What does success look like? Is achievement in life about realising your big goals or maintaining a good work-life balance?

In many ways, success is a bit of both. Certainly, unless we maintain some balance, we will likely undermine our ability to achieve our goals. It is important to remember that the journey to achieving our ambitions is actually as important as the destination itself. Success is daily progress, continual personal growth and character development, as well as hitting our targets.

“Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.” – Zig Ziglar

So, if we want to achieve success and our life goals, we need something equivalent to work-life balance. The problem with thinking about balance in these terms is that it is purely binary. But work is an aspect of life, not a separate entity, and there are many other aspects of our lives that we should consider when maintaining balance. I found this out the hard way when I burnt out, physically and emotionally.

The danger of getting out of balance: physical and mental burnout

One day I woke up, but I could hardly move. I felt smothered under a leaden blanket – utterly drained of energy. Trying to sit up induced waves of fatigue making me fight for breath. What was happening? It was as though someone had replaced my body. This faulty one could surely not belong to me.

I assumed I had some infection, probably the flu. But a day in bed became a week and I was still no better. By the end of the second week, I was getting scared. I had never been ill for this long before. I wondered if I would ever recover.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” – Jack Welch

But it was not a virus that I was suffering from, it was fatigue. I had burnt out. I was suffering from complete mental and physical exhaustion. Having run my tank to empty, and my body had shut down. I did eventually recover, but it was many weeks before I was close to normal.

On top of feeling bad physically, I also felt terrible mentally and emotionally. I had not realised how much of my self-worth related to my physical well-being until it was taken away from me. I also felt guilty. Guilty for letting people down at work. Guilty that my wife had to look after me. And guilty that I did not have a ‘proper illness.’

And why now? I had been tired before. In my military career, on exercises and operations around the world, I had been frequently tested to the limits of my endurance. But now? My colleagues were my friends, and I was passionate about what I was doing. I lived in a comfortable flat with a loving wife. How could I be so weak as to collapse?

Avoiding burnout by keeping balance

In the aftermath of my burnout, I started to examine my life and the causes of my exhaustion. Medically, I had not developed full-blown chronic fatigue syndrome but my illness had shaken me. Situationally, there was no one moment or big event that tipped the balance. My collapse was the compounded effect of a lifestyle I had been living for several years.

I realised that I needed to to keep my life in better balance and to do this I would need metrics, like dials on a car, to monitor. I researched what were considered the key things that are needed to keep physically and mentally healthy, and then created my own way of managing my well-being. This became my mental activity monitor.

“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.” –  Epicurus

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Keeping life balance by watching your metrics

When I am ski-touring I rely quite heavily on my watch. That is because it does a lot more than just tell the time. It is also an altimeter and smartwatch which allows me to monitor metrics such as my speed, elevation, and heart rate. When trying to pace myself, high in the mountains, over long distances, the ability to be able to measure my progress is invaluable. Watching the dials gives me the short-term indicators to ensure longer-term success.

That is why, in The Right Questions Framework, the tool we use to monitor our balance and ensure success is the Activity Monitor. This conceptual tool helps to think about the factors that we need to manage in order to stay in good physical and mental health, as well as keeping on track to achieve our goals.

The Right Questions Balance Tool: The Activity Monitor

The conceptual Activity Monitor is broken down into four major quadrants that each have four further sub-divisions. Each of these sixteen elements can be used as a metric to manage our well-being across various important aspects of life.

This breaks down in the following way:

• Body
  • Health, fitness
  • Diet, nutrition
  • Sleep, rest
  • Vacation, holiday
• Heart
  • Emotions, feelings
  • Family, community
  • Friends, network
  • Relationships, romance
• Mind
  • Career, vocation
  • Money, finance
  • Learning, personal development
  • Safety, security
• Soul
  • Mindfulness, thankfulness
  • Spirituality, faith
  • Reflection, understanding
  • Fun, recreation

To help make these qualitative factors more quantitative, we can rate how we think we are doing in each area by giving ourselves a score from 1 to 10.

A higher rating usually means we are doing okay, whereas a lower ranking reflects an area where we likely need to take action. A low score is like a dial going into the red that warns us that this area is unsustainable. For example, you might not get the sleep you need one day, but if this continues, it is likely to compound into a problem. By working on areas of weakness, we also start to build our resilience so that we can cope better in the future.

