DO THE WORK - Doable: The Girls' Guide to Accomplishing Just About Anything (2015)

Doable: The Girls' Guide to Accomplishing Just About Anything (2015)

STEP 6: DO THE WORK


When I interviewed screenwriter Susannah Grant of Erin Brockovich fame for my book In Their Shoes, I asked her what it took to be a successful screenwriter. I’ll never forget her answer. She told me, “A lot of people say they’re screenwriters, but they don’t ever get around to finishing something. Everybody can do it, but the writers are the ones who actually do.” The same can be said for doing, well, just about anything. No matter how much brainstorming, planning, scheduling, dreaming, and scheming we make time for, without actually taking action and doing, To Dos are gonna stay on the To Do list.

It Takes All Kinds

In my life-coaching business, I help people create whatever they want to create in their lives. Consequently, clients ask me all the time to share with them my secrets for sticking to my plan and actually getting things done. And while, sure, I have some techniques that are an essential part of my Doable process, more important than copying someone else’s strategies is understanding your own personal style for doing and accomplishing things. So really, the key to knowing how you can best get things done is understanding both your strengths and your weaknesses when it comes to taking action.

The reason it’s worth knowing this isn’t so you can spend time trying to get better at the things you have a hard time with—it’s so you can design an approach for getting your stuff done that plays to your strengths. Like we talked about in chapter 4, self-knowledge is the key to it all. There is no right or wrong … only information. And when we have solid intel about ourselves, we can focus on doing things in alignment with our natural gifts and tendencies. And that, my friends, eliminates frustration, fruitless efforts, and wasted time. The doing part becomes more painless (and even fun).

Sir Ken Robinson knows all about different styles for getting things done. He’s a world-famous author who is passionate about education reform. When speaking to large audiences, he often shares the story of Gillian Lynne. As a young girl growing up in the 1930s, Gillian was a problem child at school—so much so that her mother took her to a doctor to be evaluated for a learning disability. The problem? She couldn’t sit still in class.

After Gillian’s mother told the therapist what was going on at school, the therapist asked to speak with the mother privately, leaving young Gillian alone in a room with music playing in the background. As soon as they left the room, Gillian got up out of her chair and started moving to the music. She just couldn’t help herself. As the grown-ups observed this through a crack in the door, the doctor turned to the mother and said something along the lines of, “Your daughter doesn’t have a learning disability. Your daughter is a dancer.” That doctor couldn’t have been more spot on. Gillian’s mother took her to dance lessons, and Gillian was a natural. She eventually went on to become a renowned choreographer, making her mark on Broadway musicals including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.

This story is a powerful reminder that sometimes our talents and gifts can be disguised or hidden. Sometimes, like with Gillian, they even look like faults. Instead of tapping into these assets, we focus on all the things we’re doing wrong or what we should be doing better. So what does this have to do with making things doable? It relates because the key to fully embracing the action component of your goals is knowing—and accepting—how you work best. It all comes down to Doable styles.

What’s Your Doable Style?

There are tons of different ways to learn more about who you are and how you approach tasks. Formal assessments like Myers-Briggs, Kolbe, and StrengthsFinder 2.0 all involve answering a series of questions to categorize you into types as a way to better understand yourself. Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project, has recently created her own categories—Upholders, Questioners, Rebels, and Obligers—which describe the way people approach things and why.

These are all interesting and insightful ways to explore your own natural tendencies, and if you visit my website you’ll find links for learning more about each one. But I’ve come up with my own types of action styles—fourteen of them to be exact—that define the many different ways people tackle their To Dos. Please note that these are not mutually exclusive—you’ll probably see yourself represented in multiple styles.

Read through and carefully consider each one, looking for clues that will help you piece together and identify your own personal action style. Likely, you’ll find three to five of these that ring true for you—that’s great. Together they’ll add up to a clearer picture of your ideal conditions for being your most successful, productive self.

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As you go through the list on the following pages, take some notes in your journal or Doable workbook.

1. Which Doable styles do you relate to?

2. What are the associated Doable tips for each one?

When you’re done, download your own cheat sheets for every Doable style at www.debbiereber.com. Print out your top tips and keep them handy to apply to all your tasks!

