040: VGA Power - Vision, Goals, Action!

In this Podcast episode you will learn to use VGA Power through Vision, Goals and Action! In this episode you will learn powerful yet simple tips to use daily in your own goal planning.

Transcript

You're listening to the 7 Transformations podcast with your host, Tudor Alexander. For the show notes to this episode, Stay connected at the7transformations. Com. Transformation is an ongoing journey, And it is good that we don't have to walk that path alone. My name is Tudor Alexander, And this is my weekly podcast where I share my life lessons on and off the competitive floor with a few stories in between. Thank you for joining me on this journey, And now let's create a life we love. What's up, What's up everybody? Happy Friday. Welcome to my podcast, The 7 Transformations. My name is Tudor Alexander, And today I want to talk to you about VGA power. I know we usually have some interviews on Fridays, But for the next two weeks I'm going to give you a couple of useful tips that I like to use every day in my own goal planning, In my own life, In the work that I do with clients, Things like that. I think these are very powerful, Simple tools to create a life you love. That's the whole point of the show, Is to empower you to create whatever it is you're out to create, Whether that's a business, Whether that's a meaningful relationship in your life, Or a project of some kind. I think that ultimately our lives are about creation, About connecting to bringing the things that are important to us into the real world. One of the things that's really important is planning. Planning is something that you fail to plan and plan to fail, Those kind of things. Ultimately your plan determines your outcome. The level of the structure that you're willing to employ along with the discipline is going to be a key factor in creating whatever it is you want to create, Whether it's a marriage, Whether it's a business. It all comes down to consistent planning and employing goal setting, Having actions, And having a vision. That's the three components that I want to talk to you about today, And that's why the acronym is VGA, Vision, Goals, And actions. I think this is a useful tool. Like I said, I use this in my own working with students, In my own competitive career. It's just a useful way to distinguish between what are the things that you need to do. I'll start actually, When we're talking about doing, I'll actually start about a cycle. That cycle is the be, Do, Have cycle. If you can imagine the word be, Then you have the word do to the right of that. Then to the right of that is going to be the word have. They all kind of flow into each other. A good example would be be is like your state of being. If I am happy, What do I do because of that? What are the actions or the movements in space and time that that generates? If I'm happy, Well, Okay, I'm going to do X, Y, And Z. Maybe I'll donate to charity. I'll have great relationships, Whatever. You've got actions that are a result of that. Then your actions are going to create things in the real world like memories or money or whatever. It's going to have, What are you going to have as a result of the things that you do? This is a useful little tool because it's also a good way to look at your current life and what's going on because it gives you three windows to look at it. If you have, I don't know, Debt, You can work backward from that. I have debt that I don't want. Okay, Well, What did I do to get in that debt? Okay, Great. Well, I borrowed too much money on my credit cards and maxed them out and okay, Great. That doesn't exactly give you the full picture, So we've got to go even deeper than that. What is the state of being that generated those actions, The doing? I'll give you a personal example. I was actually talking about this to somebody earlier today about some pretty poor financial decisions I made when I was younger. I was like 21, 22. One of them was to borrow a lot of money for some laser hair removal. It's like I was competing a lot when I was younger and I wanted to shave my chest. I wanted to stop doing that, So I thought, Oh, I'll just get laser hair removal. I spent an inordinate amount of money on that. It's like, Okay, I look back on that and probably today I wouldn't have decided to do that, But the state of being that I was in, The things that I wanted, Maybe recognition or whatever else led to the actions, Which led to having debt in that sense that was maybe unwarranted or unneeded, Unuseful, That kind of thing. Be do and have, And that's going to make its way into our conversation today because it is very much connected to this whole idea of VGA or vision, Goals, And actions. A vision, Goals, And action system is a way for you to look at the bigger picture, Look at the medium picture or the short-term picture, And look at the immediate picture of the actions you need to take, Especially if you have big goals or things in life that you want to achieve. One of the episodes I talked about, I think it was episode 25, Which is the four pillars of independence, I mentioned taking action and fulfilling that action is one of the key components to confidence because ultimately when you can realize what you have in the world in your own mind and bring it into the world, There is a confidence to that kind of completion. There is a confidence to being able to bring what you want into the world. With that, We think of things that we want, And a lot of times when you think of something, You may get the bigger picture, But you don't necessarily