DEFINE YOUR TO DO - Doable: The Girls' Guide to Accomplishing Just About Anything (2015)

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

STEP 1: DEFINE YOUR TO DO


Ever heard of The Sparkle Effect? If not, well, please allow me to fill you in. The Sparkle Effect is a student-run program that helps teens foster inclusiveness by ensuring students with disabilities can participate in their high schools’ cheering and dance programs. The Sparkle Effect has generated more than one hundred inclusive teams across the country and has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and in People magazine. The program’s founder, Sarah Cronk, has received a ton of awards and recognition, including being named one of the L’Oreal Women of Worth for 2012 and winning the 2011 Do Something Award’s grand prize of $100,000.

But when Sarah first got started in 2008, she was a fifteen-year-old student at Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, Iowa, who noticed a problem at her school: students with special needs and disabilities were being excluded from after-school sports and activities. Sure, there were segregated activities and clubs these students could participate in, but there was no great way for them to play or perform side-by-side with their peers, which was all they really wanted. Sarah knew the issue went well beyond the walls of her school, but she realized she couldn’t take it all on. Not then, anyway. So she started where she was—a member of the cheering squad—and decided she needed to figure out how cheerleading at her school could work with a policy of inclusion. Her motivation? To positively impact other students and her community.

Sarah realized she was onto something by the end of that year. “I thought just doing it at my school was a big enough deal to me when we first got it going. We only started two teams in that first year, but I saw how much attention it received right away, how popular it got, and I realized we were onto something.” And with that, The Sparkle Effect was born.

Though The Sparkle Effect has grown and evolved in the years since it was first conceived, it all started with a simple, clear vision. Knowing what she was trying to create—inclusion in after-school activities at her school—helped Sarah be successful that first year. And the rest, as they say, was history.

The Real Question

The question I have for you, for anyone with a goal, is this: what do you want to do?

The question might seem simple enough, and it is, but you’d be surprised at how many people have trouble actually answering it. They’re too busy running around like chickens with their heads cut off, frantically trying to get it all done. Yet when you get them to slow down and ask them what it is they’re trying to accomplish, most of the time they’re not exactly sure. They just know they’ve got a lot of things to do and they have to go, go, go to do them.

Imagine you’re packing for vacation. You’ve dug your suitcase out of the garage, stuffed your toiletries bag with your essential products, downloaded a couple of books onto your e-reader, and even arranged for a neighbor to check in on your cat. But you’ve forgotten to do one very important thing—figure out where you want to go for your getaway. Sure, you might be ready to head out the door, but without a final destination in mind, the vacation is going to be a complete and total bust.

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The same goes for any To Do. You have to know exactly where you’re headed, as well as be crystal clear on what you actually want to do, for any task to be truly doable. That’s why the essential first step of my process is to define your To Do. In order to do this, it’s important to actually state your goal—write it down or say it out loud—and metaphorically put your stake in the ground. By declaring your goal, you’re formalizing it and making it real. You’re essentially saying to yourself that your pursuit is something you take seriously and that you’re all in.

This declaration should include definitive language: I am going to _____ in the next year, or I am committing to _____ every day this month, or I will do _____ by the end of the month.

If we skip this step, we run the risk of having our goals remain in dreamland limbo—someday I’m going to hike to the top of Mount Whitney, or I really want to become a vegetarian. These are fantastic dreams and desires, but they’re lacking the specificity and concreteness required for them to actually become accomplishments. “Someday” has a very different meaning than “by the end of the month.”

So name it, say it, and make it real.

When Goals Are Vague

Sometimes defining and declaring a To Do is a simple task. Maybe you want to bake apple pie for dessert or you want to sign up for piano lessons or you want to have a yard sale this weekend to make some money off your old clothes and books. Those are all very straightforward To Dos—the thing you want to do or create is implicit in the goal itself. Once you state it, you’re good to move on and bake that pie, sign up for those lessons, or hold that yard sale. However, more often than not, To Dos live in a kind of murky place. I like to call it the Land of Vague.