The tips are geared to help you proactively defend against the challenges you may face as a result of your tendencies, and more importantly, they’ll help you take advantage of your style’s gifts.

SHORT SPURTER

Short spurters work in small, highly productive bursts. For these people, sitting down and toiling away on a project or To Do for long stretches feels tantamount to torture. Instead, short spurters are able to give a task their complete, undivided attention for little chunks—from five to thirty minutes—before needing to completely switch gears and step away. This may seem like an unconventional approach, but in the end, short spurters are able to chip away at their goals with a cumulative effect of accomplishing whatever they set out to do. Though short spurters can be highly productive, they sometimes struggle when they aren’t able to maximize their work periods due to lack of preparation or because they are on such a tight deadline that they must work longer than their ideal in order to get things done.

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Doable Tips For Short Spurters

■ Plan ahead by gathering and organizing what you need in order to make your short bursts super productive. You don’t want to waste time prepping or collecting materials when you might only have a few minutes to do your thing.

■ Take advantage of little windows of time that might be great opportunities for your bursts. Things like waiting for the bus, downtime at work, study hall, and sitting in the reception area at the dentist’s office are all opportunities for you. Think about times when you might be able to sneak in five or ten minutes of active work toward a goal, and take full advantage!

■ Know what your big-picture schedule is, and set concrete and time-sensitive mini-goals to make sure your short bursts will eventually add up to completion.

I defy the stereotype of an author toiling away at the keyboard for hours each day because I myself am a short spurter. My spurts might last fifteen minutes, twenty if I’m lucky. And then I get out of my chair, get a glass of water, fold some laundry, snuggle with my cat … basically do anything other than write. And then after some time passes I start the whole cycle all over again. It might not seem like the most efficient way to write, but sixteen-plus books later, I can attest that it works!

LONG STRETCHER

Long stretchers are the opposite of short spurters in that they thrive when they have big chunks of time set aside to work on goals and To Dos. For these Doers, getting into the mind-set they need to be in to be truly productive takes a while, so the more time they have to focus on a project in one sitting, the more they will accomplish. Long stretchers might get so engrossed in what they’re doing that getting them to shift gears or step away from what they’re working on takes some persuading. The challenge for long stretchers? Sometimes they won’t even get started on a project if they don’t feel they have a big enough chunk of time available to them.

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Doable Tips For Long Stretchers

■ Prioritize your goals or To Dos by clearing space in your schedule for work periods of two to three hours or more.

■ Be vigilant about protecting these long stretches of time by eliminating any and all distractions so you can do your thing with ease.

■ Don’t forget to practice simple self-care while working—bathroom breaks, nutritional snacks, yoga stretches, deep breaths—to best support yourself as you work toward your goal.

DEEP FOCUSER

The close cousin of the long stretcher, deep focusers are people who get completely absorbed in whatever they’re doing and are adept at tuning out distractions or outside noises that might disrupt their flow. Similar to long stretchers, it can be hard for deep focusers to notice what’s going on around them. They can usually focus on the task at hand in just about any environment, which gives them a lot of flexibility when it comes to pursuing their To Dos. The challenges for deep focusers lie in the reality that their single-minded, focused pursuits sometimes result in their forgetting about other important things, like eating, bathing, going to sleep, and so on.

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Doable Tips For Deep Focusers

■ Use outside tools or resources for reminders about things going on in the outside world and beyond the scope of your To Do, such as a smartphone alarm to signal that it’s time to go to dance rehearsal or your BFF’s BBQ.

■ Give friends and family a heads up that you’re going into focus mode so they don’t think you’re ignoring them when they call or text you and get no response.

■ Think creatively about when and how you can use your ability to tune out the outside world to make true progress on your goals.

Emily-Anne Rigal is a deep focuser when it comes to her passion projects. When she first started We Stop Hate, she says, “I worked on it all the time, and I just squeezed in my schoolwork. We Stop Hate was my whole life, like it was really what I was so passionate about. Building it and creating it was definitely the most fun part about We Stop Hate, having the idea and then seeing it come together. It was amazing. So I would spend hours a day on it, but because I enjoyed it, it didn’t really feel like a lot of work.”

