What Evidence do you have for your SMART Goals?

You are familiar with what is a SMART Goal, it is a goal that is specific, measurable, as if now, rewarding/realistic and timed. When setting a SMART Goal it is important to know in your mind what is your criterion you will use that will enable you to know that you have achieved the goal?

A good question to ask yourself is “What is the last thing that has to happen, so that you know that this goal is yours?” Another great question is “What has to happen so that you know that the goal is yours?” Asking these questions is all about having the required evidence (confirmation) so that you know you have achieved the goal.

For example, you have written down a SMART Goal that states “It is now 31 December 2010 and my weight is 60 kilograms and my bodyfat level is 12%”. From this goal you need to determine what evidence you will have so that you know the goal has been achieved. The evidence criteria that you use will not be the same as someone else with the same goal. You may decide that your evidence criteria is a pair of pants (or skirt) which were previously too tight are now loose to wear around the waist and you will also be able to now fit comfortably in your new board shorts or bikini.

As a recap in setting a goal it must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic (or rewarding) and must be timed. A goal must always be written in the present tense and importantly you must have a criterion in mind that you will use to know whether you have achieved the goal.

Think of a goal that you set in the last few months, is it SMART and have you ascertained the criteria you will use so you know you have achieved the goal? By using both concepts you will have greater success in achieving any goal for your life or business. 

Are you listening?

What is listening? Listening is defined as the act of hearing attentively. Being an effective listener takes practice and effort. Think of a time when you had a conversation with your boss, loved one or a friend, did you really listen to them, not just hear the words, hear what they were actually saying and conveying to you in the conversation? Were you really listening or simply thinking about what you were going to say next?

There are a number of important points to be an effective listener. Firstly, you must STOP talking and give the other person time, space and silence to complete their sentence. It is quite common for people to pause before something else is said. Wait for that pause!

Another key point in effective listening is to paraphrase, summarise and clarify what the other person has said. This has the purpose of demonstrating that you are listening to them and enables you to understand the other person’s perception or point of view that is being communicated.

In any communication you must focus on the other person. By focusing on the other person they will feel acknowledged and valued for their communication. By focusing you must remove all distractions such as the email program popping up every few seconds with “new message”, mobile telephone to be on silent or vibrate and television switched off. Also, avoid looking at your watch or the clock as this will show to the other person that you have something else to do or you do not have time for them.

Importantly you must listen without making judgements.  Remember you are there for the other person, and while they are speaking to you, the communication is all about them.

In being an effective listener you must listen for what is not being said. Often body language of the other person will be incongruent with what is being said. For example, the person is saying yes they will do something and their head is going from left to right. Clearly verbally they are saying yes however with their body language they are saying no.

The next time you are listening to someone, are you providing the other person with space, silence and allowing them to pause, are you paraphrasing what has been said, are you 100% focused on the other person, are you listening without making value judgements and finally, are you listening for what is not being said? By using these principles your communication will move to a new level of excellence. 

How is Your Time Line Organised?

Your memories, experiences, decisions are all collected over a period of time and these all determine how you interpret and understand the world. You may be the kind of person who is always on time, punctual and even too early. However, you may often be late and have no concept of time.  You may have difficulty managing your time each day or you may find that you work in two jobs and have time to study and do many other tasks. Everyone has the same amount of time in their day, some are better at managing their time than others.

Everyone has a time line and its purpose helps you to code the past, the present and the future, thereby knowing where the past was, the present and the future. Many of the techniques used in coaching are based on the idea that people will organise time either consciously or unconsciously in their minds to make sense of the world and their surroundings. So how do you organise time?

Now, stop for a moment and think of where your past is and where the future is for you. Consider the memories and experiences that have occurred in the past have a certain direction for you. These memories are stored in a certain location for you so that you can determine the difference between the past and your future.  There are also events which you have set in your future and which are different from your past as you have organised them differently. Now, point to the past and to the future. These may be from left to right, front to back, up or down or another combination. To what direction did you point for your past? To what direction did you point towards your future?

Your time line and your representation of it can either be “through time” or “in time”. If you have your time line through time then your time is organised either left to right, up to down, or in a ‘v’ shape where the past, present and future are all in front you. If you time line is through time then the time line does not intersect your body. If you are a in time person, then the time line will go through your body irrespective of whether its left to right, up to down or in a “v” shape or some other pattern.

There are many characteristics related to how you organise your time line as either through or in time. If you are through time then more than likely you are on time and know when you are late, store memories in a disassociated way (e.g. you see yourself in the memory rather than appearing through your own eyes), you may experience difficulty concentrating in a busy environment, you will establish deadlines at work and you will have a more orderly and planned existence. If you are in time (time line dissects your body) then if you are late by 15 minutes you may not be aware of it, you find it easier to be in the present (or the now), you can prefer to keep your options open and not make decisions immediately, you may have trouble sorting out tasks and you look at work and play being the same thing. You will enjoy a spontaneous and flexible or open ended existence.

Your time line is all about how you interpret the world and organise your events as being past, present and future. How is your time line organised? 

What is the NLP Model of Communication?

The NLP Model of Communication is based on Cognitive Psychology and was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. The NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming Model explains how you process information that comes in from the world around you.

The NLP Model starts with the following: you experience an external event through your senses and these senses are visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic (feeling), olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste).

After you experience the event through the senses, the event is filtered by your meta-programs, values, beliefs, decisions and memories and these filters delete, generalise and distort the information, so that the information can be managed in “manageable” chunks through your mind/nervous system. In reality you are bombarded with 2 million bits of information per second and if not for this filtering process you would not be able to cope with all the information coming your way.

You may wonder, 2 million bits of information per second? Yes. While you are reading this Blog there is so much information coming into your senses including the sound and feeling of your heart beating, your breathing, the feel of your clothes on your skin, your posture in the chair, the sounds of the TV, radio or family in another room, your eyes blinking and it goes on, and on and on. Through this filtering it enables you to make sense of the world, however, a lot of information as mentioned is deleted, distorted and generalised.

The filters are:  Meta-programs are filters in the way you perceive the world around you. Values are how you decide whether your actions or behaviour is good or bad. Beliefs are convictions that certain things are true. Decisions are the choices you made in the past and memories are your recollections of past experiences and events that have happened in your life.

After the information has been filtered through the meta-programs etc, and it has been deleted, distorted and generalised you make an internal representation (IR) of that event or situation. In turn, that IR becomes your state and creates the behaviour in response to that event.

Think about it for a moment, each and every day you are filtering information so that you can make sense of the world. What information do you think you may have deleted, distorted or generalised when communicating?

The purpose of the NLP Communication Model is to understand how you and others communicate and make sense of the world and your surroundings. Remember: you are unique and you always do your best in any given moment with all the resources that you had available at that time. 

There is no failure, ONLY feedback

In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) there are a number of presuppositions. These are assumptions or beliefs that are adopted. By adopting a number of beliefs or assumptions in NLP it assists in improving a person’s results whether in business, education, or personally.

One of these assumptions is related to feedback. The assumption is: “there is no failure, ONLY feedback”. In any situation, whether at work or personally, you should always welcome feedback, as by accepting feedback, you are going to improve your behaviour and by improving your behaviour in any situation or event you will get far better results. If everything that happens is only feedback then it means that we are all learning machines, throughout your life no matter what you are doing, you are learning, receiving feedback and using that feedback to gain better results.

As an example, if you are communicating with a colleague or your partner and you are not getting the response you want, what should you do? You should change your communication as in any situation there is no failure, there is only feedback. Feedback is all about learning and by learning you create better results.

What feedback have you received today and can use in your life to achieve improved results?