Doing What Works: What Successful People Do Differently

By James William Martin

This book will help you achieve goals based on your personal needs and values. It uses a simple and highly visual method called the 10-Step Goal Acceleration Process (GAP) to enable you to immediately apply its topics to relevant issues in your life. Key concepts build on those introduced in earlier chapters. Its other benefits include:

Highly visual and easy to understand.
Uses simple templates, so you can create a highly personalized improvement plan.
Provides a logical road map for achieving goals.
Goals can modified as your needs change.
Encourages you to immediately begin applying key concepts in each chapter.
Shows shortcuts for achieving goals to save time.
Helps to more effectively resolve personal conflicts.
Helps balance goals to avoid becoming stressed and frustrated.
Provides a useful framework from which to organize your life's activities.
Enables you to lead a more satisfying and successful life.

In summary, as you read this book, you will have a much clearer idea of which personal goals are important for improving your life. The 10-Step GAP process will also help you make sense of the complexity that surrounds your life. Complexity tends to inhibit personal success by distracting people from identifying and achieving the things important to them. You also learn how to create realistic plans for achieving important goals. Don't be surprised if, at the end of the book, your final goals are different from the ones earlier ones. This approach for achieving personal goals will help you lead a more productive life. This is what successful people do differently!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456747015

James William Martin

James William Martin is an organizational coach. He is also the author of several books focused on change management, teamwork and process improvement. He has coached and counseled thousands of people across North America, Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and Europe to use fact based methods to achieve goals and improve their lives. As a management consultant and teacher for more than twenty years, he has also served as an instructor at the Providence’s College Graduate School of Business since 1988 where he instructed courses in decision analysis and related courses, and counsels graduate students from government organizations and leading corporations in the greater Boston area. His interests include environmental friendly design as well as personal and organizational ethics, productivity and change management. He holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University; Master of Business Administration Providence College; and Bachelor of Science degrees in Industrial Engineering, and Biology from the University of Rhode Island.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1:

Knowing your goals is the first step

Chapter 2:

Understand your needs for success

Chapter 3:

What you value gets done

Chapter 4:

Balance is necessary for a happy life

Chapter 5:

Work smart not hard

Chapter 6:

Visualize your goals

Chapter 7:

Understand how goals are related

Chapter 8:

Align goals to achieve them easier

Chapter 9:

Focus on high priority goals

Chapter 10:

Planning will make you successful

Conclusion

References

Foreword

To achieve your goals, you need to do what works. Unfortunately, many people do not understand this fact of life. In fact, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, an American educator, said … the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy of life lies in having no goal to reach. Of course nothing in life is perfect. A person may not achieve all their goals. In fact, they may only partially achieve goals. But, without a plan, no worthwhile goals can be achieved. When this happens, people don’t get the things they want from life. Instead, they sit back and attribute the success of others to good luck rather than the real reason which is personal success depends on creating plans to achieve the right goals for you!

This book will help you achieve your goals. First, it uses a simple and new approach to goal achievement called the 10-Step Goal Acceleration Process (GAP). The 10-Step GAP Process will help you identify and define goals based on your personal needs. Second, it provides a very flexible approach to help you balance and prioritize to take the necessary actions to achieve goals. It is also encourages you to immediately apply each chapter’s information to relevant issues in your life. Earlier, key concepts build on those introduced in later chapters.

Several other of its benefits include:

•   It is highly visual and easy to understand.

•   It uses templates, to enable you to create a highly personalized improvement plan.

•   It provides a logical roadmap for achieving goals.

•   Goals can modified as your needs change over time.

•   It encourages you to immediately begin practicing the key concepts which are presented within each of the book’s ten chapters.

•   It presents some effective shortcuts to goal attainment to save you time and money by preventing false starts.

•   It provides a flexible approach to personal goal setting by enabling you to incorporate specific recommendations from councilors and other professionals into your personal improvement plan.

•   It will help you to more effectively resolve personal conflicts.

•   It helps you balance goals to avoid becoming stressed and frustrated.

•   It provides a useful framework from which to organize your life’s activities.

•   It enables you to lead a more satisfying and successful life.