EASILY DISTRACTED

Easily distracteds are exactly what you think they are—people who can find just about anything more interesting than whatever they’re supposed to be doing. Easily distracteds might put off setting aside time to focus on their goals or To Dos, and then once they finally do get down to business, they often struggle to stick with it for more than a few minutes at a time. In this way, they can overlap with short spurters, with the primary difference being that easily distracteds tend to reluctantly show up to their tasks and fight themselves the whole way through the process.

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Doable Tips For Easily Distracteds

■ Unless your To Do involves your smartphone, put it down … in another room … with the volume and vibrate off. Same goes for your computer. And your iPad. And any other electronic devices. If you must be on a computer, stay away from social media like it’s the plague (unless, of course, your task focuses on social media!). There are a number of online tools you can install or download to help you tune out virtual distraction, including Self-Control, which helps you block out distracting websites for a certain period of time, and Anti-Social, which specifically blacklists your social media time sucks.

■ Experiment with different ways to tune out the outside world. For some people, noise-canceling headphones work like a charm; for others, soft classical music might be the ticket. Keep exploring different strategies for eliminating noise distractions until you hit on one that works.

■ Be sure you have everything you need with you when you’re finally ready to focus. Just like you would before leaving for a road trip, get prepped for your focus time. Go to the bathroom, grab a snack and some water, make sure you’re dressed appropriately, and gather whatever you’ll need. If after you get started you remember something else you need or want, try writing it down and then working through the urge to stop everything and get it. At this point, it’s all about impulse control. And the more you practice it, the easier it will be.

Believe it or not, Google Science Fair winner Naomi Shah classifies herself as an easily distracted, as she feels pulled in so many different directions—school, homework, swimming, research—that it’s hard to focus on one task at a time. Her strategy? Compartmentalizing. “In school, I focus on getting the grades. When I’m swimming, I’m not thinking about anything else. I’m only thinking about swimming. In science research, I’m only working on that—I don’t have my school email open or my textbook with me.”

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RAMPER UPPER

Ramper uppers are all about the prep work. Unless they’ve taken the time to research, prepare, gather, ponder, and get every single duck lined up in a row, they have a hard time getting down to business. Ramper uppers tend to be serious planners, in part because they’re trying to eliminate the possibility of doing something wrong that might cause them to fail. Though their prep work helps them feel confident in plunging ahead on any given goal, ramper uppers can sometimes become paralyzed and struggle to take action when circumstances or deadlines make doing extensive prep work an impossibility.

Doable Tips For Ramper Uppers

■ Give yourself the time you need to do your prep work, but set limits by picking a target date for eventually taking action. And then stick to it!

■ Use your powerful prep skills to your benefit by coming up with a solid and detailed plan for ticking off your tasks as you work toward achieving your To Dos.

■ Remember that some things simply can’t be planned for, and that’s okay. The world won’t end if things don’t unfold exactly as you’d hoped or if you get thrown off course. Just regroup, think of the detour as helpful information, and get back to work.

CLIFF DIVER

Cliff divers are pretty much the opposite of ramper uppers in that they tend to plunge right in without testing the water temperature, or the depth—or even bothering to look for rocky outcroppings between the cliff top and the clear water below. Unlike ramper uppers, cliff divers don’t necessarily see the point in spending valuable time planning—they’d much rather skip the formalities and just get started doing what needs to be done. The challenge for cliff divers is that forging ahead without a clear plan often creates more work and frustration in the long run.

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Doable Tips for Cliff Divers

■ Embrace the energy behind your action style and find ways to harness it. With focus, your go-get-’em energy can propel you all the way across the finish line.

■ When you’re getting ready to dive in, consider taking a small amount of time to create a simple plan for pursuing your goal. Even a little bit of prep work added to your enthusiastic process can be a winning combination!

■ If setbacks do occur due to lack of planning, take a big step back, regroup, and get set for another plunge. Setbacks can be transformed into lessons learned, so you’ll be more likely to succeed next time.

When I interviewed Cammy Nelson of Rep Your School—Build a School, she self-identified as a cliff diver. She explains, “My action style is usually to get really excited really quickly about something and just start immediately and do it as soon as I can. Let’s say I find an opportunity on the internet to be some kind of representative for an organization that I’m passionate about and want to work with. So I immediately sign up and register or do what I can.” She’s had to learn to slow herself down sometimes, though. “One time when I became the president of an organization, I decided to take the position because no one else was volunteering. Other people obviously saw what I wasn’t seeing at the time. I took it and then realized the next year that I had bitten off more than I could chew, so I had to renegotiate a few things in this position. That was definitely one time I jumped in before I knew what I was getting into.”