We may have some scores that are middling or not quite as high as we would like. In these cases, we can then assign actions to help improve the rating. We can ask ourselves, what do I need to do to increase this score by one?

The Activity Monitor Balance Questions

To help you think about your rating, here are some questions to help you:

Body

• Health, fitness
  • How much exercise have I had today/this week? Is it enough?
  • How is my general health? Am I well or sick?
• Diet, nutrition
  • Am I eating at appropriate times or am I snacking too much?
  • What proportion of my meals would be considered healthy?
• Sleep, rest
  • Am I getting more than 7 hours of quality sleep at night?
  • Am I watching screens, snacking or drinking alcohol or caffeine just before trying to sleep?
• Vacation, holiday
  • When is my next day off and how will I protect my recovery time?
  • When was your last vacation? When should you have your next holiday?

Heart

• Emotions, feelings
  • How do I feel today, am I happy or sad, energised or depressed?
  • How well am I managing my negative emotions such as anger or fear?
• Family, community
  • Am I spending quality time with my family and loved ones?
  • How well am I connected to my community?
• Friends, network
  • How well am I maintaining and deepening my friendships?
  • Am I connecting with new individuals and increasing my network with positive people?
• Relationships, romance
  • How fulfilled do I feel in my relationships?
  • Am I getting quality time with my romantic partner or significant other?

Mind

• Career, vocation
  • How satisfied do I feel in my career at the moment?
  • Am I progressing the way I want to in my work?
• Money, finance
  • How secure do I feel financially?
  • How worried am I about money?
• Learning, personal development
  • What are my development goals and how I am progressing?
  • What new thing did I learn today?
• Safety, security
  • Are threats in my physical environment affecting my thoughts and emotions?
  • Am I fearful about the response of people to what I think, say, or do?

Soul

• Mindfulness, thankfulness
  • How thankful am I, or can I be today?
  • How well am I doing in taking time to find peace and enjoy the moment?
• Spirituality, faith
  • How well am I acting out what I believe in?
  • Am I prioritising the things I care most about?
• Reflection, understanding
  • How well am I developing and reaching my potential?
  • How closely am I living to my core values?
• Fun, recreation
  • How much fun have I had today or this week?
  • How much space do I have for my pastimes and recreation?

Improve your life balance and increase your daily sense of well-being

Monitoring your metrics doesn’t just help you maintain balance; it also gives you a daily sense of well-being. It is satisfying to achieve goals, no matter how small, and the measures on our dashboard allow us to tick off small achievements every day.

For example, today I went for a short walk (reflection and mindfulness), wrote an article (vocation), did some exercise (fitness), and had a healthy lunch (nutrition) while listening to a French podcast (learning). After work, I will have supper with my kids (family), play a game (fun) and then make sure I get to bed on time (sleep).

So, you can see, when I look at my day I feel good about it. The metrics give me a sense of achievement, even on an ‘ordinary’ day. This in turn increases my sense of well-being and improves my mental health.

We may not always feel like we are making significant progress towards achieving a big life goal on any single day, but these incremental measures help us. When we look at the smaller things we accomplish, we can be satisfied and appreciate the journey as well as the destination.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

What you prioritise, in your work and your leisure time, is important. It has a cumulative effect – for good or ill – over time. Therefore identifying and setting your priorities is key.

Every day we make decisions that reflect our values and priorities in life. Where we choose to spend our resources of time, energy and money reflect what we think is valuable.

What does it mean to have priorities?

I started playing the guitar in my teens but I had never really improved beyond a certain (and fairly basic) level.  Why? Quite simply it was because I never practised enough.  It was not that I did not like playing the guitar; it was just that I enjoyed other things more.

In my dreams, I could play like Jimi Hendrix.  In my mind’s eye, I could see myself saving the day at a gig, strolling onto the stage to replace an injured lead guitarist and stunning my friends with amazing solos, my fingers a blur on the fretboard!  But there was a big difference between successful guitarists and me. That difference went beyond just raw talent (of which I had very little).

Guitar legends such as Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton would pick a guitar up at the beginning of the day and would hardly put it down until they went to bed; it is like an extension of their body.  I rarely picked mine up at all.  When practising I got frustrated or bored pretty quickly. If I had the choice between practising for an hour or going to the gym I would generally choose the latter.

I realised that I did not have the motivation to be the guitarist I dreamed of being because I did not value it enough.  It turned out that this dream was not one worth pursuing.  Therefore, because I needed time to invest in other things I decided to sell my guitars and properly pursue other dreams.  I did not want the good to be the enemy of the great.

