I remember how happy I was on my graduation from the Royal Military College of Canada. The double-major I chose had the heaviest course load of any program at my college, so each fall and spring exam session was a gruelling non-stop blur. I was so happy to never endure another exam for the rest of my life!

As I transitioned to my new career, that hope was somewhat dashed, but it wasn’t so bad. There were some tests, but nothing that really pushed me to my limits as did the exams I endured in college. And what tests I did have to take became fewer as I progressed in my career.

Our society is set up to minimize discomfort, but I’m not sure that it is necessarily a good thing. Without opportunities to measure our abilities, there is little incentive to further explore our potential. I’m grateful for not having to relive the pressure of test-taking like I had in college, but on the other hand, I miss the opportunity to measure my abilities and push myself to a new level of performance.

I believe it is important to proactively put challenges in front of oneself in order to provoke growth and development, before life imposes a test that one might not be ready to take.

I was fortunate in the early days of my career to surround myself with people who wanted to improve themselves on many levels. As the number of tests imposed on me by others declined, my friends encouraged me to start choosing other occasions to expand my experience of life. I took up running, which led me to start testing myself in 10km and marathon runs. Then I graduated to biathlons and triathlons. I didn’t win, but that was not the point. It was about besting my previous performances and discovering my other strengths.

Then during my masters degree, I discovered long distance cycle-touring, and I tested myself on a Seattle to San Francisco ride which helped me to redefine how I saw myself.  Moving to Western Canada, I discovered backcountry hiking and skiing, and two significant tests I fondly remember are hiking the West Coast Trail and traversing the Wapta Icefields. When I left the military, the tests I set for myself shifted to more spiritual and emotional pursuits, by taking the Context Associated series of courses and embarking on the path to becoming an assistant facilitator. Then there was my career change to become a coach, and the courses and experiences that I chose to undertake to develop myself on that new path.

And all during this time there were other lesser challenges that I gave myself that allowed me to explore my creativity, my analytical skills and my physical fitness.

What I notice is that each of these tests helped me to define who I am and what I’m capable of. The tests I chose for myself helped me to build my confidence and especially to help build my capacity to overcome the obstacles of everyday life.

As I reflect back on the tests I’ve set for myself over the years, I notice some elements that helped to make them a success for me. Therefore, here are some guidelines to help you choose a test that will help you to succeed:

1. Make it something that you choose to accomplish. Tests imposed by others are not as meaningful as ones that you choose of your own free will. It should be something meaningful to you, in alignment with your values, your passions, your strengths and your goals.

2. It is focused on a particular date and time. Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline.

3. It sets a high-water mark of your capabilities. Choose or establish a test that causes you to stretch yourself in an area of your life that you want to improve.

4. It inspires confidence in yourself. Completing this test makes you proud, building your confidence in all areas of your life.

5. Preparing for it helps you establish positive rituals in your life. Select a test that requires discipline and endurance as you prepare for it. The longer you need to prepare (between three to twelve months), the better the positive changes you can create for yourself.

6. It is something special. Your test should be something out of the ordinary, which creates positive memories and from which you can extract valuable life experiences. By selecting a positive event, you can share it with others and even inspire other people to complete it.

7. It is something that you win just by participating. Avoid a pass/fail or win/lose test.

8. It tests one or more of the dimensions of living. A test does not only have to be a physical or a mental feat. Consider how it expands your emotional and spiritual ways of being.

During the last couple of years, my annual test was to complete a half-marathon (21km) race at the end of each summer. In 2006 and 2007 my focus was the Demi-marathon des Deux-Rives here in Quebec City, and in 2008 I completed the Toronto Half-Marathon. Various other tests I have given myself were to participate in a silent retreat, compete in Toastmasters public speaking contests and taking on leadership roles in community organizations.

But in 2009 life took over and I did not plan or prepare for a half-marathon, which caused me to set aside my personal fitness habits. I believe that by not testing myself, I allowed my physical and mental health to decline, and given the challenges I had to face in the following months, it was a contributing factor to my burnout experience this past spring.

