Learn the rules of how to get the right stuff done

"The Right Stuff" is a famous book and movie about the early days of the U.S. space program, detailing what happened when one group tried to bring together many elements to reach amazing goals that pushed the envelope of what could be done in this new frontier. Here's how one reviewer describes the film:  "'The Right Stuff' is one of the most glorious adventure films ever made, a story of incredible heroism, poignant romance, gripping drama and broad humor. Amazingly, it has actually happened within our lifetimes!"

Today, I will share with you a simple three-step formula to combine everything you've learned in this program to set off on your own adventure. Your health and fitness along with the leadership skills involved in being your own best coach have prepared you for this moment.

I coached my youngest son on a simple formula like this related to his passion for flag football. During years of playing catch, I always ask him to repeat out loud his three catching rules, and he says for the 1,000th time: "One, reach out for the ball; two, see the ball hit my fingers; three, believe that I will catch every ball." This doesn't include some other catching mechanics he learned that are more ingrained. Any time he has a few drops where I can tell it's from one of these items, I stop and have him repeat the three rules. This almost always immediately corrects the flaw.

It's amazing to observe how well this works in real life. By focusing his mind on a simple formula, his results improve significantly. After years of following this formula, he is now ridiculously good at catching a football. Sometimes it's fun being a coach!

Below are the three simple steps for you to remember to complete your "right stuff":

Rule #1: Get Stuff Done

This is the base from which you begin. I see many people float through life just making it through each day—sometimes complaining about this or that, beating themselves up, not being positive—instead of having a relentless focus on getting things done. This training point involves skills including:

  • Believing in yourself and your ability to complete all types of projects
  • Goal-setting and time management
  • Willingness to learn new skills
  • A strong work ethic (one of the best gifts I learned from my mom)

This rule is a simple variation of an important part of our planning formula: set a goal, reach a goal, track a goal.

Rule #2: Get Stuff Done Really Well

I read an article once that talked about how important it can be to be really good at something and how this can make a big difference in your life. This point involves skills like:

  • Dedication to practice: Getting really good at skills often naturally takes a good amount of practice
  • Pride in your work: This time going beyond just getting something done to doing it really well
  • Not being a perfectionist: Very few tasks need to be done "perfectly." This trait ends up holding many people back because they often won't try new things if they feel like they can't do that task perfectly right away. I'm including this to make a clear distinction between "really well" and "perfect."
  • Passion: The passion can be for the exact project you are doing, or you can visualize this project being part of your bigger goals.

It's fun practicing how to be really good at some skills that are more "fun" and less pressure. This will help you both learn the general process of being really good at something and give you the confidence to transfer that to more important skills.

For example, my youngest son will not play college or professional football. I keep coaching him on catching a football, though, and directly tell him that he now knows he can be great at something and he can transfer that process to other, more important areas of life later.

Rule #3: Get The Right Stuff Done Really Well

Once again, we added two simple words to our original rule. These two words focusing on "the right stuff" are incredibly important. This starts at your very foundation, including skills like:

  • Doing tasks according to your core values
  • Having a moral compass along your journey

Then these words advance to include two of the more powerful skills in life related to reaching big goals:

  • Prioritization: At any given moment, you probably could choose from one of 10 or 20 possible tasks to work on. What is the top priority that will help you move forward? How do you rank the tasks in terms of importance, and even make a judgement call for "how well" a task needs to be done to be acceptable. You can practice this prioritization using your SparkCoach planner. The "To Do Now" feature lets you prioritize what you'd like to do in the very short term. Another way to visualize this for your entire day is to assign higher point values to more important tasks and work to complete more of those tasks each day. We may turn this into a feature at some point.
  • Strategy: This is one of my favorite skills in life and it's also one of the more challenging skills in life to develop. According to dictionary.com, strategy is defined as, "a plan, method or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result" A way to look at the value of strategy is that strategy helps you "figure stuff out" in order to "get the right stuff done really well." Good strategy often involves thinking three or four steps ahead and figuring out how to fit together many different pieces.  Visualization is an important skill to make this happen. For example, a big strategy a-ha moment for me in my life was the creation of SparkPeople: Thinking about integrating the best of health and fitness (elements that help your body) with the best of goal-setting, motivation, leadership and behavioral psychology (elements that help your mind), then turning that strategy thought into a program is what led to both entrepreneurial success and, eventually, SparkPeople.

How can you piece together different steps to make it easier to reach your most important goals in life?  The more you intentionally practice this, the more wisdom you'll build that helps you get better at strategy over time. You will start recognizing patterns and use those to your advantage.

As a summary, I hope you are developing more confidence than you've ever had to bring these steps to life! Like I coached my son, anytime you need to get back on track, just think about your three rules:

  1. Get Stuff Done
  2. Get Stuff Done REALLY WELL
  3. Get THE RIGHT STUFF Done Really Well

You can do it!