Welcome to Ask Coach Tony!

This is your opportunity to get a taste of my Operation Melt coaching by asking me your most pressing questions about achieving your goals and personal growth.

Ask Coach Tony is where you’ll find answers, insights, and strategies to help you take actionable steps toward success – whether you’re just starting or looking to level up.

Ready for a dad joke?

Consider this a lighthearted amuse-bouche for your brain before we get serious. Sure, it might be groan-worthy—but hey, at least you’re getting your money’s worth, right? 😆

A man decided to buy an igloo as his home. After moving in, the man's friends threw him a housewarming party. Now he's homeless. 

Are You Doing Your Most Important Homework?

What subjects, concepts and ideas are you studying today?

I have repeatedly stressed the importance of doing your homework over the years. And it’s not just me talking about homework. Nearly every Interview with a Goal-Crusher shares a story of a goal-crusher doing homework about their goal as an essential tool for success.

The best thing any of us can do to help make our dreams come true is to expand our knowledge. Thankfully, most of us, particularly those reading a self-improvement blog, spend ample time studying topics that interest us. Even if our approach to studying is more passive (like listening to podcasts), we are still learning.

Out of all the topics we can invest in studying, one is, by far, the most valuable use of our study time.

That most valuable topic is you!

Many of us go through life never really knowing who we are and what motivates us. Even worse, we often don’t know what we want from our lives.

We don’t dream or explore, so we don’t set goals. This leads to our goals dying of loneliness because we never give them the attention they deserve.

By investing time in getting to know the real you, your goals have a fighting chance.

Self-Study Exercises

There is no single “right” way to study yourself or learn more about who you really are – there are no shoulds here. This is usually done through a series of self-study exercises you do throughout your journey. It is definitely not a one-and-done experience and is an ongoing study process.

Despite many years of self-study exercises, I’m still researching. Recently, I completed yet another custom-built self-discovery exercise focused on discovering my personal brand. I was interested in how people view me.

• I started by reaching out to several people who know me well and interact with me often. I asked them to describe me in just two words.
• I parsed the responses and identified several common themes.
• Peeling the onion a bit, I identified which of my behaviors are driving that brand.

This exercise led me to dig deeply into the core values that drive my crucial brand-defining behaviors. These values helped me reflect on what I consider failure and success in my own life.

I spent hours in self-reflection working on this exercise. The entire goal of this time was to get more deeply in touch with who I am and why I do what I do. It was a rewarding experience as it provided me a virtual mirror and allowed me to evaluate if I am satisfied with who is looking back at me.

Should You Reinvent the Wheel?

My DIY exercise was very time-consuming as I cobbled it together from multiple sources to get the data I sought. But you don’t have to do it this way.

Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel like I did. You don’t have to create your own exercise to learn more about yourself. You don’t even have to be as raw and introspective and invest hours to get to know yourself better.

Thanks to the hard work of others, there are tons of excellent free or inexpensive resources available to help you get to know you in just a few minutes.

Here are some of the tools that I use and would recommend.

Most of these tools work in a very similar manner.

1. You complete an online assessment ranging from a few to many questions about your behaviors, preferences, beliefs and such.
2. The assessment presents your results based on whatever framework or metaphor the makers have created. The larger the population of participants, the more accurate the results tend to be.

Similarly, the more of these tools you use, the more data you will have available to improve the results of your homework.

Proceed with Caution

As valuable as self-study resources are, they include some inherent dangers.

Pseudoscience

First, personality assessments are not an exact science.

Most of these tools are based on some scientific and statistical principles, but they aren’t scientific. Some even have biases built into them. If you complete enough exercises, you will likely see consistent themes and places where they disagree. It is also relatively easy to game the assessments to get the result you think you should have.

You can quickly drive yourself crazy by seeking precision that’s simply not there – particularly when taking a solo approach to your homework.

Horoscopes

Speaking of driving yourself crazy, don’t forget the horoscope effect.

Horoscopes are usually written quite broadly and can be interpreted in many ways. People work hard to convince themselves that the message is meaningful to them. You wouldn’t live your life based on your horoscope, so don’t live your life based solely on somebody’s online quiz.

I have found the best way to approach these exercises is as a tool for data collection. Use them to provide you with input and data to help you with your own exploration of yourself. These tools are valuable, but you still have to do the work for yourself.

There are no shortcuts for your most important homework!

Over-identifying with Your Results

Finally, it’s essential to remember that these tools don’t know you. They are simply there to provide you with ideas, not identity. You are not defined by the results of an online assessment.

Investing time in getting to know yourself better is the best investment you can make in your goals. One step you can take right now to help with your most important homework is to try an online assessment such as the Enneagram or 16 Personalities to get started. Just remember that you are more than the results of a quiz.

Would you like a partner to help with your homework? I have years of experience with personality assessments and assisting people with their most important homework. As a certified master life coach, I would be honored to help you apply (and manage) the lessons you learn through your homework to unlock your goals and dreams and build the life you have always wanted. Click here to learn more about my Operation Melt coaching services.

I believe in you; let me help YOU believe in you! 

This “Best of Operation Melt” post was originally published on 5/16/2021.

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Meet Coach Tony

I’m Coach Tony – coach, author, and project manager on a mission to build a world where no goal dies of loneliness.

For 40 years, I nearly let one of my biggest dreams slip away—not because I failed, but because I never even tried. Then, I took a leap, applied a simple, structured process, and not only achieved my goal but surpassed it.

That experience transformed my life, and I believe you can do the same.

Through Operation Melt, I provide engaging content and hands-on coaching designed to inspire, motivate, and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.

Let’s make sure your goals don’t die of loneliness. Let me help you start your transformation today!

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