Clean Up Goals



Happy Easter

Here I am Easter Sunday and all ready and waiting for 18 family members to descend for a BBQ.  Well, not quite ready, but as least the floors have been vacuumed! We were hoping for a sunny day and instead have clearing showers, but as we tuck into another Easter egg and look forward to the arrival of freinds and family, we are not worried in the slightest.  I am still to work out how to have a BBQ when it is raining - stage right garage!!!

Over the last week I have been reminded on a number of levels about the important concept of Clean Up Goals.  This concept was introduced to me by Wendy Buckingham, based in Sydney and author of the great book, Ready Set Goal! To me it just makes perfect sense.......

See what you think about what Wendy says...."One of the biggest hurdles to jump in goal planning and achievement can be cleaning up those little piles of you-know-what that are sticking to you around old failed goals.  Those piles of bad memories and negative beliefs that create the mind chatter that undermines your ambition, drains your energy and stands in the way of your future achievement.  Consider this, every time you decide on a goal and, for whatever reason, don't get to achieve that goal,a little residue of underachiever energy is deposited into your belief system.  As this pile of negative energy grows and takes up space in your conscious and subconscious mind, your energy to achieve, faith in yourself and motivation to keep setting and achieving new goals subsides."

So let's clean up some of those all goals - we all have them - and feel the power of how great it will be not to carry the history and negative beliefs about goal setting into our futures.  We all have goals that have hit a brick wall. These are goals that have stalled.  It might be something you did or someone else did or maybe the goal just stalled. It night be becauase of illness or something totally out of your control.  It is likley you feel some pain around this failed goal - that's OK, here is what Wendy suggests to clean up these unacheived goals.

Four Step Process to Clean Up Goals that have hit a Brick Wall 
Step 1: Identify the failed goal and write it down.
Step 2: Explain how you hoped the goal was going to be achieved.  What were your plans?  What was the outcome?  Who else was involved?
Step 3: What actually did happen?  How did things turn out differently from what you had hoped for?  Where was the pain?  Where is the resentment?  What were your thoughts about yourself?  What decisions did  you make at the time?
Step 4: Step back from the pain of the failed goal and list everything you achieved or learned while you were in the process of going for that goal.  Ask yourself these questions:
What did I learn and how am I stronger?
What were my achievements along the way?
What do I know to do differently in the future?
What wouldn't I  do again?
Even though I didn't get my goal, what were the wins I had that I can acknowledge and celebrate?"

This 4 step process will support you in removing the pain associated with not achieving this goal.  Now there will be room for a "growing sense of achievement and completion and a sound foundation from which to move forward to your next goals.  The final step is to decide whether you still want that particular goal or something similar.  If you don't then celebrate your learning, strengthening and achievements and LET IT GO!  Or you may discover that, now you have got rid of all the negative 'stuff', your energy around the failed goal has been renewed.  If that's the case, set a new goal, and GO FOR IT! 

Just this week I had a colleague tell me that after working on a clean up goal, she had more energy and was surprised at how her mind had started to think about what next and this made her happy.  So how about it, identify an old goal that just isnt working for you, sit down with a journal or talk through the 4 step process and enjoy the rewards.