goals

When the WOW Becomes the Minimum

Bardees, , ,

It was wow when I found a spot to write in before the start of the workday.

I got used to it.

I loved it.

Then, one day, I found it occupied by someone who arrived earlier than me.

My first instinct was to cancel my morning writing plans for that day. The spot was taken. So that was that.

Then I remembered what I used to do just a few weeks ago, before I found that spot.

I used to open my laptop and just write at my desk until the workday officially started. My regular desk. So I got back there, and that’s how I am writing this post, but this got me thinking.

You see, what I love about the special spot is that it protects my writing time and my natural rhythm.

Most days, I don’t like to talk in the morning, and I like to get something important done as soon as the day starts so that, no matter what happens later in the day, I have that morning writing behind me. However, I sometimes get long morning chit-chat visits from fellow early colleagues. This was the main friction point that derailed my early morning writing. So finding that spot was the magic pill, and when I finished my writing there and finally sat at my desk after everyone arrived, I was ready to do my job.

It was interesting to notice that my ideal circumstances insidiously transformed into my must-haves for showing up for my writing; anything less was a showstopper.

Did this ever happen to you?

When did you let ideal scenarios become your minimum requirements to get your important work done?

You ideally work when the baby naps, but what if the baby stops napping? What will you do?

You love working out in the evenings, but this week your husband is traveling, and you have to take kids to their daily activities, so what do you do? Do you skip the gym all that week? What is your backup plan?

Here is how you stop these moments from derailing you.

Forecasting obstacles using if (obstacle happens), I will (do this instead), utilizes a combination of two proven tools for goal achievement, which are:

  • Implementation intention
  • Mental Contrasting

Implementation Intention:

One of the most-cited, peer-reviewed strategies (a fancy way to say it is scientifically well-proven): When you want to take an action, decide it in the format: If X happens, then I will do Y.

Examples:

Don’t say: I will do my checkout routine at the end of the work day
Say: If it’s 3 pm, then I will start my work checkout routine.

Don’t say: I will start walking next week.
Say: I will start walking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday right after I arrive home from work.

The first is wishful thinking; the latter is a concrete plan.

Mental Contrasting:

Athletes use visualization the most, but they don’t visualize the podium and the medal; that gets a tiny fraction of their visualization time, as author Nir Eyal shares in his book Beyond Belief (Arabic edition). Instead, they visualize their opponents and the moves they might make to win when they face them.

We can do that too. When we think about our goal and the positive outcome we want, we also need to contrast it with the obstacles that will probably arise along the way, then use the implementation intention strategy to be ready for them.

Example goal: I plan to stick to my diet. So, if someone offers me food, I will say No, thanks, I am sticking to my diet.

Are we being negative when we practice mental contrasting?

Naming the obstacles isn’t negative; it is us protecting the goal before the hard moment arrives.

Use mental contrasting and implementation intentions to prepare for obstacles you know you would face on your way to achieving your goals.

  • If I feel like canceling the gym, I will call or text my friend for a pep talk.
  • If I feel too hungry at night, I will make a salad.
  • If I want to scroll in front of my kids, I will take my phone to another room.
  • If my favorite spot at the coffee house is occupied, I will find a new favorite spot or ask the person there to tell me when they finish
  • If I start a focused session at work, I will put my phone in the drawer on silent until the session is over.

How will you use these tools this week to overcome distractions and your requirements that have become excuses?

HT to Jon Acuff for making me notice this procrastination strategy in his book Procrastination Proof, ending this article with his words seems fit:

“Never confuse preferences with requirements.”

When the WOW Becomes the Minimum

Good Problems To Have

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It’s been two years since I found my budgeting rhythm and achieved the goal of tracking and planning expenses. That’s why I had tax payment as an item in my annual budget planned and ready to go. Like every April, I filed my taxes for last year a couple of weeks ago, only to discover that my due tax amount doubled compared to the previous year because my income improved and, of course, due to the crazy local tax jumps we have.

