Effort

Sometimes, in life, we get caught up looking for the big win – like finding our soul mate, falling in love and living happily ever after.

In business, we can get hyper focused on working towards major milestones: launching the new product or hitting our sales targets.

But, sometimes instead of looking at the big picture, we need to focus on the day-to-day.

Teresa Amabile is a professor at Harvard Business School.

To get a better understanding behind the psychology and performance of people doing complex work, she collected around 12,000 daily diary entries from 230 professionals working across 26 project teams in different companies. (Read the article from the Harvard Business Review.)

What does she find out?

Making progress in meaningful work is the number one factor that leads to positive inner work life – the mix of emotions, motivations, and perceptions that is critical to performance.

And of course, this is a cycle.

• Positive inner work life leads to more progress
• which leads to more positive inner work life
• which leads to more progress and…
• you get the idea.

A key finding of this research is that progress in the work has to be meaningful and, it has to be clear how your efforts contributed to that progress.

• Meaningful doesn’t have to be about the big win or saving all of humanity.
• It just has to be meaningful to the person doing it.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get the most out of life. The E stands for Effort.

(It’s explained more in the goal setting slideshow)

Watch SEOT YouTube Video #18:

SEOT Step to Success #18 is to CELEBRATE SMALL WINS

We can learn a few things from this business study to help us achieve our goals.

Successful projects were ones where the project manager would clearly set out the goals of the project and provide enough time, resources, and support for the project to succeed.

The team members then had the independence to figure out how to achieve the goal.

Sometimes, goals are given to us by our boss, our teacher, our parents, or circumstances out of our control.

And that’s life.

We can still own the goal by figuring out how we are going to achieve the goal.

If we can find small wins that matter to us along the way, we can feel good, be more motivated and have a better attitude towards our goal project.

We need to find a way to make the win matter to us personally – because what’s meaningful to me may not be meaningful to you. Everyone is different.

• Did you get a better mark than you did on the last test? Maybe that’s a win for you.
• Were you able to get 10 minutes of moderate physical activity today? Maybe that’s a win for you if you’re just starting out. Or maybe, being active three times a day is the win for you.
• Have you figured out the solution to a problem that you’ve been working on for a while? Even though it might be a little thing in the entire project, for you that might be a huge win because it really stumped you.
• Did you manage to get out of bed? For many people, that’s nothing. But, remember, it’s okay to be not okay. And sometimes, if you’re not okay, finding the strength to just get out of bed is a huge deal. Depending on where you’re at, maybe that’s a win for you.

Think about your goal.

• What are you doing that might be meaningful to you on a personal level?
• How could you find and celebrate a small win every day?

Remember, we’re trying to get into a POSITIVE FEEDBACK loop where celebrating the small meaningful wins helps us to produce more results which helps us to produce more small meaningful wins, etc.

Good luck!

(Hey, teachers! Check out this growth mindset lesson package or this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!)

Bonus video clip:

Here’s a video clip where Teresa Amabile talks about the power of small wins.

Harvard Business Review – The power of small wins

Queen Anna of Arendelle faces a particularly dark moment when she apparently loses her sister and her best friend at the same time.

But somehow, she needs to find the strength to do the next right thing, climb out of the dark cave, and stand up for the truth about her people’s history.

Kristen Bell who voices Anna in the movie Frozen 2 relates to that feeling of what do you do when you don’t know what to do? Her personal mantra is just to do the next right thing.

Drawing on her personal experiences of anxiety and depression, Kristen talks about what the next right thing can look like.

“What do I do when I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning?

You just do the next right thing and that’s stepping out of bed.

The next right thing is brushing your teeth.

The next right thing is eating your breakfast.

The next right thing is looking at your calendar and going to work.”

KRISTEN BELL
SOURCE: USA Today

Kristen talks about the importance of finding inner strength instead of relying on outside motivation to help kids cope. She really wanted Anna to be representative of that.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get the most out of life. The E stands for effort.

(It’s explained more in the goal setting slideshow)

SEOT YouTube Video #14:

SEOT Step to Success #14 is to DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING

At some point, we all face obstacles. Sometimes in life, hope feels lost. Sometimes when we’re working on a goal, things seems impossible.

