Committing to Goals and Keeping Them

This is the seventh and last in a series of posts on the story behind the making of my new book, 52 Week Game Changer:  How She Leads

Ok, we can all admit to it!  We’ve made goals countless times but more frequently than not have never met them.  I bet for most of us, goals we made five, ten, or maybe even twenty years ago are still out there in the stratosphere floating around.

I was first introduced to the idea of simple or single daily actions in a 12-week goal-setting workshop I took. (Blue Sky Visioning with Ben Dean and Anne Durand).  What a wonderful idea, I thought!  Small steps accumulated over time turn into big accomplishments.  Since that workshop, I have used this technique countless times in helping people move forward in achieving their goals and because of its success I wanted to incorporate the technique as singular process in the 52 Week Game Changer.

Having a personal vision is essential for leadership, but a vision is usually big, powerful and amorphous.  Getting your arms around how to turn vision to reality can be overpowering.  In fact many women I know become paralyzed with inaction not knowing where to start. That’s where simple daily actions can come to the rescue.

Simple daily actions are actions that you can control.  They are consistent, meaningful, and purposeful and taken together, they are so powerful that change the game……that’s why game changers will spend 26 weeks learning how to set simple daily actions and make them work. 

Be a Game Changer

Celebration time!  52 Week Game Changer:  How She Leads is out!  Purchase directly at www.lulu.com/spotlight/mljohnsphd or www.TheMonarchCtr.com

From Chaos to Inspiration

The following is the second in the series of how my book, 52 Week Game Changer:  How She Leads, went from vision to reality.

The heart of my book had been revealed, but to fulfill its purpose, the book needed structure, organization, and arrangement.   Over the next couple of weeks, ideas for the book’s content, like Ping-Pong balls, popped into my head endlessly, and at the oddest times. Sometimes the ideas magically appeared while I was strolling in my town’s historic square, or when I was walking the dog, or when I woke, tossing and turning at 3:00 AM in the morning.  I ceaselessly catalogued all of them in my mind.  I doodled sketches on notepads, and wrote ideas on post-its, the grocery list, and even on the phone message log.  I struggled constantly in trying to find the right balance among the infinite thread of ideas.  Chaos seemed to reign.  But one day inspiration hit like a fireball…..the clues had been there all the time, I just hadn’t noticed until now.

I have been a career advisor, mentor, and sponsor to hundreds (and perhaps even thousands) of women over my 40 year career.  I have worked with women; I have been in a professional field made up of over 90% women and I have seen women struggle to try to make it up the career ladder.  I’ve been there myself, for goodness sake! 

I’ve seen and experienced the structural and cultural barriers that hold women back, but I also know that for many of us the center of what drives us forward in fulfilling our potential is frequently also the same as what holds us back…..it is ourselves. 

This is the inspiration that hit me like a fireball and created form out of the endless rain of ideas.  The book’s structure would be framed around ourselves….the celebration of personal strengths and values, and the discovery and commitment to a personal vision, purpose, mission and goals.  Leveraging these —strengths, values, vision, purpose, mission and goals—is the essence upon which leadership rests and when activated will not be stopped. 

In the end, we cannot truly lead others until we are inspired and can lead ourselves.

Next installment of the series:  Discover how the title of my book almost fell into my lap!