Lisa: Welcome to this solo episode of talent management truths. So I wanted to talk a little bit about getting those big goals back on track. Last summer, I lived in dust city. Now it wasn't much, but it was home and it had air conditioning, which on droppingly humid days is rather helpful. Now dust city is not the most beautiful place in the world yet.
I chose to live there. In fact, Quote, unquote, moved to dust city temporarily at least appeared on my annual goals list that I wrote in January, 2021. Actually, if I'm being completely truthful, the school does exist, but I actually called it something else more on that later. Now the measurement of success for this particular goal on my list was make the main floor or kitchen Renno.
Our kitchen was almost 35 years old. Yup. So just picture yellowy, orangy hardwood floors with lots of damage from scraping chairs over the years, we had original art, bright counters that were coming up at the seams below code electrical. There was never enough room to pass at the ends of the island.
So my husband and I would constantly sort of overlap and, and play silly games. There was plenty of lipstick on this kitchen, meaning paint that we'd liberally applied over the 16 years that we've lived in this house. So we made it work and it really wasn't so bad. Circumstances had dictated that.
You know, before diving into a large-scale Renno because my dad lived with us for 13 years and until he passed 17 months ago, it felt impossible to undertake a massive Renta without displacing him temporarily and in the middle of a pandemic on top of it. Plus, you know, life was busy now in January, 2021.
As I started to emerge from. The grief cloud I was under, I sat down to figure out my goals for the year, both business and personal. I knew I had some ambitious ideas for new programs and initiatives, and I've kind of put on, had put them on hold for some time to, to help with my dad's care. I also needed.
And knew I needed to build in some joy to fuel and inspire me. So, you know, I was talking about earlier, a goal called move to dust city. I actually called it infuse joy and creativity originally. So this, the school of infusing joy bubbled up and onto the page when I was figuring out my goals. And when I thought about, well, how could I infuse joy and creativity?
I realized it might be time to tackle, replacing that lovely kitchen and our old floors and getting rid of the damn popcorn ceilings finally. So I stared at that goal once it was down on the page. Hmm. I asked myself. Do I really want to take this on? It looks like a lot of work and dust on top of it too, which I'm highly allergic anyways.
I almost crossed it out, but I didn't. So what allowed me to not only keep it on the goals list, but actually make this joyful creative renovation project a reality. Well, let me tell you, I broke the goal down into quarterly chunks and then into monthly tasks. That's it. And then I only focused on the tasks outlined for the quarter or the month that I was in.
So it was really this boiling down, making it super, super simple for myself. So I didn't get distracted. So Q1 one's task was to research and book three kitchen company consults. In the end, I consulted six because I'm picky. Q two's task was to choose the company and design and book the instantly. Q3 was to create a project plan.
So I'm the general contractor or coordinator in this case. My husband and my son were, you know, part of the skilled labor. But I decided I would do the coordination, do this project plan and find and book an electrician, hardwood, flooring, people, popcorn, guy, lighting, fixtures, sink, faucet, appliances, do all of that stuff.
Q4 was all about the finishing touches. So backsplash by my husband and simply enjoying our new space. You should see this kitchen by the way. It's looking gorgeous. But back in January, you know, I'd written all this out and I still felt overwhelmed. As I started to research kitchen designs and costs. I felt anxious when I started to think about the mountain of tasks later in the year, I almost turned away from it.
But I know from experience that when I chunk out the goal and just get started, it always leads to forward momentum. And it gets me further along than if I had never begun. Now let's extrapolate this concept to your work. All organizations have some sort of goal setting and planning process. In fact, you likely have a pretty long list of all the high stakes and not so high stakes initiatives you need to make happen this year.
You probably even help other leaders, you know, work on their goals and figure them out and plan them. You probably even have your own tried and true approach for setting and documenting and reporting back on work goals and getting your team to do. And yet I'd be willing to bet that there is at least a one big scary goal, either on your list or floating in the back of your mind for this year, that you'd really like to achieve.
You might even be telling yourself you should achieve it, but me and he it's really ambiguous. And you don't know where to start or it's a bit scary because you know, it might really shift the status quo. Or it's more about the long-term strategic view and you just can't seem to even get there. So what's the point?
