In the book Triggers by Marshell Goldsmith, Goldsmith lays out his experience in corporate coaching to help his client achieve repeated success in reaching their goals.
If you have read other books on habit formation, and how to plan and reach goals, much of the context will be familiar to you, there were a couple takeaways that changed how I think about setting my goals.
Takeaway One, goal categories
Do I want to start something new? Do I want to stop something? Are the typical categories I’ll think about when setting goals, Goldsmith reminds his readers that we should also consider what we want to maintain. We can lose some of the most precious part of our day as stress presses in if we don’t make intentional goals to preserve those rich gardens in our lives.
Takeaway Two, daily review in the form of engaging questions
While I seen goal advice encourage having a planned periodic review of if I’ve taken the daily actions that I need to for achieving my goals, the enhancement I got from Goldsmith was to use engaging questions in the form of, “Did I do my best to …..”, to create a trigger of accountability at the end of each day. Goldsmith makes the point that ask ourselves these challenging questions at the end of each day forces to confront the fact that change is needed if day-after-day we give a low rating on trying our best to build positive relationships with our family but we say it it an important goal. I look forward to incorporating this template of daily questions into my goal setting routine.
-SRS
Disclaimer:
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Samuel Seibert 