[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #1

[Dr. Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2009 Meta-Reflections #1

January 5, 2009

 

Preparing for a Meta New Year

   Part I

 

 

HAVE A META NEW YEAR!

 

 

On January first I sat down with a sheet of paper and wrote out a list of my
dreams, my goals, my resolutions, my aims, my intentions, and my purposes
for 2009.  On that day also I received emails from half a dozen people who
sent me their list-the things they wrote down that they were committed to
make happen in the new year.  Three other people, Neuro-Semantic trainers
and Meta-Coaches also wrote and told me that they reviewed their Matrix
Business Plan on January 1st.

 

It's natural that people do these things as a new year begins.  It's even
more natural for people committed to the unleashing of their potentials to
do this.  It is especially appropriate that people in NLP and
Neuro-Semantics do this.  Why?  Because they have been trained in the power
and elegance of the Well-Formed Outcome Pattern.   This pattern is generally
taught on Day One of NLP Practitioner (and Coaching Essentials) and of
course, we also use it on Day One of Coaching Mastery (ACMC) for developing
the competency of creating effective KPIs.

 

If you know the SMART goal distinctions, the Well-Formed Outcome expands and
enriches those distinctions: Specific (detailed, concise), Measurable
(quantifiable), Achievable (realistic, feasible), Relevant (high value,
profitable, desirable, practical), Time-based (timely, finite).  I've
included the ten criteria of the Well-Formed Outcome at the end of this
article.

 

Would you like to have a Happy Meta New Year?  You can.  Begin by accessing
your meaning-making powers, and especially your intentionality, to design
your life with a robust sense of purpose, direction, and focus.   Now if I
were your fierce-conversation coach for a day, here are some of the
questions I'd explore with you.

 

1) What results do you want in 2009?

What results do you want in your health and fitness?  In your business and
career?  In your skills and competencies?  In your finances and investments?
In your relationships?  In your hobbies and recreations?  In your
contributions and legacy? 

 

As you consider the results that you want to achieve in this new year, do
you experience these results as lofty, noble, challenging, and energizing?
Quality control them in terms of these four attributes.  How lofty are the
results that you want?  Are they lofty enough to create an inner excitement?
To enable you to stretch forward and transcend your current life?  How noble
are the results you're going after?  Are they noble enough to get your ego
out of the way?  Is your goal compelling?   "The greater danger for most of
us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting
our aim too low and achieving our mark."  (Michelangelo).

 

2) What results are you getting now?

What performance indicators are you using now to evaluate and measure the
results you are currently getting?  What have you been doing that has
resulted in the current conditions of your life?

 

The fact is-you are getting results now!  You are getting results in your
health and fitness, your body weight and strength.  But what?  Look in a
mirror and you'll see some of them!  Ask someone who will be honestly candid
and you'll discover others.  What relationship results are you now getting?
Communication results?  Love and affection results?  Are you financially
independent or are you still working for money?  Are you a slave to monthly
bills?  Will this be the year that you begin to create a foundation of
wealth so that you can stop serving money?

 

3) Have you assumed complete responsibility for your results?

Who is responsible for your health?  Your financial well-being?  Your sense
of love and affection?  Who's responsible for finding your passion and
living passionately?

 

If the answer that immediately comes to your lips is not, "I am!"  Or if it
does not immediately come with a sense of celebration and excitement, "I
am!" then will this be the year that you assume complete response-ability
for your inner powers?  Will this be the year that you'll stop
passing-the-buck or playing the blame game?  Will you step up to be a fully
response-able person?

 

4) Do you have a clear an specific target for the results you want?

How clear and precise are your goals for the new year?  Are they measurable?
How will you measure them?  How will you know that you have achieved the
results that you want and that you can now "check them off?" 

 

Vague and ambiguous goals without a time-line or a measurable scale
masquerade as goals, but are not well-formed goals.  They are more
wishes-things you want and hope for, but for which you don't have a
well-formed outcome.  Is this the year you'll stop fluffing around in
dreamland and come down to reality by making your goals precise and
specific?

 

5) Do you have a clear and specific strategy for how you will achieve the
results you want?

How will you achieve your goal?  What will you do?  When will you start?
How often will you implement the strategy?  Do you have your action plan
written out so that you can use it as a checklist of activities that will
bring you the desired results?  Is your goal actionable?  Can you take
action on it?

 

Those who are high performers have a strategy.  They have a well-desired
plan that they can follow and implement.  They also have it written out.
Trying to keep the strategy in your mind seriously reduces its
effectiveness.  The neuro-muscular activity of actually writing it down puts
muscle into the goal and enables it to get into your muscles as
muscle-memory.  Mark Twain said, "The secret of getting ahead is getting
started.  The secret of getting started is breaking your complex
overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the
first one."

