Heidi Grant Halvorson now speaking at the Science of Thriving online conference

Heidi Grant Halvorson, author of 9 things successful people do differently is speaking at the Science of Thriving online conference. This online conference is free for teh first 24 hours or you can purchase the whole series for $99. Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of motivation. She is currently the Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia Business School. Heidi is also an expert blogger for 99u, Fast Company, WSJ.com, Forbes, The Huffington Post,and Psychology Today.

Her presentation, actually an interview making it more engaging to watch, focuses on 9 things successful people do differently originally revealed in a Harvard Business Review Post:

1. Get specificWhen you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

Strengths mined: Focus

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals.
 Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

Strengths mined: Activator

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

Strengths mined: Focus, Discipline, Responsibility, Self-Regulation


4. Be a realistic optimist.
 When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

Strengths mined: Positivity, Optomism


5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good.
 Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
 

Strengths mined:  PositivityOptomism, open-mindedness

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

Strengths mined: DisciplineResponsibilitySelf-Regulationperseverence,

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (“If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

Strengths mined: DisciplineResponsibilitySelf-Regulation, perseverence, Bravey

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don’t put yourself in harm’s way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

Strengths mined: Focus, Zest, Fairness

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

Strengths mined: FocusPositivityOptomism

Deliberative

People strong in the Deliberative theme are best described by the serious care they take in making decisions or choices. They anticipate the obstacles.

  • Needs on a team: To think things through
  • As a Leader: Anticipate obstacles
  • In Conflict: Help make decisions
  • Partner with: someone with strong Command, Self-Assurance, or Activator talents. Together you will make many decisions, and these decisions will be sound.
  • In academics: – loves to think it through – this student wants to know all the options and have all the information in hand before making a decision – will probably be well- prepared for the advising session and will appreciate an advisor who is well- informed and fairly directive – likes to know that the advisor can be trusted – will want to double check everything and will be concerned about meeting requirements – prefers courses where the expectations are clear, where class time is used well, and where students take the course seriously – encourage them to get copies of syllabi before choosing their courses, so there will be no surprises

At your best (Balcony): good judgment, identifies risk, makes solid decisions, can plan for the unexpected

At your worst (Basement): standoffish, aloof, cautious, slow, introverted, afraid to act

Worth Reading 

 

Worth Watching

 

 

Go deeper

  • Using your strengths in school and college wth great ideas on building relationships, study techniques, class selection, and extra curricular activities.

Listen to these podcasts

  • Theme addicts is a series created by UnleashStrengths to highlight the massive impact the StrengthsFinder assessment through interviews and disucssions.
  • Lead through your strengths features many interesting guests and Career Q and A about leverage your strengths at work.
  • Maximize Your Strengths features interviews and disucssion on developing your strengths. She really drills into each of the themes by interviewing real people on how a specific theme shows up in their lives.
  • Called to Coach is a webcast resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world.
  • ISOGO TV promises a lot: So dramatically increase your energy and decrease your frustration at work, that you cannot help but take the Strengths paradigm home to your family. Fueling life-changing stories.
  • The True Strength Podcast by Ian Pettigrew (Kingfisher Coaching) features inspiring true stories of how people succeed through applying their strengths and being resilient. It often includes a Gallup StrengthsFinder profile.
  • If you are looking to identify and develop your strengths and talents, take calculated risks and make decisions, The Strengths Revolution with Steve Morgan will help your personal development, as well as helping you support your clients, employees, teams and wider organisations. Knowing your strengths will also support positive risk-taking and decision making as part of good risk management.

Sources:

Action plans for your strengthsfinder results

Weber State University has posted action plan worksheets for each of Gallup’s 34 strengthsfinder talents. 

Action Plan Worksheets