see how you're connected to that bigger picture through the logical steps and goals and things like that. Or maybe you don't see the big picture. Everybody is going to struggle either on the big picture end or the little pictures in the small details. You have to figure out which kind of thinker are you and what you need to do to complement that. If you're a big picture person, Then you need to learn about structure and step by step and following through. If you're having trouble with the big picture, Then you need to learn a little bit about more open possibility of mind and being creative, Being more inquisitive, Letting go of some fears, Having some courage to think outside the box, Those kinds of things. So everybody is going to fall on one side or the other. Ultimately, When you can incorporate both big picture and little pictures thinking, You're going to be successful. But what I was going to say in that podcast, The episode 25, Was one of the things is most people quit in two ways, Either right before they start, Before they start something, Or right when they start and shortly right after they start. So basically, You either quit before you start. So if I have a goal of losing weight, I'm like, Okay, I kind of want to, But I never really take the action or make a plan that makes me feel committed to it. I never buy the gym membership and I never get started. It was just an idea. It was just a possibility that kind of was fleeting. Or they quit shortly after they start something. So I start something, It's difficult, I experienced my first failure or challenge and then, Okay, I'm going to quit. So those two times are very common when we start. And this idea and system of vision goals and actions really helps to weather those failures. It helps to build a step-by-step process and thinking, Procedural thinking, So that you can withstand the inevitable failures that are coming your way whenever you commit to something. And those failures can be in the little things, And sometimes they can be in the bigger things like your purpose or what is the reason that you're doing it, Your why. So without further ado, Let's take a look at the system. The way I do it is I take a piece of paper and I just write vision goal and actions on it. So the way I do it is I write vision really large and then I split it off into three goals. You don't have to have three goals, It's just a little chart. But I split it off into three goals and then each of those goals, I split it off into like two actions. So I can see how it's like a little tree or a little trickle down effect. And they all feed into each other though. This is the interesting thing that we're going to talk about is that it's not just a trickle down effect in the sense that the vision generates the goals which generates the actions. This is true. But they also feed upward too. Your actions shape your goal which shapes your vision. It's a very dynamic system in the sense that when you start something, When you commit to let's say a goal, Whether it's a relationship, A business, Whatever, Like I was saying, You're going to have an initial idea that you want about it. And over time as you take the actions, As you start setting goals and you really follow through on it, If you're consistent, It's inevitable that that vision will change a little bit. It'll shape, It'll become more specific, It might become more targeted, It might evolve in different ways and expressions. So it's an interesting thing because don't take this as a linear situation and that's what the real take home is, Is that whether you're a big picture person and you have trouble with actions or if you're more, You know, Procedural person and it's hard for you to create a big picture for what you're doing, It doesn't matter. It always flows, It flows into each other. So you're going to end up, As long as you put the effort and you follow a structure and you're consistent in your effort, You're going to end up where you need to end up anyway. So if you need to learn about process, You'll learn about it. If you learn to learn about, You know, Big pictures thinking, You will figure it out with consistent effort because if you take actions, Which lead to goals and you shape little goals and pretty soon you're going to figure out, Okay, I kind of get an idea of maybe what direction I want to take this. You know, And same with a big picture thinker that doesn't have process as a habit, Let's say. As soon as they come up with the, You know, The big picture of what they're doing, They're going to have to take some actions, Do some research and rack their brain, You know, To learning what they need to learn. So with a vision, You know, When you start with this, Let's just start with vision in this case. Again, They feed into each other the way I see it. But vision, If we do start with it, There are a lot of things you need to ask yourself at each level and because they're all important and understanding these different levels and how to work with them and what to expect for yourself is very important in keeping the movement of this chain to create whatever it is you're creating. So with a vision, If I start with a vision, What, You know, How do I create a vision? What is that about? Well, Some of the things you can ask yourself is, You know, What's your passion? What do you love to do? What are you curious about? Is you know, The particular thing that you want to create empowering to you? And I wrote a whole article on medium on empowerment and a recent episode as well on what, What that means and how to create it