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The Secret Formula for Incremental Change

posted by Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

The Secret Formula

My wife and I are coordinating Financial Peace University again this semester, and this week’s lesson was the one for which Dave Ramsey is most known. It’s all about getting out of debt using the Debt Snowball method. Dave gets so fired up in the lesson that it gets me excited every time I watch it.

One of the parts of the lesson that has always most resonated with me is his formula for achieving success with his plan. He doesn’t call it a formula, but it has always seemed like a nice, succinct formulaic statement. I can attest that the formula works because it’s exactly how our family got out of debt.

I’ve modified it a bit for clarity’s sake, but it goes like this:

(P + T) x S = R

Your Level of Passion over Time multiplied by your Depth of Sacrifice equals Results.

As you can see, this isn’t a magic formula. Implicit here are dedication, hard work, and sacrifice. This formula doesn’t offer an easy road.

Each component of this formula is crucial for achieving the change you desire in your life. You must be passionate about your goal—you’ve got to want it! You must understand that change takes time—incremental change is a marathon, not a sprint. And you must be willing to sacrifice, knowing that the deeper you’re willing to sacrifice, the faster you’ll reach your goal.

This is the secret to incremental change. Get fired up about who you want to become and dedicate yourself to implementing change over the long haul. Be willing to sacrifice deeply and you’ll begin to see amazing changes happen in your life.

secret-formula

Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

I’m Jeff M. Miller, and I help ordinary people who are stuck in a rut change their behaviors so they can be extraordinary. I’m an entrepreneur who retired from my full-time job in my early 40s to work from home. I’m a financial counselor, life coach, graphic designer, and passionate believer in helping others improve their lives a little more each day.

http://theincrementallife.com

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Filed Under: **Featured, Goal Setting, Living Like No One Else, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life Tagged With: Goal Setting, Living Like No One Else, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life

Priorities Should (and Will) Shift Over Time

posted by Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

5 Questions to Ask

As you work to be more intentional about how you live your life, and as you take the time to ask yourself “who do I want to become”, you will often find that the answer to the question changes over time. Your priorities will shift as you grow and mature. Just as your interests change, so will your ultimate goals.

Dreams have a way of changing, don’t they? When you were a kid, did you have one of those “Who do you want to be when you grow up” assignments? You might remember the cute answers—such as astronaut, ballerina, and president—but would you have answered that question the same way as a high school senior? Of course not. You changed. You grew. You matured. And so your dreams changed as well.

How many people buy their dream home in their 30’s or 40’s only to later downsize and sell that home when they become empty nesters? How many friends and colleagues do you know who are working in a field completely unrelated to their college degree, or who have gone back to school for training for a new venture?

Shifting your priorities may be more of a practical matter than anything else. Maybe you’ve learned during your goal setting process that your values haven’t changed, but that the way you lived your life didn’t show it. You now see that your priorities—those practices in your life you give the most weight—must change in order to take you forward toward your goals. Unless you wrote down goals that were achievable through the steps you were already taking in day-to-day life, it’s certain you’ll discover the need to shift priorities.

One of the things you’ll learn to be true about leadership is that, if you’re truly an effective leader, you become an instigator of change and innovation. Otherwise, why would you need to be a leader? (If your focus is to keep the status quo, then you’re just a manager, not a leader.) If you’re a leader, you’re always striving to be better and encouraging those around you to go further today than they did yesterday. Change is inherent if you want to avoid stagnation.

Here are 5 Questions to Ask to Discover if You Should Shift Priorities

  1. Do my shifting priorities match my core values?
  2. Will my shifting priorities help me achieve my goals?
  3. Have my ultimate goals and dreams truly changed, or am I giving up?
  4. How will shifting my priorities affect those around me, especially those whose care I’m responsible for?
  5. Am I shifting my priorities due to greed, envy, laziness, or due to mature growth on my part?

How do you deal with shifting priorities in your life? How have your priorities changed as you’ve grown and matured as a person? Please share in the comments.

Shift-Priorities

Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

I’m Jeff M. Miller, and I help ordinary people who are stuck in a rut change their behaviors so they can be extraordinary. I’m an entrepreneur who retired from my full-time job in my early 40s to work from home. I’m a financial counselor, life coach, graphic designer, and passionate believer in helping others improve their lives a little more each day.

http://theincrementallife.com

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Filed Under: Dreams, Vision, & Goals, Goal Setting, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life Tagged With: Goal Setting, goals, priorities, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life

5 Steps to Align Your Daily To-Do List with Your Goals

posted by Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

Align Daily To-Do List

How do you know if you’re truly making progress each day toward your goals? Last week, you learned how to turn your goals into an actionable plan, which means you made a plan that is simple, specific, incremental, and effective. Crafted successfully, such a plan has built-in metrics—ways you can measure your forward progress on a regular basis.

But maybe that’s not enough for you. You want more than being able to look backward at the end of the day and see if you’ve done well. You want to be even more intentional about how your day is set up and how you can ensure that what you’re doing fuels your forward momentum.

You need to measure your daily to-do list against your goals and make sure they’re in alignment.

Now before you go scorched earth on your task list, realize that there will always be things to do that don’t directly influence your goals. I’m sure there are responsibilities that come with your job and household that won’t offer forward motion on your personal goals—especially if you work for someone else. What you can be sure of, however, is that you can control the individual parts of your to-do list in such a way that everything you do has at least an indirect effect on reaching your goal.