In the past thirty years, I have coached thousands of people to help them become more productive and successful. My coaching methods have ranged between the simple to complex, but, the most useful methods were not complicated nor did they require a great deal of training to effectively use them. In fact, in many situations, a piece of a paper and simple sketches successfully helped people identify solutions to their personal or business issues. In other situations, just listening, helped a person better understand their personal issues to a point where their solutions became much easier to identify and resolve. I want to help you achieve your goals to become successful. The proven methods discussed in this book will help you as it has helped thousands of other people.

I want to thank the many people I coached to success as well as my family, clients who have provided the inspiration for this book. The definitions used in this book were obtained from Microsoft® Encarta® which is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. I know you are anxious so let’s get started! Good luck achieving your personal goals!

Introduction

A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step

- 1904 Sayings of Lao Tzu tr. L. Giles

What have you done for your family, employer, community and yourself in the past week, months or year? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you are most likely drifting from one activity to another and not accomplishing the things that are important for your personal success. It is also likely you have been working very hard trying to accomplish goals, but, without having much success achieving them. In fact, I bet you have been working harder than you have ever thought you would ever have to and it’s a very frustrating experience. This is especially true, if you are a recent college graduate looking for a job, have family issues, recently divorced, are lonely or are experiencing other personal issues.

You may feel you are walking on a treadmill if you are investing time and money without success, to achieve goals. Ask yourself: What do you have to show for all my hard work? Is my family happy? Does it have the resources it needs for success? Do I like my work? Is my job providing my family with the material things it needs? Am I making a difference? These types of questions are difficult to answer unless you know where you have been, where you are today and where you are going in the future. This book will help you answer these questions by showing how to create a personal improvement plan to enable you to achieve the right personal goals. This life strategy will help make you more successful!

My first four books focused on improvements to organizational productivity by discussing customer satisfaction, change management and teamwork using advanced process improvement methods. Fortune 1000 organizations employ these types of methods every day to help their employees succeed in achieving the right goals. Achieving the right goals is also an important foundation on which to build personal success and become more productive. In fact, people who successfully identify and achieve their goals will likelier be more happy than those who pursue either the wrong goals or the right goals, but, in the wrong ways. Successful people avoid false starts which waste time and money and create personal frustration. In contrast, unsuccessful people do not clearly define or achieve their goals. The world is full of people who have given up their dreams and personal goals because of chronic failure. You can do better. In fact, with just a few changes to your current thinking, you can have greater success at achieving goals by using the proven methods discussed in this book. As we discuss these methods in the next ten chapters, you will see that personal success depends on identifying the right goals and creating realistic plans to achieve them in an organized manner. By the right goals I mean ones that are consistent with your needs and personal values.

Success is highly personal. This is reflected in the differing opinions of how it is defined, achieved and appreciated. So, how does a person become successful?" First, successful people identify and achieve their goals. They also seem to have an innate sense for identifying the right goals early in their lives. Their goals reflect true personal needs and the values. Success makes them appear lucky. But, if they were asked why they are a successful, you will find that they define success from a unique personal perspective. As an example, some people define success as the accumulation of wealth whereas others give all the money they have to others. These dichotomies exist because people are unique. They see the world differently than others see it. This implies that success is highly personal. But, there are common strategies successful people use to achieve goals. I will admit it is true that some people are born having personal advantages which directly impact their success or disadvantages with may inhibit success. As an example, some people have responsible parents, who take very good care of them while other people are abused. Some people are born rich while others are born poor. There are also many other situational differences between people which can be very large. The result is that some people have overwhelming advantages in life whereas others significant disadvantages which weigh on them. But, regardless of your current situation, if you apply the concepts contained in this book, you will become more successful in life.

It is useful to read the biographies of people who overcome great personal obstacles to achieve their personal goals and dreams. You will see that although, they’re initial personal circumstances were different their strategies for achieving goals had much in common. As an example, Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States of America, underwent numerous challenges in life. He was defeated in several elections and suffered significant personal loses between 1831 and 1858 before he became president. He lost races for congress, the senate, failed in business and lost to illness and suffered the death a woman he loved. But, as he suffered these challenges he continued to maintain a focus on law and politics. One thing is certain; he successfully translated his dreams into achievable goals by obtaining the necessary education and skills over many years. He persevered through his many failures. He didn’t give up. Abraham Lincoln is a good role model for anyone facing significant personal challenges.