in our life. So is it empowering? Is it going to fill you with power? Is it motivating? What difference and impact will it make in the world? Will it make on you? You know, What impact was going to make on others? You know, Let's say you want to start a business. Well, What is it? Obviously, You know, You have some ideas about it, But what is the, What is the end goal? What's the, What's the social impact? What is the social significance? We are all social creatures. So everything you do, Anytime you're trying to create a big picture idea, Even, You know, Even your actions, Even your goals, Everything has a social filter to it in the sense that you should consider the social impact of it because that's part of the reward. That's part of the significance of it. You know, For some people it's more, You know, I talk a lot about the human needs and, You know, Like connection. Some people, They really want to feel a sense of connection in what they're doing. So if they've come to the point where they want to create a business centered around connection and provide that to others, Clearly articulating that at least to yourself is very important in creating a vision. So finding, You know, What it is, What's the benefit of what you're doing in the long run. So create a vision. Number two is having a clear way to create goals. And when we come to the goal part, This is something you probably have heard before, But you want to make sure that your goals are smart. And I don't mean smart, Like as opposite to dumb, But smart is in the acronym. And you know, Smart stands for specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, And time bound. You know, It's a pretty useful system. It's been around for a while and, You know, It makes sense. You don't have to memorize those letters, But it makes sense. So you know, Like when you make a goal, It's very important that it's very specific. Right? So if I want to lose weight, Okay, How much weight do you want to lose? Well, I don't know. That's not a good enough goal. You know, Having an open statement like that for your goals is not really effective because you need to nail it down. A goal is something that happens in space and time in a particular fashion. It is something measurable. Right? So I want to lose 10 pounds. Okay. By when? Three months from now. Okay, Great. Is it attainable? Yeah, It's attainable. If my goal is to lose 80 pounds in, You know, A month, Probably not going to happen unless something drastic occurs, But in general, That's not attainable. Right? So, And then again, It's also R is relevant. You know, This is something where, Remember those arrows trickle up and trickle down. So at every stage of the game, You do have to ask yourself how, What's the relationship between my goal and my vision? What's the relationship between my actions? How did my actions support my current goal? Are they supportive of it? Are they not? Do my actions support the greater vision that I'm working to? And likewise, How does my vision translate into the goals? How does my vision translate into the actions? You know, So they work backwards and forwards from each other. And when it comes to goals, You want to make sure that they're smart. Again, Specific, Measurable, Something you can measure that's, That's tangible in the real world, Attainable, Meaning like realistic. Are they, You know, Is it possible? Relevant, Is it, You know, Connected to your vision and how? And time bound, Time is the ultimate factor. It's so easy to procrastinate when you don't set deadlines for yourself. So goals are short term, You know, Things that you want to complete that are little steps or I should say medium steps towards your vision. And goals are going to generate actions. Action is the last component. It is the specific, You know, Item list that you need to get done to get that goal. And the goal is somewhere between, You know, Very concrete and a little more conceptual. So let's say I want to lose 10 pounds, You know, That's, That's a something concrete, But even more concrete, Which is a set of actions is okay. In order to do this, I need to eat X amount of calories between now and the end of the month. I need to go to the gym and work out 40 minutes and do 10 minutes of cardio and do this thing. So you start setting specific, Very concrete actions in the real world that are, You know, Immediate. So with actions and one more thing, Actually, I forgot to mention about goals. This is important because I learned this a lot through the work that I do with my students in competing and things like that. It's very important to establish for yourself because we're all about results all the time. We want results and goals are important to have measurable, You know, Results as far as your goals. But one thing that is often missed is the value of a qualitative goal. Right? So you have benchmarks that you want to reach or things that you want results that you want to happen in the real world. But some of those are very important and they can't be measured in the sense of numbers. You know, You can't measure happiness. You can't measure an experience. So for example, One of the qualitative experiences that I often set with my students before they do their first competition is, You know, Are they going to be able to do all their dances to music? And, You know, That's that's an experience. It's not I didn't say, You know, Have 90% accuracy in their footwork or something like that. It's like, OK, Another one would be did they meet somebody new? You know, Did they have fun? You know, These are kind of more