Give Yourself a Break! Being able to create excellent outcomes will always help you professionally. Finding problems is easy, in fact it takes very little effort, but critical thinking that leads to effective outcomes, is a vastly underutilized skill. Still it is central to addressing a problem because it creates sound assumptions and plenty of options to “pivot” if your data or assumption changes. The following is a great tool for thinking about how to create effective personal and professional outcomes. Give it a try! Achieving outcomes in the world of real people, and in real time. 1. State positively - Use future perfect tense to state the goal: "By September 30, I will have..." and avoid the use of negatives in the goal statement. 2. Identify whether you can get this outcome on your own, or only with the buy in of others. If it is dependent on someone else, try to pick a goal the you control. - What could you do today, that would move you in the direction of the desired outcome. 3. Identify When, Where, Who - You can at a minimum walk through the tasks and write them down on paper. 4. Chunk Steps - Break the tasks in to steps that can be done, measured and evaluated and then what tasks can you do on a daily or weekly basis that will move you toward your ultimate outcome? 5. Add Sensory-based evidence - What will you see, hear and feel when your major milestones toward your outcome are achieved? - What behavior will you display when your outcome is achieved? 6. Fortify yourself with the resources you'll need - Will you require technical competence or skill, Information, cooperation, confidence, communication skill or persuasion? 7. Make the goal compelling - Are you excited to get up every morning and pursue your outcome? - What obstacles or parts of you create a drag on your motivation? - What other distractions compete for attention when working on the outcome? 8. Ecology Check - Is your outcome congruent with your own beliefs and values? - Is your outcome congruent with and supportive of life? |