Review: Small steps to achieve radical, positive change
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2012
Life in the 21st century is turbulent, and the lessons we all learned in school about how to succeed often do us little good in such a confusing environment. Sometimes, they even backfire. It makes you wonder: is there such thing as a science of success? Are there "best practices," which, if consistently applied, would allow you to achieve results in diverse areas?Maybe. Just maybe.In this quick read ebook, author James Villepigue lays out a simple, intuitive roadmap for goal-setting-and-getting. If you're familiar with the works of goal-setting gurus, like Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins, some of the content may seem familiar. But even still... you can never hear this counterintuitive advice enough, and Mr. Villepigue keeps the lessons logical, engaging, and fun.Some stuff I particularly enjoyed:* Call to specificity. Too often, we make goals like "I want to be rich" or "I want to marry a supermodel." Not good enough! We need specificity to anchor our focus.* Practice with "heat." What should we do when our deliberate practice grows humdrum? Just add "heat" -- intentionally spark the Flight or Fight response to make practice more lively and engaged.* Put goals on PAPER. Mr. Villepigue cites a famous study out of Harvard that found that newly minted grads who wrote down their goals ultimately earned something like 24 times the amount of $ that their peers did. The power of goals-on-paper = amazing. I can attest to that.* Create and implement a system. Success is a process, not something you "get once." You need to know what works and what doesn't work and to systematically, incrementally improve your life/work game.* When making goals, make sure they're SMART: i.e. Specific; Measurable; Attainable; Realistic; Tangible and Time Bound.Yeah, yeah, you may be thinking. I know all that stuff, or at least some of it. Perhaps. But how well are you implementing it? This book can add some "heat" to your self-improvement quest.