Many of us feel pulled in a dozen directions – too much to do in too little time. How do we get things done without feeling overwhelmed by it all?  I’d like to share with you what I do to manage my to-do list and get projects done.  I tend to keep three to-do lists. 

One has a long list of things to do eventually. This I prioritize with numbers: 1) work on immediately; 2) important; 3) work on in the next week or two; 4) only if I have time. 

My second to-do list is what I’d like to work on this week. It’s culled from the first list, and may have only ten items. This get prioritized too.

The third list is even shorter and is only for today. It might have 5 items on the list. This is part of reducing the sense of being overwhelmed. I don’t look at the long list very often! I also prioritize today’s to-do list. I might have a couple of #1′s and three #2′s on my short list. If I get those five things done today, then I’m happy. I love crossing things off my little list!

Regarding big projects: I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I’ll say it again. When I do a big project, I break it up into small steps. Once I have my plan in place, I forget about the work of the entire project and only look at the one piece I have to do next. This little piece goes on today’s to-do list. This process leads to progress on big projects that might never get done otherwise.

Don’t forget to include fun things on your to-do list, or even time to just be! See the 10-Habits above, Re-scheduling below, and the Mission work for help in how and what to prioritize.

Let me know how it goes and if you have any comments.

Visit Creating Balance and Professional Coaching on Steve’s website and read about Change That Lasts.

Note: This is a long article.  An Executive Summary appears at the end.

The New Year brings with it the excitement of new beginnings, the opportunity for a clean slate and the possibilities of growth and renewal.  While many people resolve to get in shape, start saving money, or pursue their dream job, few will still be on the path to positive change come February 1st.  Why is this?  Do they not have the resolve to follow through?  There may be many reasons.  Here are a few possibilities:

1. They made unrealistic goals and quit altogether when they realized they couldn’t meet them.
2. They didn’t enlist support from friends or guidance from professionals.
3. Their goal was something they thought they should do, but they didn’t really want to do it. 
4. They didn’t prepare for the consequences of their actions.

Making positive changes, even simple ones, requires contemplation, planning, and commitment, and the change must not conflict with your values and purpose.  Here are ten suggestions to help you achieve your goals.

1. Make sure the goal is aligned with your purpose.
You may resist a goal if it conflicts with your values or your purpose in life.  Are you doing something for money and power when you value simplicity and your purpose is to help people?  You may want to articulate your values and discover your purpose in life before setting goals.  If you don’t have a mission and would like to discover what yours is,download the mission discovery worksheet.  

In addition to having an overall mission, we can create a holistic vision for our life by visioning each area of focus that is important to us.  For instance, what is your life vision for your family, for your finances, for your health?  If you focus exclusively on career, you may achieve your goals only to realize that you’ve neglected your family for twenty years.  It would be better to discover competing wants up front, and reconcile these differences into a whole vision for your life.  Once you have a mission and a holistic vision, you’ll be in a better place to set goals that have your heart in them.  See my page describing this vision process.

When you align your goals with who you are, you feel enthusiastic about accomplishing those goals.  Occasionally, you may need to set a goal that conflicts with your mission in the short-term, but moves you towards success in the long-term.  Or you may need to adjust your goals to meet obligations, such as keeping your family insured and fed.  Such goals require even more contemplation, as resistance is likely to be quite high.  But be careful that you don’t betray your dreams, as this can lead to a life of resentment and depression.

If you experience resistance to your goal, you might ask if the goal is a want or a should.  A should is something you do to please others or to demonstrate to yourself that you are a good person.  Shoulds come from fear, while a want is something you do out of love for yourself or others.  Goals that you feel good about pursuing are more likely to be successful.  

2. Set yourself up for success.
Suppose you want to exercise more.  It does not work to simply say “I’m going to exercise more.”  To be successful, a goal needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and have a clear beginning and end.  Use the SMART acronym to help you create clear goals.  Continuing with the example:
a. S  specific – “I’ll walk on the treadmill.”
b. M measurable - How will you know you accomplished it? – “I’ll walk for twenty minutes per time, four times per week.”
c. A attainable or agreed upon – Is your goal realistic?  How will you stay accountable?  Be sure that your goal is one that sets you up for success and not for failure.  For someone who is not exercising at all, a goal of exercising every day from now on is not likely to work.  As soon as you skip a day, you may give up.  It would be better to set a reasonable, specific goal such as jogging for twenty minutes four days for the next week.  If you are successful, you can make a more advanced goal and work your way up to where you want to be.
d. R realistic or relevant – Realistic is the same as attainable.  Relevant means asking why you’re doing it.  How does it fit in with your purpose and values?  Is it a want or a should?  If you’re exercising just because your doctor said to, you probably will not stick with your goal.  It may be necessary to take a hard look at the risks and benefits of exercising, not just by reading a pamphlet, but by contemplating your mortality, looking into your eyes in the mirror, and looking into the eyes of those you love.  We must use every precious moment, whether we’re talking about exercise or anything else.  If you don’t really “get it,” then you’re not likely to follow through.
e. T time framed – “I will follow this plan for two weeks and reassess.”  

