Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year? More importantly, have you kept them?
I once heard an amazing statistic about such annual goals: 91 million Americans make a New Year’s resolution each year, and here’s the startling part—70 million of them break those commitments by the end of the first week.
I can’t point to a scientific study that explains why so many people fail in this regard. But if I had to make an educated guess, I’d say it has something to do with the measurability—or lack thereof—of the resolutions.
Let’s say your goal is to read more books about leadership and career development this year. Which resolution are you more likely to keep: “I’m going to read more this year than I read last year,” or “I’m going to read two chapters every day”?
When you attach a measurement to an intention, you’re not just blindly shooting for some ambiguous goal. You have a real way to gauge your progress, which makes it much more likely that you will actually have some progress to gauge.
This is a key principle to remember as you start tackling the self-improvement projects. You cannot manage what you cannot measure. If growth in a certain area is essential to your success, you have to find a way to measure your improvement in that area. Otherwise, you won’t improve.
Here are six other insights about improvement that will help you to develop—and stick to—a blueprint for your own personal growth.
- Set realistic expectations for your improvement.
Ian MacGregor says, “I work on the same principle as people who train horses. You start with low fences, easily achieved goals, and you work up. It is important in management never to ask people to try to accomplish goals they can’t accept.”In other words, set realistic expectations for yourself. Think about what you can tackle in a day, because whatever you tackle today, you also need to tackle tomorrow and the next day.
- Continual change is essential for continual improvement.
This is one of the great paradoxes of success: The things which got you there are seldom the things which keep you there. There’s no way around it. If you want to improve, you have to change. - Motivation gets you started; habits keep you going.
You can only stay fired up about working out at 5 a.m. (or learning to speak German, or teaching yourself how to build an Internet site, or whatever you’re working on) for so long. After the novelty wears off, the daily discipline you established early in the process will spur you to continue. - We overestimate what we can do in a month, and we underestimate what we can do in a year.
As a society, we are infatuated with big and fast. We’re always looking for a shortcut or a quicker way. But as anyone who has ever lost weight and kept it off will tell you, the improvements made over time are the ones that last. - Focus.
Notice what well-known psychologist William James said about this: “If you would be rich, you will be rich; and if you would be good, you will be good; and if you would be learned, you will be learned. But wish for one thing exclusively, and don’t at the same time wish for a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”His point? You can’t achieve everything. You have to decide what is most important, and focus on that.
- Spend 80 percent of your time working on your strengths.
As I often say, people don’t pay for average. Rather than trying to improve weak skills, devote most of your energy to developing your gifts and abilities. This might sound like a strange bit of advice, but think about it.If, on a scale of one to ten, your marketing abilities are about a two, hard work might bring you up to a five, but that’s still average. If you want to succeed, you must figure out what your strengths are and grow in those areas.
When I talk about strengths and weaknesses, I’m referring to skills. Two weaknesses that must be addressed are a lack of self-discipline and a bad attitude. You could have all the skills in the world, but if you have a poor attitude or you lack self-discipline, you will literally sabotage yourself.
Finally, as you formulate your strategy for self-improvement and begin to work on areas that need refinement (or perhaps even a complete overhaul), ask this question continually: Is what I am doing today getting me closer to my goal tomorrow?
If so, you’re on the right track. If not, there’s no time like the present to regroup and start moving in the right direction once again.
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John Maxwell grew up in the 1950s in the small Midwestern city of Circleville, Ohio. John's earliest childhood memory is of knowing that he would someday be a pastor. He professed faith in Christ at the age of three, and reaffirmed that commitment when he was 13. At age 17, John began preparing for the ministry. He attended Circleville Bible College, earning his bachelor's degree in 1969. In June of that same year, he married his sweetheart, Margaret, and moved to tiny Hillham, Indiana, where he began his first pastorate.
While serving in his second church, Maxwell began to study the correlation between leadership effectiveness and ministry effectiveness. On July 4, 1976, while preaching at a service commemorating America's bicentennial, John sensed that God was calling him into a ministry to pastors. Within days after that event, pastors began to contact him, asking for his assistance in nurturing their churches. Over the next four years, on an informal basis, John helped scores of fellow pastors. Then, in 1980, he was asked to become Executive Director of Evangelism for the Wesleyan denomination.
Though his time at Wesleyan headquarters was productive, John soon realized that his deeper desire was to help pastors from numerous denominations. He knew that desire would be unfulfilled if he were to stay at denominational headquarters. As a result, in 1981 John accepted the call to return to the pastorate, this time at Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego, California area. But he did so with the church's blessing to pursue his vision. The Skyline congregation allowed him to continue mentoring and assisting pastors even as he led them to new levels.
In 1985, as he continued to equip and encourage other pastors, John took the next crucial step in leadership development. He founded a new company called INJOY and created the INJOY Life Club, featuring a monthly tape for leaders. The fledging operation, established in the corner of a garage, was soon bursting at the seams. The INJOY Life Club tapes were received with great enthusiasm, and the number of subscriptions quickly increased from hundreds to thousands. Simultaneously, the demand for other resources and seminars exploded. Pastors from coast to coast were responding, and their desire for help was even greater than John had anticipated.
As the years passed, INJOY began demanding more and more of John's time. In 1995, he resigned from his position as senior pastor at Skyline following a very fruitful 14-year tenure. The church had tripled in size and its lay ministry involvement had increased ten-fold. Dr. Maxwell is in great demand today as a speaker. Through his bestselling books, audio and video resources, and major conferences, he communicates directly with more than one million people every year. He is frequently asked to speak for organizations such as Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family, but his greatest joy and desire is to help pastors become better leaders.
Because the need for leadership development knows no borders, John established EQUIP, a non-profit organization which trains leaders in urban communities, academic institutions, and within international organizations. EQUIP is also spearheading a movement which has enlisted more than one million pastoral prayer partners who covenant to pray specifically for those who shepherd God's flock.
John continues to seek new opportunities to help churches and church leaders. He knows that one thing is constant: the only hope for the world is salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives life abundantly.