SHOOTING STAR

Shooting stars are distant cousins of cliff divers because they too tend to plunge right in with brilliant, exciting energy. But like the meteors they’re named after, shooting stars burn out quickly, struggling to maintain momentum and keep moving ahead. As a result, they can be great at getting started with goals and To Dos, but their track records for actually seeing them through can be less than stellar.

Doable Tips For Shooting Stars

■ Explore the reasons why you think you burn out and neglect to complete your goals (refer to chapter 4 to help you through this exercise) so you can proactively come up with a plan for getting past the point where you usually bail.

■ Look for ways to build accountability—to someone or something outside yourself—into your approach. Outside pressure can be a great way to push through and get to the other side of your fizzling interest.

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■ Give your momentum a boost by coming up with an enticing reward system or other external motivators. Looking forward to celebrating your accomplishments in a fun and meaningful way can be a helpful carrot to keep you going!

DEADLINE CHASER

Deadline chasers thrive on deadlines. Whether because of an innate sense of responsibility or being overly concerned about letting others or themselves down, deadline chasers will stick to a deadline like a fly to tar paper. Most of the time, this is fantastic news—their ability to chase and meet deadlines serves them well. The challenges for deadline chasers are making progress on goals or To Dos where no deadline exists, and making sure self-care isn’t neglected in the pursuit of hitting a certain date.

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Doable Tips For Deadline Chasers

■ Use your deadline responsiveness to your advantage by creating deadlines where there are none. Self-imposed deadlines are often enough to keep you moving ahead. Sarah Cronk of The Sparkle Effect constantly invents deadlines, especially with ambiguous projects—she swears by this method.

■ Don’t let your dogged ambition to meet your deadlines result in overload and burnout. Practice self-care habits to maintain balance in your life, even when you’re up against the wire.

■ Be flexible. Target dates are fantastic tools to keep you on track toward your goals, but beware of setting deadlines that are too ambitious or unrealistic. Sometimes deadlines are hard and fast (as in the case of college applications), but sometimes there can—and should—be wiggle room, especially when your well-being and sanity are at stake.

College student Sahar Osmani absolutely considers herself a deadline chaser. As she told me, she’s all about calendars and To Do lists. “I have to see it, I have to know that I have to get it done by this time, and then I cross it out when I’m done. It’s kind of like that whole quote of: ‘To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to never show up.’ I kind of try and use that with my work, whether it be school, ROTC, or Coaching Corps.”

COLLABORATOR

Collaborators are at their best when working with others. They feed off the creative and inspirational energy of those around them, and teaming up with one person, a small group, or a big bunch of people often brings out their best performance, sparks their best ideas, and yields the best possible results. Some goals and To Dos—like climbing Mount Rainier or being part of a winning cheer squad—are literally built for collaboration, which obviously works in these people’s favor. But when a task is something that must be done by an individual only, collaborators can feel a bit lost in the process.

Doable Tips For Collaborators

■ Choose the people you want to collaborate with wisely to ensure the best possible outcome for your goal. Resist the urge to accept just any help, and focus on identifying key people who can best support you in the way you need.

■ Trust in your own ability to get things done even if no ideal collaborators are available. You are creative, resourceful, and whole just as you are. Other people on your team are just icing on the cake!

■ When reaching out to others for help or support, be as specific as possible about what exactly you’d like them to do. While many people are eager to help, without a clear road map of what you need from them and why, some might go rogue, do their own things, and end up creating more work for you in the long run.

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We Care Act cofounder Grace Li definitely falls in the collaborator camp, considering she founded her nonprofit with her siblings. Grace has this to say about the power of collaboration: “I think individuality is really important. But on the other hand, if you want to accomplish something on a large scale, I think it’s really important to have collaboration. Everyone has different connections. Everyone has different ideas. When you have a lot of people working together, you can bounce ideas off each other. You can start with one idea and you can improve. Everyone is constantly improving because everyone has different input.”

