Each day I will exercise for 30 minutes and sleep 8 hours. It happens every year. Even a short list of well-intentioned resolutions doesn’t make it past the second week. Why do resolutions fail? Procrastination, no discipline and no game plan.
How do you create a game plan and keep those resolutions for once? By shelving magic, luck and willpower and focusing on discipline.
FACET is Humanergy’s 5-step tool that enables the discipline-challenged.
Focus: Choose one thing you want to change; keep it simple.
Accountability: Pick people to hold you responsible to do what you committed to do.
Consequences: Build in positive and/or negative costs for your actions.
Easier to do: Eliminate barriers and set up for action.
Tracking: Record your progress.
Consider Jack’s example. Jack asked his employees for feedback on his performance. They consistently responded, “You interrupt us when we talk with you.” Here’s how Jack used FACET to break this habit:
Focus: Jack put an index card on his desk and a daily note on his Blackberry. It read: “Listen first, don’t interrupt.”
Accountability: He asked all his employee to point out when he interrupted.
Consequences: Jack took $40 in dimes from his savings account. Each time he interrupted an employee, he paid that person a dime. When he went a week without giving away a single dime, he rewarded himself with a round of golf.
Easier to do: Dimes were convenient to carry, and his co-workers were consistently around to hold him accountable.
Tracking: Jack counted his remaining dimes daily to track progress.
After two months of rarely interrupting others, Jack found that he was not only interrupting less and listening more – his overall performance was improved.
For an easy-to-use FACET worksheet, go to Humanergy’s website at www.humanergy.com or contact us at 269.789.0446.
Have a question or want some input from Humanergy about this topic? Contact us and we’ll get right back to you!