We can learn a lot from Queen Anna in terms of goal setting and getting through tough times:

• She makes a conscious choice to listen to the tiny voice that whispers in her mind to do the next right thing.
• She takes a step.
• She steps again.
• When things are too much to take, she breaks it down to taking the next breath, taking the next step.
• She makes the choice to listen to the tiny voice in her head and do the next right thing.

Think about your goal. Sometimes goals can feel overwhelming – especially when our big dreams seem too big and we worry they’re impossible.

So, like Queen Anna, we just need to take it step-by-step, day by day, and action by action.

What is the next action you could do right now if you wanted to head in the direction of your goal? What is the next right thing you might do?

• Could you set aside 10 minutes to work out?
• Could you choose to eat a healthy snack right now instead of junk food?
• Could you wake up 10 minutes earlier to look at some finances?
• Could you spend 10 minutes after school reviewing your notes and guessing what might come up on the next quiz or test?

Don’t think about what comes after the next right thing because that can be overwhelming. Just stay in the moment and choose to do the next right thing.

Good luck!

(Hey, teachers! Check out this growth mindset lesson package or this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!)

Bonus video clip:

Kristen Bell – The Next Right Thing (Frozen 2 Lyric Video)

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most influential scientists of all time.

The story goes that Newton saw an apple fall from a tree and this was the spark that eventually led to his theory of gravity.

In 1687, he would publish his three universal laws of motion.

The first law of motion basically says that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless other forces act on it.

Even though Newton was talking about physical objects, it’s amazing how well this law of motion applies to goal setting.

Sometimes, we just don’t want to work.

We’re at rest, and we just want to stay at rest.

We know what to do. We know how to do it. We know why we should do it. We just don’t want to do it.

So we procrastinate.

• We wait until the last moment to do our homework.
• We say that will’ll start to eat healthy right after the holidays.
• We’ll be working online and find ourselves falling down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia or social media.

Inertia is a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.

Let’s turn that inertia into momentum.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get the most out of life. The E stands for Effort.

(It’s explained more in the goal setting slideshow)

SEOT Step to Success #10 is to SET A TIMER

Starting a task can be easier if you know you only have to do it for a little bit.

Set up a 10, 15 or 25 minute timer to get started and then reward yourself with a little break. You can put up with anything for 10 minutes… even work.

Here’s the thing. Once you start, you might find yourself “on a roll.” You’re moving along in your work, so you might want to keep going when the timer is up. Remember, objects in motion stay in motion unless other forces act on it.

Or, you might just take that break and start again in 10 minutes.

Remember, if you find yourself stuck trying to get things done, try starting with a short timer and see what happens.

Good luck!

(Hey, teachers! Check out this growth mindset lesson package or this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!)

There is this idea that many of us have about creativity: Either you’re born creative, or you’re not. And that’s just the way it is.

As it turns out, creativity – like many other things – is something that we can become better at.

Creativity is about connecting ideas in different ways to create something new. In fact, the word creativity comes from the Latin word creō which means to create or make.

But, here’s the thing. Creativity isn’t just for the arts, although that’s what we often think about when we think about creative people.

• In business, we call creativity by another name: innovation.
• In life, another word for creativity is problem-solving.

Innovation is about creating new methods, ideas or products that are different from what we currently have.

Solving problems means to create a solution to overcome some obstacle.

When the pandemic changed the world, businesses, communities and families had to create new ways to get things done in a world of physical distancing and lockdowns.

So, yeah, creativity is something we need to achieve our goals.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get the most out of life. The T stands for Tinker.

(It’s explained more in the goal setting slideshow)

SEOT Step to Success #8 is to GET CREATIVE

How do we be more creative?

It’s not like you can say “I’m going to be creative now” and have a flash of inspiration.

Well, if creativity is about creating new connections between ideas…

• in ways that we personally haven’t thought about before
• or in ways that the world hasn’t really seen before…

Then, it makes sense that the more ideas we have, the more life experiences we have, the more connections we can make.

One way to get more life experiences is by doing something new every day.

In other words, we’re building a collection of experiences in our head as raw material to help us be more creative later on.