SOLO WARRIOR

Solo warriors like to go it alone. They plan alone; they work alone; they plug ahead alone. Input from others might make them feel stressed out, judged, or pressured to perform or succeed. They’d much rather have their own space and work at their own pace in their quests to accomplish their goals. Solo warriors tend to be deep focusers and, when given the room they need, can often home in on what has to be done and make great progress with little effort. Their challenge is not knowing when or how to ask for assistance in situations where such help would result in the best possible outcome.

Doable Tips For Solo Warriors

■ Find environments that best allow you to do your thing without the possibility of others’ energy or input coming into play.

■ Be aware of your tendency to take on too much when there are parts of your goal that could be made easier by tapping into friendships and other relationships. Burnout is a real possibility for solo warriors, and asking for help can prevent it. If it feels uncomfortable to collaborate with others, try doing it on something small first to build up your collaboration muscles.

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■ Know that you’re not alone in liking to work alone. In fact, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts, author Susan Cain writes about how working in solitude often yields tremendous creative results!

ACCOUNTABILITY SEEKER

Accountability seekers like being held accountable to something other than themselves. When they work on a goal, they seek out individuals, groups, organizations, and even formal reporting systems as accountability partners. You might think of accountability seekers as people who are prone to positive peer pressure, in that the expectations of others are enough to spur them on to accomplish their To Dos. This works when a To Do can be easily supported by check-ins, but sometimes accountability seekers struggle to see something through if no one is keeping tabs on their progress.

Doable Tips For Accountability Seekers

■ Consider creating a small mastermind group—a group of friends or acquaintances who mutually support each other in working toward goals. Your mastermind group can be effective even with as few as two people as long as you both have a clear understanding of expectations for holding each other accountable.

■ Be careful that your desire to meet others’ expectations doesn’t result in being overly focused on what others think of you, as this is a slippery slope. Positive accountability from others comes from a place of honest support, not judgment. Ultimately, only you get to decide what completing or not completing your task means.

■ Connect with automated or virtual accountability systems that allow you to mark your progress without relying on another person. For example, use an online To Do list system or make your own star chart (remember those from preschool?) so you can see your progress. You can also create a success wall in your bedroom where you post sticky notes that highlight targets and deadlines that you met.

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SCHEDULER

Schedulers love order, plans, and timelines … a lot. For schedulers, knowing exactly how and when something is going to be executed takes the stress out of the equation (or at least lowers it significantly). Schedules also give them a clear path that increases the likelihood of reaching their goals, provided of course that the schedules they created in the first place were realistic. Schedulers are superb at organizing, which will take them far. However, when outside forces throw a wrench in their finely laid plans, it can be difficult for schedulers to regroup.

Doable Tips For Schedulers

■ Set mini-deadlines for each small step that leads to reaching your big goal. This will keep you on track so you can move ahead smoothly.

■ Create realistic timelines for everything on your To Do list. If you think you’ve budgeted enough time for a particular step, consider doubling it, and then do that for each additional step along the way. Falling behind schedule can be tricky for you, but being ahead of schedule is no problem whatsoever. So build in wiggle room and you’ll be more apt to enjoy the feeling of a job well done … even early!

■ Get creative when it comes to scheduling your tasks. Use smartphone alerts and reminders, online calendars, whiteboards, or even virtual To Do lists on your computer, tablet, or phone. There are many resources designed to help people meet deadlines, and guess what—you’re the ideal user for them!

REWARD JUNKIE

Reward junkies are highly externally motivated. Dangle a carrot in front of them—a bigger allowance, extra privileges, an award at school—and they’ll put their Doable efforts into full throttle. Reward junkies like to receive praise and to feel acknowledged for what they’ve accomplished, not to mention to reap the fruits of their labor. But reward junkies don’t have to always be focused on something they can get from the outside world. Oftentimes, creating a personal reward system works just as well. The important thing is noticing and celebrating when a task or goal has been achieved, even if that acknowledgment occurs in a very simple way. Things get tricky for reward junkies when their desire to receive an outside reward outweighs their personal desire to achieve the stated goal.

