Recall a time when you felt knee-deep (or neck-deep) in problems you weren’t sure how you’d solve.

How did you decide which one you’d tackle first?

Did that approach work?

If you need new ways to prioritize, try one of these ideas the next time you’re knee- or neck-deep in problems as you decide which one to take on first:

1. Revisit your plan

Check your project plan or long-term plan, if you have one.

This can help you regain your bearings as you recall your overriding goal (even if…as is probably the case…circumstances have changed since you created that long-term plan).

2. Allow yourself to dream

If you need inspiration to push over, around, or through problems in your way now, tap into dreams of the things you’d like to create in your work or life (you have dreams, even if you haven’t taken them out to look at them in a while).

3. Follow your energy

Go where your energy is highest. Let it drive you through successful problem-solving.

Then use the energy of that success to guide you over, around or through the next problem in the queue.

4. Let logic be your guide

Review relevant facts and data, if you have them, to help point the way to the problem that needs your attention first.

5. Feel your emotions about the situation

Notice how you feel in the situation. What problem keeps you, your customers or team tied up in knots?

It’s harvest season.

That’s true for people who make their living from the land.

And it’s harvest season for you, too, no matter what business you’re in.

These six weeks from mid-September through the end of October can be golden, and one of the highest productivity times of the year.

That’s because, among other things:

- The pressure’s on if you have annual goals that you still need to meet (and most of us do).

- There’s still time to adjust to the lessons you’ve learned this year, for better or worse.

- It’s a perfect time to work ahead and prepare for a better year ahead.

- The clock is ticking to get things done before attention and energy are diverted by end-of-year holidays.

Here are just a few ways you use the golden days of September and October to bring this business year to a good close:

1. Do a business tune-up

Check the effectiveness and ease of use of your key business processes.

2. Problem-find

Ask people in the company to provide feedback, anonymous or otherwise, about what problems they see. And prepare to be surprised. There may be some big frustrations and aggravations lurking in your company that you may be completely unaware of now.

3. Cause-find

Identify the root causes of problems you already know you want to, or must solve.

4. Create an action plan

Create an actionable and realistic plan to make changes you haven’t been able to get traction on yet. This may be a clue, too, that the root cause of some problems isn’t what you thought it was.

5. Get rid of low-hanging problems

Take care of some of the aggravating yet relatively easy to solve problems at your company.

6. Do a vision check

Check and/or update the vision that guides your company or team. Start with these questions:
- Is it still accurate?
- Does it address the customers you serve now?
- Is it compelling?

7. Get customer feedback

Update your knowledge about your customers and what they want and need from you. Use surveys, interviews, onsite observations or meetings, or a combination of tools.

8. Innovate

Brainstorm new product and service ideas for your current customers and markets. Or brainstorm new markets you can serve with the products and services you already have.

9. Clean sweep

Simplify, streamline, or do a good fall “housecleaning” of your offices, inbox or email stream.

10. Experiment

Experiment your way to a solution for a problem you haven’t been able to solve yet. Or start learning a new skill you know you will need in the future through a learning experiment.

These ten ideas are just a few ways you can create even greater yield…and enjoy it more…during the golden weeks of September and October.

Put harvest season to work…for you.

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On a whim one recent Monday morning, I brainstormed a list of words to inspire and challenge myself as I tried to get the day and week off to a great start.

It was an accolade and aggravation-filled list, as you’ll see, below. It helped me prioritize and refine my plans…and amused me, too…all in the space of about 3 minutes.

See if this brief exercise works for you, too. If the words I chose don’t work for you, replace them your own.

Here are a few guidelines to make this exercise work best:

- Keep the list short.

It’s a rapid-cycle brainstorming exercise to get yourself warmed up for the day or week.

- Use words that you react to, either positively or negatively.

Success is made up of the ability to respond well to positive and negative situations. You’ll be better prepared or more adaptable if you consider both types of circumstances, right from the start.

- Fill out the list quickly.

You may be surprised at what you learn in this rapid-cycle check-in with yourself. That surprising information may be the spark of energy, or the note of caution that makes all the difference in how you focus and invest your day or week, and the results you produce.