At first, I was mortified; I felt it was unfair for a third-world resident like myself to pay this much tax. Then I remembered a reading from the Daily Stoic; which said:

“You think you’re so special? People have been complaining about their taxes for thousands of years, and now they’re dead. Get over it. This is a good problem to have. Far better than, say, making so little there is nothing left to pay the government.

Income taxes are not the only taxes you pay in life. They are just the financial form. Everything we do has a toll attached to it. Waiting around is a tax on traveling. Rumors and gossip are the taxes that come from acquiring a public persona. Disagreements and occasional frustration are taxes placed on even the happiest of relationships. Theft is a tax on abundance and having things that other people want. Stress and problems are tariffs that come attached to success.”

I also felt grateful (it took a while) for the idea that more taxes means more income. I get to pay taxes. Just like I improved my income last year, I can do it again. This year, however, I will be smarter, keep a tax calculator handy, and budget better for next April.

My favorite sentence in the quote I shared from the book is, “Tax is a good problem to have.” Jon Acuff reminded me of the same idea in one of his courses: Sometimes, we avoid starting a goal because we are worried we will be unable to handle the “problems” resulting from our success. 

Examples of good problems to have:

  • Clothes that get too loose after you lose weight.
  • You’re in high demand to speak at events because you’re excellent at public speaking.
  • Your shop stock might sell out because of the outstanding quality and marketing, and you would apologize to potential buyers.

Yes, you may still need to gain a new skill set to handle your anticipated great success, but you are also growing, learning, and changing every day and acquiring knowledge and experience that will help you solve anything you might face.

Don’t let worrying about the good problems be an excuse for not starting goals. Having good problems means you have succeeded in achieving your goals. Most importantly, trust yourself. You can handle good problems just as you can handle bad ones.

Good Problems To Have

Win Your Day: Start Strong with This Question

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I have been applying the highlight-of-the-day idea, which I learned from the book (Make Time), with my goals group members for around six months, and it has been wildly successful in helping them focus during the day.

How do we do it?

At the start of the day, I encourage them to share their goal: What is one thing that, if they finish, would call the day successful? And then, at the end of the day, the group members share the status of their goals.

This daily goal habit helps them define “a successful day” on their own terms and not leave this evaluation to chance. In addition, they get to avoid the feeling of a wasted day many of us have if we don’t start it with intention. I also usually encourage them to share a maximum of three goals as they are sometimes inclined to share their entire to-do list.

My friend and group member told me that this daily goal habit helps her fine-tune her estimate of the time it takes to finish a task and improve it gradually to avoid the planning fallacy we humans are so prone to.

I also share my daily goals with the group because I love the accountability we create; I need to do it because I said I would, and if tasks do not get done, I provide reasons.

Sharing daily goals is also an excellent way to offer mini-coaching sessions if I notice a pattern. For example, a group member set a goal to “finish studying the material.” Some questions I asked:

  • What do you mean? Does it mean you want to stay up all night to finish it, no matter what? (the answer was no)
  • How much time do you really have to finish it?
  • Why not change the goal from “finish studying the material” to “Allocate 120 focused minutes to study” This goal? You can achieve!

When it comes to goals, time is usually the most critical factor in achieving them. How much time can you allocate to do what you say you want to do? Setting the goal this way helps you win, and we all need to feel these wins adding up, or else we will give up on planning before it becomes a habit.

At the beginning of every day, ask: What’s your one goal today? or, what are your top three goals? Remember, any other tasks you come up with need to go to a “Might Do” list; do them if you have time and energy, as author Ali Abdaal advises.

Win Your Day: Start Strong with This Question

How to Overcome Note Overwhelm in 10 Simple Steps

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A good chunk of my weekly review goes to processing my handwritten notes, and this is how I do it: 

  1. During the week, I collect notes in one place. I write any task, idea, or insight on the daily pages in my planner. 
  2. As the week goes by, I process some tasks by crossing off done items.  
  3. At the start of the new week, during the weekly review, I read all my notes from the past week. 
  4. I cross off done tasks. 
  5. I do tasks I wrote that need a very short time, like sending a text or a reminder email. According to David Allen’s GTD, these actions take less than 2 minutes. 
  6. I add digital reminders to my task app with due dates where applicable. 
  7. I copy insights or good ideas, like a sentence I read and wrote or a post or a podcast idea into my task app in a proper list, such as “Instagram content” or “podcast content”.  
  8. Or I copy ideas to one of my favorite note-taking apps: Google Keep and Evernote.  
  9. As I review my daily pages and process them, I cross off every single word. 
  10.  I then write in a colored marker the word “Reviewed,” which means I will never read or even visit this page in the future, and it was successfully processed.  