Doable Tips For Reward Junkies

■ Watch out for situations where an outside reward becomes intertwined with your stated outcome for a goal. Goals with results that are dependent on anything outside yourself are out of your control and inherently less than ideal. Make sure your hoped-for outcome is fully within your control, and consider the reward, if you receive it, to be an added bonus.

■ While you’re enjoying your reward after a job well done, take time to acknowledge to yourself what you’ve accomplished. Notice how good it feels to follow through on something, how proud you are of your accomplishment, and the steps you took to reach your goal.

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■ For tasks that don’t have overt reward systems built in, find ways to create little personal rewards for yourself to fulfill that need for external motivation.

INTRINSICALLY MOTIVATED

Intrinsically motivateds are polar opposites of reward junkies in that the majority of their motivation and inspiration comes from within. Intrinsically motivateds value personal responsibility and have an innate sense of follow-through. They do things in large part because they like the way it feels to do them and to get them done. They sometimes challenge themselves to take on bigger and bigger tasks because the thrill of pursuing a goal and the joy of reaching it are all the motivation they need. While there are no big challenges for intrinsically motivateds, they may be overachievers, and therefore can be tough on themselves when they don’t accomplish their goals as quickly or as perfectly as they’d hoped.

Doable Tips For Intrinsically Motivateds

■ Slow down and enjoy the process and not just the achievement—you learn and grow a lot during the journey!

■ Allow yourself to enjoy rewards when they do come your way. Rewards don’t take away from your accomplishment or make your pursuit of it less meaningful—they’re just an added bonus!

■ Celebrate your innate sense of intrinsic motivation—it’s considered a trait of highly successful people!


So, where did you see yourself? Remember—there is plenty of overlap here. Chances are you’re a blend of multiple styles. You might be a cliff diver + accountability seeker + reward junkie, or a ramper upper + solo warrior + scheduler. Me? I’m a short spurter + ramper upper + accountability seeker + scheduler + reward junkie. The bottom line: No matter what you are, it’s absolutely perfect. There’s no right or wrong, no good or bad, no judgment. It’s really all about self-knowledge. It’s about understanding how you best do things so you can get out of your own way, set yourself up for success, and start kicking some serious booty!

Do the Work

So now you have a handle on your own Doable style as well as tips for capitalizing on your strengths. You can set yourself up with the best possible circumstances so you can thrive in your quest to pursue your goals and To Dos. But there’s one more thing you need to do in order to cross that finish line and get to the other side of your goals. It’s quite simple really … just three little words: Do. The. Work.

There’s no way around it. Just like screenwriter Susannah Grant said, “Everyone can write, but writers are the ones who actually do.” Writers write. Runners run. Entrepreneurs create. Unless we chip away at our goals and To Dos by actually doing, we’ll never finish what we started. So make your goals and To Dos a priority. Create a mind-set around action and push to reach your accomplishment.

You’ve got this. I just know it.


STEP 6 SUMMARY


Every single person is capable of getting stuff done. I don’t care if you have trouble finishing things, or you flit about from one idea to another, or you’re about as organized as a typical toddler—you have it within you to commit to something, plan how to do it, and then actually do it. When you understand your own personal Doable styles, you will be able to confidently claim (or reclaim) your identity as someone who does things, and you will set yourself up for success.

Step 1: Define Your To Do Images

Step 2: Detail the Little Tasks Images

Step 3: Defend against Obstacles Images

Step 4: Develop Support Systems Images

Step 5: Determine What Success Looks Like Images

Step 6: Do the Work Goal setting, planning, dreaming, and scheming are all well and good, but unless you actually get down to the business of doing, you’ll never actually accomplish anything. Doing is all about taking action—getting started, taking those first steps, and finding a way to keep the momentum up through the finish line. To be your best action-oriented self, remember to:

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■ Take time to consider your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to getting things done. Choose strategies for taking action that play to your strengths (of which you have many), and eliminate strategies that don’t come as naturally to you.

■ Get familiar with your own Doable style. With this knowledge, you can understand your ideal conditions and circumstances for being your most successful, productive self, and find ways to take advantage of the great parts about how you work. If you’re a short spurter, steal moments to make progress when you’re waiting for the bus or sitting in the reception area at the dentist. If you’re a deadline chaser, set personal deadlines even where there are none, and so on.

■ Three words: Do the work.

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