What differences do you want to make today?
We all want to feel useful and fulfilled. Most of us want to feel that we are making a positive difference of some kind in our lives. We want to feel balanced in our personal lives and motivated in our business dealings.
In addition to watching our short and informative video above we have a fun, quick yet practical exercise for you. It will allow you to focus on two areas in your life, one personal and one work/business related, that you want to make a difference about or achieve. The differences can be big or small.
You will get the most from this exercise if you are really honest – even a little bit tough with yourself.
Think of a personal or work related difference that you want to make. This could be a personal difference such as exercising more, losing weight, spending more time with your loved ones, persuing a new hobby or contributing to your community. Whatever the personal difference you want to make is, that is the right one for you. It could be a business difference such as organising your team for greater efficiency, planning a new system or process, getting a pay rise or perhaps improving your client retention rate. Anything's possible.
Now, you will see that there are six boxes underneath each section that we will address. This exercise will lead you through the key principles of the Go MAD Thinking System and you will create a self-assessment score on the area(s) you are focusing on.
The scoring will be explained at the end of the exercise and using a simple calculation – we have a calculator on this page – you will learn your probability for success.
So, remind yourself of the difference you want to make.
Now let's begin.
1. Select a difference you would like to make
First select a work related or personal difference you would like to make and write it in the box below.
What is the difference I wish to make? (work related or personal)
2. Rank your projected success
Now on a scale of '1' to '10' where '1' is the low or least likely to happen and '10' the high or very likely to happen, ask yourself the following questions and write them in the corresponding boxes labelled with six of our Go MAD (Make A Difference) Key Principles:
- Reason Why: How much do I want to achieve this? How strong is my reason why for wanting to achieve this?
- Define Goal: How well defined is your goal? Can you summarise it in a way that has specific details? Is it measurable, achievable, relevant and written down somewhere? Does it have a realistic time-scale?.
- Self-Belief: How achievable is my goal?
- Plan Priorities: There are three parts to this: Possibility generation, Prioritising and Planning. Have I generated masses of possibilities for achieving this? Have I gone through the process of prioritising them? Have I planned in the time to make these happen and recorded them somewhere that will remind me to do these? Considering these three elements together, give yourself a score out 1-10.
- Involve Others: Have I considered all the people that could possibly help me to achieve this? Have I thought how I might possibly communicate with them and get their buy-in?
- Personal Responsibility: Am I prepared to take personal responsibility for making this happen?
3. Take a look at your scores.
You ideally want to see 10 out of 10 scores for each principle. What do your scores tell you about the area(s) you might benefit from spending more time on?
Now if you want to have a bit of fun and get some further insight, let's convert these numbers into a probability of success percentage.
4. Calculate your success rate
Multiply the numbers in each box. Click on the calculator below for an automatic calculation. For example: 5 x 7 x 6 x 4 x 4 x 8 = 26880
5. Calculate your percentage
If you'd scored 10 out of 10 for each box, your score would be 1,000,000, which equals 100%. To work out your percentage move the decimal place four places from the right. So with the example above, the probability of achieving this goal is 2.688%. What are your percentages?
Hint: Click the button to find out your percentage automatically.
Relax; this is not a scientifically tested calculation. Your score may be lower than you would like but the good news is that you now have a snap shot of your probability for success of your project or desire. It shows you that as each principle is part of a system it is important to make sure you pay attention to each in order to make the overall difference you want.
You can also use this calculation to review past projects or plan a project, using more thinking tools and techniques.
