OTHER E-BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
‘How to achieve what you want when you want’
7 powerful principles of successful thinking for work, life and everything
by Andy Gilbert, this FREE 33 page e-book is packed with ideas and tips on the 7 principles of successful thinking. It contains 8 top tips to help you define your goals, 5 steps to help you plan your priorities and yet more tips on strengthening your self-belief, how to involve others more successfully and how to make choices. Put into action immediately these ideas will greatly increase your probability of achieving what you want, when you want.
Each of our powerful principles of successful thinking is also the subject of a separate e-book, giving more detail and more tips to help you.
To obtain your copy of this FREE e-book simply visit www.gomadthinking.com
THINKING PRINCIPLE ONE
‘How to develop a personal passion’
Practical tips to increase your motivation to achieve
by Andy Gilbert & Annagail Davies, explains thinking principle one of our Solution Focused ThinkingTM System in greater depth. As well as discovering how to avoid blaming others, you’ll also get great tips on how to increase your motivation to achieve and save yourself masses of time in the process!
THINKING PRINCIPLE TWO
‘How to determine what you want and when you want it’
Pragmatic steps to leaping into the top 5% of goal definers
by Andy Gilbert & Rob Smith, gives you tips on defining exactly what it is you want to achieve, as well as helping to increase your self-belief that you can achieve it. It will make your task of deciding priorities, which we cover in this e-book, really easy!
THINKING PRINCIPLE FOUR
‘How to create a self-belief that you can and will achieve’
Powerful insights into building the confidence to succeed
by Andy Gilbert & Graham Field, expands on Henry Ford’s famous quote “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right". It gives a powerful insight into just how much we are governed by limiting beliefs, and how we can harness the power of our minds to achieve so much more than we ever dreamed possible.
THINKING PRINCIPLE FIVE
‘How to get others on your side’
Definitive guidelines on involving others to achieve what you want
by Andy Gilbert & Caron Lindley, gives an explanation of the five types of people that you can involve to help you achieve your goal. Research has shown that the bigger your goal, the better your chances of success if you involve others to help. If you only ever involve the people closest to you, then this e-book is for you!
THINKING PRINCIPLE SIX
‘How to make personal choices and take responsibility’
Insightful ideas to help you own your thoughts and actions
by Andy Gilbert & Ken Hudson, takes a hard look at responsibility and its consequences. Personal responsibility lies at the heart of our Solution Focused ThinkingTM System. Without it the system collapses. Without it, you are missing out on success, respect and leadership. It even promises to be liberating!
THINKING PRINCIPLE SEVEN
‘How to guarantee success’
Clear and simple tips on taking action and measuring results
by Andy Gilbert & Rob Smith, is a hard-hitting finale to the seven key principles of Solution Focused ThinkingTM. As well as challenging your thinking, and challenging you to put it all into practice, there is valuable advice on measuring goals, especially difficult-to-measure things like ‘confidence’. Plus an invitation for you to choose to make a difference.
‘The Making A Difference Workbook’
30 activities and exercises for successful thinking about work, life and everything
by the Go MAD Team, is an essential guide to help you put into practice successful thinking. The workbook is structured to allow you to think through key issues and turn them into practical applications that you can put to use immediately. It will help you take a step closer to what you want to achieve.
To order any of the above e-books, simply visit www.gomadthinking.com
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 5
5 ways that this e-book will help you
1. Use the three letter word 6
Focus on how you can achieve what you want
2. Prepare for the journey 6
Five areas to consider
3. Control self instead of managing time 7
4. Make lists of possible actions 8
10 areas to consider when generating possibilities
5. What could possibly stop you? 9
2 more areas of possibility thinking
6. Going for the s t r e t c h… 9
3 questions to increase your options
7. Sorting out priorities 10
8. Differentiate between urgent and important 10
9. Identify your sub-goals 10
A reminder of SMART goal defining
10. How to decide the elements of your action plan 11
11. Get a system 12
Plan to take action
12. Clear out the clutter 12
13. The plan is your flexible friend 14
14. Some final questions 14
7 questions to help you plan priorities
15. Learning summary 15
16. Where to go from here 15
Liability disclaimer
The material contained in this e-book is general and is not intended as advice on any particular matter. Go MAD Research & Consulting Group and the author expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person whatsoever in respect of anything done by any person in reliance, whether in whole or in part, on this e-book. Please take appropriate legal advice before acting on any information in this e-book.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to thinking principle three of our Solution Focused ThinkingTM System with its three key parts: possibilities, priorities and planning in time. We have looked at the ‘why’ of what you want to make a difference about (‘How to develop a personal passion’), then the ‘what’ (‘How to determine what you want and when you want it’). Now it’s time to consider ‘how’ we can achieve our goal. If you haven’t read the first two e-books – don’t worry! The book will still give you some great tips.
