Day 184 - Give Yourself an ‘A’

I am a huge fan of the book The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Ben Zander.

So much of a fan that every now and then I buy 5 or so copies to give away. I just bought another 5 and gave one each to my son and daughter (they would have preferred the cash but they’ll learn! )

The book is the best book on personal development I have read (and I’ve read a few) mainly because it is not a ‘how to’ on actions but a ‘how to’ on thinking. That is, think differently to create a different outcome.

One concept they offer is to ‘give yourself an A’ in regard to a significant achievement as you set out on it - at the beginning of your quest. That solves the problem of striving in a sense and you relax a little. You’ve got your grade, now get on with the job - just work to keep the grade.

The next task is, once you accept you have achieved your goal and earned your ‘A’, to write down how you achieved it. The context is looking back on what you had to do, rather than just planning ahead. Kind of like reverse planning I suppose.

The key difference is this allows you/me to walk through all of the tasks, efforts, emotions and frustrations we might have felt but still come out on top - genuinely earning the ‘A’.

Ben Zander applies this to his music classes at the beginning of the year. He gives them their ‘A’ and asks his students to write a letter to him outlining how they achieved their ‘A’ - not how they plan to achieve it.

It helps you think differently and I have used it with all sorts of things. I don’t always get to the goal (the world is not perfect) but if you take the time to sit down, reward yourself with the ‘A’ and then reverse plan you may find a whole lot of energy and enthsiasm that may have been hidden without doing it.

This is probably similar to Stephen Covey’s “begin with the end in mind” which I also like.

So, my current three goals are:

• 76kg
• 18% body fat
• increase my running distance to 13km

I now have to accept that I have achieved those goals and write down how I did it. I’ll do that today and post the result tomorrow. I’ll also write up a couple of examples from the book.

Oh, and I have 3 copies still I my bookshelf. First in, best dressed if you want a copy.

Tagged as: achievement, art of possibility, ben zander, Goals, rosamund zander