I genuinely enjoy this process, and it gives me an immense sense of clarity and relief. As David Allen says: “You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing.” 

As I wrote this post, I realized that I need to work on better processing my digital notes. I do this randomly, not systematically. I need to account for processing the digital notes, perhaps every month and see which of these notes are still relevant and which need deleting or archiving.  

How to Overcome Note Overwhelm in 10 Simple Steps

Are you ready? Your fresh start awaits.

Bardees, , , ,

Today, October 1st, 2023, is the start of a new week, month, and quarter.

Do you know when was the last time this happened? It happened once this year, on January 1st, which was a public holiday. And October 1st is the last time these three beginnings coincide this year.*

To make the best of your fresh start, spend time as soon as possible this week planning the habits you will track and the most important goals you want to achieve this quarter. Decide your last 90 days of the year ambitions and the problems you want to solve. A wise person in a podcast called problems “projects.” Your problems are projects you want to work on and take action steps to improve. Brilliant, no?

Do you plan to commit to the weekly reviews in the next 12 weeks?
Do you plan to track your weekly expenses and save for the holidays?
Do you plan to sleep at a reasonable hour most nights?
Do you plan to start journaling a few days a week?
Do you plan to move your body?
Do you plan to check on the people you say you care about most?

After you decide what you want to do this month:

  • Write your habits and goals on a post-it note in a visible place to keep them on top of mind because the days will get busier, and the list of goals will be forgotten if not present in your space.
  • Track your habits on a habit tracker like the one in the spark below, or create your own. You will feel discouraged sooner than expected if you do your habits without tracking them. Tracking makes you feel great about progress before the changes in your life become tangible. Track the total number of days you commit in October to beat your record in November and be realistic in December because it would be different from October and November.
  • Open your calendar and book action steps for your non-daily habits and goals, such as a coffee date with a friend, walking times, budgeting days, and weekly review days… you get the picture. It would help if you saw them in your calendar to make sure they make sense with the rest of your commitments.

One last tip: my friend told me about a journaling exercise called Remembering The Future, in which you write how you want to feel at the end of the year like it happened already, e.g., “I am so happy I finished that project, passed the exam, and improved my relationship with my mother.” Cool, huh?

So tell me, what will you say on December 31st about the year 2023?

Let’s end it with a bang, shall we?

*P.S. I learned this when I was designing my 2023 calendar. If your workweek starts on Monday, a new week and month collided once this year; on May 1st. These small facts are a lot of fun for a goal and time nerd like me!

Are you ready? Your fresh start awaits.

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

Bardees, , 1 Comment

When someone calls me to say she’s been stuck in her goals lately, I first ask her: What season are you in?

But I also should ask: What chapter are you in?

Both words, chapter and season, translate the same to Arabic, which might confuse people I ask because when I say it in Arabic, it could be a weather season or a book chapter.

What I mean by this question is what life chapter you’re in.

Is it the chapter of a new job, a new baby, a new home, or a new country? Is it the chapter of in-between jobs, in-between countries, in-between homes, or the chapter of ordinary-nothing-new life? Could it be the chapter of grief or a sick partner or parent?

These life chapters affect the kind of goals you can achieve.

Sometimes, we set our goals according to the chapter we just left as if nothing changed, so our plans no longer work.

Sometimes, we treat new chapters as if they did not happen and still expect the same from ourselves, or worse, we beat ourselves up if we do not achieve the desired results.

Seasons, on the other hand, are different; seasons are cyclical, which means each season will end soon, followed by the other.

