Check out Part 1: Clarify Your Goals
Build a Supportive Environment
One of the easiest ways to ensure success in achieving your goals is to modify your environment so that it fosters the hard work you do to get where you’re going. Change is challenging but an environment that supports that change makes it far easier. So, for example, if I have an errand to run on the way in to work, I move my coffee from its regular cup holder to the other, to remind me to make that stop. Otherwise, I’m on autopilot and I drive straight to the office.
Your environment, which includes your family members, friends, colleagues, office and home, habits, and lifestyle, impacts you far more than you realize. So, alter yours in order to influence your enthusiasm and motivation to move you towards the goals that you have now identified. By modifying the atmosphere and circumstances around you, you create powerful subliminal motivators that make working towards your goals easier.
Just as my husband did when he began his diet, surround yourself with people who support your goals. (He enlisted me to join him on his quest to “eat right.”) Remove distractions and negative influences. (He purged all the chocolate and ice cream in the house.) Create environmental reminders of where you’re headed to keep you on track. (He put a sign on the refrigerator door.)
Share your goals with your staff. Enroll them in the effort to achieve those goals. In fact, you can enroll your family and friends from the beginning of the process, when you identify those goals in the first place. Taking these small steps at the launch will help ensure your success in the end.
Act Towards Obtaining Your Goals
Do you remember those identifiable and deliberate actions I mentioned early on that add up over time to achieve those larger objectives? Create a list of action steps that will move you towards your own goals. You may not know all of the steps you’ll need now to get there, but you can certainly identify some of the next steps that will take you in that direction. Here’s where taking one tiny bite at a time adds up to “I ate an elephant!”
Include a reassessment of your action plan once a week. Make the weekly appointment on your calendar to reassess your action plan immutable but make the action plan itself flexible to accommodate discoveries that you make along the path towards your goals. Again, include your staff and family to help you get it done.
By staying focused on your goals, you will manifest those goals. Keeping those goals in the front of your mind makes it easier for your mind to help you make the choices that lead in the right direction.
Your written reminders will help you do that. Your supportive environment will help you do that. An accountability buddy will also help you do that.
Joryn Jenkins, attorney and Open Palm Founder, began her own firm here in Tampa after a 14-year career in law, two of which she served as a professor of law at Stetson University. She is a recipient of the prestigious A. Sherman Christensen Award, an honor bestowed upon those who have provided exceptional leadership in the American Inns of Court Movement. For more information on Joryn’s professional experience, take a look at her resume.