By choosing tests that challenge us to stretch our abilities, we become better equipped to face the peak demands of everyday life. Well-chosen challenges help to develop the reserves and strengthen our confidence and our courage to transform the status-quo around us.

I strongly suggest that you take time right now to choose a test of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual fitness, something that you will complete in the next twelve months. Use this opportunity to measure your mettle. Then when life decides to impose her trials upon you, you will be up to the challenge and pass with honors.

For more information

Image credit: Image by sashamd on Flickr.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashamd/132071876/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 license

We are programmed from an early age to think: “If I just work harder, I can reach my goals faster.” This attitude is reflected in Daft Punk’s hit “Harder Faster Better Stronger”:

Work It. Make It. Do It. Makes Us
Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.
Work it harder, make it better,
Do it faster, makes us stronger
More than ever hour after
Our work is never over

But what if this belief is false? What if working harder, instead of making my results happen faster, just contributes to burn out?

Does turning the thermostat all the way up make the room heat up faster? So why would just “working harder” accelerate success?

My realization is that I should “work smarter”: find the right level of effort that yields the best results. And take care of myself better so I can build a stronger personal foundation to support results that last longer.

For more information

Video Credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw

Official video (non-embeddable): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgBgnoEY4iM

Daft Punk: http://www.daftpunk.com

Daft Punk on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk

Lately I’ve been “burning out”. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to launch new content simultaneously in English (for my Internet audience) and in French (for my local audience). It got to the point where my head was constantly buzzing with a low-grade headache, and my patience was in short supply.

Then I received a morning thought from Heather Frey, a fitness trainer who I follow on Facebook:

You are unfinished. Yet everyday you race, scramble, and pressure yourself to be finished, which is both impossible and exhausting. Your life is a beautiful project, not a task. It is not to be completed and put away but rather relished, enjoyed and learned from. Your life is not one day after another, it’s a span of time with rest in between where you get a chance to grow and build momentum. Your life is suppose to be joyous and your “project” is to figure out how. Stop trying to “finish”.

Stay CLEAR…stay FOCUSED…and it will be yours…

Best,
Heather

The moment I read Heather’s message, the buzzing stopped, and I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders.

I also then remembered what columnist Roger Cohen wrote in a recent New York Times essay called “Florentine Choices“:

In the U.S. culture of achievement, efficiency and logic are prized. In the Italian culture of aesthetics, the artful scam has its place. America acts in the belief that life is linear and leads to the realization of goals. Italy idles in the belief that life is circular and objectives an illusory distraction from pleasure.

Are objectives really an illusion? Did I get so wrapped up in the linear pursuit of trying to “complete”, that I started driving myself to exhaustion chasing the impossible?

For goals to have meaning, they need to be connected to what is most important to me: my personal mission, my vision of the change I wish to create in the world around me, and my beliefs about my talents, strengths and abilities (my “permission”). The point of having a goal is to orient my energy and provoke movement. Whether I reach the goal or not is, in the big scheme of things, “unimportant”.

I define “success” as creating an experience of life that allows me to explore my full potential.  The moment a goal urges me to take a step, my perspective about the goal changes. Whether the step is forward, or back, or to the left, or to the right, I’ve accrued a bit more experience, a bit more knowledge. This new experience causes me to reevaluate the goal – how is the goal still relevant to the experience of life that I wish to create, a life that allows me to explore my full potential?

It could be now that I’ve shifted where I am, that the goal is no longer as relevant. Or that it’s even more relevant. No matter, the objective is to be continuously reevaluating the goal, treating it as something dynamic rather than static.

If I am too focused on a static end-goal, my project ends when either I reach my goal, or the goal escapes my grasp. The end of a project is a little death. This is why goals need to be dynamic, always under reevaluation. Because the only purpose of a goal is to move me to action, so I can live an experience.

A linear life ends up being singularly focused on completion – and the ultimate completion is death. A circular life is focused on experience, and the experience of exploring my mission, vision and permission need not end… The circular life can go on forever, because it never needs to be complete.