Now, sometimes being vague is a good thing, like when a friend gets a hideous haircut and asks you how she looks. You can vaguely reply with a comment about how her new cut highlights her eyes or enthusiastically throw the question back to her: “Wow! A new haircut! What do you think?”

But of course, there are times when being vague is a bad idea, like when you’re giving directions or telling your friend your Starbucks order before she runs off to grab you a latte. Another occasion when vagueness isn’t your friend? Goal setting.

Yet, despite this, many would-be Doers suffer from overly vague goals. When a goal is too vague, it can’t be measured, which means there’s no way of knowing when and if you’ve actually reached it. Working toward vague goals is about as productive as running on a life-sized hamster wheel (although at least in that case you’re getting a decent workout).

Here’s what I mean by a vague goal:

I want to be a better friend.

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Don’t get me wrong—wanting to be a better friend is an excellent pursuit. But what exactly does being a better friend entail? First off, it depends on where you’re starting from, as in, what kind of friend are you now? Secondly, it depends on your definition of friendship, which has a lot to do with how you view the world and relationships. What does being a friend mean in relation to your values? Who are you at your core? How do you see the world? Lastly, there’s the result: how will you know if you’ve become a better friend and therefore accomplished what you set out to do?

In order to turn this lovely intention of being a better friend into a doable accomplishment, you’ll have to get clear on all those aspects and more so you can rewrite your goal in a way that will allow you to truly cross that baby off your list.

For example, maybe to you being a better friend means not talking behind your friend’s back. Or maybe it means planning thoughtful surprises to let your friend know how important she is to you. Now you have something to work with, and from there, you can create very clear tasks to tackle—in this case, put a halt to talking behind your friend’s back or regularly do something thoughtful for her.

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Images THE DOABLE TEST

To determine if a To Do falls into the too-vague category, ask yourself these three simple questions:

1. Can the goal or the result of the goal be measured or tracked?

2. Are there clear steps I can take to reach my goal or accomplish my To Do?

3. Will I know when I’ve reached the goal or completed the task?

If you answered no to any of these questions, your To Do isn’t specific enough yet to pass the Doable test.

If your To Do is vague right now, no sweat. It’s normal for some of your goals to be unclear. In fact, many of them start out that way, especially when they spark as concepts or big ideas you feel extra inspired or excited about. All we need to do is shift those ideas into concrete, doable goals by taking a closer look and getting clear on what you will actually be doing.

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Here’s what I mean:

Vague Goal: I want to be healthier.

Concrete Goals:

■ I want to drink eight glasses of water a day.

■ I want to exercise four times a week.

■ I want to eat at least one serving of whole foods each day.

Vague Goal: I want to be a better student.

Concrete Goals:

■ I want to turn in all my homework assignments on time.

■ I want to complete all my assigned reading.

■ I want to earn a B or higher on all my exams.

A trickier challenge to overcome is when we don’t know what completing the task or achieving the goal actually looks like. And that’s exactly the kind of information that’s crucial when it comes to seeing something through from start to finish. It might seem like a no-brainer that we need to have a clear understanding of the kind of end result we’re after, but the reality is, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out, especially when related to vague goals.

Let’s say you’ve set the following goal:

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I want to be a good soccer player.

Sounds great! Sure, it’s a vague goal, but the associated tasks are seemingly straightforward or, at the very least, could be simple to parse out. The goal of being a good soccer player could easily be made more concrete by getting specific about how exactly you’re going to do that. For example, you might decide you’re going to practice soccer drills three times a day, cross-train over the weekends, or read books to learn new soccer strategies.

See the difference? Now you’ve got concrete To Dos to tackle.

But answer me this: How exactly will you know when you’ve reached your goal of being a good soccer player? In other words, what does being a good soccer player mean? It’s not like someone’s going to show up on your doorstep, certificate in hand, and announce the big news that you’ve finally achieved Good Soccer Player status. No, it’s much more personal than that.

The question you would have to answer is this: What does being a good soccer player mean to you? Does it mean you score more consistently? Does it mean you’ve mastered the arts of juggling, dribbling, passing, receiving, and shooting? Does it mean you have enough stamina to get through an entire game without tiring?