One of my personal heroes is Mr. Booker T. Washington. He was born a slave, became a teacher and eventually was in charge of the Tuskegee Institute located in Alabama. His autobiography describes his life and philosophy which is titled, Up from Slavery. He was born with nothing, in fact, with less than nothing, but he worked hard to obtain an education; he founded and led schools to become an international leader. Under some of the most difficult conditions imaginable, he achieved his goals. Some of his quotations speak to his eventual success. These include, If you can’t read, it’s going to be hard to realize dreams., If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else., Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work, We must reinforce argument with results., Character is power and There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.. His personal success began with dreams which he translated into realistic and achievable goals.

Louis Fischer wrote a biography titled, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi which describes the life of Gandhi. First and foremost Gandhi lived a high, simple and useful life with principle. His dream was the creation of an independent Indian state which was achieved after several decades of peaceful protests by his many followers. During his life, he was imprisoned numerous times by the British. He was also rejected at times by Indian society. In fact, some people in India dislike him to this day for various reasons. But, he preserved through these personal trials. In fact, he created several philosophical goals for the betterment of Indian society. They were summarized as seven societal sins which were defined from a perspective that these sins should be eliminated from any society. Mr. Eknath Easwaran in his book titled, The Compassionate Universe: The Power of the Individual to Heal the Environment describes the seven sins as knowledge without character, science without humanity, wealth without work, commerce without morality, politics without principles, pleasure without conscience and worship without self-sacrifice. Mahatma Gandhi worked, all his life, to eliminate these sins from Indian society. He is a very good example of how personal dreams can become achievable goals through concrete action and perseverance. You can imagine the long term planning, work and patience which Gandhi and his followers employed to become successful!

Also consider President Barack Obama. He surmounted significant challenges to become president of the United States. Recall, that he had a challenging and unstable childhood, but, for the intervention of his grandparents, it would have overwhelmed him. He also lost his first bid for congress, then, a few years later, he won a senate seat. Despite these challenges, he worked optimistically to build a better future. His diverse personal experiences made him a consensus builder. This helped him to form diverse constituencies to win a presidential election. Why was he successful? According to his book titled, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, he made a conscious change in his lifestyle when attending Columbia University by successfully creating a plan to excel in his studies, improve his health and to help others less fortunate. This pivotal point in his life enabled him to create a strategy for personal success which enabled him to translate his personal dreams into achievable goals. The translation required obtaining the necessary education, experience and skills to become successful later in life.

A common theme emerges for achieving personal success. People must first dream of their success, then, identify realistic and simple goals to achieve success. Remember that success is highly personal. People must define it from their unique perspectives. They must also expect temporary failures. But, long term success can be achieved if we preserve in their efforts.

What are the personal characteristics which make people successful? First, we know successful people span the entire socioeconomic spectrum. They are also well represented across all socioeconomic classes. Second, they have diverse personalities, perspectives, interests and talents. In a book written by David Keirsey titled, Please Understand Me II-Temperament Character and Intelligence discusses personality classification. The book’s basis is the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MTTI) system which was created by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers based on Dr. Carl Jung’s book titled, Psychological Types. The MBTI classification system describes sixteen personality types using four dimensions. These types include extroversion (E) versus introversion (I); sensing (S) versus intuition (N); feeling (F) versus thinking (T); and judgmental (J) versus perceptive (P). Extroverts prefer to first act then think about their actions whereas introverts first think about their actions and then act on their thoughts. Sensing people process information from a practical perspective whereas intuitive personality types process abstract information from a theoretical perspective. Thinkers make decisions from a detached perspective and sometimes without regard for the feeling of others whereas feeling types make decisions from an empathetic perspective and consider the impact of their decisions on others. Judgmental personality types prefer to make immediate decisions whereas perceptive types prefer to explore available options prior to making a final decision and then only