motivation

Look Forward to Looking Back at Your Goal Success in 2025

/ Ken Blanchard

It’s time again to think about New Year’s resolutions. I like to picture myself sitting here a year from now, looking back on 2025, and patting myself on the back because I’ve accomplished three or four goals that I set for the year.

What do you dream of achieving, professionally or personally, in the next twelve months? You may want to set a work goal such as improving your time management or organizational skills, or going for a certificate or degree you need to qualify for a promotion. Or perhaps you have a personal goal regarding healthy eating or exercise habits. Do you have a desire to learn a new language? Have you been wanting to start a writing project like an article, book, or blog? Travel more? Learn to paint? Picture yourself a year from now, looking back at having accomplished one or more goals that you may have had in the back of your mind for months or years.

Personally, I’ve found the best way to write effective resolutions is to make them SMART: Specific, Motivating, Attainable, Relevant, and Trackable.

  • Specific: Be explicit about what your goal is so that it’s observable and measurable.

Example: “Eat more fish” is too indistinct to be a goal. “Eat seafood twice a week” is something I can mark on the calendar.

  • Motivating: Make sure your goal is something that excites you; something you really want to do.

Example: Even though I’ve coauthored more than 70 books, I’ve never been a big reader. I wish I were, but I’m not. I know if I made a resolution to start reading more books, I wouldn’t keep it. However, I do have a lot of old friends that I love talking with on the phone. “Call a different friend every week this year” is a resolution I would really enjoy and could easily keep. I feel satisfied and relaxed after one of those conversations.

  • Attainable: Don’t set an unrealistic goal that there’s no chance you’ll accomplish. If a resolution is too fantastic, you are just setting yourself up to fail.

Example: Even though I love going to the course and playing NATO (Not Attached To Outcome) golf with friends on a nice day, if I made a resolution to golf five days a week, I might get all tired out. Once a week is perfect for me. It still feels special and I have plenty of energy to play a decent game.

  • Relevant: Is achieving this goal important to you? Will it enhance your life?

Example: Some time ago when our company began teaching the ABCDs of Trust (Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable), I took a Trust assessment and was surprised to learn that I wasn’t very dependable. Apparently my desire to please everyone had led to frequent overpromising, which resulted in people being disappointed because I couldn’t meet their expectations. My team helped me set this goal: When someone approached me with an opportunity, instead of saying “yes” without thinking, I would give the person my executive assistant’s business card and she would make sure I had the time and resources to follow through. My dependability score soared! I didn’t let people down anymore—and working with my team got easier, too.

  • Trackable: Chart your success over time to catch yourself doing things right, making progress, acknowledging your wins, and celebrating every step of the way!

Example: For me, sharing my resolutions with my family, friends, and colleagues makes everything more fun because I have cheerleaders and supporters that help me track my progress and celebrate even the smallest victory. An accountability group is never a bad idea if you really want to set yourself up for success.

For best results, limit the number of your goals/resolutions to between three and five. Write them down and look at them every day. Place them where you can easily see them, either on your computer’s home screen, printed out and on the wall above your desk, or in another obvious place. If you think you’ll never forget your goals or resolutions, you are wrong. There’s also a good possibility changes may happen that would require you to rewrite a goal.

In the next few days, I’ll narrow down my list of resolutions to my top five. How about you? What resolutions for 2025 do you want to be looking back on with the pride of accomplishment a year from now? Too often New Year’s resolutions are just announcements. Don’t just announce it—really make it happen! And best wishes for a wonderful 2025!

Timeless Principle #2: A Good Leader Catches People Doing Things Right

/ Ken Blanchard

In my last How We Lead blog post, I introduced “Leadership is a partnership,” the first of six timeless principles of effective leadership that my son, Scott, and I will be highlighting in an upcoming book.

Like the first principle, this one—”A good leader catches people doing things right”—was revolutionary for its time. When I began studying leadership in the 60s, bosses were widely regarded as people whose job it was to catch their workers doing things wrong. Managers would evaluate someone’s performance, reprimand them, demand that they improve, and disappear until it happened again. To me it sounds like the opposite of a motivational environment.

