E106 - Beyond Resolutions: The One Word Goal

Get ready to redefine success with our latest Uncommon Communicator podcast, where I promise you'll discover the transformative potential of one-word goals. Ever felt overwhelmed by a laundry list of New Year's resolutions that fizzles out by February? We're tackling that head-on, revealing why 91% of resolutions fail and how embracing a singular focus like "growth" or "influence" can steer you towards personal triumphs. I open up about my own adventures with these powerful themes, showing you how just one word can guide your choices and reveal pathways for growth that you might never have seen coming.

This episode isn't just about setting goals; it's about setting the right kind of goals. We're talking about those that ignite a fire within you, the kind that resonates with your deepest aspirations. It's about crafting a beacon word that lights up your entire year, paired with the practicality of SMART goals to keep you on track. Tune in as I share how to harness the synergy between inspiration and goal achievement, and offer up nuggets of wisdom on spotting and seizing life's on-the-spot opportunities that align with your chosen theme. Let's gear up for a breakout year guided by a word that's as unique and powerful as you are.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Uncom communicator podcast, where we
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
Are you ready to take ownershipof your conversations?
Are you looking to possess theskills to navigate and
facilitate conversations to amutual understanding?
What are you waiting for?
Grab your growth mindset andlet's go.

(00:29):
Welcome to this week's episodeof the Uncom communicator
podcast.
This week will be a bit of a UCplaybook moment.
I'm going to talk about goingbeyond resolutions, using a one
word approach, the one word goal, as opposed to using

(00:49):
resolutions, and we'll give yousome information, some data, on
why we want to do that.
This is a follow up from a livestream and I will put the live
stream into the show notes.
So if you wanted to connectwith that, you certainly can.
But today we want to bring youthe playbook, bring you the
information so you can evaluatewhat your plans are for this
year in setting your own goalsand why resolutions aren't the

(01:12):
best, but that one word goalsare your key to success.
Now to start off, researcherssuggest that only 9% of
Americans that make resolutionscomplete them.
That means there's a 91%failure rate in setting
resolutions.
Another one is 23% of peoplequit the resolution by the end

(01:35):
of the first week, and then thisbig number, 43% quit by the end
of January.
When we're talking aboutresolutions Now there is another
note that says people who writedown their goals are up to 20%
more likely to complete them.
But what I'm going to challengeeverybody here with today is the
idea of the one word goal, andthe whole idea of that is to

(01:58):
pick a word or a theme.
Certainly, I have chosen wordsfor me last year have been
influence and growth.
I did pick two words, butthey're one word each.
But the idea is to pick a wordand as long as items fit within
that word, then you'reprogressing towards your goal.
So you're at attention, tryingto capture those things and

(02:21):
listen to them.
So, for growth, if there's anopportunity for me to offer
growth to someone else, which iswhat I love doing through this
podcast, but also offeringgrowth to myself, then that was
all feeding into my, ultimatelymy goal for the year, my one
word goal, which was growth.
So the one was influence.
I was challenged a little bitthis year with the idea of

(02:41):
influence as far as having ametric to gauge it, and we're
going to talk about that in justa minute.
But why would you go with a oneword goal, well, the idea, the
first thing, is simplicity Oneword goals are easy to remember,
which really makes them so muchmore approachable, so much more
motivating, because you don'thave to go back and think about

(03:03):
them or find them.
A lot of people will take theirgoals, people that are
successful.
Obviously, there's 9% of peopleare successful with this.
Are they writing them down orthey put on them on sticky notes
, are they putting it on theirmirrors?
So they're at the forefront, sothey're always on the top of
mind.
And I think the other thing isthe 9% they might complete them

(03:23):
in, say, the first week.
So maybe set some small goalsso they can achieve them and be
done with them.
But that's not what we'retalking about here.
We're talking about having agrowth mindset and utilizing the
one word goal to help youachieve that.
So, simplicity it's easy,simple, something easy to
remember.
The other thing I like about itis its flexibility.

(03:45):
One word goals are flexible.
They adapt.
So what happens is the idea ofgrowth.
Sometimes you don't know whatit is until it reveals itself
and it will reveal itself.
So when you're looking forgrowth, you didn't have
something planned, but anopportunity comes up for a
training say that you didn'tnecessarily have planned for and
you jump on that because it'san opportunity for you to grow.

(04:08):
Or, in some cases, a speakingengagement that maybe you didn't
have time to prepare for, butit's a growth opportunity.
I took a little bit of onetoday when I went out on a live
stream.
That was a growth opportunityfor me.
I had made a goal around nineo'clock in the morning and we
went live at 9.30.
So sometimes they can be really, really close, but the idea is

(04:29):
being flexible with it and theother part I really love about
it is its inspiration.
These goals really tap into ourdeeper motivations, our
aspirations.
When you have that word, thatcalling that growth, that mind
was influence.
And this year I'm going topivot.
I'm going to continue withgrowth because I'm really

(04:50):
started out maybe halfwaythrough the year really
embracing the idea of a growthmindset, but now to continue to
do growth and then impact.
I want to take my influence andI want to turn it into impact.
But these words inspire.
How are and will I be bringingimpact to those around me?
Those are things that I'm goingto be looking for this year

(05:11):
with my one word and your wordcan be different.
It could be collaboration, itcould be communication, learning
, better communication.
It could be a whole bunch ofdifferent things.
I heard somebody said creativityas a one word inspiration,
which was a fantastic way toreally think.
I need to up my creativity,what are opportunities for this,

(05:32):
and you could be looking outfor this.
Now, how do you do this?
You've got to define this oneword goal clearly.
It should be narrowed down towell one word, but it should be
a concise word that really setsthe tone and the theme that you
really want to focus on for theupcoming year.
So it really needs to be reallyclear.