How do you set your priorities?

How do you prioritise your time? Which things should you do and which things should you avoid? What principles or tools do you use to help you with prioritising?

Think about pastimes for a moment.  How many things do you enjoy in your leisure time?  I enjoy doing lots of different things: writing, reading, watching films, drawing, listening to music, keeping fit, playing sports and many more things besides.  As time has gone on and more pressures are applied to my time I decided to take a good look at how I invested the finite time that I have.  It was at this point I realised that there is no such thing as free time; you can spend it at will but you cannot pay to get any more, let alone claim a free top-up.

So I decided I needed to be more focused on how I spent my time. There were several things I read that particularly helped me here. Here are three recommended resources.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Firstly I read Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This has a really practical way of prioritising tasks depending on their urgency and importance (also referred to as the Eisenhower Matrix).  When analysing our time management it can be scary to see how much we spend on unimportant and non-urgent tasks. This can be surfing the web, or reading seemingly urgent (yet unimportant) emails that keep popping into our inbox.  This challenged me so much that I now do not keep my email application open. I check it a maximum of a couple of times a day and prioritise the mail before I respond. I also turn off a lot of notifications on apps.

The Pareto Principle

Secondly, I read about the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle. This states that generally, 20% of our efforts produce 80% of the results.  In other words, in business, 80% of profits come from 20% of your work. On the negative side, it is likely that 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your clients!  Therefore, by identifying the most useful 20% of what we do (and who we work with) we can maximise that. By reinforcing success we can multiply what we can achieve. By cutting the dross we can also be more efficient.

Outliers: The Story of Success

Thirdly I read Anders Ericsson’s study (referred to in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success) that proposed that becoming really good at anything was more a matter of time than anything else, and around 10,000 hours of effective application was needed to excel at something (by the way, that equates to about 20 hours a week for 10 years – no small investment of time).  I decided that I needed to identify my most effective gifts, time and tasks and concentrate on them.  One simple application of this was how I use my day.  My most productive time is in the morning, between breakfast and lunch.  That is when I plan to do the bulk of my ‘productive’ tasks such as writing.  The afternoon I reserve primarily for meetings, emails and things that require (for me) a slightly lower level of energy and concentration.

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Prioritisation Techniques

From my reading there are several prioritisation techniques and tools that I have adopted. I have written other posts about the ones I use most. You can read them by following the links below:

The Eisenhower Matrix

The SWOT Analysis

A few months ago, a very good friend of mine died. It was sudden and unexpected. He was in his thirties. He was very fit (he had recently completed a marathon amongst other things) and seemed healthy. But he died in his sleep. The post-mortem was inconclusive as to his cause of death.

Unsurprisingly, his family, friends, and colleagues – like myself – were devasted. This was a combination of the shock – the fact he was young and healthy – and that he was so universally liked. This last point truly came home at his funeral. There were so many people there, from different parts of his life, all wanting to say goodbye, but also to celebrate him. And that is what we did. We remembered and appreciated the positive impact he had had on all of us. The eulogies of his brother and best friend had us laughing through our tears.

It was also very sobering. It reminded me of my mortality and posed the question, how will I be remembered?

Too busy to think about?

It seems like a morbid thing to do, to think about our own funeral, but it is an important thing to do. Thinking about the end of life changes our perspective. We can consider the demands of our busy daily lives in a different context. We can start to challenge our priorities and ask, why are we doing what we are doing?

“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

Henry David Thoreau

Yes, we are all busy. But are your actions today working towards a greater purpose? People often talk about strategy, but what about our personal strategy? What is the long-term plan for our lives? What does success in life look like for us?

When our time is done, what will be our legacy? Who will miss us?

These are important questions. In fact, there might not be any questions more important than these. But how do we go about answering them?

The problem with life plans

The challenge with life plans is that they never seem to go to plan! Circumstances have a way of knocking our best plans into the outfield. This has certainly been my experience. Just take my career as an example. At college, I had a general idea of what I did and did not like, but I could never have predicted the journey that my career has taken. Often doors have closed upon the route I have wanted to take, only to reveal an unexpected opening. Looking back, the result has often been far better than the one I could have planned or hoped for.