These were the words and questions that I used. Use these, or create your own list, if you like the idea of this exercise, but know that other words and questions will work better for you:

1. Admiration
What can I do to earn my own admiration today? This week?

2. Aspiration
What do I aspire to do or be today? This week?

3. Accomplishments
Do I have any accomplishments that I’ve taken for granted so far?

4. Accolades
Are there accolades I should be giving myself for great work done recently? What’s an appropriate way to recognize or celebrate them?

5. Action
Are the actions I planned for today still the right actions, given what’s most important right now? What are the 1-3 most important things I must get done, if nothing else?

6. Angst
Are there things I’m worrying about? What can I do to make the situation better?

7. Acceptance
Are there things I need to accept but have not, so far?

8. Admonitions
Are there warnings I need to pay attention to, or information I need to get? Are there assumptions I’ve made, but had better double-check?

9. Aggravations
Are there problems that I need to clear away through a process improvement? Is there a task that I need to delegate?

10. Avoidance
Are there things I’m avoiding that I really need to attend to? Is there important information that I’m trying to ignore?

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How do you remodel, refresh, or replace a dream you held if it’s no longer current for you?

A colleague and I noticed this was the case with several small business owners we worked with in a mentoring program we created.

You also see this with college students choosing majors, and then people who suddenly face a career change, whether it is forced or chosen.

You see this with companies and teams, too, when circumstances have changed and they may not have kept the dream alive as new people joined the company. Or maybe customers have moved on, making a once-successful company and products now an industry also-ran.

First, relax.

It may take a while, but you’ll discover what you really want to do and achieve if you’re open to whatever you discover, in the process.

Second, start paying more attention to the things you really like, and like to do.

For example:

– What do you love to do?

This can give you a general direction to look toward for your dream. It may or may not lead to an improved team goal or career path, but it can give you clues about where to look for more information.

At a minimum, paying attention to what you love to do, and then adding more of that to your life can make your present circumstances more satisfying.

If you’re part of a team that is trying to refresh its dream, notice the times when, as a group, you are most satisfied and most successful working together.

– What achievements are you proudest of?

This can give you clues about what makes you happiest. It can also help you understand what it is about those achievements that makes them so satisfying to you.

If you’re part of a team, pay attention to what collective achievements members of the team are proudest of. That gives you an idea of what motivates different members of the team, and what they might be driven to try to achieve again, together.

– Who do you admire?

If you admire people of great courage, perhaps you secretly wish you had more reasons and opportunities to exercise your own courage.

If you admire great artists, authors or musicians, perhaps you’re wish you had outlets for performing, expressing, or developing your artistic talents in other ways.

Perhaps athletes, inventors, great world leaders or Nobel Prize-winning scientists are those you admire most.

Whoever these people are, and whatever they have done, looking at who you admire can give you clues about what you long to do more of, yourself.

If you’re looking at this as a team, it can tell you more about what you’re driven to achieve, collectively, and what motivates you to do so.

There are other tools and exercises you can use to discover the dream that is real for you now. This just gives you a few ideas for how to start down that path.

If you find that you’re driving toward a dream or goal that just doesn’t move you,  have the courage to take a step back.

You will find that it can ultimately help you leap far ahead…and on a truer path.

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A colleague and I finished another successful round of mentoring small business owners recently.

During the sequence of classes and exercises in the mentoring program, several mentees discovered, to their surprise, that they were highly resistant to goals and dreams they’d long held.

As I listened to and worked with a few of the class participants in our 1:1 mentoring sessions, it sounded as if they were focusing on dreams that weren’t really their own, or were no longer alive for them.

Their resistance to these goals and dreams was almost like the case when magnet ends are positioned to create a force field that repels, rather than attracts.

You sometimes also see this when college students pursue a college major that’s not one they really like.

Thrown into the mix with students who love classes they hate, they may eventually find they’ve earned a degree and started down a career path that isn’t their idea of satisfying work, at all.

The irony is that if they have the courage and do the work it takes to discover a truer educational and career path for them, it may lead to opportunities of their dreams…or something far closer to that…than their original plan might have.

The same thing can happen to companies, and teams. They drive toward a dream that, for a variety of reasons, is not now real for them.

Perhaps competitive pressures have changed the playing field. Maybe the company was once a market leader but is now an also-ran. Or perhaps the demand for products which were once in great demand has moved to entirely different products and services, and the companies that produce them.

