Achieving Goals | The Barefoot Spirit

The Goal Book – Part 3 How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 05:08:39 +0000

If you really want to keep your New Year’s Resolutions, try using a Goal Book. When used regularly, it is a powerful tool toward achievement. As the year progresses, we get distracted and it’s easy to stray from our New Year’s intentions. We start out with a sense of commitment, but following through requires tenacity beyond New Year’s Eve. That’s where the Goal Book comes in. It not only lists your goals and resolutions, it logs your progress toward them, giving you the encouragement to stick to your resolutions.

Here are some tips we discovered that helped us get the most out of this amazing tool:

1. Work with a Partner. Two heads really are better than one, especially when both are working towards the same goal. When you work with a partner, you make a quasi-public commitment to do something and that challenges you to stay on track. You both will look forward to posting in your Goal Book once-a-week. When something productive happens or you reach a milestone, you can’t wait to share it and post it. When you post together, you often remind each other of events that might otherwise go overlooked.

2. List Last Year’s Successes. At the end of every year, make a list of the accomplishments you have made in every category. When you start a new book for the New Year, put last year’s accomplishments on page one. Your history of achievements in each area will reinforce your ability to succeed. This will be encouraging and empowering when setting your goals and resolutions for the New Year.

3. Post Weekly. Getting into a disciplined routine may be challenging at first. But as you begin making progress, you will look forward to posting the “scoreboard” with the progress you have made toward your goals. What if you miss a week? No problem. Just enter twice the posts. Try not to let it go too long lest you forget the progress you have made. It’s the constant reminder that we are making progress that keeps us on track and excited about achieving our goals.

4. Review Your Achievements. Some weeks we don’t make much progress in some areas, so that’s when we review our progress in the past. We usually read 4 or 5 past posts leading up to the present. It reminds us that we are progressing, albeit slowly and incrementally. That keeps us going. Also, because we post in several categories, we see progress in other areas, and that’s encouraging.

5. Celebrate your Successes. When you do finally achieve a goal or have a major breakthrough in one category, celebrate! It’s important to stop and take the time to acknowledge your achievement. It empowers you to take on the next challenge, and it is fun. Don’t take small successes for granted and immediately focus on what’s next. Acknowledgement builds confidence and commitment.

The Goal Book is a great way to break down our goals into bite-sized pieces, and gives us the regular validation that keeps us going. Constant review and posting keeps us focused on our goals and helps us see every opportunity that comes our way. Are you ready to make your New Year’s Resolutions list? This year put it in a Goal Book.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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The Goal Book – Part 2 Identify your Goal Categories

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:50:04 +0000

December is the last month we have to put together our wish list for 2013. Most of us will wait until the last day to scribble down some sort of resolutions or plans we hope to accomplish for the New Year. But, how do you get started?

Last time we shared a tool that we have used for years to organize our goals and keep track of the progress we make – the Goal Book. It is a road map, a reminder, and a scoreboard. The regular postings and history of milestones encourage us to stay focused even when we seem to be making no progress. It helps us keep our eyes and ears open for opportunities, ideas and contacts that will move us forward.

So it becomes a fun game and we look forward to reviewing the Goal Book every Sunday. And when we do, we go through each goal category, read the goal and the last few posts, and spend a few minutes recalling what progress has occurred this week. Then we make entries.

The posts are dated, brief, and historical facts – no opinions, speculations, or wishful dreaming. You can post contacts and resources that may help you; with the understanding they are steps in the right direction, not achievements. Sometimes weeks go by with nothing to post in one particular area, but that’s OK. We post achievements in other categories and that gives us a feeling of expectation that there will be a breakthrough, achievement or insight because we have seen it before.

We suggest you start your own Goal Book. Pick up a small 3-ring binder and create a section for each category where you state your goals, resolutions or plans for the coming year.

So what are the Goal Categories? You can make up your own, but just to get you started, here are the general categories that have worked well for us:

Health. For us, this includes achieving and maintaining our ideal weight, improving our diet, and getting regular exercise. It also includes mental health, vacations, and self-improvement goals, such as a new skill.

Wealth. Here we put not only our financial goals, but also income-related projects. Equity, investments, savings and expense reductions also fit here.

Home. We all have plans to improve our environment whether its purchases, improvements, energy savings or even closets that need organizing. This category can also be a catch all for things such as upgrading our wardrobe, transportation, and technology.

Spirit. Acknowledging the apparently random and coincidental interconnectivity of favorable events that move us toward our goals seems to us to result in more of them. This is may be considered religious or “woo woo”, but whatever you call it, it makes it more fun and encouraging.

Social. Family, friends, and associates we want to cultivate relationships with go here. We have a calendar under this category where we post upcoming events that we look forward to and prepare for, as well as new people we meet.

Feel free to use categories that seem more appropriate for you. We review and reorganize our categories every year. It’s amazing how simple this system is and how well it works for us. Next time we will discuss the mindset, partnerships and strategies that can make your Goal Book an even more effective tool to achieve your goals and stick to your resolutions.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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The Goal Book – Roadmap to Achievement

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 22:36:15 +0000

Before New Years arrives with all the resolutions we’re bound to make and break, we thought we would share a tool we have used over the years to help us achieve our goals. We call it our Goal Book.

It’s pretty simple really, just a 3-ring binder that takes 5½ by 8½ inch paper and has index dividers. We use it to write down our goals and log in the achievements that occur bringing us closer to their fruition.

Our Goal Book has evolved over the years and yours will, too. We will spend the next few blog entries describing how we have used this powerful tool in more detail. Call it symbolic, or ritual, or make it a game! But there’s something about being tactile, handling a book, turning the pages, and hand writing your entries that is not only satisfying, but encouraging. We’ve found that the process itself of making goals and logging your progress in a special goal book exclusively used for this purpose provides many advantages:

Make it a Real. While we’re sure you could adopt one of the many digital calendar programs available to achieve a similar data file for your smart device, it would not be the same. An actual physical book that sits out in a designated place is a daily reminder that you have goals, and more importantly, that you are making progress toward them. We use a notebook with a durable cover and zipper so it keeps the filler paper clean and contains other notes that we may stick in from time to time. Plus it’s green, the color of nature, so it encourages us to take it along on picnics, hikes and camping trips.

Make it Organized. Think of it like a tree with a trunk, branches, twigs and leaves. Identify the major branches or goal categories first. Write the name of the category on the index tabs. We chose health, home, spirit, business, wealth, social, and travel, but you may divide up your categories differently. We will talk more about this in a later post, but for now, think about what categories your major goals are for the year, and see what categories they fall into. At the end of the year, review it and see what goals you have achieved, and what goals need more time. Goals vary, but the categories pretty much stay the same from year to year.

Make it a Game. As the year begins to unfold make it a point to update your goal book on a weekly basis. Under each category, post the date and what achievements have been made that week toward each particular goal. If you miss a week, just enter 2 weeks worth of progress. When something good happens that moves you closer to your goal, you’ll find that you just can’t wait to post it in the appropriate place. Your goal book will seem to beckon you from the shelf. You begin to look for progress and even expect it, which keeps you focused. When there is no progress, that’s the time to go back and read the achievements you have made in the past toward that goal.

We have a friend, who, when asked if she has achieved her goal yet, says, “I am making progress!” Keeping a Goal Book constantly reminds you of the progress you are making. Next time we will explore how to divide up your goal categories and how to identify the goals within each of them.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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