At companies, there is the closing of the annual targets season, the objectives and performance reviews season, and the new launches season, among others.

Creatively, I go through seasons of introspection, deep reflection, and writing in my morning pages, then seasons of massive creative output.
For example, last year, I wrote about writing in seasons, which works perfectly for me because it felt like the permission slip I needed to give myself.

I adapted my creative output to mother nature’s cycle and my social and family life seasons. I don’t create workshops or launch courses in the summer; I spend time with my family. Believe me, I tried and learned the hard way that taking courses in summer doesn’t work for my life and probably the same for my target audience. Back-to-school season, however, means back to goals. As Jon Acuff says, September is the slingshot month of the year, just like January.

Physically, I try to adapt my work tasks according to my internal seasons based on my menstrual cycle because I have seen the impact of listening to my body on my life in the past few years. For example, tracking my cycle, helps me define the type of tasks that will feel easier for me each week; if I were in my internal fall season (premenstrual), then editing, analysis, finishing, following up, closing open loops, and decluttering would be ideal tasks.

All these reflections were sparked from listening to an excellent podcast episode by Peter and Jen about chapters where Peter mentioned he is in the chapter of (new dad) and feels it has impacted everything he thinks about. They highlighted that it’s good to remember that chapters end if you’re in the thick of a challenging one and to appreciate the people who are still with you as you close and open life chapters.

Always check whether your ambitious goals make sense for your life chapter and season, and plan accordingly.

It is an act of self-love.

Which chapter/season are you in?

Chapters, Seasons and Goals

What Your Treasures Truly Reveal About Your Desires

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I am reading the brand new book All it Takes Is A Goal by one of my all-time favorite authors, Jon Acuff. He shared an idea I loved about how the objects we keep tell a story. We love the objects we own or want to own because they make us feel one of five feelings: 

  1. Younger 
  2. Successful 
  3. Inspired 
  4. Cool 
  5. Connected 

He used the example of his 64-pack of Crayola crayons set as an example of an object that makes him feel younger. I never considered my multiple coloring sets as objects that make me feel younger, but they do!  

He mentioned that the Lego sets he assembles and collects are objects that make him feel young but also successful because, as a kid, Jon couldn’t afford to buy a toy like The Porsche Lego set that cost $400, but now he can. 

Books are examples of objects that make him feel inspired. Don’t we all feel the same about books? He also mentioned a bowl of acorns he keeps on his desk because an acorn symbolizes potential, which is what all his excellent book is about. 

Cool is something we define, like he humorously said, “Cool is the younger cousin of successful. They’re related, but not exactly the same”. Jon feels cool when he uses his notebook on a plane to write ideas.

Objects that make Jon feel connected could be mementos from family members, like the Bible his grandfather used to have, with his scribblings all over. Objects that make you feel connected could be reminders that you belong to a community, like a Harley motorcycle. 

Jon invited us to use these feelings as filters when we buy new things and declutter our house. If an object does not invoke any of the above feelings, it may be time to let it go.

Just for fun, here are some objects I own for each category:

  1. Younger (Prettier?): My makeup, I love makeup. My stationery, I feel so excited when I go into a stationery store, and I display lots of it on my desk.
  2. Successful: Elegant shoes and blazers. My planner. My podcast microphone.
  3. Inspired: Magnet souvenirs on my fridge from our trips. My books. My home desk. Empty and full notebooks and stationery again.
  4. Cool: My glasses. My timers, all of them. My starfish key chain from Greece. The Titan collectible book by Seth Godin.
  5. Connected: The little spiritual altar on my desk. Books. The altMBA graduation coin. Printed photos (I don’t have many of those, which means a project is on the horizon) and my phone.

Did you like these object filters as much as I did? 

Can you create a list of objects you own that make you feel terrific, then categorize them according to one of these five categories?

It’s a fun self-awareness exercise. 

What Your Treasures Truly Reveal About Your Desires

How to choose what to focus on before the end of the year?

Bardees, , 166 Comments

Use your feelings:

  • What would be a relief to get over with before the end of the year? 
  • What is something don’t you want to be talking about planning to do next year? Instead, you want to say it’s done!