If you know your goal is a good one, but you still lack motivation, you may need to spend more time asking why you are doing it.  Perhaps you need more education around the issue, or perhaps you need a system of healthy rewards.  Goals are more likely to be met if you develop not just a commitment, but a sense of urgency and enthusiasm.

3. Plan for big goals.
If your goal is a big one, you may feel overwhelmed by it.  If this is the case, remember to break the goal into smaller, manageable steps, set deadlines for each step, and work on the step in front of you.  I recommend having a daily task list that only has a few items on it.

Along the way to your big goal, there may be some distasteful hoops that you need to jump through.  It’s important to remember how the small tasks relate to the big benefits, to take on these small tasks with joy and enthusiasm as part of the journey.  Big goals require time and consistent effort.

One of the biggest obstacles to getting started on a dream is a fear of failure.  Certainly, learning about a subject and seeking professional and peer support can help in allaying this fear, but even someone who has all the knowledge and resources available can still become paralyzed when it comes to taking action.  

I do not recommend quitting your job the moment you realize you’re in the wrong field.  Jumping too soon can sabotage our dreams just the same as never jumping.  If you lack the resources we need to succeed, you may bankrupt yourself, then return to your old work, never to venture out again.

At some point, though, that leap of faith is required.   As Andre Gide said, “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”  This requires courage and trust – trust in self and trust in the universe.  Courage can be increased with practice by trying new experiences that have a low level of risk.  Trust trust is a more complicated issue, but in general can be acquired through self-nurturing, self-protection, and believing in yourself.  I’ll talk more about blessings in a bit.

Enthusiasm alone is not enough, while perpetual dreaming will never get us to our goals.  Success comes from pursuing goals that align with our values and purpose and doing so with careful planning and action.  If you want to change your career, for example, consider questions such as the following.  Have you talked with experts or people with experience?  Have you forecasted your cash flow to ensure your financial stability?  What’s at risk for you to make this change, and how will your life be different?  Look at both the big risks (failure, bankruptcy, loss of relationships) as well as the fabulous possibilities (happiness, a life worth living). 

Finally on the issue of planning for big goals, expect and plan to make adjustments to your goals along the way.  This might mean abandoning a goal if it no longer fits with your life.  But if you’re not progressing because of some internal resistance, then you’ll need to look at this.  More on this later.

4. Use your resources.
For any goal, you don’t need to just “wing it.”  There are multitudes of resources available for any goal.  First, ask yourself, what worked or didn’t work for you in the past?  Second, you may find plenty of free information from online articles and websites and from books, CDs and DVDs at your local library.  See my resources page.

New habits can fail from a lack of support or guidance.  Ask several friends to support you in your change.  Call them up to listen to you and encourage you when you feel resistance to your goal.  Asking for this support can be difficult, especially for men who have been taught to go it alone and that asking for help is a sign of weakness.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Consider what would happen if the president of a country decided to not have any advisors for this reason.  One cannot know everything, do everything, or see from all perspectives.  This person would be in a much weaker, less effective position.  On the other hand, one who has an army of support behind them is in a much stronger position, and is capable of governing a country. When you ask friends to support you, let them know what you need them to do or say to you, because your idea of support will differ from theirs.  Also, ask for several people to support you, because few people will be available to you at all hours. 

Consider seeking the support of a professional such as a personal trainer, nutritionist, doctor, therapist, or financial advisor.  Consider joining a twelve-step program or other support group.  Some people find strength and awareness in prayer, meditation, or journaling.  As a life coach, I can help with support, encouragement, accountability, planning, perspective, and facilitating new awareness.  As a CPA and an expert in QuickBooks accounting software, I can also help with small business matters.  Explore my website to find out more about me and coaching, and to get more free information. 

5. Manifest success.
Place kickers will visualize the ball splitting the uprights.  Golfers visualize their shot landing on the green and rolling into the hole.  In the same way, you can visualize your success in whatever your endeavor.  There’s a lot of talk right now about the attraction principle – that the thoughts and energy we put out into the universe will come back to us.  Negative thinking will manifest negative outcomes.  Positive thinking will manifest positive outcomes.  I can understand skepticism on this subject.  However, I know that a person who is negative will see whatever happens to them as problems and aggravations while a positive person will see opportunities and gifts.  A negative person will likely cause those around them to frown or move away, while a positive person will get smiles and pleasant conversation.  So in this way, negative and positive attitudes do make a difference, even if you don’t believe in things like serendipity and omens.

