Hello, I am Coach Tony… Welcome to Operation Melt!
My name is Coach Tony, and I am a coach, author and project manager on a mission. I am working to build a world where no goal ever dies of loneliness.
I almost allowed one of my biggest life goals to die without ever being attempted for forty years. My goal almost died, not of failure but of loneliness. But, I took a risk and leveraged a simple, logical process that helped me wildly exceed my goal.
I transformed my life, and you can do the same with the help of Operation Melt.
Operation Melt provides engaging, practical content and hands-on coaching to inspire, motivate and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
Ask Me Anything…
In Ask Coach Tony, you can put my Operation Melt coaching to the test by asking me questions about how to achieve your goals.
Because a question asked by one is often a question had by many, I am regularly sharing these answers via the Operation Melt blog.
Amuse Bouche
Before we get to today’s post, I offer you this light “amuse-bouche” to entertain your mind before we get down to business. Like any other amuse-bouche, you may hate my “dad joke,” but it is worth every penny you paid for it, right?
What do you get when you cross a t-rex and a human? A t-rex.
Ask Coach Tony: What If I Don’t Know What I Want?
Coach Tony: I am trying to use your Goal Success Quick Start Guide to figure out some new goals for myself – getting ahead of the dreaded New Years’ Resolutions season. I am working through the ABCD process and have completed my Wheel of Life, but I hit a brick wall with the next step. As I started brainstorming goals, I found myself writing down things I thought I should want, but I don’t really want those things. It turns out that I really have no idea what I want, and this is standing in my way. How do I create goals when I don’t know what I want?
The first step is to take a deep breath and rest easy because you are not alone in this struggle.
Many people I have known over the years, and several who I have coached, have experienced this same struggle. Heck, I have even experienced it myself. But you can overcome this temporary barrier and commit to the goals that will create the life of your dreams.
I will share two quick techniques that might help you break through this barrier.
What Are Your Anti-Goals?
A quick path to figuring out what you want often begins with what you don’t want from your life. Your anti-goals.
If you are struggling with the B (or brainstorming) stage of the ABCD technique, it may be time to flip the exercise on its head. Instead of brainstorming the 30-50 things you want to achieve, do the opposite. Complete the same exercise, but list the things you do not want to do in your life.
For example, if you are single, divorced or widowed, do you want to be married (or married again)? Do you want to get a job and climb your way up the ladder to the corner office? The list of possible anti-goals is virtually limitless.
Once you have listed 30-50 anti-goals, you will likely find your actual goals hidden amongst those things that you don’t want from your life.
One word of caution, I only recommend this anti-goals exercise if you are genuinely stuck with your goal brainstorming effort. I say this because it is proven far more effective to focus on positives with goal-setting and affirmations. Otherwise, you risk putting the negative version in the universe and into your brain. This might inadvertently instruct your brain to subconsciously focus on what you don’t want instead of what you do. But, sometimes, we get stuck and need to try something a little different.
Work Backwards
Another strategy to help get you past your goal brainstorming barrier is working backward.
In my Goal Success Quick Start Guide, I walk you through an effective goal-setting process that is very similar to my goals coaching approach. The process begins with the ABCD technique, then you figure out your why and make the goal SMART. The process ends with the vision exercise, which asks you to picture your life after achieving your goal. Then you write a highly-descriptive narrative of that time in your life, making it as vivid as possible.
When you are stuck trying to figure out what you really want in life, you can start with the vision exercise and then work backward from there.
Close your eyes and picture yourself living the life of your dreams. What would a day look like when you reach that point? Picture every detail: where you live, the people in your life, how you spend your days, what your house looks like, what every day feels like and so forth. Then write it down, even if just bullet points. The more descriptive and vivid the picture, the better.
Once you have your ideal life vision, you can use project management skills and complete a work breakdown exercise to figure out your goals. Start by looking at your vision and identifying where your ideal life vision differs from your current life. What things need to change in your life to make your vision a reality? What must be true to bring your vision to life?
Having this list of needed changes is a starting point for figuring out your goals. Breaking down those required changes into bite-sized steps (no more than a year in duration) needed to make those changes happen. These steps can be prioritized and used as an input into your goal project charter. This will allow you to commit to your SMART goals and build a plan that works for you.
Don’t Skip the Why
One last and critical tip is to not skip the “why” exercise in the Goal Success Quick Start Guide. This exercise will help you make sure that the goals you create are, in fact, your goals and not someone else’s vision for your life.
Each of us gets bombarded with external expectations for our lives every day. As we grow up, we are expected to get good grades and conform to social norms. As we mature, we are expected to get a good 8 to 5 job, get married and have a family. As we try to live our adult lives, we are told that we should be thinner, more attractive, more stylish and that we need to amass possessions to keep up with our friends and neighbors.
With a constant barrage of external expectations, we can start internalizing them. Before we know it, our subconscious minds have adopted these expectations from others as our own goals. Whether we really want them or not!
Through the why exercise, we can dig deep into the motivations behind each of our goals. This exercise will help us determine if our why is really because of an external expectation we have internalized or if the goal is really something we want. Beyond filtering out external expectations from our goals, the why exercise also serves as a significant source of motivation as we pursue our goals.
Sometimes we high-achievers struggle to figure out what we really want from our lives. And certain personality types are at a higher risk of these struggles. But, with a few creative tweaks to the process defined in the Goal Success Quick Start Guide, we can overcome these struggles and be well on our way to living the life of our dreams.
If you need a little help digging deep into your goals, you may benefit from some coaching. Reach out and let me help you get past your barrier.
Ask Me Anything!
Do you have a question you would like to submit for a future Ask Coach Tony post?
- Do you want to know more about me?
- Do you want to know more about my weight loss journey?
- Do you want to know more about my books or my creative process?
- Do you have a question about how to achieve your goals?
- Do you want to know more about coaching?
Whatever your question, I am here to help. Ask Me Anything!
If you want to have a deeper conversation and get more one-on-one help, click here to learn more about my Operation Melt coaching services.
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