I’ve said for years that if someone took away everything I’ve taught except one thing, it would be the concept of catching people doing things right. It’s in the first leadership parable I ever wrote, The One Minute Manager®, which I coauthored with Spencer Johnson in 1982—and it’s also in my latest book, Simple Truths of Leadership, which I coauthored with Randy Conley in 2022. Just think, that’s forty years of catching people doing things right!

Back in the day, I learned that most people had never looked at their boss as a friend or colleague. When people saw their boss coming, they would hide because they knew they were going to get in trouble—after all, that was the only time the boss ever showed up. I couldn’t help but think: What if that were reversed? What if the boss walked around catching people doing things right, praising their progress, and cheering them on? And if there was an area where the boss noticed behavior or performance wasn’t great, what if they said, ‘How can I help?’ Would that make a difference? You bet it would!

Catching people doing things right is a powerful tool for bringing out the best in others. This principle is consistent with how my parents raised my sister and me. I remember as a kid when my good friend and I were on the same team and our families would get together after the games. If our team won, we would all celebrate. But if we lost, my friend’s parents would get on his case and tell him everything he did wrong. In contrast, my folks would try to cheer me up. They would tell me not to get down on myself, that I played the best I could, and they would give me a chance to talk. They always led with encouragement. That’s where I got the idea of praising people not only for doing things right, but also for doing things approximately right. You don’t have to be perfect to earn a little praise.

I had several teachers through the years who were also encouragers and cheerleaders. It was easy to see that they got better results and formed better relationships with their students than the teachers who were tyrants or bullies. I was an observer who paid attention to things like that. To me, it has always seemed obvious that positive reinforcement is a better way for parents to get the best from their kids, teachers to get the best from their students, and leaders to get the best from the people on their team. Catching people doing things right is a timeless principle I learned and began practicing and teaching years ago. It is a concept that still holds true—in fact, it’s woven into most of my books and our company’s training programs. When somebody does something right or approximately right, praise them. If they stumble on the way to a goal, ask how you can help them get back on the right track. To me it just feels like common sense. And the best leaders make common sense common practice

Time to Revisit Your Resolution?

/ Ken Blanchard

I just learned there is a day every year called National Quitters Day. It’s the second Friday in January (we just missed it). On that day, 80% of people who have made a New Year’s resolution have given it up. Think about that—it’s such a sure thing, there’s actually a day to commemorate it!

I have a theory about why this interesting behavior—making a New Year’s resolution only to break it—keeps happening year after year. And I believe the answer to the problem is in our company’s flagship leadership training program, SLII®. SLII® teaches leaders how to empower their people to succeed by offering the right amount of direction and support needed on specific tasks or goals. (More about SLII®, and my theory, as we go along.)

So let’s say you made a resolution that this year you would eat healthy and exercise every day. You were excited about getting healthier, you felt sure you could make it happen, but you really didn’t know much about what you were getting yourself into. (NOTE: In SLII® terminology, when it came to your goal of leading a healthy lifestyle, at this point you were at a stage of development known as Enthusiastic Beginner.)

On January 1 you got up and walked around your neighborhood. As you walked, you thought about all the healthy food you had stocked in your kitchen. When you got home, you made yourself a tasty egg white omelet. You walked more and ate healthy the rest of the week. Feeling triumphant, you gave yourself a one-minute praising. Good on me! I won’t have any problem sticking to this program—I’ll just keep doing this every day. This is fabulous!

A few days later, the weather was cold and cloudy. You decided to skip your walk. What if it snows? And I can’t find my gloves. I’ll just stay inside. At lunch you didn’t feel like eating another salad, so you grabbed the peanut butter and made a sandwich. No biggie, peanut butter has protein and the jam is made with fruit. In the middle of running errands the next day, you had some hunger pangs so you drove through a fast food place for a quick burger and fries. I deserve a treat—and it’s still good because I got a diet soda when I really wanted a milkshake!

But later you felt guilty. The next day you fell a bit further behind. You were worried that reaching your goal was not going to be as easy as you thought. And it was clear you were no longer enjoying the journey. You decided it might be best to just quit. (NOTE: These thoughts and feelings regarding your goal of leading a healthy lifestyle signaled that you had now entered the SLII® developmental stage known as Disillusioned Learner.)

