Strategizing for Success

Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity team. Just about everyone has heard the story. But most don’t realize that getting cut was one of the best things that ever happened to him. How could being cut from the team be good?

“[Because] it made me know what disappointment felt like, and I knew that I didn`t want to have that feeling ever again” (Green, 1991).

Michael would later summarize his successful basketball career by saying:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” (Middleton, 2016).

Like Michael, we’re all going to face obstacles, life’s equivalents of getting “cut from the team.” Currently, we’re all facing the same one: COVID-19. It’s discouraging, disappointing, and disrupting. But while we all hope life will return to normal as soon as possible, perhaps we could adopt Michael’s mindset and transform this time of tragedy into a turning point and not only for ourselves, but for those of whom we lead and minister.

Whether your involved with children and youth as a parent or leader, or you lead a corporate team in the business world, perhaps you experienced excitement at the beginning of 2020 with the promise the new year brought, but are now wondering –

“What next?!”

“What should I be doing as a leader?”

“What do I go from here??”

Perhaps you’ve found yourself floundering in the challenges posed by COVID-19 quarantine, and are asking, “how can I get myself back on track.” Whatever your role or position in the community may be - and whatever the cause of your current challenge is - in order to overcome the obstacle you’re facing and assist others with theirs, you’ll need to employ the tactic that Michael did after getting cut and whenever he faced a set back after that: create a strategy to figure out how to climb it, go through it, or get around it.

Strategizing & Setting Goals

A “strategy” is a plan of action or policy designed to achieve an overall objective. We often hear the term used in sports and in the military, usually to describe the type of intense planning conducted by coaches and officers to put their teams and battalions in the best position to succeed. Likewise, as individuals, families, leaders, and professionals we need a strategy in place if we’re going to succeed in the “game” we’re involved in.

A crucial component in our strategies should be goal setting. If we don’t set goals in life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach those goals, we will reach only a small part of our full potential. While many recognize the importance and even power of goal setting in their personal lives, they fail to lead their families or teams at work in creating and following through with them. But if we’re going to progress during this pandemic -  or during any other period -  we need to formulate strategies, identify goals, and help others do the same.

For ourselves, we should start with asking, “What do I want to accomplish and why?” And with those we lead we could start by inviting them to ask the same question. Instead of giving answers and solutions that have worked for us, perhaps we might say,

“Let me help you develop a strategy for success. Let’s start with setting some goals. Here’s some steps that have helped me.”

Goal setting and achieving requires patience, planning, hard work, and definitely some failure. But failure in our efforts to improve personally or to help those we lead shouldn’t only be expected but accepted! To reach our maximum individual, family, or professional potential we need to stretch ourselves beyond our current limits. Doing so undoubtedly means some of our efforts will result in failure. But it also means we will know exactly where our limits are and help us in our efforts to expand them!

Creating MOREFIT Goals

To provide a framework for successful goal setting and achieving, I created the MOREFIT strategy. The strategy utilizes the acronym MOREFIT to filter our “statements of hope” (the only element most goals ever consist of) into actionable strategies we can employ.

To explain the MOREFIT goal setting strategy, I’ll define each of the components and provide a brief description of each. I’ll also present them in the order to best filter our goals through, I-R-E-M-T-F-O, rather than M-O-R-E-F-I-T. While certainly not as catchy, following the steps in this order makes goal creation and completion much more effective.

I’ll also share a couple pertinent questions to consider for each component. Evaluating and answering these questions ensure our goals are structured for success. I’ve included a worksheet at the end of this article with summaries of each of the seven steps. Print if off and practice creating your MOREFIT goals as you read through the rest of the article. Consider how it also could be used as a tool to help you as parent, leader, or minister among those you love and lead. With your help, they may also be able to strategize more effectively and turn what have long been stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

The MOREFIT Goal Setting & Achieving Strategy

• M.O.R.E.F.I.T. | the acronym
• Measurable
• One Word-able or One Phrase-able
• Realistic & Reported ? Emotionally Connected
• Fear Confronting & Flexible
• In Writing
• Timely & Tied to an Action

I.R.E.M.T.F.O. | the most effective order

• In Writing
• Realistic & Reported
• Emotionally Connected
• Measurable
• Timely & Tied to an Action
• Fear Confronting & Flexible
• One Word-able or One Phrase-able

1. MOREFIT | In writing

Goals need to be IN WRITING. If they aren’t written down, they aren’t really goals. They’re just really nice hopes and dreams and very unlikely of ever being accomplished. We have to commit to writing out our goals and revisiting them daily. Ultimately, goals need to be simple, clear, and specific statements, but don’t get too hung up on that during this step. The idea here is to just get our hopes and dreams from our head and unto a sheet a paper or device. This is just the first step of a 7-step filtering process. Here are some questions to help guide the effort:

What do I want to accomplish and why?

When and where will I work on this?

2. MOREFIT: Realistic & Reported

After having put our goals in writing, determine if they’re REALISTIC. Goals should require sacrifice, causing us to choose to put aside what we want now for something greater in the future. However, if their realization is dependent upon an unrealistic standard, the only thing they’ll ever amount to is failure and frustration. The key is to make them both challenging and attainable. Careful consideration is needed to reach that balance. 

