Over the Moon With Your I I

"When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened."

                                                                    --John M. Richardson, Jr 

The problem of getting started with any change, whether personal or organizational, is our initial reluctance to it. The tendency is to procrastinate, even though we know the circumstances require we do something about it. We let "things happen" and when the inevitable happens, "we wonder what happened!". In my previous blog post (On Why CEO's Procrastinate. And What They Could Do About It), I had suggested an approach to overcome this reluctance to act  which was more in a business context. Thomas Pytchyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University  who specializes in the study of procrastination, suggests a way all of us could employ. When Pytchyl is asked what someone should do to reduce procrastination, his most common answer is, "It's not enough to have a goal intention, you need to have an Implementation Intention too." Implementation intention, a term coined by Peter Gollwitzer, is a specific type of intentional statement that defines when and where a specific behavior will be performed. and is an easily applicable planning strategy that can help overcome procrastination by automating action control. An implementation intention supports goal intention by setting out in advance when/where and how one will achieve this goal. So instead of making yourself a "to do" list of goal intentions it is more effective to decide how, when and where you are going to accomplish each of the tasks you need to get done. 

In my opinion, the best example of this format  is John F. Kennedy made to the American congress on May 25th 1961. That's when he announced a plan to put a man on the Moon before the decade was over. Now, even though there wasn't even a plan in hand nor the technology to do so, it had to be done. The reason?  The feeling worldwide that the Soviets were way ahead in the space race. Only twenty days before Kennedy's speech, NASA had launched Alan Shepard into space, the first US man to reach space. And, unlike Yuri Gagarin more than a month earlier, Shepard didn't even orbit Earth. He was just launched like a cannonball. 

Kennedy clearly knew that getting NASA started on a project as crazy as this was to put a stimulus for action into the environment. And the stimulus? The fear of the Soviets beating them to the moon and making it a Red Moon. Remember, this was in the days of the cold war when the US-Soviet competition to beat each other in every way was at its height. So here is how Kennedy in his speech, used the "If....then, when/where and how" format to galvanize his countrymen into action:

If... (we do not) "land a man..."
Where "on the moon..." 
When "by the end of the decade..."  
Then (left unsaid) the Soviets will beat us to it and rub our collective noses into the moon dust!

The result was that on July 20th 1969, an American became the first man on the moon.

The result of Kennedy's "If...then" stimulus

 The spectacular results of Kennedy's 'moon speech' has now made it a classic example of the perfect  mission statement. His accomplishment was to set his scientists a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) with a "then" stimulus (even if not explicitly articulated) impossible to ignore.

And for You and Me...

 Considering that you and I do not have such bruising(?) imperatives as did Kennedy, let us consider an everyday example Pytchyl cites. I might have, say,  a goal intention of "flossing my teeth regularly" An implementation intention can support this goal intention by setting out in advance when/where and how we will achieve this goal. In this case, it might be "When I put the toothpaste on my toothbrush in the evening (something which is a habit for me), I will then stop and get out the floss first." Essentially what I've done in making this implementation intention is to put the cue for behavior (putting the paste on my toothbrush) into the environment, so it serves as a stimulus for my behavior. I don't have to think about or remind myself about my goal. The moment I put the paste on my brush, my behavior is cued. In time, this should become as automatic as my teeth brushing is already. My 'then' stimulus could also be, "or end up with decayed teeth or a root canal treatment." This of course would make my stimulus an imperative in the same league, or close to that of  Kennedy's in his moon speech!

Call to Action

Studies indicate that implementation intentions on getting started can help when we have an initial reluctance to get started on an aversive task.What the above examples clearly prove is you're more likely to get started when you put the stimulus for action into the environment.

So when do you intend to get started on your "moon mission"?

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SPEAKING OF GOALS >

A study by the American Society of Training and Development showed that:

• People who merely hear a goal, have a 10 percent chance of achieving it
• People who create a plan for a specific goal have a 50 percent chance of achieving it
• People who have a coach holding them accountable to their goal have a 95 percent chance of reaching their goal 

In other words, you can double your chances of success by being held accountable through a coaching program versus merely having a plan. A good coach can leave a positive impact on your life (and business) and help you achieve things you may not have been able to attain on your own.

Get yourself a coach. Contact uday.arur@gmail.com