Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Work

Beyond Work is our line of resources for people and community leaders looking for something new and innovative outside, be it a new job, career change, or personal development outside of work.

  • A Holistic Goal Setting Method

    A Holistic Goal Setting Method

    When I think about goal setting from a holistic perspective, Zig Ziglar’s wheel of life concept seems to be best.  When I’m honest with myself, I’m not really a holistic goal setter. I find it easier to set two types of goals:  Business or career goals and fitness goals. Zig’s approach helps me see that in many areas of my life that are important to me- like my spiritual life and my relationship with my friends and my husband- I’m very haphazard instead of intentional.

    The spokes of the wheel are:

    1. Career
    2. Financial
    3. Spiritual
    4. Physical
    5. Intellectual
    6. Family
    7. Social

    The approach encourages you to set a goal for each spoke, with the center of the wheel being your mission or purpose.

    Two important observations about this method that show the strengths and weaknesses of this approach:

    1. This method helps you focus on areas you may not normally tend to set goals in or find it easy to do so. Unless you are in academia or still in school, you might struggle the most with the intellectual area.  We call this our continuous learning and improvement value at Horizon Point.  Viewing it from this lens, we set “intellectual” goals as individuals each quarter around growing in an area related to our overarching business goal  (which is a revenue and profit driven goal each year). Sometimes the goal may not be directly tied to our overall business, but for the purpose of our own enjoyment.   A goal in this area I had a couple of years ago was to read 30 books that year; some of the books I read were directly tied to business, others were strictly for pleasure, and some were spiritually based. Which leads me to the next key point….
    2. Because there are seven areas of focus, things can start to overlap. It never seems to fail, if you set more than about 3-5 goals or values, you end up beginning to wonder how to classify each thing because they could be put in more than one bucket.  For example, my reading 30 books that year incorporated a major spiritual goal and that was reading The Bible in 90 days through a program to do just that so inadvertently, a spiritual goal arose that year because of an intellectual goal.

    Likewise, this year a physical goal was to run a marathon, but with my husband, dad and friends running it with me, it became a social and family goal or focus as well because it was a way to spend valuable time together both in training and in traveling to the race. It was good for me physically, socially, and quite honestly, spiritually and intellectually because when I did run alone, I listened to business podcasts or sermons.

    So using this method to set goals, like others, has its’ greatest strength that leads to its’ greatest weakness- the holistic approach can lead to redundancy.

    If you have trouble with setting goals to impact your life as a whole, this may be the method for you, but if you have adult ADD- aka difficulty focusing- then the simpler approach covered last week, may be better for you.

     

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  • A Simple Goal Setting Method

    A Simple Goal Setting Method

    Goal setting works. But how do you go about deciding what your goals will be?

    The late Stephen Covey, emphasizes in at least two of his bestsellers (First Things First and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) the concept of time management and therefore goal setting based on importance of well, what’s important.

    The method for setting your goals (or big rocks as he terms them) is simple.  Ask yourself two questions:

    • What is the one thing that if I STARTED doing it, would make a tremendous positive difference in my life?
    • What is the one thing that if I STOPPED doing it, would make a tremendous positive difference in my life?

    Answer these two questions and you have you goals.  For some, asking these two questions in the context of different segments or roles in life may be necessary, or important. For example, asking it related to your personal life and then to your professional life, leading you to end up with four focuses instead of two. But once you begin to ask yourself these questions in the context of too many things, the whole emphasis on importance gets thrown out the window making the process irrelevant.

    The interesting part of this goal setting processes is twofold:

    1. If you truly start and stop doing the one thing that really will make the most difference in your life, you end up with a spillover effect, inadvertently accomplishing more than you set out to do. The simple focus on just two things ends up impacting way more than two things.

    For example, my one thing to start in years past was to get up early in the morning (5:00 or 5:30 am) to get a workout and devotional time in. When I do this one thing- get my feet to hit the floor before anyone else wakes up in my house on a regular basis- the day always goes better.  I have more energy for the day, the morning routine of kids cleaned, dressed, fed and out the door to school happy is accomplished so much easier, and I’m more focused and productive throughout the day.

    1. This method of goal setting is also action plan oriented. Often goal setting emphasizes the setting of the goal with no true mechanism built in to get you there.  This method does both.  It gives you long-term focus and short-term action, breeding habits that change behaviors and change lives.

    This method is best for people who prefer to keep things as simple as possible and need the daily incorporation of action to create habits that lead to results.  Its downfall is also its greatest strength- it may be too simple.  Life is complex and focusing in so narrowly may inhibit people from accomplishing all that they can and should.

    Regardless of whether or not this is the best method for you to set goals, it is always good, as we begin a New Year, to consider what do we need to start doing and, often more importantly what do we need to stop doing.

     

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    Best New Year’s Resolution? A ‘Stop Doing” List.

    One Goal from Pat Flynn

    Set Goals Then Forget About Them

    Goal Setting – A Series

    Goal Setting – Diminishing Returns

    Goal Setting – Feedback

     

  • How to be Employed to Work at Home

    How to be Employed to Work at Home

    Written by: AnnaMaria Bliven, MBA, MA, of Work at Home Solutions 

    It was 2002 and my kids were coming to me for community sports fees, uniform fees, dance costumes, school field trips and even school registration fees (high school registration one year cost $150). With all this need for extra money, I had to do something because my household budget could not be stretched to afford these extra expenses for my children. This was the motivation factor that began an online journey that has led to thousands of dollars in income and extra income for my family.