Use joy and regret:

  • Joy: Yes! It would be great to get this done. 
  • Regret: I would regret not getting this done now!

Use the calendar:

  • Is there an event you want to be ready for?
  • Is there an externally-imposed deadline that you need to meet?  

If you listed several answers, let these questions help you prioritize :

  • Is there a sense of urgency, time-sensitive or otherwise?
  • Did you promise to do it? 
  • Are you expected to do it?
  • Is it required by your management? 
  • What is at stake if you don’t get it done? 

Tip: Replace (the end of the year) with the end of the week/month/quarter, your Birthday, Christmas, Ramadan, or trip. You get the picture. 

How to choose what to focus on before the end of the year?

What are you working on this month?

Bardees, , 3 Comments

Have you set your goals for this month yet?

If you are not sure how to do so, here are some suggestions for you:

Let your Past Inspire You

The easiest way to set monthly goals would be to review the last month. How did you do?

Rate your key life areas on a scale from 1-10, then write the reason for each rating.

  • Health: How you feel about your body and energy level. 
  • Mental/Emotional: How you feel about your psychological well-being. 
  • Relationships: How you feel about your relationship to: 
    • Spouse/Significant other. 
    • Friends.
    • Family.
  • Finances: Your personal financial situation and your family’s.
  • Work: Your 9-5 job and side projects.  
  • Spiritual Growth: Your connection to God. 
  • Learning: Your educational development. 
  • Personal Environment: Your home and work environment.  
  • Fun & Recreation: Your hobbies, playtime, relaxation, and adventure experiences.  
  • Service & Contribution: How you serve the world/volunteering. 

 If you have done a recent rating, compare the two ratings, and see what changed.

The lowest rating is a good indication of what needs more attention from you in the coming weeks. You could set your goals based on your insights from the different ratings.

You can also take goals from last month that you have not accomplished yet, and move them to the new month. But first, it is vital to check why you didn’t achieve them in the first place. What’s the blocking point? 

For example, I have not meditated but once or twice last month. When I dug deeper, I noticed the friction. The area where I used to meditate is full of clutter due to moving some furniture around, so I decided to declutter that area and get back to my good habit this month. 

Let Your Future Inspire You

You can set your monthly goals by looking over the month ahead; what’s coming up soon? Do you have an event to plan for? A birthday, an anniversary, a meeting? While such events might not be personal goals, they are still projects that will take a good chunk of your time which you need to consider.

Are You a Goal-setting Pro?

  • You can check your list of annual goals to see which of them fits this season of your life. 
  • You can check your word of the year to come up with ideas on how to bring it to life this month.

Success Secrets

Think about when you will work on your goals. Until you set time to work on your goals, they will keep floating out there. Book yourself. I usually set time to work on goals on the mornings of my weekends, or when I know the kids will be occupied, so I have an hour or two to myself. 

Write your monthly goals on a piece of paper that you see daily. I tape them to my computer screen usually. Visibility is key to success. Don’t keep that paper for more than a quarter there. Replace it. I have recently started taping my weekly goals to my screen, and it helped me stick to them.

Habits Reminder

As for the habits you want to grow in the new month, you need to define them, decide when you will do them during the day, write them in your habit tracker, and, just like goals, keep them visible. I usually track the same habits for a quarter and then come up with new habits to track in the new quarter. For example, I tracked washing the dishes for a while, and then I added the habit of wiping kitchen surfaces later.

Are you ready to set goals? Do you feel more excited about this month? Let me know if this post was helpful to you; I’d love to know your thoughts.

What are you working on this month?

Is it the right time?

Bardees, , , 5 Comments

Years ago, I used to buy courses to do in summer and then feel bad about not finishing them. I thought that I was the kind of person who did not finish what she had started.

As I became more reflective and also self-forgiving, I knew better. I realized that, in most cases, it was all about timing. 

Choosing the right time to do courses matters a lot. Choosing the right time to start habits matters a lot. Choosing the right time to work on your goals matters a lot.

Continue reading “Is it the right time?” →
Is it the right time?