These are all results that, with hard work and dedication, can be achieved. And once you’ve picked the results that resonate with you, you’ll have a clear sense of what achieving your goal will look and feel like. In essence, you’ve made your goal more doable. (I’ll talk more about this notion of success and understanding what achieving it looks like in chapter 6.)

Your Terms, Your Control

In order for a goal to be truly doable, achieving it has to be something that’s totally within your control. Now, I’m not advocating that you become a control freak. For the record, I am generally of the mind-set that in most situations there is actually very little we can control, save for the way we think and feel. However, when it comes to goal setting and pursuing To Dos, control plays a crucial role.

Why? Because, unless you’ve mastered the art of the Jedi mind trick, you can’t control what anyone else thinks, says, or does. No matter how charming or charismatic or persuasive or fabulous you may be (and I have no doubt that you’re all these things and more!), every person is in charge of his or her feelings, thoughts, and actions. Therefore, putting your fate in the hands of others—letting your success be made or broken by another person or group of people—will send you down a road of frustration and into a state of unfulfilled flux. I believe the technical term for this is meh. So take this guideline to heart: for a goal to be truly doable, it has to be something you can have 100 percent control over pursuing and achieving.

Let’s take the previous example: I want to be a good soccer player.

I broke down some associated, concrete tasks (practice soccer drills, cross-train, read soccer books) you can do while getting clear on what you want to ultimately achieve. And all the tasks led to results that were more or less in your control:

■ Scoring more consistently

■ Being an expert juggler, dribbler, passer, receiver, and/or shooter

■ Having enough stamina to last an entire game

But there are also many other potential results you could work toward, such as:

■ Making the varsity team

■ Being named player of the year

■ Getting a full-ride athletic scholarship to your dream school

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While the above are great aspirations, and certainly worth working toward, the results aren’t totally within your control. There are outside factors that impact whether or not you can achieve them, like coaches, referees, college recruiters, and other teammates. Who knows—you might have the next Hope Solo as a teammate and lose the spotlight to her, or the college recruiter who’s been eyeing you all season could retire before offering you a scholarship.

Let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting you ditch your big, awesome goals and dreams! On the contrary … bring ’em on! The bigger, the better! Just be sure that reaching those goals is something you can own and control.

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The Big Why

Being super clear on exactly what you want to do and figuring out what getting there will look like are important steps in making goals and To Dos achievable, but there’s one more piece of the puzzle that isn’t on most people’s radar when it comes to pursuing things: getting clear on your Why.

Why ask why?

Because why is where it’s at (IMHO). By thinking about your Why for everything you’re hoping to do, you’re getting clear on your meaning for doing it. And when you can tap into the meaning behind anything on your plate, you unleash a boundless supply of motivation and inspiration that can be used to propel you forward.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

Your Why is your personal reason. Your Why connects any task or To Do with who you are and what you’re all about. Your Why is an individual thing. It’s emotional, it’s personal, and it can be incredibly powerful.

For example, say you want to beat your record in the 3000-meter race in track and field next spring. As long as you know your previous record that you want to blow past, you’re looking at a very straightforward goal. You know exactly what you’re trying to do (beat your previous best time), exactly what you need to do to get there (train, do speed workouts, eat well, be rested for your meets), and you’ll obviously know exactly when you’ve accomplished it (you’ll have clocked a race faster than your previous record). Perfect.

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But while having that straightforward goal is fantastic as is, let’s add in the extra element of a Why and see how it might change things.

Maybe your Why is to qualify for the district, state, or even national competition. Maybe your Why is to get the attention of the track coach of your dream school. Or maybe your Why is proving to yourself that you are capable of doing more than you believed possible. Maybe it’s all three.

Now you’ve defined the concrete goal you want to reach, and you’ve also honed in on your internal motivation, something that can keep you focused, inspired, and moving forward with strength and determination. All that’s left to do is lace up those running shoes and cue the theme song to Rocky.