qualitative. They're more experiential goals. Did they, You know, Try their best? That's something that we can always come back to as an experiential goals, As an emotion that they wanted to feel. So those types of qualitative benchmarks are important for you to utilize as you are setting goals for yourself because having only goals that are on the left brain or analytical side, You know, It's good, But you want to you want to practice having experiential goals because having only ones that you can measure is not only something you can control and you can't control the outside world. It's important to have goals, But you're not going to always meet them. And in that reality, It's very easy to become a perfectionist or worse. Let's say you, You know, You miss a goal and you get depressed and so on. So ultimately, You know, With qualitative goals, You experience them. It's not something that you have to struggle with. It's not something that you have a lot more control over whether you tried your best or not. That's something that's internal. You can control whether you tried your best or not. Now whether you got first place in the competition, That's not something that that's a goal. It's a great goal to have, But you're not always going to get it. So that's ultimately why we want to include qualitative assessments in our goal setting. So with actions, I was going to say, You know, The biggest thing with actions is did you follow through and complete the action? Every action is going to lead to another set of actions. And in planning our actions, They also can fall under the smart category. You know, You have to be specific with your actions. They have to be measurable. They have to be achievable. They have to be relevant to the goal, Right? And time bound. You know, Sometimes you may have a goal or many goals. Let's put it this way, Especially with the business relationship, All these like, You know, Wonderful commitments in our lives. You have many goals that are floating around at once. The question is, You know, Especially when it comes to multitasking or prioritizing your actions, Is the action I'm doing right now something I need to be doing or can I do something more important? You know, That's a question that's time bound and relevant. So you know, Does the action align with my vision or is it just am I wasting my time here? Is this a needless waste of time? And these things fall into time management, Which is in that episode that I'll probably create next week on multitasking and time management. Because ultimately, You know, Your actions, When you come down to the actions, That's the day to day stuff and learning how to manage your time, Learning how to be organized, Learning how to follow through and all these types of things is the key to meeting your goals and ultimately your vision. And your vision is going to be responsible for your sense of aliveness, For your sense of empowerment, For your sense of a future and sense of a purpose, Things like that. Your goals are going to be responsible for your confidence in the sense that you've reached, You know, Little benchmarks along the way and it gives you a boost, You know, And your actions, That's the day to day stuff. You know, This is your fuel, Your motivation, Your movement through these steps and what also trains your habits too. So having good, You know, Discipline and organizational skills and multitasking is a very important part. So I will share that next Friday in an episode on multitasking and time management, Which I think is really cool. I've had to do a lot of it lately, So I'm definitely going to share my thoughts on it. So I hope that this has been useful to you. VGA power, Use it in your life. It is a simple tool for goal planning and setting a vision and evaluating yourself at every step of the way. So remember they all flow into each other. Actions flow into goals, Which flow into a vision and it trickles back down too. So I hope that this has filled in some gaps for you, Reminded you of some useful things and overall been a contribution to your life. Thank you so much for listening. I really enjoy creating these episodes for you guys and I'd love to hear back from you if you have any feedback, If you enjoy this episode, If you have any thoughts as far as future episodes or things that maybe you'd like to hear more of. I've talked a lot about a lot of different things here and I also interview a lot of really interesting people on how they create a life they love. So let me know if anything's up your alley, Reach out. You can find me through my website. If you want to support the show, We also have like a Patreon account or PayPal stuff on there. I also plan on releasing some music albums pretty soon. I've recorded some of my piano music on some really cool tranquil tracks and I'm planning on releasing that as well as a guided meditation. So I will keep you guys in the loop with that. Stay tuned. It'll probably be on Amazon. But yeah, Thank you so much for supporting the show and I'll see you guys on Monday. Have a great weekend. You're listening to the Seven Transformations podcast with your host, Tudor Alexander. For more episodes like these, Subscribe or stay connected at TheSevenTransformations. Com.

Reviews

Looking forward to using this to help me lose weight. Will let you know how I do!

Thanks for assistance in simplifying the process, Tudor. 💡

Will look for your other following podcast. Although I was actually thinking this was going to tie into mindfulness somehow

Super... thank you 😊

Great to listen cant wait for the next episode!