But my choices have not all been random. I have not been a rudderless yacht driven before the storm. Sailing is a good metaphor to consider. When sailing you have a destination in mind, but you must adjust your route according to the changing weather conditions. Fluctuations in the wind mean you have to constantly adjust your sails and you rarely get to sail directly towards where you want to go. You must tack back and forth, keeping an eye on your bearing, but also making small adjustments, so the waves don’t capsize you.

When sailing, one must watch the compass, while the hand is on the tiller. So in life, we need to consider our values as we make decisions. Our personal principles are our moral compass. They inform everything from the little adjustments to the big direction changes.

So have a plan or at least an idea of your destination. That is a good thing. But do not try to steer your life without a good idea of your values as well. Otherwise, you will find it hard to adjust to changing circumstances.

The Quest

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What is the difference between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues?

When looking at values, particularly from an end-of-life perspective, there can be a difference in our priorities. We love to portray a certain image in our daily interactions, on our résumé or CV, or social media. We feel the pressure to convey the busy, successful, manicured beauty of life the world seems to demand.

But is that the life we truly want? Are they the people we really want to be? Do we want to be remembered for being busy? For our job title? For our holiday pictures?

David Brooks, author of The Road to Character, best summed up this dichotomy in his New York Times article, The Moral Bucket List, where he defined the difference between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues.

We live in a culture that centres on self. Self-image, self-fulfilment, self-determination. But the shift with eulogy virtues is away from selfish desires, work accomplishments, external recognition, and the accumulation of stuff. Eulogy virtues tend towards selflessness, and towards life accomplishment, internal peace, and the building of a legacy.

Eulogy virtues force us to acknowledge our weaknesses and failures. They help us move from desiring independence from others to recognising our need for inter-dependence with others. We shift our motivations from success to love, from career to calling, from competence to character.

As David Brooks notes, eulogy virtues even challenge the fundamental questions of life. It goes from “what do I want from life?” To “what does life ask of me?”

“Commencement speakers are always telling young people to follow their passions. Be true to yourself. This is a vision of life that begins with self and ends with self. But people on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs?”

David Brooks

How to work out your eulogy virtues

Having had experience taking people through this process, as a coach, I can recommend that you try and write out your own eulogy. This might feel uncomfortable at first, but, if you go with the process, it can be very insightful.

As you write, remember that this is not an obituary written by somebody that does not know you. It is not the article in the paper for the eyes of the world, it is a eulogy, shared from the perspective of someone who loves you, to the key people of your life, gathered at your funeral. The person in mind should be someone who knows you well enough to call out your weaknesses as well as your strengths. To highlight how you dealt with your failures as well as your successes. Who can talk about your character and how you did things; not just your skills and what you did.

To do this I recommend the following steps:

• Set aside time – give yourself at least an hour of uninterrupted time
• Find a quiet place – select an environment to help you, most importantly somewhere you will not be disturbed.
• Engage your emotions as well as your mind – imagine what it would be like at your funeral and use your empathy to see yourself from another’s perspective
• Write – capture your thoughts as they come. It does not necessarily need to be coherent as a first draft
• Reflect – once you have run out of words think about what you have written. What are the underlying virtues that define your life? Which values best encompass the themes of your story?

You might want to compare this with other ways of exploring your values. If you want some examples of other exercises then you can find them in the article: What Are Your Personal Values?

Better than an action plan

By identifying your eulogy virtues, you create your own moral bucket list. This is a bucket list beyond just personal achievements. Life goals are great, but more important are the values we live by, the things that define why we do things and how we behave as we pursue our goals, whether we achieve them or not.

So, take time to reflect on your eulogy values. How do you want to be remembered? Identify and hold onto those virtues. Keep them in mind as you dive back into the busyness of your day. They will guide you through the winds and the waves, the calms, and the storms.

Have you ever been lost, and I mean really lost? The sort of lost where a dawning realisation of your circumstances, coupled with a rising panic, starts to overwhelm you? What did you do? How did you do an analysis of the situation?

I was once on an expedition in the jungles of Central America doing some mapping of archaeological sites and stepped a few metres away from the main group. Very quickly I realised I could not see or hear anyone and I had lost the trail. I really had to work at getting calm. I stopped and thought before moving. Then I clearly marked where I was (to stop me getting even more lost) and started an outward circular search until I found something or someone I recognised.

JRR Tolkein wrote “not all who wander are lost”, but equally, there are many people wandering through life with no real idea of where they are of where they are going. Sure, you may know geographically that you are in a certain place, but are you truly in the right place? Are you where you meant to be, where you need to be?