Goals are more successful when we feel confident in our abilities.  If you feel inadequate to a task, I suggest you list your attributes and experience.  Tell yourself on paper and in the mirror that you deserve success, and give yourself permission and encouragement to succeed.  In my coaching, I will sometimes ask a person to get in touch with an internal elder, a good parent, a spiritual being, or a sovereign energy.  This is the king or queen part that lives within us that has wisdom, sees beauty in all things, and can bless and encourage.  This is an important piece for anyone who grew up with criticism.  Learning to bless yourself leads to courage, trust, feelings of self-worth, and contentedness.  Read more about blessings here.

Manifesting success means taking time to slow down and just be for a while.  It means getting off the treadmill to make some conscious decisions and reassess our plans.  For example, you could set aside five minutes every day for this, an hour per week, and a day per month.

6. Keep it out in front of you.
It would be easy to set a goal and forget about it in the middle of a notebook.  Post your goals in a prominent place, rewrite them on occasion, and continually visualize your success.  Consider tracking your progress with a calendar or a checklist, and you may want to use something like Outlook to set up automatic reminders.  It takes 40 days to replace a bad habit with a good habit, so it’s important that you have a lot in place to ensure your success.  

If you want to get creative, you might create a couple of collages – one that shows your success and another that shows how you will get there.  The collages are made as follows:  Have ready a bunch of old magazines, a couple of poster boards, scissors and glue.  Label one poster board your “goal vision” and the other “how to get there.”  Quickly flip through the magazines, looking for images and words that strike you as meaningful to your goal, and tear them out.  Use your gut more than your head.  When you’ve got a big pile of images and words for each poster board, quickly create your collages.  The idea isn’t to be neat and pretty, but to get in touch with your intuition.  Hang your collages where you can see them.  It may seem weird reading this, but this has been a powerful experience for me, helping me to remember what I’m here for every day.

If your goal has to do with becoming a different person, for instance, becoming a more positive person, then you may need to act “as if” you are that person until it comes naturally.  Observe people who are positive, imagine what a positive person would think or feel or say in this situation, and just do it.  You may find it helpful to play the actor’s game of stepping into a role and becoming another person for a while.

7. Create coping strategies for stress and unusual circumstances. 
So you’re going along fine and making progress on your goal.  But what happens if you go out of town, or you work late at the office, or you go to a party, or you’re under a lot of stress?  There are many circumstances that can threaten to derail your plans, and it’s hard to come up with coping strategies in the moment.  Instead, plan for these eventualities and plan how you will cope with each of these situations.

8. Examine resistance.
Sometimes the bad habits we get ourselves into serve a purpose for us, although a misguided one.  For instance, a habit of overeating or eating junk food may provide you with a feeling of nurturing.  If you simply stop the habit, the part of you that needs nurturing may sabotage your efforts.  This part will show up in rationalizing the breaking of your new habit.  It will say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.  I deserve this candy.  It’s only a little piece.  I’ll exercise double tomorrow.”  And when you get far enough behind on the goal, the voice will say, “It’s impossible.  There’s no point in continuing.  Oh well, we did our best.  Now let’s commiserate with a big piece of chocolate cake.”  One solution is to find a replacement habit that provides nurturing in a healthier way.  So then you would ask yourself, “What else would make me feel nurtured?”  Perhaps you could make yourself some herbal tea, cook stew, or give yourself a neck rub.

Get to know your internal resistance.  There may be a scared little child part within us that keeps us from making positive changes.  One of the tools I use in dealing with internal conflict is called a split.  With a split, I separate out different parts of my personality, such as a scared little boy part and a confident adult part.  The little boy is afraid of sticking his neck out because he’s been hurt in the past.  He wants assurances that he’ll be protected.  It’s the role of the adult part to assure the child that he’ll be protected.  And, it must be clear that it is not the little boy part that is responsible for venturing forth.  The adult takes the steps necessary with the little boy on his shoulder.  This splitting out can be done on paper with dialogue as in a play.  See an example of splits here. 

There may, in fact, be several parts to split out with a complex issue.  For instance, there may be a highly critical part to look at.  It is tempting to simply argue with this part or try to kill it.  I recommend instead that you hear what this part has to say and look deeper into this part.  Ask, what is it protecting me from?  What is it scared of?  It may be important to set a boundary with this part, while at the same time seeing it with compassion and appreciation for the role it plays.  This part may need to be reassigned into a role of adult protector as you move out into the unknown.  The goal here is to get all parts together moving in the same direction.  

Besides a fear of failure, some resistance may occur because of a fear of success!  Success may mean that you will be a different person with higher responsibilities and expectations.  This can be very threatening to the parts of yourself that are comfortable with the status quo.  These parts might fear their own demise and so sabotage your efforts.  Remember to keep dialoguing with, bargaining with, and comforting these parts.