• Try walking a different way to school or work.
• Try ordering something new off the menu.
• Try something that scares you – like public speaking or making friends with a new classmate or colleague. (If it scares you, chances are you don’t do that that experience very often.)

Here’s an important one, but a tricky one:

Choose to work with people who are different from you.

You know that saying, “birds of a feather flock together”?

We like to work with people who look like us, think like us, belong to the same culture as us, or have similar experiences like us. Make a conscious choice to connect with someone who is the opposite and see what happens.

The more varied and different your experiences are, the easier it will be to “think outside of the box” later on.

Think about your goal.

• Now think about things that are completely unrelated to your goal.
• Think about different subjects, topics, things you’ve seen or read about.
• What are the similarities or differences between your goal and these other topics?

When we wonder about solutions to problems or how to achieve your goal, see if you can draw on your prior knowledge in different areas of life. Maybe there’s something in a completely different context that might work in this case too.

Good luck!

(Hey, are you a teacher? Check out this creativity lesson package or this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!

In business, there is an idea that says 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers.

And if you can figure out where the best sales come from, you can focus on that part of your customer base and get better results.

It’s called the 80/20 rule (or the Pareto principle) which says that basically 80% of results happen because of 20% of actions.

Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule, but more of a pattern. Here are some examples:

• Consider Vilfredo Pareto who was an Italian economist. In the early 1900s, he noticed that 80% of the wealth in Italy belonged to 20% of the people.
• Or what about errors in Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. In 2002, Microsoft sent out a memo saying that “about 20% of the bugs causes 80% of all errors.” In fact, it turned out that “1% of bugs caused half of all errors.”
• Another example of the 80/20 rule comes from baseball. In 2010, it was noticed that “15% of all the players … produced 85% of the total wins.”

So, we can find examples of this 80/20 rule popping up in all sorts of different places.

What if we apply this idea to goal setting?

Imagine we try 5 different strategies to reach our goal.

• 4 of the things we try will help only a little,
• and 1 of the things we do will help a lot.

If we can focus on those key strategies, we can get better results.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get the most out of life. The O stands for Optimize.

(It’s explained more in the goal setting slideshow)

SEOT Step to Success #7 is to CHECK IN

If we measure our progress towards a goal, then eventually, over time, we can start to look for patterns.

• Some things we do help us a little.
• Some things we do help us a lot.
• And, some things we do just get in our way.

The problem is if we don’t stop to look and see how things are going, we may never discover which key strategies help us out the most.

• Eventually, we might start to get frustrated because we’re trying so hard, but things aren’t really paying out.
• But what if we focused our time and energy on things that worked well? We probably would get better results.

Think about your goal.

• How are you measuring progress?
• Can you find any patterns in your results?
• What’s working for you?
• What’s not working for you?

Taking the time to check in with your progress is a chance for you to try to find the 20% of your actions that produce 80% of your results.

How often should you check in? Well, put it this way.

• Some people make New Year’s resolutions in January, but don’t check-in to see how things are going until next year. It’s hard to reach your goals if you’re not really thinking about them.
• If you check-in once a week, you’re already 52 times more likely to achieve your goal.
• If you check in daily and keep at it, you’re way more likely to be able to focus your time and energy where it matters most.

Good luck!

Psst, teachers, if you like this, check out this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!

Nobody likes to fail.

Nobody wants to feel like a failure.

In fact, some of us go to great lengths to not make mistakes. Sometimes, it feels like it’s better to not even try than to take a chance and mess up.

But here’s the thing. Effort is about failing.

Think about it this way: we often say that people who tried really hard were able to find a way to persevere and overcome obstacles.

In other words, they hit a setback – they failed, they made a mistake, or something didn’t go their way – but they found a way to pick themselves up, overcome the obstacle and keep going.

SEOT is an acronym to help us get past mistakes. The E stands for effort.

(Psst, teachers – check out this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!)

SEOT Step to Success #6 is to MAKE MISTAKES and FAIL

In fact, think of failing like challenges in a videogame.

FIRST FAIL CHALLENGE:

The first failing challenge is to see if you can fail 3 times.