If that repellent, resistant-to-the-dream feeling sounds familiar to you, consider these reasons why that might have occurred:

1. It’s someone else’s dream for you.

Maybe this is a dream you essentially inherited or were assigned, in some way. Perhaps you’re working toward a goal your mother or father, or a coach or other advisor held for themselves, but which they didn’t achieve, for any of a number of reasons.

If you’re part of a company or team guided by a dream that no longer fits, maybe you joined a company that was riding a dream the founder created, yet he or she is now long gone. Or maybe your company is still focused on customers who have shifted to entirely different types of products than what made your company successful for so long.

2. You need more information to find out if the dream fits.

You may not know enough to know if this is really your dream. The general direction may sound interesting, but the dream may not be compelling enough yet that it will drive and guide you through the expected and unexpected challenges that occur as part of almost any significant achievement.

3. The dream is bigger than what you now believe you can achieve.

Here the problem may be that you want the dream, but you don’t believe yet that it is something you could really have, or achieve.

If you’re part of a team, perhaps one of the problems you face is that part of your team believes you can be successful, and another part of the team fears that is far from the case.

4. It’s a dream you used to have, but don’t care about anymore.

Maybe you used to dream of living in Paris for a year, traveling around Europe using the city as your new home base. Maybe you no longer dream of Paris, because now seek to take shorter, more frequent trips instead.

If you’re part of a team, maybe new people have joined the company or group and gradually (or suddenly) the dream is changing. Perhaps part of the company is pushing for the same freewheeling approach you’ve used to grow this fast, this far, yet another group wants more predictability, visibility, and a sense that things are under control.

What do you do if you find out that what you thought you wanted is not what you want now, at all?

I’ll give you a few ideas for starting to discover your truer path in the next blog post.

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Your vision of the future may be fuzzy, indistinct.

Or it may be crisp, clear and compelling, guiding you to take action consistently to turn that vision into action and results.

Either way, you’re moving toward a vision you’re trying to create.

It’s better to know what your vision is, and to the degree that you can, to affect, improve and direct it in the most positive ways.

If you need to articulate, create or update your vision, where do you start?

Here are six important steps to take:

1. Decide who needs to be involved in creating the vision.

Start by considering who will implement the vision.

Err on the side of including these people in the process of creating the vision, if you want it to be the inspiring, fully-owned guide for future action that it can be.

Consider how people would feel if you said to them, “You’re not important enough to help create our vision. But we do want your full attention and energy when it’s time to take action to make it real.”

For a vision to be powerful, the people who will be implementing it need to be fully engaged, and to “own” it.

2. Consider how you’d like to create it, if your preferred process will work with the group involved.

If a very large group of people will be involved, you may need to use small groups to gather their ideas, and then combine that input in some creative and cohesive way. The process you use also depends on whether the people involved are geographically dispersed, or can all be working together in the same place.

If a small group is creating the vision, they may be able to work together at the same time and place easily.

Also, consider if you want individuals to do some pre-work before the visioning work is done, or if you want to catch everyone’s fresh, natural input without much advance thought.

Decide, also, whether you want to have someone guide or facilitate the visioning process for you, or if you want to do that work on your own.

3. Make the time and space for the vision to emerge.

Creating a vision takes some time.

It also requires some out of the box thinking. And that means that you need to create an environment that encourages people to think and imagine freely.

How and when can you create that experience and environment for the visioning work to occur?

4. Accept that not everyone who needs to be involved is going to be onboard with the work, initially.

mong the very important things you must consider is that some people are going to be resistant to creating the vision, in all likelihood.

It might seem too “touchy-feely” to them.

I worked for one senior finance manager at a high tech firm who was this way. Yet when I listened to his resistance but told him I thought we needed to use the tools with his team of senior finance managers, anyway, he loved the processes and tools we used, and the outcomes we achieved, as a result.

People who are uncomfortable with the visioning and other creative group processes at first might not trust their own creativity. And so, rather than controlling the process too much and excluding others, these people may want to delegate their full involvement and responsibility for creating the vision.

But there’s passion involved in turning a dream or vision into reality. That passion can’t be delegated. And the drive that it takes to make a really grand dream come alive is one that has to come from deep within. And if a group is involved, that shared drive has to exist in many different people.

5. Gather creative tools.

Creating a vision takes skill in bringing out the real thoughts, feelings and aspirations in the individuals and in the full group, as well.

The creative tools you use may be sources of inspiration, such as photos, stories, music, and other resources that loosen up people’s thinking and enable them to bring their best ideas out.

