Sunday, September 14, 2008

Make Your Plan For Personal Growth

Quick back-story: I'm privileged to be one of the leaders of a local Ann Arbor business networking group called A2 Biz Insights. In my role, I have been publishing a weekly motivational email, which I called the Monday Morning SMART Start. The email was designed to help the members of the group focus on their annual goals in a seven day 'bucket.' The SMART Acronym is in reference to our groups SMART Goals: Goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-phased.
About three weeks ago, I decided to make these motivational emails into a blog post. Subsequently, I have heard from a few of my readers who are not members of the networking group, but who seem to enjoy these posts. That said, here is todays entry.
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I can't stop thinking about that statistic I quoted in last week's post that 97% of people who have written goals don't actually follow through on them. I plead guilty to sometimes being among that 97%. It is my goal to become one of the 3%. Being in that 3% is the only way to realize your full potential, and the only way to become content with your life.

Continuing to cherry pick from John Maxewell's "Your Road Map for Success," he has a great section on personal growth. He has 10 major principles for growth. Today I am drawn to his #8: Develop a Plan For Growth. Again, the key is in the follow-through. His plan, which I will do this week, is a plan that requires one-hour per-day, for 5 days out of the next 7. I invite you to join me. Maxwell's principle was adapted from Earl Nightengale, who said: "If a person will spend one hour per day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject." What an incredible promise! It shows how far we are capable of going when we have the discipline to make growth a daily practice.

John Maxwell recommends the following growth plan to participants of his Leadership Conferences:

Monday: Spend one hour with a devotional to develop your spiritual life.
Tuesday: Spend one hour listening to a leadership tape.
Wednesday: Spend one hour researching quotes and reflecting on Tuesdays tape.
Thursday: Spend one hour reading a book on leadership.
Friday: Spend another 30 minutes reading the book, and 30 minutes reflecting.

As I've said before, one of my goals is to read one book per week, and listen to one tape per week. If you do that, in 10 years, you will have read over 500 books. How much smarter will you be after you have read 500 books, and listened to 500 tapes!

Make it a plan, make it a daily routine, and have an OUTSTANDING Week!

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