Additionally, goals should be REPORTED. Doing so adds motivational accountability and personal responsibility, providing outside support and encouragement to help us keep at it when inwardly we’re ready to give up. Look over the goal statements you wrote in step one. Evaluate if they are realistic and consider how you’ll report them. Here are some questions to consider:

Will this single goal occupy all my energy to accomplish, or will it also allow me to work on the meaningful goals I’m setting in the other areas of total fitness?

Who should I report to that will be both interested and encouraging?

3. MOREFIT | Emotionally Connected

The third step of the MOREFIT strategy is to be EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED to our goals and emotionally confident in our ability to achieve them. To achieve that level of commitment, our goals absolutely have to be our goals. It’s not that they can’t matter to anyone else, or that they can’t benefit anyone else. It’s that if we’re doing them just for someone else, or just for some purpose that we don’t fully believe in, it’s unlikely we’ll stick with it very long. Look at the current version of your goal statements and emotionally evaluate what you’ve written thus far. Here are some questions to consider:

Am I committed to this goal’s outcome?

Do I have the passion and energy to really go after this goal?

4. MOREFIT | Measurable

MEASUREABLE goals not only help make our pursuit meaningful, but motivational. Seeing improvement, or a lack thereof, helps us stay focused, meet deadlines, feel positive pressure to keep working at it, and ultimately enables us to experience the excitement of goal achievement. This is a step where many choose to spend a good amount of time revising their goals. Most fail to factor in measurable components during the initial steps. This is the step to do so. Here are some questions to consider:

How much? How many? How often? When?

How will I know when it is accomplished? Success will be when _____?

5. MOREFIT | Timely & Tied to an Action

 Goals need to be TIMELY. Every goal we set needs a target date. Doing so helps us stay on task and provides another positive pressure to stick with the program. It also helps prevent the “good” and “better” of our everyday tasks from taking priority over our “best,” or our higher prioritized goals and efforts.

It’s also important to ensure our goals are TIED TO AN ACTION. Identifying key actions may seem obvious, but it’s another step that’s often omitted from the goals we set. We should ensure our goals include the essential action or “ing” words to accomplish them. Here are some questions to consider:

When do I want to have achieved this goal?

What action do I need to do on a daily or weekly basis to accomplish this?

6. MOREFIT | Fear Confronting & Flexible

The next step is to ensure that our goals are FEAR CONFRONTING. Some of our goals won’t have any “fears” associated with them, but when they do, those fears should be addressed. Our fears don’t need to be the first hurdle we make, but early on we should identify their place on our “track” and strategize how to get over them. 

We also need to ensure that our goals are FLEXIBLE. While our goals should require diligent and consistent effort, and while we should expect bumps along the way, life sometimes sends variables outside our control. When that happens, we don’t need to give up or give in, we simply need to give our goals some additional adjustments. Here are some questions to consider:

What would my life be like if I removed this obstacle?

Have circumstances changed sufficiently to justify modification to my goal or will a reasonable diligent and consistent effort still enable me to accomplish it?

7. MOREFIT | One Word-able or One Phrase-able

The final step in the MOREFIT strategy is take our goal and capture one word or ONE PHRASE phrase to represent it. This word or phrase might include the action word we incorporated earlier, but it doesn’t have to. It can be anything we feel best helps us remember what we’re after. Reducing our already honed down goal statement into a single word or phrase helps to identify the essence of our effort. It will create powerful and personal statements that can be easily posted around the house, on our phone’s home screen, or on a sticky note in our office at work. Take a final look at your goals and identify what words and phrases you’ll use. Questions such as these will help:

What word or phrase will best help me remember my goal?

?What word or phrase will motivate me the most to achieve my goal?

Goal Setting Cautions

A word of caution: when setting individual goals, be careful of those that someone else has power over. For example, “Make the team!” or “receive the promotion” depends not only on you but who else tries out or applies for the position. But “get in better shape to make the team,” or “put myself in better position to be considered for the position,” are matters we can control.

Perhaps you don’t care for a few steps in the MOREFIT goal setting and achieving strategy or you prefer another model that you’ve had experience with in the past. The key is to find something that works for you! If you’ve got something going already, stick with it, grow, adapt, and modify it as needed. Remember that any sort of goal-setting process or strategy that becomes too rigid or lacks creativity will fall short of its objective: to help you and your family accomplish something that’s been elusive or unable to attain.

Summary

Like Michael Jordan, we are all going to face obstacles in our lives. When we do, we don’t need to quit. We need to strategize how to climb, go through, or get around them. Even more, knowing our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, we can anticipate how life might derail us from reaching our objective and take the steps to strengthen ourselves against it. The same is true for the families and organizations we lead. As we strategize for success and incorporate sound goal setting principles, we will be able to move past the same obstacles that once brought us down. If we have a strategy in place and if we are carefully and deliberately setting and working on accomplishing goals, we will respond effectively when faced with their force.

Sources:

·     Green, Bob. Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1991

·     Middleton, 75 Motivational Michael Jordan Quotes, Addicted2Success.com, Jan 14, 2016