Solution Focused Thinking is the result of over 4000 hours of research into how people make a difference in their lives. It is a successful thinking system. Each time you read a bit more about one of the thinking principles in Solution Focused ThinkingTM, not only are you helping yourself think more clearly, more effectively and more quickly, but you are also helping yourself become more successful.
Take
Action
Involve
Others
Self
Belief Personal Responsibility
Plan Priorities Reason
Why Define
Goal
Go MAD Framework
This e-book is particularly for those of you who tend to grab hold of the first idea and run with it. Don’t get me wrong – it might be a very good idea. But what if there were an even better idea that could come from a bit more thinking? Perhaps one that would make achieving the goal that bit easier, perhaps save that bit more money, or generate even more sales. It’s not too high a price to pay to make more time in advance to PLAN!
This e-book will help you:
Stretch your thinking on how to produce loads of possibilities
Make easier decisions on priorities
Plan your time wisely
Identify time-stealers
Take a flexible approach to your plan.
So, if you haven’t already thought of at least 30 different ideas about achieving your goal, read on!
Now that you have a reason why and defined what you want, the time has come to consider how it can be done. This three letter word often separates those who achieve what they want from those who won’t.
Quite often those who fail to achieve their goals have asked themselves, “Can I do it?” and are guided by impossibility.
Usually those who are successful have asked themselves “How might I do it?” and so have devised a way forward based upon possibilities. They have self-belief that they can do it and just need to discover how.
“Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision just passes the time.
Vision with action can change the world.”
Joel A. Barker
You have identified your destination, your goal, and know why you want to go there (your reason why). Now you need to get ready for the journey and plan your priorities before you take action. Time spent planning will be saved many times over as you progress towards achieving your goal.
You have already broken your larger goal into smaller sub-goals. Now you need to identify possible actions that will take you towards achieving each of your sub-goals. The following sections will allow you to:
Consider how to make the best use of your time
Identify additional resources you require
Prioritise your actions
Test your planning system
Discover ways of working smarter instead of harder.
I recognise that the thought of planning and preparation can be a turn off for some people. It is for me on occasions. If this happens, remind yourself of your strong reason why you want to make this difference. If you developed a motivational trigger (highlighted in the e-book on ‘How to develop a personal passion’), then it will help if you can use this.
“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”
Arthur Ashe
There is no such thing as time management. Time cannot be controlled or managed; it just passes. The only thing you can manage is yourself and how you use your time.
At the start of each week, you are given 168 hours. Each day you receive 1440 minutes. Each 8-hour working day you have 28,800 seconds. At the end of a working day, you have at least the same amount of time at your disposal.
Everyone has the same amount of time. You cannot save time; you can only spend it. Time spent doing one thing cannot be spent on another. You have to prioritise and make choices; it is totally up to you.
The diagram on the next page shows the links between ‘personal responsibility’, ‘reason why’, and ‘plan priorities’ – three of the thinking principles in our Solution Focused Thinking System. Personal responsibility lies at the heart of the system and affects many of the choices that we make. This highlights two issues:
the importance of the choices we make regarding the elements of the Go MAD Solution Focused Thinking System
affecting any one thinking principle in the system will have a knock-on effect on others.
Personal Responsibility
How
much do I want this? How
will I choose to spend my time?
Plan Priorities Reason
Why
How often have you heard the comment, “But I haven’t got time!” Translating this into Solution Focused ThinkingTM language, what it really means is, “I choose not to make time, because I don’t consider this activity important enough and haven’t got a strong enough reason why.”
Making a difference involves choosing how you spend your time, prioritising which things need more or less time and allocating future time to achieving those goals you consider to be important.
The key word to emphasise is possible. It might be too early to decide definite actions, so keep thinking about possibilities, ideas and alternatives, however ‘off-the-wall’ and odd they may seem.
Identify a goal you want to achieve and write it on a piece of paper. Then take each of the questions below and in relation to your goal write down your answers to each question.
List the possible actions you need to take in order for your goal to be achieved. Include all the ideas you have.
Add to your list the names of others who can help you.
Add to your list possible ways of involving these other people.
Write down ways in which you could possibly get the buy-in of these people to help you.
Write a separate list of possible assumptions you have made about achieving your goal.
Challenge these assumptions to stimulate further possible actions to include on your original list.
Identify any resources required to help you achieve your goal and add them to your list.
Add to your list possible ways of acquiring these resources.
Imagine that you had the world’s expert sitting next to you right now, what possible advice might he or she give?