They may be creative group process tools, such as mindmaps and other approaches.

You may also find wall-size graphics, such as visual templates, to be a powerful way to elicit and easily organize individual and collective thoughts, feelings, dreams, aspirations.

6. Work together to create a felt sense, and a shared picture of the future that speaks to you as a group.

Know that you will use that vision, again and again. You need it to speak to you. And you need to have it work for you.

It takes a spark, again and again, to keep a vision alive. Many individual and collective actions must flow from that vision in order for dreamed-of results to become real.

Do the planning, create the environment, convene the team that gives your dream a chance to become a vision that becomes drives action leading to real results.

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Let’s say the subject of your vision comes up.

Is your natural response to say, “I don’t have one”?

Oh, but you do.

And if you’re a leader, your team does, too.

Whether you know it or not, for better or worse, you hold some expectation or belief about your future.

Effectively, that is your vision, unless you change it.

And that vision – positive or negative – is far more powerful than you might expect.

If your vision needs to be updated, here are a few initial steps you can take.

I’ll provide more guidelines for creating your vision in the next post.

1. First consider your goals.

These may be responsibilities that you worked out with your manager at some point. Or these may be goals or quotas that were simply assigned to you.

What, specifically, must you achieve?

By when?

2. Now stretch far beyond that.

What you really want to do?

We’re not talking about an intellectual exercise here.

This is what, in your heart of hearts, you REALLY want to do or achieve.

Or if you’re part of a team, this is the thing that you’re really driven to accomplish or create together.

3. For now, make a few notes about what you really want to do, or create.

You could also draw a simple picture, or capture an inspiring phrase that represents what you aspire to do or create in the future.

We’ll work on the next steps of creating or updating your vision in the next post.

Give this a few days to “percolate,” and we’ll move on to the next steps from there.

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Are you running into a roadblock, facing a problem you can’t seem to solve, no matter what you do?

A good solution exists – you just know it does – but you can’t see or grasp it yet?

If so, take a step back.

Consider the problem from a fresh perspective.

Good ideas often emerge if you change the way you look at, frame, or approach a problem. Often, trying a new creativity tool can help you consider a problem from a new point of view.

Here are three tools you can use to provide a fresh perspective. One of these, or other similar creativity tools, may lead to the breakthrough you seek:

——————

Fresh Coat of Paint

1. Think of successes and achievements in your work and life.

2. “Relive” each of these successes for a minute or two. What did each experience look, sound, and feel like?

3. Next, when you think of these successes, what color comes to mind, if one does?

4. Now, think of the problem you’re trying to solve.

5. When you do, what color comes to mind?

6. Imagine taking the color you associated with success and painting or pouring that color on the problem.

7. What does that circumstance look and feel like now, in the new “success” color? Are there ideas, impressions, or new solutions that emerge as you imagine experiencing this transformed circumstance?

8. Complete the exercise by writing down impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

——————

Fast Forward

1. Imagine “fast forwarding” to a time when the problem has been solved. What do you see, hear and feel in that problem-resolved world?

2. Now, look back from that time, to where you are now. As you imagine the path to success, how was that problem solved?

3. Complete the exercise by writing down any ideas, impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

——————

Random Word

1. Think of the problem you’re trying to solve.

2. Describe the situation you expect you’ll experience when the problem has been solved.

3. Now, select a random book that you see nearby.

4. Open to any page.

5. Without looking, point to a word. Now look at it. What’s the word?

6. Answer the question, “What else does this word make me think of? How might these ideas help me see the problem in a new way? How might these ideas help me solve it?”

7. Complete the exercise by writing down any ideas, impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

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When we’re around excellence, it helps bring out our own best performance.

Think back. Surely there are times in your life when this has been true for you, too.

It’s why there’s value in watching great sports performances, seeing excellent theater and movies, reading great fiction, going to art museums, enjoying wonderful food, and surrounding yourself even briefly in the beauty of nature.

There’s lots more excellence you can choose to immerse yourself in, too.

I recall one particular experience  during a summer when my husband and I played tennis almost every weekend when summer with friends from the company where he worked.

Hoping to get in just enough improvement to make the next weekend’s tennis matches easier and more fun, Gary and I went out to practice one day after work at a nearby park.