    The journey to seek and find real online jobs started out much like you would expect. I fell for many online scams and was beginning to think that working at home was just a myth when one day I did an in-depth internet research to find out that there were actual real online jobs. In fact, it turns out there are hundreds of companies that have thousands of online job openings in several different industries.

    3-Simple Step Process: Seek, Find and Apply

    The journey to having an online job to work at home begins with a job search done using a search engine. You simply type “work at home …” and then a job title in the place of “…” So, the search bar would look like this: “work at home virtual assistant.”  Then, the screen will return a search results list of places on the web where online job openings for a virtual assistant is located. That is the “Seek” phase of the 3-Simple Step Process. The next phase in the process is “Find.”

    To “Find” the job opening, you need to look over the search results and select the website that matches with the job you are seeking to work. For example, in most cases, Indeed.com is the one job board that remote open job positions are in great supply. To see them, all you need to do is click on the Indeed.com website URL in the search results and then type “remote” in the location bar. That is when you will see all the work at home open job positions. From that list choose an open online job position you are most interested in that matches with your education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities.

    The “Apply” phase of the 3-Simple Step Process is similar to that of an onsite job except that for an online job application it may also include taking a skills’ assessment. In many cases skills’ assessment is a “go,” no-go” determinant for being called for an interview. The resume and cover letter (and perhaps the skills’ assessment) has to be such that the Human Resources talent seeker is impressed and contacts you for a job interview.

    How to Earn Income/Extra Income Working at Home

    Since 2002, I have worked jobs in Mystery Shopping, Travel Consulting, Writing, Editing, Customer Service and Faculty Evaluator all from the comfort of my home. In every one of these positions I worked, I earned bonuses, raises and promotions. In addition, I have made thousands of dollars working mini-jobs as extra income. So, you may be asking what you need to do to do the same thing I did. Begin your journey with a legitimate job and avoid the scams. The old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”  You find the legitimate job using the 3-Simple Steps Process. To know the kinds of legitimate jobs that are online work at home jobs, you can spend hours of research or get my book: Work at Home with a Real Online Job. Visit my website https://workathome.solutions/. I will do my best to help you.

  • Methods to the Madness of Goal Setting

    Methods to the Madness of Goal Setting

    It’s that time of year.  New Year’s resolutions abound still on this 10th day of the New Year.  We’re sticking to them now.  Will we by month end?

    New Years’ resolutions are quite simply, goals.  They can be set at any time of the year, and there are as many methods for setting and pursuing them as there are failed attempts at reaching them.

    But goal setting is a method that works. Research shows it does if it is handled within certain contexts and parameters. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m all about goal setting as a performance management method. I wish more company’s performance management and evaluation processes were centered around setting good goals tied to company values and strategy. Then, leaders could coach people regularly towards goal attainment through wise action planning and implementation.

    But the method to the madness in goal setting that works, depends on you. The method you choose to determine and also analyze your goal(s) for appropriateness is a matter of preference, not a matter of right or wrong.

    However, three I like and recommend:

    Stephen Covey- What’s the most important thing?

    Zig Zaglar- Wheel of Life

    Michael Hyatt- Pursuing the right thing in the right way

     

    All have pros and cons and cater to different personalities, mindsets and segments of life.  But all can work if you pick the right method and then, most importantly, have a solid plan for reaching them.  The action toward the goal is much more important than the goal itself (or as Nick Saban says, it’s the process)

    I’ll be describing each of these methods above so you can have some fuel for thought on which one might work best for you this year.  Then I’ll round out January with why the action plan and implementation is actually more important than the goal.

    Take the month of January to set sound goals and put a plan in place to pursue them.  The time it takes to do this is will help you achieve success for the rest of the eleven months in 2017.

  • Top 10 Posts of 2016 and the Icing on the Cake

    Top 10 Posts of 2016 and the Icing on the Cake

     

    2016 showed us, at least in terms of the popularity of blog posts, that it was a year of innovation. More than half of our top 10 blog posts for the year focused on innovation in the workplace:

    You Can Hire for Fit AND Diversity: How the Most Innovative Companies Hire

    The Name of the Game is FREEDOM: How Innovative Companies Motivate, Get, and Retain the Best…

    Innovate or Die? And the Best Places to Work

    Rules to Preserve Freedom and Culture: How Innovative Companies Go about Rule-Making

    How Neuroscience Is and Will Revolutionize HR

     

    Others that came in on top were a splash of leadership:

    Being a great leader is a lot like being a standout salesperson

     

    And work-life integration/balance:

    4 Lessons Learned from a Week of Being Unplugged 

     

    And HR/Talent Management Lessons:

    What are your biggest HR Pain Points?

    HR Santa Clauses focus on the Employee Experience

     

    And because my husband says he focuses on quality and not quantity, his lone guest post of the year made the top 10 list:

    Talent Management Strategy Lessons Learned from T-ball 

     

    Icing on the cake for blogging came in the way of being published several times on Huffington Post.

    Is Leaving Work to Stay at Home a Parenting Issue or a Workplace Engagement Issue?

    Do You Want to Go to Timeout? Leadership Lessons from Disciplining a Two Year Old

    Do We Really Want to Have It All?

    Millennials Don’t Feel Entitled to Your Job, They Want You to Help Them Chart Their Career

    Bridging the Divide… Education for the Future

     

    What was your favorite topic of 2016?