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Alexandra Reese's Growth Guide

Timely leadership insights to accelerate your growth & impact

   

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was fantastic, and that your 2023 is off to a beautiful start. This edition of the Growth Guide is all about how to make 2023 your best year yet.


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Every leader knows personal goals are important, yet many don’t accomplish theirs. It’s not because they’re lazy or ineffective; their professional accomplishments demonstrate otherwise. It’s because their goals are ineffective. And as a result, they continue to experience the same pain, discomfort, and lack of fulfillment year after year—regardless of how hard they try to change.

 

The key to a fulfilling life lies in setting effective goals for yourself. And today, I’m going to share the five steps to effective goal-setting, so you can create the life, impact, and legacy you desire with greater confidence, ease, and joy.

Conventional wisdom about personal goal-setting is off-the-mark.

Conventional wisdom says you should set personal goals to achieve something specific. For example: double your income in 3 years, do an Ironman triathlon, write a book... You get the picture.

 

Achievement-oriented goals are great for business because they’re specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. In short, they are actionable. Leaders can mobilize their teams to execute with ease. And executives can track teams' movements toward a common goal. 

 

Achievement goals are less appropriate for personal growth and development. This is particularly true if you are an accomplished leader focused on self-actualization, as opposed to baseline skill development.

Here are three ways ways achievement goals derail success:

1. They limit the scope of your growth: You can only work toward so many goals at once. Since achievement goals are necessarily focused, they limit your self-improvement to specific facets of your life.

 

2. They reduce your resilience: Most achievement goals are not entirely within your control. Unexpected changes in your community, organization, family, and personal life can all derail your ability to achieve your target. So if you define success in terms of such achievements, you’re setting yourself up to “fail” if and when the unexpected happens.

 

3. They blind you to new opportunity: Achievement goals necessarily narrow your focus to a specific outcome and course of action. Although this focus may help drive results, it may also blind you from contextual cues that new opportunities and courses of action have emerged.

Self-leadership goals are a better alternative, as they enable you to improve many facets of life at once.

Self-leadership is the awareness, mastery, and growth of who you are and how you show-up in the world. It has three elements:

   

Self-leadership is an investment that generates compound interest. One small change in who you are or how you show-up will create positive ripple effects in everything you do. So instead of focusing narrowly on achieving a single thing, focus on becoming the you capable of achieving many of the things you desire.

     

To create effective personal goals, follow these five steps:

Quick tips to get started: I’d recommend blocking out one 2- to 3-hour block for all five steps, so you can get into and ride a generative, flow state. If you are someone who needs processing time between brainstorming ideas and making decisions, then complete steps 1 to 4 in a single block, take a break, and then complete step 5 in a second block.


I know it's tempting to rush the goal-setting process. Or just skip a couple steps. But don't. When you rush through goal-setting, you let past performance, others' expectations, and cognitive bias influence your future. This structured process will help ensure you set the right goals for you. 

Step 1: Tap into a generative mindset

Why: The mindset from which you set goals will have a dramatic impact on the goals themselves. If you’re feeling pessimistic or down, you will set limiting goals that curtail your potential. If you’re feeling optimistic and uplifted, you will set empowering goals that expand the bounds of your potential. Create the conditions for success by getting yourself into a generative mindset or flow state.

 

How: Each of us has our own unique conditions for flow. Mine involve movement, a healthy meal, and a calm comfortable atmosphere. You may know yours. If not (or you’re curious to explore!), take this short Flow Superpowers quiz by Jamie Wheal.

Step 2: Imagine your ideal life

Why: Creating a vision for what your life could be—if you remove all limitations and allow yourself to step into your full potential—is an important catalyst for growth. When you give yourself permission to dream without constraints, you challenge self-imposed limitations, cultivate a more empowered mindset, and open yourself to nascent opportunities. These mindset shifts are the true gifts of this exercise.

 

Don't worry about creating a single, unified vision for your life through this activity. None of us can predict how our lives will unfold, nor how a shift in circumstances may impact our desires. So it’s perfectly acceptable—and perhaps even desirable—not to have a highly-defined or fixed vision for your life.


How: Using the Wheel of Life as your guide, imagine what your ideal life could look like without constraint or limitation. Consider the impact or result you’d like to achieve, the experiences you’d like to have, and what you’d like to feel. You may create a vision for each segment of the wheel or your life as a whole; do what works best for you. Consider using a mix of mediums (words, images, music, etc.) to tap into all five senses. The more immersed you are in the experience, the richer and more rewarding it will be.

Step 3: Imagine your ideal self

Why: This ideal image of yourself is the most important reference point in your goal-setting process. It is your north star. In the next step, you will compare this image to your current image of yourself to identify strengths you can further leverage and opportunities for growth.