On this particular evening, the courts were all busy so as we waited for our turn. As we did, we watched one couple play. It was great fun  to see, for they played with great ease and excellence.

When they left, and we started to play on the court where they’d performed for many of us who were watching that day, our game seemed to be almost magically elevated in many ways.

It was as if the excellence they’d brought had been left on that court, and we were the beneficiaries of the momentary circumstance.

Eventually, their excellence seeped away from that spot and, well, our normal game returned.

But for that brief time, playing excellent tennis was fun.

And it showed us that we might someday reach an elevated state of play with consistency if we kept practicing, with consistency.

You can elevate your own game, whatever it is, if you steep yourself in excellence of any kind.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. It inspires you.

Excellence of any type is spirit-lifting.

Whether at the Olympics, the exhibit of a great artist, or at a major awards program  recognizing top performance in any field, looking at, and up to excellence can have the same effect. It raises your sense of what is possible when positive intention, the force of will, abilities, practice and preparation – and a bit of luck, too – are combined to meet challenges and create new opportunities.

That inspiring effect occurs whether the people who produced the great result were expected to, or theirs was in overcoming-all-odds story.

2. It teaches, or reinforces the excellence mindset in you.

Sometimes the best thing about being around others’ excellence is being steeped in the excellence mindset.

Top performance takes dedication, focus, and sometimes getting out of your own way to create or release excellent results.

Knowing what someone who produced greatness thought and felt, how they prepared  for it, and how they overcame their own nervousness or stage fright, if it was part of the experience, can be enlightening.

3. It gives you new ideas for yourself.

Excellence in other realms can increase your creativity, and spark new ideas for a project, goal, or challenge you’re working on.

And being around others’ excellence reminds you of the power of persistence.

There’s a lot to be said for not giving up when your courage is waning and encouragement from others is sparse.

Your will to succeed in a realm that is important to you, and the path to that achievement can be strengthened by being immersed in excellence of any type.

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You may think you’re ready for change – until you get up to the starting line and the action is about to start.

And when you do – much like standing at the starting line of an important race – that’s no time to find out you’re unprepared, or that you really don’t want to make the change, at all.

Change isn’t easy, no matter what type of change you’re making (or being asked to make), and no matter who else is involved.

But change usually works out far better if you’re ready for it – and all the twists and turns it can bring.

And it works best, too, if you seek it, rather than if change finds you.

Still better is the change you yearn for.

And best of all is if you’re driven enough to accomplish the change that you can move over, around, or through any barriers that crop up and stand in the way of where you are now, and the success you’re trying to create in the change process.

Change, of course, comes in many forms.

We all know from experience, and from the economic changes of the last few years which have not left many people untouched, in some way, that not all change is change we welcome.

Here are just a few of the types of major change that you may face at some time, and ways that you can adapt to them:

1. Change can be thrust upon us by life circumstances.

A lot of the process of change in these life-thrust-upon-us change circumstances requires acceptance, resilience, adaptability. Sometimes figuring out ways to “make do” for a while is required, too.

These are not experiences that dreams are made of. They are, however, sometimes the stuff that heroic stories are made of.

And like it or not, these experiences can be some of the ones that toughen us up most and make us strong, ready for even greater challenges of other types, later in life.

2. Great change may happen serendipitously.

For example, let’s say you have an interesting opportunity, and decide to take it. An interesting experience occurs, as a result.

You notice that you liked the experience, and decide to repeat the experience or experiment.

An interesting path starts to unfold.

Through these types of gradual change experiences, career interests or passions are sometimes discovered, new skills are developed, opportunities emerge, and rewarding relationships often emerge, too.

3. Change that you yearn for is the change that dreams are often made of.

If these changes are really big ones, they often take hard work and careful planning, and coordination with other people.

These changes are often driven by a very powerful and compelling vision you hold of the outcome you seek.

Whatever the change you face, to the degree you can be, it’s best if you’re ready for the race and challenge of change.

But that’s not possible in every case.

And no matter what happens, or why change occurs, you can’t anticipate and plan for all twists and turns, opportunities, challenges, and differences ahead that will emerge, no matter what type of change has come by.

Change doesn’t have to buckle you to your knees, nor does it have to overwhelm you, even if it is the type you didn’t seek.

Change is a fact of life. Being change-ready and change-responsive – if it’s not yet one of your strengths – is a change you’d best make, and keep.

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