So here’s where my theory comes in. My guess is that National Quitters Day would have happened right around this point in the story. Why? Because everyone who made a resolution on January 1 had been attempting to move toward achieving that goal and was going through the same thing. This is the discouraging, but predictable, stage when people begin to question their commitment to their goal. And with a vague goal, no way of knowing what’s ahead in their journey, and no one to give them direction or support, it makes sense that most people would choose to walk away now if it were their choice to make.

You may be going through these feelings about your resolution right now. It is true that getting through this phase of any goal or task isn’t easy—but it is achievable. These three tips will make the difference:  

  1. Rewrite your resolution/goal to make it SMART: Specific, Motivating, Attainable, Relevant, and Trackable. SMART goals give you a clear target to aim for.
  2. Understand the predictable development level curve we all go through when learning a new task or embarking on a new goal: from Enthusiastic Beginner (needs specific direction) to Disillusioned Learner (needs direction and some support) to Capable, but Cautious, Contributor (needs support)to Self-Reliant Achiever (needs little direction or support). Follow the curve and don’t give up!
  3. Most important: Don’t go it alone. Ask for help from knowledgeable friends. Everyone working on a goal or task needs accountability partners and cheerleaders to connect with on a regular basis. Ask them to check in with you to ensure you are making progress on your goal. Let them know what you need in terms of direction and support on the way to goal achievement.

The end of the story? After rewriting your resolution to make it a SMART goal, learning what to expect along the development curve on the way to achieving your goal, and enlisting friends to encourage, support, and cheer you on, you are well on your way to the healthy lifestyle you designed for yourself!  Congratulations and Happy 2023!

Playing Well with Others

/ Ken Blanchard

Remember the days when we used to get report cards from our teachers? They gave us feedback not only about our class work but also about us as human beings. Perhaps you were one of the kids whose teacher praised you by saying that you “played well with others.” If so, good on you! Playing well with others is an essential life skill, no matter how old we get.

 Who Are Your Truth Tellers and Challengers?

It’s not always easy to work well with others, especially when the other person is very different from us. Often, the people we work with don’t share our opinions or our approach to problem solving. They might even challenge our thinking and insist on doing things their way—or at least insist that we compromise. This is a good thing! Why? Because we need truth tellers and challengers to help us grow and develop.

In her wonderful book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin shows how Lincoln became the greatest American president, in part by surrounding himself with those who had initially opposed him and who continued to challenge him throughout his presidency.

How Working with People Least Like Me Brought Out the Best in Me

Early in my career, I worked with a man who wasn’t like me in many ways. Where I was easygoing, he was a stickler. Where I saw the big picture, he was better at details. Where I had a live-and-let-live philosophy, he had a take-no-prisoners approach. A lot of people found it tough to be around this man, but he was brilliant and working with him led to a wonderful career for me.

I don’t regret a single day I spent working with this man. He got me excited about leadership and pushed me hard to be clear and theoretically sound in my work. I would not have become as good a teacher or presenter if not for him.

I also had a writing partner whose personality could be tough at times. He insisted on getting his way and didn’t always use tact when he communicated his opinions. Yet he had such a brilliant, creative mind that I knew I had to write a book with him. Despite the many confrontations we had, the book we worked on together never would have reached its full potential without him.

Working with these two men showed me how partnering with people who were different than I was could improve my skills and ignite my career.

The Benefits of Working with Others

I believe that playing well with others is my superpower. Over the past 53 years I’ve written more than 65 books, most of them with coauthors. Here are just a few of the upsides to working with others.

Learning. My mother used to ask me why I didn’t write my own books. “I already know what I know,” I would tell her. “When I write with somebody else, I learn a lot.” Writing with others increases my knowledge on multiple topics.

Skill Building. By working with coauthors, I sharpen my writing skills—vocabulary, grammar, organization, and structure. I also get to practice patience and listening skills.

Productivity. Without question, working with others increases my productivity. It is highly doubtful that I could have published more than 65 books on my own.