It might even be a goal that's already been carried forward. A couple of times it's got that phrase. If capacity allows in the notes column on your massive goals, spreadsheet, you know, I've done that. So it's just a bonus goal. And if you can get there, life would be wonderful goal. I know many of you might be giving to yourself right now in recognition.
So let's step back a moment and pause to reflect what might be possible. If you could actually make something really important happened this year. What could it do for your organization, for the employees that you support for your team? What about for your career? Let's dream for a moment, take a deep breath and think big.
Now, what did you notice? Maybe you felt a free zone of excitement or possibility. Maybe it was more like a Twain of fear. When you start to think about how much work it would take, like me looking at that kitchen plan or dread at not even knowing how to get started, whatever your reaction it's normal.
It's okay. Ask yourself. You know, what is this feeling or this reaction telling me it's a piece of information for you? ask, what do I really want here? What do I need early in the episode, I talked about the importance of breaking down big goals into milestones, and then focusing only on one. So now I'd like to expand on that and share with you my five tactics of which breaking down into chunks is one but five tactics that I know you will find useful in making big things happen.
You might want to grab a pen at this point, or I don't know, open up Google Keepa, get those thumbs up. Tapping. Here we go. Number one of the five tactics is get clarity on your outcome. Visualize them articulate how you'll recognize success, ask yourself and others who were involved, what will be different?
When we make this happen. Now, a lot of, a lot of people that I work with, a lot of my clients on the consulting and the coaching side, you know, they, they set goals. I will tell you though, that often there's a ton of opportunity to really tweak those goals to be even more specific and, and to, to create a visual in your mind of what's going to look different at the end of it.
So I really encourage you to, to seek that clarity right at the get-go. Number two is carve out a plan that breaks it down into digestible chunks. So you could use quarters, you could use months, use each milestone achieved as a chance to review progress and desired outcomes with your stakeholders so that you can adapt or course correct as.
This approach will work wonders for you, just like it does for, you know, my son, Patrick he's in high school and, and with big projects, we start with clarity on the outcomes and then breaking it down. So he doesn't get overwhelmed. It worked for me with planning, my huge renovation for my beautiful kitchen, and also for launching this podcast, that was a big project.
Number three is build in some consistency of reflection and intensely. So I invite you to consider how can you create a cadence to ensure you are pausing deliberately stepping back, reflecting on what's working and what isn't, and then crafting your intention for the next phase to do this, you need to commit to dedicate a check-ins with yourself, not just your team.
And you must treat these check-ins with yourself as though they're meetings with your biggest VIP client, that you would never dream of canceling number four, get support and feedback. You are not alone. You do not need to be alone. It is a sign of strength, not weakness to tap into all possible resources and sources of support.
Take it from me. I times of stress and overwhelm, I still struggle with wanting to just get it all done myself, right shoulder, the whole burden. And I have to really be mindful and deliberate about remembering to, to reach out and get the support I need. So figure out how you can get the help you deserve with reviewing ideas, plans, results, and challenges along the way.
Number five, be accountable and be compassionate. Accountability is a bit overused, I think in corporate land. And yet it is important, right? To ensure that we're following through. And we have a way to sort of check in with progress, but compassion is also important. Set up a way to track your progress and your learnings as you go along.
If you don't hit certain milestones, when you plan to, to treat yourself with the same compassion you would give to a team member who did their best and missed the mark and. Now spend some time identifying what got in your way, if it was avoidable or not, maybe you didn't do your best. And instead of beating yourself up about that, just say, okay, good, interesting learning.
So what do I want to do with that? With that knowledge, how I'm going to, how am I going to plan to mitigate that next time? So, so look at what got in the way and then plan your next best steps course. So there you have it, five tactics that will help you make strategically important. Things happened this year.
Finally, I'd like to offer you some journaling questions you might consider writing about here's the first one. What is something you've been putting off that you might like to make happen, but are scared of the effort or, or the dust? It might kick up. How might you apply my five tactics? And finally, what is one ridiculously small baby step that you could take today?
You can always step back if it gets too scary too soon. That's it for today? Thank you for listening.
