We're all back at work after the festive break, refreshed and ready for whatever challenges 2021 will bring. Did you set yourself any new goals for 2021, or perhaps some new year resolutions? I caught up with Mark Channon for some help on turning those goals and resolutions into reality. Mark has some great advice to help you achieve your objectives.







About Mark Channon



Mark originally trained as an actor, before becoming one of the first 8 people in the world to become a Grand Master of Memory in the 1995 World Memory Championships. These days Mark works as a performance coach.



How does Mark plan his year?



Mark uses the 3-3-1 model. Three years, three months, one month. While he has a 3 year vision he never plans in detail for any more than three months at at time. He then breaks his objectives down into monthly goals. We focused on technique for goal setting in the last episode of the GrowCFO Show



Achieve your objectives with Tiny Habits



Mark is a huge advocate of tiny habits as a way to achieve your objectives. He has produced a free course inside GrowCFO that explains how to use the technique.



https://growcfo.mn.co/courses/2178470/content



B J Fogg devised the Tiny Habits method, and Mark has worked with B J for some time. Mark was originally fascinated by B J Fogg's claim:



"Create new behaviours without the need for willpower or motivation"



Focus on tiny



In the Tiny Habits method you always start with a tiny behavior. Below are some examples:



Floss one toothPour a cup of waterRead one sentence in a bookPut on walking shoesTake one deep breath



At the end of this page, I'll explain how to translate a difficult habit (like 25 pushups each morning) into something tiny. But first, let me explain why tiny matters.



Why start tiny?



Difficult behaviors require a high level of motivation.



You've seen this in your own life. If there's a tough task facing you, such as cleaning your entire home, you won't do it unless your motivation level is high.



As human beings, our motivation level for any behavior goes up and down over time. That's natural. And you can't always rely on having a high level of motivation. Your motivation is often low for cleaning or exercising or cutting vegetables. That's reality.



Relying heavily on motivation to create a habit does not work.



Tiny gives you success



When a behavior is really easy, like putting a magazine back on the shelf, you don't need to throw a party to succeed. In other words, when a behavior is easy, you don't need to rely on motivation. You simply put the magazine back on the shelf, and you are done.



This was BJ's insight: "Okay, BJ. You already know how to floss all your teeth. That's not the problem. You don't yet know how to do this automatically." So I scaled back flossing to just one tooth. I then focused on making this tiny behavior automatic in my life. Soon I created a solid habit, and then I grew the habit to include all of my teeth (hooray).



Simple is powerful



Simple is powerful. You’ll experience that next week.



You can grow your tiny behaviors in later weeks (for example, expand from flossing one tooth to all your teeth). But for this next week, to benefit your own success and learning, please, please keep it simple.



Just like with plants: You start small. It takes root. And then it can grow.



Simplicity changes behavior. The most important three words you’ll read today.



Achieve your objectives with Pomodoro



Mark uses Pomodoro as a way to develop a tiny habit into a much bigger behaviour. He's currently writing a book, and uses the technique extensively to get work done



The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. You use a timer to break down your work into intervals. These are traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for 'tomato',