Heart-focused Momentum

The more you are able to reach and sustain momentum the greater your likelihood of success in any pursuit.

Here's my methodology referenced in the video.

And here's some insights for you from my Heart-Leadership book.

I am very grateful to the work of David Cooperrider whose Appreciative Inquiry process has greatly inspired and influenced my work.

Appreciating What Is

I have taken many people through following five questions in order to zero in on reality in any chosen area. In less than an hour great insights can be gleaned:

1. What’s remarkable? i.e. “conspicuously extraordinary”?

2. What’s great? i.e. above average; better than basic?

3. What’s good? i.e. basic standards of performance are being achieved?

4. What’s bad? i.e. of poor quality or low standard?

5. What’s ugly? i.e. unpleasant, displeasing, or threatening personal or business well-being?

Imagining what can be

I have found that the simplest way to shift from reality to possibility is to choose one area at a time from answers to the appreciation what is questions and then 

1. Describe in a present tense sentence what the new reality feels and looks like.

2. Decide who you are going to engage to work with you to ensure the shift happens, then move to creating quantum leaps with them.

Create Quantum Leaps

The common view of a quantum leap is that it is a big jump. In actual fact a quantum leap is a very small change. The significance is that it’s a direct jump from here to there. I call them small yet significant shifts. 

Leap

Actually take action. A lot of people have good intentions, even detailed plans, and then don’t do the work. 

This is one reason I say the words Do Your Work so often!

Momentum

The best way that I have discovered to gain and sustain momentum is the aggregation of marginal gains which is the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.

I first learned about this philosophy from this article by James Clear

This from the article

“Most people love to talk about success (and life in general) as an event. We talk about losing 50 pounds or building a successful business or winning the Tour de France as if they are events. But the truth is that most of the significant things in life aren't stand-alone events, but rather the sum of all the moments when we chose to do things 1 percent better or 1 percent worse. Aggregating these marginal gains makes a difference.”

Reviewing your leaps via an after-action-review is a great way to aggregate. 

An after-action-review answers the following questions 

What happened and why? 

What did you learn, relearn, and unlearn (or let go of)? 

How can you be better, wiser and more valuable in applying your learnings? 

Who will we become? What will we do next?

Do Your Work.

Be remarkable.

Ian