 

How: Project yourself into your future ideal life. Imagine you are the active creator and beneficiary of this ideal life. Using the chart below as your guide, flesh out this ideal image of your future self. This is the same chart I recommended using to guide your 2022 reflection; now, instead of using it to look back, you're using it to project forward. 

You might also use the following prompts to get your creative juices flowing:

  • What does your ideal life say about your purpose, values, and beliefs?
  • What mindsets might your ideal self have?
  • If you were living your full potential, how would you show-up for yourself, your colleagues, and those you love? How would you respond to stress?
  • What would be your impact on others? How would others perceive you?

Step 4: Identify your strengths and opportunities for growth

Why: I always recommend starting with a celebration of your strengths. This will empower you to approach growth opportunities with a positive “can-do” mindset. Once you have celebrated your strengths, you can move on to identifying your growth opportunities. These are the fodder for your self-development goals.

 

How: If you completed a 2022 reflection, now is the time to pull that out! Using that as input, star the items on your ideal image that represent your strengths. Then circle items that represent opportunities for growth.


Now, it’s time to identify possible goals. Reflecting on the starred and circled items, brainstorm possible self-leadership goals. You might use this prompt to jumpstart your brainstorm: “What is the next best step I could take toward my ideal self?”

Step 5: Select goals

Why: Science shows that you can only meaningful work on about two goals at any given time. So, it’s important to winnow your list of possible goals down to one or two priorities to start. You can always build on those later!

 

How: Identifying your shortlist of goals is more art the science. You may already know what guiding questions/ activities work for you. If not, here are a few you can test out:

  • Above all else, what would I like to accomplish in the coming year?
  • What is one daily habit I could introduce that would enable my success?
  • If I could do only one thing to improve myself next year, what would it be?
  • What is the most important thing I could do to better bring my values to life?
  • What is the most fun thing you could do to develop yourself?*

 

*Science shows you’re more likely to stick with goals that are fun to implement, so this is a great filtering question (1)

     

Strong goals are the difference between good and great leaders. When you through setting goals, you let past performance, the expectations of others, and other cognitive biases inform your path forward. If you want to step into your full potential, it's imperative to set intentional goals. This five-step process will help you do just that!


Please reply to this email and let me know how your 2022 reflection and 2023 goal setting goes. I'd love to hear what's on the docket for you in the year ahead!

   

Opportunities to Partner

Your Leadership Mindset Blueprint: What could you achieve if you felt engaged, motivated, and fulfilled--even when times are tough? How would you show-up differently for yourself, your team, and those you love if you felt calm, confident, and in control of your actions and reactions? How would it feel to navigate life with the support of someone who only has your best interests at heart, who listens without judgment, and who supports you in creating the life and legacy of your dreams? This life is possible! And it starts by shifting your mindset. This 4-hour experience will empower you to do just that with dramatic results. Read more and sign-up here.


Growth Mastermind: You’re ready to transform your life, organization, and legacy while building lifelong relationships with other likeminded leaders. The Growth Mastermind integrates coaching, strategic advisory, and peer-to-peer learning to push the bounds of your leadership potential and impact. This unique developmental experience will bring together small groups of four to six growth-minded leaders who are in similar stages of their leadership journeys. Read more and sign-up here.


One-on-one and Team Coaching: You're ready to improve your life, leadership, and impact. As your coach, I'll work with you (and your leadership team, if desired) to clarify your vision and purpose, set bold goals, build an actionable strategy, and cultivate the mindset, beliefs, and behaviors necessary to achieve sustainable results without pain and stress. 


Growth Advisory: You've been working diligently to grow your organization, but have yet to achieve sustainable results. Or perhaps you've done exceptionally well and are ready to take things to a new level. I can help you hone a compelling vision and strategy, then execute with confidence, ease, and joy. 


   
     

Links to Past Editions

Here are links to the first 12 editions:

Dec 22Glean powerful insights from 2022 w/ this 3-step reflection process

Dec 15: Nine proven strategies to eliminate stress

Dec 1: Three things you can do now to boost success in 2023

Nov 17Eight signs you've got a feedback problem & how to fix it!

Nov 10: Make performance management your unfair advantage

Oct: 1/ The four elements of a high-performing leadership team, 2/ Cultivate an empowered leadership mindset

Sep: 1/ Replan for Q4, 2/ Jumpstart growth through self-awareness, 3/ Three Qs to save you BIG in your next strategy process 

Aug: 1/ Adapt your strategy process, 2/ Support your mid-level managers, 3/ Halt your mid-career crisis

Jul: 1/ Win with values, 2/ How to get hybrid work right, 3/ Vacation like a European

Jun: 1/ The mid-year review, 2/ Sharpen your creative skills, 3/ Win through failure

May: 1/ Prepare for downturns; 2/ Better, faster decisions; 3/ Embrace difference to improve performance

Apr: 1/ The Q1 review, 2/ Prime yourself for success, 3/ Focus your innovation investments for impact


     

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