Networking. On my seventieth birthday, we threw a party and invited all my coauthors to attend. What a joy it was to be with all the wonderful writing partners I’d had over the years! There were around 30 of them at that time, and the number is even larger today. Developing a network of special friends is one of the greatest benefits of working with others.

Ability to Serve Others. I believe that the purpose of work is to make a positive contribution to humanity. Working with others allows me to expand my influence and make a bigger difference in people’s lives.

So, don’t go it alone! Learn to play well with others—especially those who might be different than you. Collaborating with others will bring out the best in you—and it will benefit your organization, as well.

What Principles Are on Your Belief Window?

/ Ken Blanchard

Many years ago, my late, great friend Hyrum Smith was a member of a team that discovered the Reality Model, a brilliant visual way of describing how people look at life. Hyrum was so taken by the concepts in the model that he spent much of the rest of his life traveling around  and spreading the life-changing message to businesses, schools, churches, and even prisons. The ideas in the model aren’t new, but they are remarkably relevant for today. Why? Because the Reality Model helps people see the world as it really is.

The main concept of the Reality Model is the idea that each of us has a Belief Window through which we observe the world around us. On our Belief Window are thousands of principles we believe to be true about ourselves, our world, and other people. Most of these principles are an attempt to meet a basic human need such as to live, to love and be loved, to feel important, or to have variety. Some principles, such as “the Earth is round,” reflect reality, and some, such as “dogs are better than cats,” are subjective. Either way, we believe them to be true and we will behave as if they are—because our beliefs drive our behavior.

That said, the key to effective living is to continually identify the changing principles on our Belief Windows, look at the results they give us, and ask an important question: Will these results meet my needs over time? If the answer is yes,it usually means it is a valid belief for us. If the answer is no, we can chalk it up as a lousy belief and choose to either get rid of it or change it.

Let me give you a personal example. I once found myself tipping the scale at more than thirty pounds over my normal weight. My wife, Margie, asked me what my philosophy of eating was—particularly when I was consulting and teaching on the road. I answered, “If I’ve been working hard, I deserve to eat anything I want at night.” She said, “So how is that working for you?” I had to admit, it wasn’t fun carrying around the burden of that extra weight. These results weren’t meeting my needs over time. I needed to make a change.

Now remember: beliefs drive behavior. I realized that before my behavior could change, what I believed about eating had to change. I had to find an alternative principle. After much thought, I came up with this: “If I’ve been working hard, I deserve to eat a healthy dinner so I can sleep well and feel good about myself.” My revised principle helped me, over time, to get the results I wanted—and evaluating my Belief Window was instrumental in helping me turn my health around.

Why am I sharing these thoughts with you today? In the past eighteen months, we all have been carrying around the burden of living through a pandemic. Each of us has faced our own challenges—physical health, mental health, jobs, finances, etc. Many people’s lives have been turned upside down in too many ways to count. I’d like to suggest we all take a look at the principles that have formed on our Belief Windows and determine whether or not they have been meeting our needs over time.

For example, let’s say you have this principle on your Belief Window: “I’m afraid to leave the house. The world is a scary place.” Is that a lousy belief or is it a valid belief? Have the results of your behavior met your needs over time? If they haven’t, perhaps you could adopt an alternative principle that would meet your needs better. How about this: “Walking my dog after breakfast is a safe way for me to get back into life.” Will that alter your behavior in a positive way? Yes, it will.

Or maybe there’s been a change in what is important to you: “I’m not looking forward to going back to my office. Working from home makes me happier and I get more work done.” Is that a lousy belief or a valid belief? Have those results met your needs over time? If you think they have, talk to your supervisor—perhaps you can make working from home a permanent choice.   

When you discover that certain principles have helped you find peace of mind, hold on to them. When you uncover beliefs that haven’t been working for you, get rid of them or come up with alternatives that can help you change your results for the better. And don’t forget the phrase over time—because results take time to measure.

Are the results of your beliefs and behavior meeting your needs? Following this model won’t improve everything overnight. But becoming aware of your principles and applying the concepts of the Belief Window may be a step in the right direction.