Are you exactly where you need to be according to your greater life purpose? If not, then like I did in the jungle, it is worth stopping and thinking before moving on again.

The Importance of Situational Analysis

The ‘Where’ questions (particularly in The Right Questions approach) relate to the present location and the destination; the starting point and the vision.  The first of these we need to consider is our starting point.  In other words we need to do some situation analysis.  This is because, when you set off on any journey, you need to know where you are first.  If you look at a map or want directions, the initial thing to identify and confirm is your present location.

I learnt this lesson as an officer in the military and as a mountain leader.  Constantly we were asked during training to get out our maps and indicate to the instructor exactly where we were.  You can’t expect to lead others unless you know where you are and where you are going.

The same applies for any new project or venture in any walk of life.  Your route or your plan can only properly be defined once you know your start point.  This is not just a geographical appreciation, it is an understanding of how you relate to your present circumstances.  Therefore going through a thorough appreciation of where you are is essential before moving forward.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” 

Seneca

The importance of perspective

Keeping the right perspective is not always easy. Jim Collins, in his excellent book Good to Great, talks about the ‘Stockdale paradox’, the idea of confronting the ‘brutal facts’ of the situation while maintaining the belief that you will prevail. Admiral James Stockdale survived as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for over seven years under the most horrific conditions. Stockdale concluded this about the mentality that helped him survive:

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” 

Admiral James Stockdale

Stockdale did not try to fool himself over his present situation and neither should we, especially as what we face is unlikely to be anywhere near as bad as the years of torture he had to confront! We need to maintain our hope for the future, tempered with a healthy realism about how we deal with the present.

When one looks at the hard data it can be daunting at first but as you take things to their natural conclusion it can also be releasing.  If we ask ourselves ‘so what?’ of every challenge we face, and think through what could happen, and – more importantly – what you would do if the worst was to happen, then we can confront our fears and dismantle wrong assumptions and defeater beliefs.

Be honest with yourself

Once you realise the importance of facing the brutal facts it is time to be honest with yourself. Self reflection can be painful but unless you can be honest with yourself you will struggle to be honest with anyone else.

“Truth – more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality – is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes.”

Ray Dalio

Identifying and analysing where you are

When doing some self reflection and situational awareness it is worth getting multiple inputs and viewpoints.

This is similar to when trying to navigate in the wilderness. You need to use all your senses and tools at your disposal to help you. You would use your eyes, ears, your smell to give clues. You would look not only at your map, but also take bearings to known landmarks. You might also use a GPS or altimeter.

The point being that the more data you have, the more likely you are to have an accurate and rounded awareness and therefore be able to make an effective situational analysis.

There are various exercises to get you going, as an individual, in working out the reality of your present situation.  Here are few things you can try:

Phone a friend

In terms of your personal life why not ask someone close to you – a good friend, partner or mentor – how they think you are doing. If you are like me, and don’t like criticism this can be really hard, but if these are people that respect or love you then what they are telling you is for your own good.

So, get them to be really honest with you!

Ask them:

• What do they see as your strengths and weaknesses?
• What do they think of what you are doing now and your present direction?
• What hopes and concerns do they have for you?

Check your diary and finances

Have a look at your calendar and personal finances for the last few months.

I use my online calendar constantly. It is synced between my various devices and I update it regularly, including specific time each week and then every day to update my tasks and priorities. Then, at the end of the day I go back and update the day with what actually happened. This is helpful in terms of reflection, re-organising tasks that have not been achieved, and creating a record for when I look back in the months to come.

You can do a similar exercise looking at your finances, your bank and credit card statements. It is particularly useful if you have set some sort of budget previously as then you can review your actual spend against what you planned.

When you looking at your diary and finances identify the trends:

• What are you spending most money and time on?
• Where are you failing to achieve your aspirations in terms of time and finance?

How you spend your time and money will give you an idea of your priorities and therefore get an insight into your values. It gives facts on the external commitments and pressures you are facing too.

Do some self reflection

Review your journal or note books.  If you don’t have a journal, start one, or find some way to record and reflect on what you do.

I end up keeping a record in various places. I always have a paper notebook with me which I make notes in but also use it for sketching and thinking through ideas spatially. I use the note function on my phone and computer to keep lists, the most important of which is my to-do list. I already mentioned how I use my online calendar to record as well as plan. As well as all this I write posts and articles such as this one. Some are practical, some are more introspective, but the discipline of writing helps to reinforce learning and provide reflection.

