Upon further review
One of the first things I learned at my first Tony Robbins event in 1994 was that “change is inevitible, progress is not.”
As I wrote in my blog last week, during these years, I was living in the GAP as I was measuring myself against someone’s results instead of my results. Focusing on his outcome instead of my goals caused me to live in constant stress and probably cost me sales and relationships.
When I had the honor to serve on the security team for Tony, I was learning distinctions that would not only help me grow but learn a process that helped me exit out of the GAP and into the GAIN.
During this time, I was supporting the one day business events that Tony was doing. During one of these events, I heard him speaking about how he managed his time. Being in sales, time management was always top of mind for me so I started to dial in to what he was sharing. He started to show his OPA system. OPA stands for outcome focused, purpose driven, action plan. The system is based on focusing on outcomes instead of actions. I immediately started to learn and practice this system
As I began implementing this system, my sales and time management improved immensely. When I accomplished the three business outcomes for the day, I started to work on my personal outcomes. But there was one aspect of OPA that helped me make the shift from the GAP to the GAIN.
For many years, I would make my weekly and daily goals. Every day I would write them down and if I didn’t achieve the goal, I would roll it over to the next day. By the end of the week, if I hadn’t accomplished it, I felt as if I failed. When I started to implement OPA, that was the game changer.
Because, in OPA, you focus on making progress toward your goals. Your daily and weekly goals are based on making significant or major progress toward the goal. If you make progress, you have a win which means you are living in the GAIN . That one shift helped me not only in my business but in my personal life.
Last week, I was at swim training at my usual 5am time. This day, I was gifted my own swim lane, which is very abnormal! My goal this month is to make significant progress to improve my “kick.” If you saw the interview I did last August on ABC, you would notice that my kick is anything but a kick. When I finished a lap, Coach Patty showed me a video of my kick. I was frustrated. My swim buddy, Tamara has a great kick so I started to watch her. Then Coach Patty told me I was ” neurofesting.”
Tamara and I had no idea what that meant. Coach Patty told us that she learned this from one of our local WSOC meterologist, Steve Udelson. She explained that it means that something that you practice over and over and see no progress, starts to get into your head and you have a challenge seeing a pathway to victory. I obviously was neurofesting as I have been practicing my kick for the past 22 months and have seen little if no progress.
As I was driving home from that training, I started to think about how many times I have “neurofested” and seen other people “neurofest.” And I was reminded of a time during the Miracle on the Hudson when I saw someone in that state and what I did to help that person out of “neurofesting.”
If you have heard me speak, I share a story about when I got to the exit at 10F and while hanging out of the door, I saw someone who wasn’t moving that was on the wing. People were stacking up behind this person. I wanted to do something to help the situation so used a tool I learned about how to break patterns that helped that person notice and start moving. Suddenly, I watched people start walking down the wing and the rest is history.
So as I remembered this as I was driving home, the strategy I used to help that person is the same strategy I needed to use to get myself out of my “neurofest” with my kicking. The next day, as I entered the pool, I used my ARK pull buoy and started off. When I got to the end of the pool, I stopped, “made my move underwater,” and started to kick vertically so I could feel how to kick. After about 30 kicks, I started back to the other end of the pool, feeling my kick and started to make progress toward learning how to correctly learn how to freestyle kick.
If you have something going on in your life where you are not getting your outcomes, change your approach. Start to make your weekly goals into making progress goals. Every Sunday, I write my three major outcomes for the week as ” Make significant progress towards …” or Make major progress towards …”. Making that small shift will help you stay positive, make progress and be in a GAIN mindset instead of not hitting your goals an being in a GAP deficit.
The more you can stay in the GAIN and out of the GAP, you will make significant progress towards your big hairy goals but more importantly, be a role model for others on how to be a leader, or more importantly, a servant leader.
And you will begin to create opportunity out of uncertainty.
Until next time, always remember to create your own flight plan for your future!!