For more information

Check out Heather Frey on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/SmashFit and Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmashFit Heather’s web site is http://www.SmashFit.com

The essay that got me thinking about “linear” vs “circular” lifestyle: “Florentine Choices” by Roger Cohen, NYTimes.com, 11 Mar 2010
Direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12iht-edcohen.html

Image credit: ”Six Blue Circles” by qthomasbower on Flickr. Link to author: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/
Link to image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3835549101/
Used under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 licence

What does the word “tactical” mean to you? It might conjure up images of heavily armed soldiers storming a building, a swarm of tanks overrunning enemy defenses, a squadron of aircraft dueling it out over the English channel. Tactics rhymes with execution, punch, getting things done.

Are you thinking tactically enough to win?

Most entrepreneurs have a big-picture idea of what they want, recorded in a business plan or vision document or a simple list of goals. But then the document stays in a drawer or on the hard drive as they stumble into reactive mode, day after day, and not accomplishing what they initially said they wanted.

Planning requires two levels of thinking: strategic and tactical. Strategic planning is vision-focused, the “who am I”, “what do I want to create” and “why is this important to me”.  Strategic is longer term, one, three, five, ten years out. Strategic planning is important, because it gives a context and a purpose for action.

Tactical planning is goal-focused, the “how“, the detailed actions needed to move the yardstick forward toward the big vision.

Where the strategic plan can be done in the abstract, because it deals with possibilities and assumptions, the tactical plan is how we dance with reality, respond to the actual situation on the ground, execute to create results. Tactical plans are meant to be short term: created quickly, executed boldly, then superseded by the next tactical plan based on the new situation. Rapid execution of a succession of tactical plans moves you step by step towards realizing the overall strategic plan.

For the entrepreneur, thinking tactically means creating a daily, execution-focused, tactical plan.

When I attended the Canadian Forces Staff School course in the early ’90s as a junior Air Force captain, I learned how to prepare a tactical mission plan, using an acronym I still remember today: SMEACS. Applied to your daily tactical plan, this means:

• S = Situation: What is my current status with respect to today’s operation? (the starting point)
• M = Mission: What is the Specific/Measurable/Audacious/Real/Time-lined (SMART) goal I must achieve today? (the result)
• E = Execution: What are the tasks and steps that need to be completed to get it done? When will I do this (put in today’s calendar)
• A = Administration/Logistics: What resources (tools, supplies) do I need to get it done? Where do I get these resources? How much money/time will I need to get them?
• C = Command: Who do I need to connect with to get it done?  (collaboration, authorization, support, accountability)
• S = Signal: Who do I need to communicate with to get it done?  (E-mails, telephone calls, letters)

To think tactical, focus on one primary project where you want to create a measurable result in the next 24 hours. Draw up a simple tactical plan in point form using the SMEACS format, so it is easy to keep in your head or on a single piece of paper.

For example, let’s say that my Strategic focus at the moment is to write my book. Today’s Tactical plan would be:

• S = Situation: I’m now at Chapter Two of my Ten-Chapter manuscript.
• M = Mission: Today’s mission is to create a rough draft in point form of Chapter Two in the next 24 hours.
• E = Execution: 1. Make a list of two dozen sub-points I want to include in the chapter; 2. reorganize into eight major points; 3. complete each major point by breaking it down into ten to twelve sub-points; 4. post it on the wiki; 5. dedicated writing times today: 9am to 10:30am (eight major points) and 8pm to 10pm (expanded sub-points)
• A = Administration/Logistics: 1. Make sure laptop is charged up and backed up before starting; 2. morning session at Starbucks after spin class, evening session at home (wash dishes first).
• C = Command: 1. coordinate with Thomas for a brainstorming call (suggest 9am).
• S = Signal: 1. confirm with Annie for feedback from Chapter 1 (e-mail); 2. send note to Mastermind group after morning and evening sessions informing that the wiki is updated.

As you execute your tactical plan, you will find that instead of feeling that you are running around in circles reacting to your environment, you will now be in control, act more deliberately, and get much more done. Being tactical puts you in charge of the momentum.

Strategy points you in the right direction. Tactics ensures you do the right things right now, so you can win at creating the future you really want.