So how about you?

• What methods can you best use to record and reflect upon life?
• What themes can you identify in your thoughts and actions?

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Write your bio

One good idea is to write a short biography. Try and keep it to one page but try to encapsulate your story to date; how you arrived where you are today and what have been the key milestones. Limiting the length of the bio forces you to edit and prioritise the most important events.

You may already have bios on social media, websites or elsewhere. These can provide a good starting place but go beyond just your work history – or the things you want other people to see!

• What are the events that shaped you?
• Who were the people that really helped you to where you are now?

Update your CV

In a similar vein to the bio, it is also a great exercise to update or write a new CV. This process helps you to summarise your achievements in a structured way. Similarly to writing your bio, think of the most significant events in your history and the part you had to play in them.

One specific approach you can use is the ‘Made Of’ model. Chose a timeline or event and analyse:

• the people involved
• your goals
• the successes
• the obstacles you overcame
• what you learned

There are lots of resources online to help you and if you don’t know where to start then click here:

How to write a successful CV

Review reports and appraisals

Regarding your work life you can look at past appraisals, reports and testimonials you might have. All of these things start to build up a picture. This is similar to the ‘phone a friend’ exercise in that it provides an external view of you at a point in time.

I keep all my old appraisals and reports – from my school days up to the present – in a folder. It is fascinating to look back on the common themes that various people, at various times, have picked up on. Themes such as leadership, communication, people development and adventure keep coming up and still resonate with me today. But there are also plenty of ways that I have changed, and there are also a few reports that record and illustrate my failures and shortcomings. These are good to keep me honest!

if you are interested you can read more about my failings in the post My Many Leadership Failures.

Try a personality or psychometric test

I am not a big believer in the being able to put our personalities into neat boxes. I believe we are all unique in our own way and the many facets of our personality, our preferences and gifts are too complex to easily sum up. That being said, psychometric tests can help us learn more about ourselves and give us greater understanding of those we live and work with.

“All models are wrong but some are useful.”

George Edward Pelham

There are plenty of paid and free personality and psychometric tests available, most of which you can find online. Here are a few popular ones that I have tried out and found insightful:

• Myers-Briggs (based on the psychological research of C.G. Jung)
• The Big 5 – You can sign up for a free account at Finding Potential and do this and similar tests. I have used their service for myself and teams I have managed and have found their reports very useful (and no, I am not getting paid to recommend them or if you follow the link!)
• StrengthsFinder 2.0 (developed by Gallup)
• Belbin (more for use in a team context but really useful)

My big advice when using these tests is to remember that they are just tools. Don’t get too worried by the reports they generate. Sometimes I don’t like the results I see in these tests as I don’t think they fit for me personally. But that can be helpful; that feeling or thought is an indication of something that needs further analysis. So if you see an outcome that surprises you, question it:

• Is that answer or output really true of who you are?
• Is the test giving a more honest appraisal of you than you are willing to admit, or is it wrong?

The SWOT Analysis

Another simple assessment tool that many people know about is the SWOT analysis. Many people have used it but few do a SWOT analysis for themselves. I really recommend it – it is one of the simplest and more informative ways you can do a quick situational analysis. You can also do it for your team or your whole organisation. ‘SWOT’ stands for:

• S: What are the biggest strengths of you, your team or your situation?
• W: What are your inherent weaknesses?
• O: What are the opportunities of your situation?
• T: What are the external threats that you are facing?

The great thing about the SWOT analysis is takes a balanced view of your present situation. This is very important because we face a couple of dangers at this stage.  Firstly we can paint too rosy a picture of our situation if we choose to overlook or gloss-over certain facts.  The second danger is that by looking at all the challenges the situation can seem overwhelming and this can lead to paralysis rather than action – just the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. So we need to have the right perspective.

You can read more about the SWOT analysis in this post on How to do a SWOT analysis.

The challenges of life

Compared to a prison camp we might think our problems are small, but life is full of its own challenges that can seem big enough. Unless we identify and deal with these issues they will hold us back.  You cannot be happy or successful by ignoring things.  As Philip Wylie said, “Ignorance is not bliss, it is oblivion.”

What are you facing at the moment? Financial insecurity? Challenges at work? Difficulties in your relationships? A lack of confidence or motivation?  Whatever it is, the first step to overcoming the challenge is to identify it.  Do some situation analysis. Call it out; don’t ignore it, deny it or hide it.  Confront it.

