t manage your time well, you likely don’t communicate well, and even more likely struggle to manage others, and so on.