When you feel stuck, lost, or boxed in, it’s a good idea to step back and gain perspective.  Imagine the stuck part of yourself out in front of you, and put yourself into the role of an observer.  This observer can look at your situation from perspectives such as the mentor, the sovereign, or the elder.  Ask, what’s really going on here?  How does this situation relate to my life as a whole?  How does it relate to my place in the world?  See questions for perspective here.

9. Examine missteps without negativity and recommit.
If you fall behind in your goal, look at what happened with discernment, but keep shame out of the picture.  The idea is to understand what happened so you can make a better plan to accomplish your goal.  When you don’t meet your goal, ask “Am I happy with the choices I made?”  If you planned to exercise, but your two-year old got sick, and you honestly couldn’t figure out how to get the exercise in, then own your choice.  Instead of saying, “I couldn’t exercise” which speaks of helplessness and being a victim, say “I chose to take care of my child.”  

If you are not happy with the choices you made, then ask, “What could I have done differently?”  The answer here is not simply, “I could have exercised,” but rather something like, “I could have asked my parents to watch my son for an hour so I could go exercise.”  Understanding your alternatives will lead to better choices in the future.  If you realize that your goal is unrealistic or your strategy is not working, then consider changing your goal or your strategy.

10.  Celebrate along the way.
Some people have a tendency to discount what they’ve accomplished or to ignore their achievement and look for what’s next.  Life is not about constant toil.  We need time to just be, and to rest and replenish for the next stage of a journey.  Mountain climbers would never get to the top if they didn’t stop to rest.  We deserve the joy and pride that comes with a job well done, even if it wasn’t perfect.  So be sure to celebrate small achievements along the way.  Decide how you will reward yourself ahead of time, so you have something to look forward to. 

Even if you plan and contemplate your change, be aware that taking action on your goal may feel uncomfortable.  At these times, remember to call on your support and think about how your life will be different when you achieve your goal.  Reassure yourself that while sacrifices are sometimes necessary, it is for a greater good and happier life.  You can achieve your goals with persistence, patience, and compassion for yourself.

Goals Executive Summary:

Why do people fail to reach their goals?
    Unrealistic goal, inadequate planning, no enthusiasm, no support

1. Make sure the goal is aligned with your purpose.
  a. Are there competing wants?  
  b. Consider creating a life pie vision and seeing where there is conflict.

2. Set yourself up for success.
  a. S  specific
  b. M measurable (how will I know I accomplished it?)
  c. A attainable (set up for failure/) or agreed upon (agreement with stakeholders)
  d. R realistic (same as attainable) or relevant (will be meaningful to your life)
  e. T time framed (deadlines)
  f. Ways to increase motivation: ask why?, pain & pleasure, enthusiasm / urgency, education, awareness of death – we must use every precious moment, remind self of destructiveness

3. Plan for big goals.
  a. Talk to experts, those with experience
  b. Break it up into smaller steps.
  c. See how small task relates to big benefits.  Big goals require time and consistent effort.
  d. Leap of faith
      i. Jumping too soon could sabotage your dreams.  We need to jump eventually.
      ii. The leap requires courage (which can be acquired through practice) and trust (which can be acquired through self-nurturing, protection, and believing in oneself).
  e. Adjust plan later if necessary

4. Use your resources.
  a. What worked or didn’t work for you in the past?
  b. What resources are available? books, articles, support group
  c. What professional resources are available (besides a coach)? personal trainer, financial consultant
  d. What friends (several) can support you, and what does that support look like?  Possible support tasks: encouragement, on-call, accountability

5. Manifest success.
  a. Visualize your success.
  b. Ways to bless yourself: you deserve it, list your attributes, give permission and encouragement
  c. Slow down and get quiet to make conscious decisions.

6. Keep it out in front of you.
  a. Practice your new habit.  40 days for new habit, go through motions / act as if, just do it.
  b. Track your progress using calendar or checklist.
  c. Post it, rewrite it, continue visualizing.
  d. Collages of success and how to get there.
  e. Set up reminders, perhaps using an electronic calendar.

7. Create coping strategies for stress, big party, out of town – play what if.

8. Examine resistance.
  a. What are the competing wants?  There may be a voice within with a misguided purpose, one that will sabotage and rationalize.   If sweets = nurturing, then you may need a healthy replacement habit.
  b. Get to know the resistance.  Is it a want or a should?  You might have fear of failure or success.   Consider splitting out parts.  The goal is to get all parts moving in one direction.
  c. Stand back and look at long-term view and bigger perspective.

9. Examine missteps without negativity and recommit.
  a. Are you happy with the choices you made?  If not, what could you have done differently?
  b. Understand missteps and adjust your strategy.

10.  Celebrate along the way.
  a. Decide rewards ahead of time to look forward to them.

I’d love to get your comments!  Also, be sure to visit my website.