 

6) Have you identified sabotages that could wreck the success of your
desired results?

Are you unstopable?  Could anything stop you from fully and completely
achieve your goals?  What?  Do you know the things might seduce you away
from the results you want?  What's your plan for dealing with those
sabotages?

 

Top performers know that it's unrealistic to assume that merely setting a
goal will make it happen.  There's lots of things that can recruit you away
from implementing your goal.  Do you know the things that can get your way?
What structures will you put in place so that you will not be taken away
from your highest objectives?

 

7) What are the key success factors for you to achieve peak results?

What are the critical pieces in your plan for achieving the highest results?
Do you know them?  What will you have to do to find them?  What are the most
important steps?

 

Getting the results you want requires certain actions on your part.  Some
are absolutely critical and essential, others are good and supportive.  Do
you know the difference?  What are the implementation steps that you cannot
skip on?  Have you prioritized the necessary and sufficient steps from those
that are extra and add to the execution of your strategy?

 

8) How intense is your focus on your desired results?

If you were to gauge the intensity of your ability to concentrate on the
goal, how high is your intensity?  Is it high enough?  What will you need to
do to increase that intensity?  Can your focus be broken or interrupted?
What would sabotage your focus?

 

Focus is a matter of intention and purpose and it grows from the
meaningfulness of the objective.  It also is a matter of prioritizing so
that you know first things.  And it's a matter of competency in being able
to step in and out of a highly focused state, a genius state.  Is this the
year that you'll get to an APG training to develop a fully functioning
genius state?  "Once I am set on a goal, it becomes difficult to deflect
me." (Albert Einstein).

 

9) What feedback do you want or need that will support you getting the
results you want?

What feedback on your actions would enhance your competency and shape your
take skills to the next level?  Who will give you that feedback?  How often
will you seek that feedback?  How open are you to that feedback?  How quick
will you act on that feedback?

 

You need feedback, all peak performers do.  Feedback is an incredibly
important secret ingredient for accelerating your learning and shaping your
competencies.  But it takes a lot of ego-strength and a strong sense of self
to be able to look at your behaviors straight-on without defensiveness.

 

10) What benchmarks will you use for measuring when you get your desired
results and knowing when to check it off?

How will you measure your results?  What measurements will you use?  How
will you know to check off the goal as "Achieved!"?

 

This is the whole point of getting a KPI (key performance indicator) and
making sure that the KPI is specific, precise, and measurable.

 

11) Who will you need on your team to actualize your desired results?

Who will support you?  Who will hold you accountable?  Who will you work
with and through?  Who will be a collaborative partner with you?  Whose help
do you need to achieve your goals?

 

Top performers don't go it alone. They are not "lone rangers," but help and
are helped by others.  They collaborate with a win/win attitude.

 

 

Criteria for a Well-Formed Outcome

 

1) Stated and represented Positively:

State what you want, not as what you do not want.  Represent what you will
be doing and thinking.  Create a movie in your mind of life beyond or after
the challenge or problem.

 

2) Sensory-based or empirical: 

Stated in sensory based terms in the hear and now so that your internal
movie will be close and immediate.  Benchmark the specifics in see-fee-hear
actions and behaviors.

 

3) Contextualized:

Describe the contexts of the outcome, when, where, with whom, how often,
etc. 

 

4) Actions steps and stages:

Represent the outcome in terms of processes, the specific steps and stages,
and behaviors which will move you to achieving your goal.  Use verbs rather
than nouns and nominalizations.

 

5) Self initiated and maintained: 

Describe the processes and behaviors that within your own control, that you
can initiate and maintain.

 

6) Resources specified:

Describe the resources you will need to achieve your outcome, how will you
do this? 

 

7) Compelling: 

Describe the outcome in language that you find compelling and motivating.
Use the client's actual words and language.

 

8) Ecologically balanced: 

Describe your outcome in a way that you recognize as balanced and ecological
for all the contexts and relationships of your life.

 

9) Forecasted in a time frame:

Locate the specific actions of the goal on your time-line and its final
achievement.

 

10) Evidence Procedure: 

Identify an evidence procedure that will let you know when you have achieved
your outcome.

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

International Society of Neuro-Semantics

Meta-Coach Training System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

1 970-523-5790 fax

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com> www.neurosemantics.com 

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www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org> www.meta-coaching.org

       <http://www.ns-video.com> www.ns-video.com 

 

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