For more information

This post was inspired by  ”Rip Up Your Five-Year Plan” by Ian Sanders, BNET Insight http://blogs.bnet.com/smb/?p=145

Image Credit: Tactical Bacon is a real product! Image from http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/c399/

I follow over 231 blogs on leadership, business, marketing and personal development using Google Reader.  As I browse the stream of ideas, there are some that catch my eye for one reason or another, which I post to my “shared” list. This creates an interesting blog available to you at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/davenderg .

Here are some recent articles I recommend: 

Is Entrepreneurship A Management Science?
Eric Ries, The Conversation (Harvard Business Review)
permalink:  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/01/is_entrepreneurship_a_manageme.html

Traditional concepts in management science tend to fail when applied to startups. A startup has to deal with conditions of extreme uncertaintly, which impedes the ability to do traditional planning. This article talks about shifting the attention at the startup phase from the outputs (measuring the results) to the inputs (measuring how the team is learning).

This Year, Say Yes By Saying No
Alexandra Samuel, The Conversation (Harvard Business Review)
permalink: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/01/say_yes_to_saying_no.html

This is the time of year where we get bombarded with offers. Be clear about your intentions and goals, and make “no” your default answer.

You’re Not Small, You’re Just Human (And So Are The Gurus)
Ali Hale, Dumb Little Man
permalink: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/11/youre-not-small-youre-just-human-and-so.html

Even “gurus” have off days. Don’t beat yourself silly trying to achieve the illusion of perfection.

Best New Year’s Resolution? A Stop-Doing List
Jim Collins via Marcia Conner, LaughLearnLead
permalink: http://marciamarcia.tumblr.com/post/283672685/best-new-years-resolution-a-stop-doing-list

Are you productive, or just busy? Take the time to focus on only doing what counts most for you.

Goal Setting Accountability: Is It For Losers?
Naomi Dunford, IttyBiz
permalink: http://ittybiz.com/goal-setting-accountability

There’s a place for accountability, and there’s a place for privacy

Networking Reconsidered
John Hagel III and John Seely Brown, Harvard Business Review
permalink: http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/01/networking-reconsidered.html

Applying the lessons learned from social networking to the traditional real-world networking environment.

For more information

Check out my Shared Items on my Google Reader page: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/davenderg

If you know of any interesting blogs or posts (especially if they’re yours!) please share them through the comments below.

Do you have a task that you’ve been procrastinating on, one that gets bigger every day even though you’re trying to ignore it? I usually have a couple of those on my list. These are tasks that I’m dreading for one reason or another: tediousness, refusal to face the truth, fear, shame…

The more I try to push these tasks to the future, the bigger they get, to the point that just resisting them is sapping my energy and blocking my ability to spot and respond to other opportunities.

So it’s time to do something about it.  

Mark Twain, that great philosopher-sage, said “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.”  This is the premise behind a delightful little book by Brian Tracy, called “Eat That Frog“. This book, which I highly recommend (even if you are not procrastinating on anything at the moment), provides a simple process to blast through procrastination: imagine the yukky task as an ugly frog that you must first eat before you can enjoy doing other things.

I’ve taken to call the tasks I’m procrastinating on my “Ugly Frogs” (UF).  UFs are things that only I can do (what’s left after the delegating and dumping), but I am loathe to get started on for any real or imagined reason. And it’s usually the latter. By identifying the UF, I can then go through a process to help me break it down into bite-sized pieces so that I swallow the whole darn thing…and therefore get it off my plate.

I’m currently implementing this idea in my weekly planning by asking myself the following questions:

1. What is an important task that I’m procrastinating on which is draining my energy and stopping me from moving forward? (This task must be on a critical path for my most important priority at the moment)

2. How can I break this task down into three to five sub-tasks that take between 30 minutes to no more than two hours each to complete? (An ugly frog is easier to swallow if I first cut it up into smaller pieces)

3. On what days this week will I accomplish each one of those tasks? (Schedule the day, and if possible, the time)

4. With whom shall I share this commitment to help me be accountable? (I find an accountability buddy to be invaluable in making sure I finish my plate)

Sometimes you might not get through the whole UF in one week, but can get far enough that there may be one or two sub-tasks left. If so, try to schedule them at the beginning of the following week so that the whole task is done, or if this is not possible, make sure you schedule them now so that you complete them as soon as possible.  Or maybe my UF is too big, like two frogs stuck together. Then the idea is to separate the tasks to make them more manageable. With practice you will learn what are reasonable task sizes and timelines for you, depending on your workload.