This can be easier said than done, I know.

In my experience, as well as taking time to think about an issue it can also be worth writing it down or speaking to someone about it.  Externalising can help (and I say that as an introvert).  This is where a good friend, coach or mentor can be invaluable.

I have appreciated times when people have really listened to me when I have been working through problems and professionally I have spent a lot of time, as a coach, creating an environment where people can talk about and think through challenges.  And in my experience, it really works.

Reflection Question:

Have you ever resolved a bad situation by facing up to it and seeing it in a new light? What was the outcome?

What do you want to do? What does success look like?

A mission statement expresses what we are striving for; it should be a clear and concise statement of what success looks like.

So, what is your mission?

People certainly seem to be on a mission as everyone seems very busy most of the time. Even when you ask people how they are doing, the common response is often, “Things are very busy at the moment!”

It’s almost a badge of honour in a culture that values work so highly. We all want to feel valued, and if we are a busy person then people are likely to respect us. Right?

But there is a problem with just being busy. Busyness is often superficial. I have worked in offices where there is a huge amount of activity, but precious little impact or effect. Equally, you can be putting in lots of effort and making seeming progress, but if you don’t know where you are aiming for, all that work could be taking you in the wrong direction.

“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” 

Henry David Thoreau

So being busy is not enough; it counts for nothing if there is not some deeper purpose.  Thoreau recognised this and this is why mission is so important. We need to know exactly what we are trying to achieve. It’s fine to work hard, as long as you are also working smart. Make your efforts count.

Mission inspiration

I have always dreamed of stepping somewhere no one has ever been before.  This desire fueled a fascination with the stories of adventurers (but especially polar explorers) such as Ernest Shackleton and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and I have devoured many an inspiring biography.  But the more I read, the more I was frustrated by the feeling that it had all been done.  The big firsts; the continent crossings, poles, peaks and circumnavigations, had all been done. So, where did that leave a budding pioneer?

Frustrated but not completely put off I continued to look at possibilities and became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This provided me with a wonderful archive, lectures and events to further provoke me.  It was about this time I read an article on places that were still to be properly explored. This includes Greenland, which has still hundreds of summits that do not have recorded first ascents.

This was enough; the dream grew in clarity and now I had a defined goal, a mission: to be the first person to the top of at least one of these peaks in Greenland.

Defining success

With the measure of success now defined within the vision I was able to plan more effectively.  The next few years were spent building up mountaineering and ski touring skills in various parts of the world and developing experience in arctic conditions.  Much of this was done with my wife, who by that time was caught up in the same dream. So by the time we left for Greenland, we felt as fully prepared as we could be and confident that, conditions permitting, we could achieve our goal.  And we did. During the expedition, we scaled six hills that no one had ever been up or skied down before.

Standing on the highest peak in the area, drinking in a breathtaking landscape and reflecting on the incredible fulfilment of a dream, was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The mission had been accomplished.

The importance of mission

I learnt the true importance of a mission statement whilst in the army.  For any military task, there will be a set of orders, often long and detailed, which tries to plan for every foreseeable eventuality.  But there is an old army phrase that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, in other words, something will likely come up that you did not expect and that will challenge your plan.  Whereas the plan may have to change, more than likely the mission will stay the same.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy”

Military saying

For example, you may be ordered: “to capture the enemy position on hill 321.” You may have planned to go on a direct route up the hill.  When you are on the hill you find your route blocked by a minefield.  Your plan changes but your mission does not.  The position still needs to be captured – that is the measure of success – but the plan needs to be adapted.  Because of the chance that a situation may force a change in approach, it is critical to have a good mission statement.  It is the most important part of the plan.

In a set of military orders, the mission statement is repeated so that everyone can remember it. This means that, even if they forget other parts, they can take their own initiative to complete the mission.

The Quest

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The Right Questions Mission Tool: The binoculars

A mission statement is a clear articulation of what success looks like. That’s why, when thinking about this ‘what’ question in the Right Questions Framework, it is binoculars that come to mind.

I often take binoculars with me, even if I am just out for a local walk. It is amazing how much extra clarity a good set of optics can give you, bringing what is far away, into sharp, detailed focus.

A good mission statement achieves the same thing. Where a vision statement gives the big picture and the grand dream, the mission statement gives the focused, well-defined endpoint.