(05:54):
The next thing is specific, andto me, those are very similar.
These kind of fall in line withthe smart goal idea of being
specific.
You don't want it to vagueworld peace, that certainly
isn't very specific.
But how about this year?
You have a goal of helping yourcommunity or helping a
community center raise somefunds you know be all of those

(06:17):
things would fall under or yousupporting communities.
So you can break them down, andit takes a little bit of time.
You have to take some quiettime and think about how are you
going to create this goal foryourself, because when you do
this and take the time to narrowit down, you will be successful
at achieving it, and we'll getto why in just a minute.

(06:38):
The other thing is to make itmeasurable, and the thing with
that is really to be able torecord it.
You have to know when thesethings happen, and sometimes
they become so innate that it'slike, oh, growth, I'll just do
it, I'm not recording them.
So it's important to measurethose that you're making
progress on that goal.
Make it measurable and that'swhy, for me, the idea of

(07:00):
influence, which we all haveinfluence.
Whether or not we hold aposition of authority, we have
the ability to have influence.
But with that idea of influenceit was it wasn't something that
I measured very well this year,because influence a lot of
times happens and we don't evenknow that we're influencing

(07:20):
people.
So it's out there and that'swhat I tell people.
But the idea is to have yourgoal measurable.
And what I like about the oneword idea is don't just focus on
the outcomes outcomes areimportant and the outcomes
dictate where you're going butfocus on the behaviors that get
you there.
For me, the idea of growthchanged my behaviors.

(07:40):
Do I need to read more?
Do I need to listen to morepodcasts?
Do I need to listen to morebooks on tape, which I spend a
lot of time doing while I'mdriving?
Do I need to do be specific inthose books that I'm reading to
help my growth in a certain area?
Those are all things that arebehaviors and habits.
One thing I wish I was betterat would be journaling.

(08:01):
Every time I've journaled andI've wrote stuff down, I felt
inspired, I felt accomplished.
It was great getting thoseideas out of my head.
But I'm not consistent with it.
Maybe discipline should be minefor this year, but discipline
is important, but focusing onthe behaviors, not just the
outcomes.
It's also very important tocelebrate your successes,

(08:24):
realize when you get there.
This year I had as my goal tobecome a registered scrum master
and Felipe engineer Manriquezhelped me get there.
I sat through his class, histraining, he offers and he is a
registered scrum master trainer.
But I celebrated that becauseit was an accomplishment that I
achieved.
Another one that I achievedthis year was Distinguished

(08:46):
Toastmaster, which was anotherrole that took me a couple of
years to work through to get tothose, to that level of
Distinguished Toastmaster.
It was a certain amount ofspeeches, it was leadership
within the Toastmasters district.
It was also going through aspecific project, but I
celebrated that when I got that.
When you achieve it but you haveto achieve every level of these

(09:08):
successes Then the mostimportant thing is to review and
adjust it.
You have to look at it At theend of the day, are you heading
towards that goal?
Is that your real goal?
We don't have to do this inJanuary 1st or on December 31st.
We don't have to do that.
Then we can review it and thendecide hey, this is going to be
a new goal, a new focus for me.

(09:30):
That's something that you cando to adjust and maybe head down
that other inspiring directionthat's going to motivate you on
the path that you want to get to.
Why are these important and whyare they more successful?
It starts right back at where Istarted.
They're simple, they'reflexible.
The idea of the inspirationmakes it to a point where it's

(09:53):
really something that's deep inyour heart and your desire,
versus on a piece of paper thatyou've got to check.
I do like the aspect of smartgoals, but when you write them
out, remember it's measurable,all of those things that go
along within that smart goal.
Those are all things great towrite out, which help you
accomplish it and see that youdid.

(10:14):
But if you are going towardsthe goal as an inspirational
thing, for me it's going to begrowth and impact this year.
So to be able to go towardsthose things and have that as a
focus, my success rate is 100%chance of success.
Have you ever thought thatyou'd hit those numbers?

(10:35):
But all I have to do is keepworking towards it and it builds
on itself and sometimes,because you have changed your
mindset on these goals, you'reaccomplishing them without
having to go back and check yournotes to see specifically what
it is.
And I'm not saying don't makesome goals.
Make some goals of some, maybesome educational goal that you

(10:57):
want to hit.
That's different.
I'm talking.
The alternate to resolutions ismaking a theme for yourself this
year and hopefully, that yearand this year coming.
What you're going to do is plansomething that's going to break
you out.
It'll be your breakout year andto do that, I strongly
encourage you to use the oneword goal throw away your

(11:19):
resolutions and with that you'regoing to find the success that
you need.
So what is our UC moment fortoday.
It's right in the title Createa one word goal for success, and
that's all I've got.
See you, bye.