Here are 5 Steps to Align Your Daily To-Do List with Your Goals

  1. Cut Items First
    Start by looking at your to-do list for the day and determine if there are items that are detrimental to reaching your goals. Unless they’re things you can’t get out of doing—such as work assignments—cross them off the list right away. Keep in mind you’re looking for items that are truly a hindrance to reaching your goals, not simply things you don’t want to do.
  2. Prioritize Your List
    Prioritize the remaining items on your to-do list. I suggest breaking up your to-do list into the following categories:

    • Needs Action Immediately
    • Needs Action Today
    • Needs Action Tomorrow/Later
    • Delegate
  3. Tackle Responsibilities and Necessary Items
    These are things that you have to get done whether or not they move you toward your goal, so you have to make them priority. Be encouraged that all of these items are probably at least indirectly associated with your goals in some way. Consider even onerous tasks assigned by a supervisor as beneficial because they at least provide a paycheck.
  4. Make a Top Three List
    Once you’ve cleaned up necessary tasks and responsibilities, find the top three items that will move you toward your goal today. Circle them and number them #1, #2, and #3. Use the time you’ve got left in the day to work on them in that order.
  5. Do Some Clean-up Work
    By this point in your day there are probably items you’ve avoided or put off because they were low priority—like cleaning the bathroom at home. Spend some time working on some of these tasks. Hopefully they’re quick ones. After you’ve done all you can for the day, see what needs to be moved to tomorrow’s list and begin anew.

Note: If you’re employed and on company time, don’t work through your personal to-dos at work unless you’re on break or lunch time. Don’t steal from your employer, they’re paying you for your time.

In truth, what we’re setting out to do here is to begin the process of evaluating your life in general to see if the actions and choices you take each day align with who you want to become. In everything you do, keep your core values at the forefront of your mind and begin cutting out those things that don’t measure up.

How do you prioritize your to-do list? How do you make daily decision to make sure you’re always gaining forward momentum toward your goals? Please share in the comments.

Align-To-Do-List

Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

I’m Jeff M. Miller, and I help ordinary people who are stuck in a rut change their behaviors so they can be extraordinary. I’m an entrepreneur who retired from my full-time job in my early 40s to work from home. I’m a financial counselor, life coach, graphic designer, and passionate believer in helping others improve their lives a little more each day.

http://theincrementallife.com

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Filed Under: Dreams, Vision, & Goals, Goal Setting, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life, Time Management & Organization Tagged With: Goal Setting, goals, organization, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life, Time Management, To-Do List

5 Reasons Why You Should Write Things Down

posted by Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

Reasons Why You Should Write Things Down

Why do I advocate writing things like goals, mission statements, fears, and plans out? Why not just  keep mental track? Why not jot quick notes down on your phone or leave a voice memo?

I’m a big believer in writing things down. Writing things out long hand instead of typing makes you slow down and allows your brain process what’s coming out a bit better than typing—but it’s not an absolute necessity. I’ll give in and say that typing them up is the next best thing to writing them on paper, and far better than nothing at all. The main point is that you turn thoughts into words your eyes can see.

So why do I advocate writing things down? Because memory—no matter how good—is faulty. It embarrasses me say that sometimes a high school classmate or some other friend connects with me via Facebook and my first thought is, “Who are you?”

If It’s Not Written Down, It Didn’t Happen

Very often during my years as a school teacher and minister, people would come up to me in a crowded hallway or foyer and tell me something important. After way too many episodes of forgetfulness I implemented a rule in my communication with other people: If it didn’t get written down it’s the same as not telling me, so the response you need from me won’t happen.

I didn’t put all the responsibility on the other person. If I had pen and paper on hand I would be sure to write a note and stick it in my pocket with my keys, ensuring I would see it again that same day. If I was unable to find something to write with, I would tell the person, “Please find a way to write me a note and bring it back ASAP so I don’t forget.” With the advent of smartphones, I would ask people to send me an email right that moment.

The final result was that if I or the other person wrote it down, you can be sure I’d take care of it. If it was never written down, there was a more than 50% chance that I’d forget what you just told me in the next five minutes.

Here are My Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Write Things Down

  • Concreteness: Writing something down takes an abstract thought and gives it concrete shape and form. Writing down your ideas or dreams also infuses them with a certain measure of sincerity—or at least helps you measure your own sincerity about what’s been in your head and heart.
  • Revisitability:  When you write something down you can go back and look at it again and again. There’s a reason why announcements get posted all over college campuses, and why advertisers spread their names and slogans as widely as they can. They know that repetition builds reinforcement. Repetition builds familiarity.
  • Editability: Written concepts and ideas are more easily edited if necessary. Not only that, but it gives more than a single individual the ability to contribute to the concept, expanding it far beyond the original.
  • Permanence: When something’s written down it can’t, or won’t, be changed on a whim. Written words also become a marker of sorts to help us keep track of milestones in our lives (think journaling).
  • Reliability: Written words don’t suffer from a faulty memory. There’s a reason why we pay a court transcriptionist to write every word spoken in a court room verbatim—we want a reliable account for the questions that will invariably arise: “Who said that?” “What did they say, exactly?”

[My apologies to the grammar nazis and linguists for the made-up words in my list above.]

I challenge you to begin writing things down and see if it doesn’t make you more efficient, productive, and cut your stress levels  significantly. Pick three areas of your life where you think you could start writing things down and try it for a month to see what it does for you.

What do you think about the benefits of writing things down? What methods or tricks do you use to make keeping track of what’s going on in your head easier? How do you remember appointments and important information others share with you? Please share them with us in the comments.

5-Reasons

Jeff M. Miller (@jmarkmiller)

I’m Jeff M. Miller, and I help ordinary people who are stuck in a rut change their behaviors so they can be extraordinary. I’m an entrepreneur who retired from my full-time job in my early 40s to work from home. I’m a financial counselor, life coach, graphic designer, and passionate believer in helping others improve their lives a little more each day.

http://theincrementallife.com

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Filed Under: **Featured, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life, Writing Tagged With: Goal Setting, goals, Taking Control of Your Life, The Incremental Life, Writing

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