Quickread: Goal-setting - how to get things done (through the colours)

In its simplest form, goal-setting is the process of working out what you want and creating a plan to achieve it. It is an integral part of your working world whether you’re an entrepreneur working on your business plan, a sales director taking part in a coaching programme or an office worker planning to retrain, and yet many people find it extremely difficult.

Clearer goals bring focus, direction and a sense of purpose. Mindtools sums it up brilliantly when it says “Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation”. Goals, in whatever shape or form they take, enable you to:

• Plan for the future
• Feel driven
• Organise your time more effectively
• Separate your wants and needs from those around you
• Become more self-confident (as you see yourself working towards and achieving).

"Begin with the end in mind.”
Stephen Covey.

Discovery and goal-setting

For those who haven’t delved into Insights Discovery® before, it is the very beginning of the journey to more effective working. Based on the extensive research of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, the profiling system is a valuable tool that was created to help people understand themselves and those around them. You can read more about the profile here and find a top-level guide to the basics of the model here .

Our own colour mix, and indeed every other individual’s, is underpinned by an extensive list of natural colourful gifts and skills – through the 8-Types for example, a Director tends to be courageous and decisive, whereas an Observer usually employs consistency and organised precision by rote. All of which are useful characteristics. The tendencies of different colour energies and their combinations can also, however, stand us in a more undesirable stead. These aren’t negative, mind you. They aren’t even shortfalls. For every individual who doesn’t enjoy and thinks they fail miserably at timekeeping, there will be another who can teach them how, (and isn’t that the beauty of teamwork ?) - the challenge is in the communication gap.

Blockages through the colours

Cool Blue energy champions precision, and decision making is extremely logical and deliberate. With a primary focus of problem-solving, goal-setting can tend to be too focused on being correct. If you spend too long analysing and evaluating, components of the situation will have changed before you are content enough with your plan to act. Action point: practise taking action early and modifying your plan in light of feedback.

Earth Green likes to consider all options and maintain a level of balance in decision-making. Change in itself can feel difficult, and goals set may not be as challenging as they could be to avoid the hypothetical upset of others. Action point: you aren’t responsible for everyone else and you can’t see into the future. Follow your convictions.

Sunshine Yellow’s enthusiasm shines through when they have many projects on the go at once. Spontaneity and idea-charged conversation is top of their list. Too many jobs, however, stretches you too thin and an inability to let go of any of those passionate notions means you can’t focus on the most important. Action point: learn to prioritise and make conscious efforts to see things from start to finish - you’ll find your success rate elevates.

Fiery Red is all about results, and fast. They feel at the top of their game when in control, and are so busy doing as such that goal-setting on hard copy can sometimes be at the bottom of the to-do list, after all of their other important plans. Action point: employ your pragmatism by thinking on paper – it’s powerful, provides focus, and gives you a tangible measurement.

Of course, we are all a mixture of the colour energies and these can ebb and flow on a day to day basis. All four of the above action points will resonate at one point or another, but it’s likely your usual colour mix will be headed up by a dominant colour energy. By recognising yours and others’ tendencies you can learn how to leverage your skills for more success, as well as theirs. Teamwork and collaboration doesn’t simply describe 6 people working on a project, rather the pooling and sharing of our behavioural resources to grow and profit in all aspects of our working life.

We can cover the communication gap by upping self-awareness and pooling what we’ve each got to bring to the table. Individual silo-working is a thing of the past.

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