Even with this preparation, the actual eating of the Ugly Frog can still be distasteful, stressful, even nauseating.  I’ve had tasks that needed to be done that would take someone else maybe 20 minutes or so, but take me two hours because it feels like I’m moving through cold molasses. Hang in there, gut it out. You know that it will be over in at most two hours. This is where the accountability buddy is so valuable, for encouragement or simply someone to whine to…but make sure that your buddy won’t let you off the hook!

Brian Tracy explains more thoroughly this process of breaking through procrastination. Don’t delay, get it now, read it now and do it now.

Don’t stare too long at that Ugly Frog. Just pick up your knife and your fork and get at it, so you can move on to the dessert!

For more information

Read: “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy  Amazon.com link (no affiliate): http://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp/1576754227

Photo credit: Photo by wahoowins on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licence CC BY-ND 2.0

So it’s a New Year, but how are you going to make this different then the old one? Here are three ideas to help you make this year your best ever!

For more information:

Link to this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAMjY2vHto

My YouTube channel (includes my videos and other “favorites”):
http://www.youtube.com/coachdavender

My New Year’s Eve was quiet, as usual (I don’t like big celebrations). I ended up flipping through YouTube and randomly found the movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. I’ve seen this flick several times before, but there was something that made me watch it with another perspective.

If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s about the obnoxious Pittsburgh TV weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) who is assigned to cover the Groundhog Day festivities in small-town Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He grudgingly does his on-air spot and sets off on the return trip to Pittsburgh but has to turn back because of a snowstorm. Forced to stay in the small town for another night, he wakes up the next morning realizing to his horror that he has to relive Groundhog Day again, and again the next day and the day after that. Stuck in this time loop, he realizes that he is powerless to change the situation and sinks into a depression until something clicks and he decides to start living positively. Even that doesn’t break the time loop, until…well, you’ll have to see the movie to find out how it ends.

There was one point in the movie where I was sure that once Phil Connors “got the girl” then he would snap out of the time loop, but I realized it was only half-way through the movie. Then it came to me: this movie was calling me to snap out of my own “Groundhog Year”.

2009 was a good year, in that I’m grateful for all the new experiences, the new contacts, and the new skills that I gained. But, to be honest, despite all of the big plans I had back in January 2009, I did not achieve the quantum leap forward in my business that I’ve been wanting for the last couple of years. My business project is stuck in a Groundhog Loop.

Once the movie finished, I sat there staring at the screen for a while, thinking about what are the lessons I could apply to ensure that 2010 is not another Groundhog Year?

- Do one thing different today: Phil Connors came to believe that whatever he did had no consequences. After sinking into a depressive state and trying to kill himself by different means, he still woke up with the 6:00 AM radio alarm with nothing changed. It was when he started to realize that by doing one thing different that day, in a positive way, he could make the experience of being in the time loop more pleasant for him, even if the environment around him did not change and nobody remembered. So for me, I must identify – and do – one thing different today so that I can make my day more pleasant and productive.

- Be patient: Even by making positive changes in his actions and his attitude, Phil Connors was still in the time loop for a long, long time. It’s the same with New Year’s Resolutions. The actions I take now will probably not make a difference for many days, weeks or months. But if I really want to be in a different situation one year from today, I must start now.

- Change for the right reasons: At first Phil Connors focused all his efforts on trying to “get the girl”, thinking that might be the way to create his “perfect day”. But it was only when he started to change for the “right reasons” that he created the movement that eventually broke through the time loop. Are my goals for the New Year focused on the right results that will get me out of my own Groundhog Loop?

Waking up this January 1 2010, nothing outside of me has changed significantly. I have the same surroundings, the same people, the same bank account, the same to-do list as on December 31, 2009. But I have the power to break the Groundhog Loop by the positive steps I choose to make, starting today, to make this my Best Year Ever.