This isn’t just a nice, feel-good sentiment either—it’s brain science. Simon Sinek, a researcher, TED speaker, and author of the book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, talks about the role your emotional brain—otherwise known as the limbic system—plays in helping you tap into your personal Why. This limbic system is the part of your brain that drives you, not to mention others, to take action. Activate your emotional brain in a positive way, and you’ll have an immediate edge in your goal pursuing.

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For Grace Li, the idea of a personal Why was not only a driving force but something she couldn’t ignore. When an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan, China, in 2008, Grace felt she just had to do something. Both her parents were born and raised in China, and the tragedy there struck a deep chord with her. She approached the Red Cross to find a way to get involved, but they initially told her they didn’t need much help from twelve-year-olds.

“I thought, regardless of that, I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by and let something like this happen. I wasn’t thinking about starting my own nonprofit organization. I thought, I’ll just raise the money by myself. I just felt like I could still do something on my own,” Grace explains.

And did she ever. Grace, along with her younger siblings, Sharon and Eric, raised more than $6,000 that summer, mostly by going door to door. She eventually partnered with her local Red Cross, and together they made sure the money reached children and families impacted by the tragedy in Sichuan. And like Sarah Cronk’s The Sparkle Effect, what started as a small, homegrown effort has since turned into a global movement. Grace and her siblings’ work has evolved into We Care Act, a nonprofit that engages other young people to help children around the world recover from disasters. Talk with Grace, and you’ll hear her powerful conviction behind what she wanted to do. She believed she could make a difference and so she did. Her personal Why actually fueled her toward success.

Cammy Nelson is a recent college graduate and pretty much an all-around kickass girl. She has spoken around the country to share a message of empowerment for girls, has been featured in CosmoGIRL as a Project 2024 Girl, founded a nonprofit called Rep Your School—Build a School while she was a student at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls, and was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Leadership in 2012. Wow! Cammy says her personal Why is behind everything she successfully works toward.

“For me, in terms of getting clear on goal setting, it’s about that why—why does this need to happen, and what is it that makes this something I’m passionate about? A lot of what I’ve done in the past and what I’m really proud of has come from things I feel a lot of passion toward,” Cammy explains.

She describes how this passion helped her be clear about what she wanted to create through her organization Rep a School—Build a School. “I was sitting in the university commons at my school watching people come down the stairs for dinner, and for some reason, there seemed to be a lot of people wearing our university apparel that evening. As I was sitting there looking at it, I thought, Why can’t some of the money that goes toward buying these clothes be used to do something good?

Cammy says the definition of something good—which ended up being the idea of building a school—came later. “That’s when it felt right and I got excited about the idea that we can get access to education for kids all around the world.” Her organization took a portion of proceeds from university apparel and used it to help build a school in an underdeveloped nation. “So my clarity came from the passion that I have for education in addition to the passion I had for making a difference through small acts like buying a T-shirt.”

Why Not

From Grace and Cammy’s stories, it’s easy to understand how your personal Why can actually become part of your recipe for success. Most of the time, that is. The rest of the time? Exploring your Why might make you realize your goal isn’t actually something you even want to do. Useful info to have, don’t you think?

Say your goal is to land a lead in the class play. You’ve identified the three possible parts you’re after, prepped an awesome audition monologue, and cleared your schedule for the tryouts. Yet, when you ask yourself why you want to be cast in a leading role, you realize your primary reason is because you don’t want to disappoint your mom. After all, she thinks you’re a natural-born actor, and you want her to be proud of you. When you dig deeper, you might also discover you don’t really have any skin in the game and that when it comes right down to it, you’d much rather help build the props and set than be in the spotlight. On top of everything else, you were hoping to work extra hours at your part-time job to save up for a Tory Burch bag, and spending every night at rehearsals doesn’t really fit into your plan.

By just asking the simple question—why?—you can see that this goal of being a lead in the play probably isn’t one worth pursuing. Because at the end of the day, it’s not actually something you want to achieve.

And I guarantee you this—if you begin working toward a goal that you don’t truly want to achieve and that you’re not fully committed to accomplishing, the chances of reaching it are slim to none. For a goal or a To Do to be doable, it actually has to be something you want to do … and for a reason that’s meaningful to you.