Constructing a good mission or success statement

A really good mission or success statement should be memorable and measurable.  To make it memorable keep it short.  Less than twenty words is a good start, if you can manage less than ten words so much the better.  When constructing the mission statement start the sentence with ‘to’; this gives the phrase an intentional feel.

A success statement is measurable in as much as you know definitely if and when you have achieved it. For example, the mission, “to be the best chess player in the world,” is measurable.  You know when you have played and won the tournaments to be ranked as the world number one.

As well as the ‘to’ clause, you can also have a secondary ‘in order to’ part of the sentence, for example, a pro tennis player’s mission might be: ‘to rank as the number 1 seeded player in order to be the best tennis player in the world’.

These secondary clauses can be useful for teams or team members constructing mission statements. It ties their mission to the higher intent or mission of the organisation. This can be really helpful in capturing the overall purpose. It links their work to the overall success of a project.

You have probably heard the story of the traveller who comes across some men at a building site. They are masons, shaping stone blocks. When he asks one what he’s doing, he gets the reply, “Chipping away at this rock all day; it’s hard work.” But then he comes across another, doing the same work, and asks the same question. The man replies, “I am building a cathedral!”

This is the difference of understanding the purpose of whatever task, goal or mission we have. Linking it to the overall mission provides motivation and perspective. The stone mason’s mission might then be: ‘to shape these stones to the best of my ability in order to build the most beautiful cathedral on the planet.’

What is the difference between a vision and a mission statement?

The short pithy nature of the mission statement sets it apart from the vision statement. The vision statement is likely to be longer and more evocative but less definitive.  Therefore the things are similar and complementary. But don’t worry too much if you find the subtle differences confusing just now. There are a variety of opinions on what makes a mission, success or vision statement. Ultimately the thought process we go through is more important to us than the exact definition.

To apply the idea of a mission statement you have to define what it means to succeed.  This is not as easy! Especially for a large organisation. But the best thing to do is to give it a go, create a rough draft and then refine the statement as time allows.

So, why not have a go now and draft your personal mission statement? Use the instructions above, have a play with the wording and then leave it for a day or so and come back to it and have another go. It might take a few iterations but this way you can craft something succinct yet powerful.

You can read more about this process in How Many Mission Statements Do You Need?

How Many Mission Statements Do You Need?

Colonel John Boyd, a strategist with the USAF was a fighter pilot who studied decision-making in dogfights. He actually worked at the ‘Top Gun’ school of Tom Cruise fame. He proposed that as a situation evolves we have to observe the changes and orient ourselves to new information. We can then decide on the best course and take action. In other words, decisions are made in a recurring loop of:

• Observe,
• Orient,
• Decide and
• Act.

This is the OODA loop.

Sometimes this process is relatively slow and objective and we can pause to consider what we do. At other times the information and situation may be changing so fast that things become subjective. Then we have to work on instinct. This relates to the System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow) thinking popularised by Daniel Kahneman.

Because the cycle takes place, no matter how fast the situation is unfolding, the specifics of how we orientate ourselves is of key importance.  As Boyd notes:

“The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.”

It stands to reason that as we try and orientate ourselves it is useful to have others providing input. This is because external insight broadens the scope of the ‘repository’ of genetics, culture and experience. So, if time allows, get more quality data from others. When there is no time it is the depth of experience of the person making the decision that really counts. This allows for good intuitive decision-making (see Blink by Malcolm Gladwell).

How to apply the OODA loop

Boyd developed his ideas in a military context. His aim was to help speed up the decision cycle of USAF pilots so that they could get inside the enemy’s decision cycle.  To win a dogfight a pilot needs to make better and faster decisions than the adversary. Also, maintaining the initiative creates opportunities that can be further exploited.  The same thinking is applied to business and outsmarting the competition in the marketplace.

At first, this may not seem to have a direct application to our situation. But, in our case, the enemy is often ourselves. Equally, it could be our situation or any other challenge we face. We often do not make time to assess a situation and therefore we can fail to orientate ourselves properly. It follows that we then become reactive rather than proactive in response to our circumstances.

A foundation for decision-making

The great thing about this model is how simple it is. Boyd identified the bare essential elements of decision-making. Therefore, the OODA loop is really useful in helping us understand other decision-making tools and frameworks.

‘The Right Questions’ framework is designed in the same way. It follows the same simple cycle but expands the process so that it can be easily used for strategic planning as well as quick decision making.