Feeling Ah-Maze-ing!

I woke up with tons of energy this morning and I felt fit and strong.  Except for my calves were super tight, I think from PowerLift Fri.  Oh well! Lots of stretching today!  I am sooo excited about doing measurements tomorrow- I can't wait for Monday to get here!  You know you've given 100% when you're excited about seeing those results and not dreading them.  Which gets me to this week's golden nugget of knowledge (and don't think I'll have my act together enough to do this each week!).

I told you how much I love FranklinCovey's (7 Habits) concepts in the first post.  You can apply them to anything!  Business, school, families, marriage, reaching goals (like weight loss).

I ran across The 4 Disciplines of Execution  I had learned about back in my prior life as a working girl and thought-wow!yes! revisiting this info will help me on my trek to getting fit!  Why didn't I think of it before?

We all make goals, but for the most part, we never really attain them.  You can even make SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) goals, but somehow we lack in the executing of reaching those goals.  I saw it often at my old workplace and people would beat their heads against the wall trying to figure out how to get off this merry-go-round.

The 4DX (as it's called) help close that gap between goal planning and achievement through HOW you execute reaching your goals.  There's a whole book about this by Dr. Stephen R. Covey's son, Sean Covey, but in a nutshell:

Discipline 1- Focus on the Wildly Important Goals (WIGs).  The Law of Diminishing Returns (I think that's what it's called?) states the more goals you have, the less likely you are to achieve any of them.  You're juggling too many balls in the air and never really make any progress to the finish line.  Three WIGs are the absolute most you should have on your plate at any time.  One or two are, in fact, better.  If all of your energy and purpose is focused on achieving that ONE goal- how can you go wrong?

Discipline 2- Acting on Lead Measures.  This concept CHANGED MY LIFE.  I am stunned our society doesn't function with this mentality.  Lead measures are measure we can track and influence at any time during our execution that will make a direct impact on our end results.  Lag measures are the final measures (results) that we are not able to influence or change (what's done is done). Example: Weight loss! What do people losing weight do to see if they're losing weight or not?  They step on the scale usually.  What does the scale show?  Your end result.  Your LAG measure.  You can do anything at that moment to influence or change the results staring back up at you.  You've gotten to the end of your weight loss week, you've weighed in and cross your fingers.  What measure(s) would be better predictors of your results? LEAD measures!  What can you directly control and influence during the week to get those LAG results?  It could be caloric intake, exercise frequency, vitamin or water intake, sticking to a meal plan, etc.  You can directly control these LEAD measures at any time and if you're doing the right things it will very, most likely show up on the scale at the end of the week! Success!
Of course there's workplace examples too, but this is getting to be a long post!

Discipline 3- Keeping a Compelling Scoreboard.  Face Palm! This part I wasn't doing as of yet so I started immediately.  A compelling scoreboard should be simple and informative enough to tell you if you're "winning" or "losing" the battle.  Anyone should be able to look at your scoreboard and be able to instantly interpret if things are going well or headed south without even knowing or understanding what your goals are.  It could be a simple, daily red dot/green dot, thumbs up/thumbs down, etc.  Lean Manufacturing concepts include this kind of score-keeping.  The scoreboard should be in a very public area so it's seen often, stares you in the face, haunts your dreams...

Discipline 4- Creating a Cadence of Accountability.  A regular rhythm of checking in, reporting results, identifying immediate issues in lead measures, celebrating wins, is what makes all of the above work.  This last step must be of highest importance to you, the team, the company otherwise you can't be held accountable on a regular basis.  Goals lose their significance when you aren't actively seeking them.  I've seen many great goal-planning sessions be for not because these accountability meetings get pushed back, cancelled, not all team members show- everything that communicates "these goals are no longer a priority". And why should you waste your time on something that isn't a priority?  You must have a planned schedule and method of checking in and stating your progress for you to execute any of your goals.

So for me:
D1- My WIG is to get back to pre-baby measurements
D2- My Lead Measures are eating Paleo daily (except for scheduled non-Paleo meals) and meeting all of my exercise plan for the week.  My Lag Measures are the scale, tape measurements, and clothes size
D3- My wall calendar in the kitchen has stickers on it now! If  I wanted to get fancy I would have printed up a sheet where I could track if I ate and exercised according to plan that day.  But I would most likely not be good about printing out the sheets and it's one more piece of paper to clutter my kitchen.  The calendar is there, it works, it's very visible, and the stickers are in the adjacent drawer. I get a sticker if I have met my plan for the day.  I get a half sticker if I make one of the two plans, and nothing if I mess up.
D4- My blog!  Who cares no one is reading it?  It's making me take daily accountability for my actions- I can't help but not Win! I've set aside a time (Liam's morning nap) during the week (need to figure out a plan for the weekends), I'm making it a priority, and I'm reporting my Lead Measures so hopefully tomorrow my Lag Measures will reflect all my hard work!

Just call me The Executioner!