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Images THE WHY TEST

The quick and easy way of figuring out if a goal should be cut from the bucket list is to see if it passes the Why Test. Ask yourself if your Why is rooted in a fear of:

■ Disappointing someone else: Are you concerned that if you don’t do something, you will let someone else—a friend, a sibling, a parent, a teacher, a coach—down? Does your concern over disappointing another person outweigh your own personal desires associated with the To Do?

■ Missing out: Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a very real thing and it’s been behind many an ill-fated pursuit. Doing something because you’re afraid that by not doing it you’ll be forgotten or perceived as less important or worthy is a recipe for disaster. Plus, it just feels crappy.

■ Others judging you: Do you worry about what others will think of you to the point that you embark on endeavors in the hopes of controlling others’ perceptions?

If you answered yes to any of these, then consider dropping this goal like a hot potato. Or at the very least, explore whether or not you can reset your intention to make the goal meaningful to you.

Remember this truth: the only person whose thoughts you can control is you. People will think what they think. Your Why trumps another person’s—at least when it comes to your own things—any day of the week.

Essentially, if your Why is tied to fear of any kind, it’s an indicator that you’re more focused on others’ thoughts and feelings about you than on what you really want. And that, frankly, is pretty darned disheartening. That’s not to say you can’t or won’t complete your To Dos if your Why is outwardly focused, but being fueled by fear of how others might judge you instead of openness, curiosity, and enthusiasm can absolutely make it more of a struggle.

And even if our Whys aren’t rooted in fear or concern over disappointing someone, sometimes further exploration can show us that our intentions behind what we’re doing are misplaced. Sometimes we’re following stories for our lives that someone else is writing.

It’s Up to You

Sahar Osmani, president of the San Diego State University chapter of Coaching Corps, was five years old when she uttered the words, “I’m going to be a lawyer when I grow up!” much to her parents’ amusement. From that day on, Sahar had it embedded in her mind that she would be a lawyer someday. That notion became part of her unquestioned personal story all the way through high school graduation. But when she got to college and started taking political science and other prelaw classes, she had an aha moment and realized that what she was doing wasn’t actually what she was passionate about at all.

Sahar explains, “I had to look back at my goals and answer those questions: What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to accomplish? What am I attached to? What things do I like? So that’s how I ended up defining what I really wanted. And finding a purpose in my education and in what I wanted to do with my life.”

As it turns out, Sahar is passionate about working in intel, or special investigations. So she switched her focus at school, became a member of the Air Force ROTC, and is taking the steps she needs to take to make her dream and plan a reality. Now that her personal passion and Why are in alignment with her goals, I have no doubt she’ll be unstoppable.


STEP 1 SUMMARY


Congratulations! If you’ve read through this chapter, you’re on your way to making anything doable. Taking this first step gives you a solid foundation for consciously pursuing whatever is on your plate. Here is a recap of the key points:

Step 1: Define Your To Do: By defining your To Do, you clarify not only what you want to do but why you want to do it. To do this:

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■ Declare what it is you want to achieve, either verbally or in writing. For example, I want to bake an apple pie or I want to sign up for piano lessons or I want to have a yard sale this weekend.

■ Turn vague goals into concrete goals. Can the goal or the result of the goal be measured or tracked? If not, adapt the goal so you can answer that question with a definitive yes. I want to be healthier becomes I want to eat at least one serving of whole foods each day. I want to be a better student becomes I want to turn in all my homework assignments on time.

■ Explore what completing the goal itself will look and feel like. How exactly will you know when you’ve become a good soccer player? Will you score more consistently? Will you have mastered the arts of juggling, dribbling, passing, receiving, and shooting?

■ Make sure completing the To Do is within your control. I want to get a full ride to college on a soccer scholarship depends on other people choosing you, but I want to raise my stamina so I can get through an entire game without tiring is all on you.

■ Uncover your personal Why for pursuing the To Do, and make sure it’s personal and meaningful. For example, I want to prove to myself that I’m capable of doing more than I believed possible.