I’m not talking about failing on purpose or failing because you didn’t really try. That doesn’t count. This is about actually trying, but still failing or having things not work out the way you wanted to.

Getting things wrong is discouraging. But the more we mess up, the more opportunities we have to learn about what doesn’t work. Or what doesn’t work, yet.

It’s easy to try once and then give up. Set a goal and try 3 different ways to get there.

Once you give it your all for 3 tries, then you can give up. You’ve mastered the first fail challenge.

SECOND FAIL CHALLENGE:

The second fail challenge is to see if you can fail 5 times.

This is for people who mastered the art of failing 3 times. It’s hard to really try and still fail.

It’s hard to pick yourself up once you fall, but the more you learn to keep going, the easier it gets. Success is around the corner. See if you can fail 5 times.

THIRD FAIL CHALLENGE:

The third fail challenge is to see if you can fail 10 times.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re doing some serious learning.

Keep track of what’s not working. Write down why you think the first plans failed and then change the plan. What tweaks could you make? Don’t give up! See if you can fail 10 times.

FOURTH FAIL CHALLENGE:

The 4^th failing challenge is to see if you can fail 26 times.

Failing 26 times seems like an odd choice, but it’s because there are 26 letters in the English alphabet.

Start with Plan A and then try Plan B and then keep going until Plan Z. I bet you succeed before you fail 26 times.

ULTIMATE FAIL CHALLENGE:

Finally, the fifth and ultimate failing challenge is to see if you can fail 1000 times.

Thomas Edison invented a new battery after trying several thousand ways that didn’t work.

Each time you fail, you learn another way that won’t work. Each step brings you closer to victory! Failing a thousand times is for epic dreams.

Okay. Think about your goal.

How many times have you failed so far in trying to achieve your dream?

Too many, I know. Normally we think of failure as a bad thing, but this time, let’s flip that around and see it as a measure of progress.

Which failing challenge are you up to?

Good luck and don’t forget to check out our Goal Setting Slideshow!

No matter who you are, at some point in life, we all want something more out of life.

Maybe you want to be a better athlete. Maybe you want to get into a better school or get a better job. Maybe you want to be more liked, popular, or accepted. Maybe, you just want a better phone!

It’s human nature to want things to be better. But that’s easier said than done. Often times, it takes hard work to get better and hard work is, well, hard.

People often give up on their New Year’s resolutions and goals. This happen so much that people make New Year’s resolutions is keep their New Year’s resolutions!

(Psst, teachers – check out this 2021 New Year’s Resolution lesson plan!)

Does this scenario sound familiar?

You try something new. You take the first steps towards your goal. Eventually, you hit a few bumps in the road or life gets busy. Then, time goes by and all of a sudden, you realize you’ve forgotten about working on your goal.

SEOT is about helping you to achieve your goals. Achieving goals requires effort.

SEOT Step to Success #2 is to KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE.

Here’s the thing. Rome wasn’t built in a day. People don’t become pro athletes overnight. You don’t get to the top of the mountain with one step. All of these things take time.

The reason why mountain metaphors show up so much in goal setting is because you can see how big the mountain is. No one is going to argue that it takes thousands of steps to get to the top of that rock. Chances are you’ll have some setbacks along the way. In fact, you may not be able to make it to the top. But if you get there, the view is fantastic and the satisfaction of getting to the top is even more breathtaking.

The thing with being a pro athlete or a billionaire or an “A list” celebrity in Hollywood is that we don’t always see the hard work they put in behind the scenes to get to the top of their mountain. We just see the view from their social media accounts and they make it look so easy.

So, this SEOT step to success is to remind ourselves to put in the effort.

• Every day, do a little bit of work towards your goal.
• Keep track of how many days in a row you work on your goal.
• What’s the longest goal streak you can make before missing a day?

Then, see if you can beat your personal best. It’s like a videogame. Every time you beat your personal best, you level up.

So, now is the time to keep track of your effort! When you work on your goal today, just write down the date on a piece of paper.

Try it! Then, tell me in the comments what’s the longest goal streak you can manage before you miss a day? Subscribe to this channel to get more tips to help you level up your life.

Good luck and don’t forget to check out our Goal Setting Slideshow!