Another Fun Goal Method

I received this great tool that I am incorporating into my daily life to get me closer to my financial, weight and other life goals. It's from Sean Smith, the Master Results Coach. I've come up with my "MTO's" for each goal including my guitar and language practice. As Sean shares, it's more about building on small successes than striving to overcome the feeling of failure. I love this idea!

Use MTO Goals to Improve Your Results

I talk a lot about goal setting and goal getting, and one of the best tools I’ve learned recently is called MTO - minimum, target, and outrageous.

A few weeks back at his Advanced Breakthrough to Success Seminar, Jack Canfield taught us this powerful tool to get you into ACTION, and a light bulb went off in my head. It’s so simple, and yet very, very effective. It will change your results immediately!

Let’s say I have a goal to get to my ideal weight (which is true, and you’ll hear more about that in the upcoming weeks). One of the actions that I know will help me achieve and maintain that goal is exercise. Here’s where MTO comes in.

M – Minimum activity. If you were ready to go to bed and had not yet reached your goal, what is the minimum level of activity you are willing to commit to, no matter what? For the ideal weight goal, mine is 5 minutes. So I’m willing to absolutely commit to a minimum of 5 minutes of exercise daily – simple right? Anybody can get in motion for 5 minutes.

Now 5 minutes may not seem like much, and it’s really not in the grand scheme of things. But it’s HUGE in terms of goal getting. Why? Because it allows me to have a success for the day, instead of feeling like a failure.

Instead of going a day without exercising, I continue to do the actions, though small they may be, but momentum gets started with just one little push. Often, I start exercising for the 5 minutes and end up doing a little bit more, sometimes a lot more. But had the goal been 20 minutes, and I was tired, I probably wouldn’t have done anything. See the power in this?

T – Target activity. This is the target, or ideal level of activity to achieve your goal. For instance, my daily target level is 20 minutes of cardio, or 30 minutes of basketball.

O – Outrageous activity. This is the level of activity that would simply be outrageous and get me to my goal lightning-quick. My outrageous amount is an hour a day.

Now let’s look at my weekly MTO goals…

M – 2 days a week, T – 4 days a week, O – 6 days a week

I have to tell you that I am so much more inspired to do my exercises now, because I set achievable goals and gave myself permission to succeed on 3 different levels a day, and 3 different levels each week, instead of the all-or-nothing approach without flexibility, setting myself up for failure on a daily basis.

Tell me if this rings a bell…In the past, I would work out like crazy for a week or two, looking for results (those of you in our coaching programs know that doesn’t work). When I was unhappy with the results, I’d stop working out because I didn’t want to keep feeling like a failure.

And then several months later, when I got to the point where I was sick of being overweight again, I’d go like gangbusters for two more weeks. It was a constant, vicious cycle I had created, and it wasn’t helping me at all.

With this new concept, I’m on the right path because it’s so much easier to stay inspired to ACT everyday. And the more I succeed, the more I want to continue to succeed, so it’s a positive cycle this time.

Small successes lead to medium successes which lead to your dreams.

Too often, people set a goal and when they don’t achieve it, they punish themselves. They get mad, irritated, frustrated, and upset, and then they end up scrapping the goal altogether, telling themselves that they just can’t do it.

But adopting the MTO concept changes all of that. Because success is easier to accomplish, you’ll feel good, you’ll be happier, and you’ll have a much better chance to get what you want.

Take this concept, apply it to all of your goals, and watch your results soar. In Mary Kay for instance, you can set daily and weekly MTO’s around phone calls, handing your business card out, etc – any ACTIVITY. (Make sure it’s an activity and not a result that you don’t control (like holding skin care classes, getting a name & number, selling, etc.)

Enjoy the Journey! ;-)
SS

Sean Smith, "The Pink Caddie Coach," empowers Independent Beauty Consultants to identify and erase all their inner obstacles and create personalized action plans guaranteed for success, so they can make more money, have more free time, and live the lifestyle of their dreams. To get Sean's weekly e-newsletter, "Pink Possibilities", delivered directly to your email, subscribe now for FREE at www.PinkPossibilities.com.