Two Easy, But Life-Changing Ways to Hit Your 2017 Goals & Be Happier Doing It!

Steve Jobs reached out to me one day when he was bouncing back from the brink of disaster at the end of the 20th Century. People thought he was nuts to try to sell music on the internet when consumers had been stealing it for years. I was Chairman of Rioport, the company that had popularized the mp3 player, and Jobs had ambitions to use that technology to turn his crazy idea into iTunes in the next two years. He was happier than I'd ever seen him. Growing up in Silicon Valley, I had met Steve a few times when my mom worked at Homestead High School. At that time I could never get comfortable with his famously head-strong attitude, but now he was more joyful and excited than ever. In fact, it struck me as strange that his happiest moments seemed to come more often during the final decade before his death, which arguably was his hardest health-wise and yet his most successful professionally, as he transformed four different industries. 

I started to notice practices that Steve Jobs embraced that enhanced and lengthened his life, and contributed to his ability to ultimately prevail as one of the greatest entrepreneurs in history. The cynic in me would have considered these too Pollyanna-ish had it been anyone else. What the world’s great entrepreneurs know that most people don’t is that optimism isn’t naive, it’s more productive. Steve didn’t succeed on pessimism, so why should any of us indulge exclusively in our brains' natural catastrophic bent toward depression?

It’s seductive to think that the bad news we get every day is the whole truth, when, in practice, negativity tends to help us indulge in the luxury of tolerating learned helplessness. Why make the effort to intervene when it’s hopeless? But that’s quite the opposite of the action-oriented mindset of entrepreneurs, whose attitude is tilted more toward the audacity of believing we can actually have impact and make things better if we think different.

1. What Worked for You Today, and Why?

What that means for you tonight, at the end of a hard day, is that you need to not only understand what went wrong, but finish your day practicing the skill of thinking about what worked and why. This first principle was something that worked for Steve and comes from positive psychologist Martin Seligman, who, with the University of Pennsylvania, conducted ground-breaking research into changes in life-satisfaction and depression levels that have been validated in random-assignment, placebo-controlled experiments.

“It makes sense to analyze bad events, so that we can learn from them and avoid them in the future,” Seligman says. “For sound evolutionary reasons, most of us are not nearly as good at dwelling on good events as we are at analyzing bad events. Those of our ancestors who spent a lot of time basking in the sunshine of good events, when they should have been preparing for disaster, did not survive the Ice Age. So to overcome our brains' natural catastrophic bent, we need to work on and practice this skill of thinking about what went well.”

The truth is that primitive people who welcomed the good news, while also re-engineering their communities to work better collaboratively, lived the longest because they had a strategy to defend against or avoid tomorrow’s disasters and prosper over the rest of the animal kingdom. The problem with our primal, reptilian habit of perpetual pessimism in a modern world is that we’re rehearsing doom. That impulse ironically could help us become more effective at repeating the nasty episode, rather than being optimistically strategic about the future. At best, the bad news increases anxiety, doesn’t prepare you for better days, and doesn’t make you fun or attractive to people around you.

Here’s a better practice: “Every night for the next week, set aside 10 minutes before you go to sleep,” Seligman advises. “Write down three things that went well today, and why they went well. You may use a journal or your computer to write about the events, but it is important that you have a physical record of what you wrote. The three things need not be earthshaking in importance."

Write down why those three good things happened. For example, when I wrote down that a close friend referred a great customer to me, it was important to make a note that it happened because I often remember to call him with good news and referrals. It may seem silly at first, but it has been easier for me to focus on a positive insight like this one than it has been for me to practice meditation as regularly as I should. This procedure has the added benefit of being useful at a practical level, because it gives me something I can actually do to achieve better results again tomorrow.

I’ve found this is a helpful habit to build in our personal lives, too. While friends and family resisted it at first, it’s clear we never were hesitant with complaints! The inverse was much more rewarding, and what a refreshing twist to have people you care about actually go out of their way to say something constructive. By the way, these ideas and a lot more are available in Seligman’s book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, which is well worth keeping on your e-reader. 

2. Who Helped You Be Successful Today, and Why?

A second practice that pays incredible dividends is to write a testimonial to someone every week, or to mentor them entirely out of gratitude and generosity. It’s not something Steve Jobs did, but I’m grateful to see it all the time with world-class thought leaders, like former Ford CEO Alan Mulally and No. 1 executive coach (and #1 NY Times bestselling author of Triggers) Marshall Goldsmith. The two launched the Goldsmith100, an invitation-only group of world-class thought leaders whose mission is to learn from each other and then pay forward that knowledge to the next generation of leaders. "To love and be loved," Mulally smiled, "in that order as my mother always insisted." One of the inductees in the Goldsmith100, Designer Ayse Birsel, created the artwork (above) to celebrate our first gathering, then Marshall Goldsmith sent to each of us personal notes with framed copies of that art, deepening our sense of pride and commitment for the practice and this new community. I'll never throw that away.

And I’ll never toss out the old notes I’ve received from my friends and mentors, like Alan Mulally, Richard Branson (who recently also wrote a heartwarming note to his new grandkids) or my former boss, Charles "Chuck" Schwab. I worked at Chuck's side as his communications chief for a dozen years, and he always knew intuitively more than anyone else about how to write an authentic note that would become every recipient's keepsake. That simple act could permanently improve and energize relationships. When I’m gone, those notes from loved ones will still be there on my desk.

On a personal level, imagine the impact it can have when a father sends a fact-based (not fluffy) endorsement to his teenager daughter for all the ways that she inspires him, or a son sends a thank you note to mom for real stuff she did for you? Richard Branson admires his grandkids (below) and frequently talks about the lessons they teach him. He honors the people on his team by blogging about those who make a difference in his many businesses. At year-end, he celebrates his favorite activities and "people who make my day."

Surely you haven't achieved what you have in your life and career all by yourself! In my research project on how people become more valued, respected, and admired for what they do, we asked high-achieving executive coaching clients to remember all the people who make them successful. (You can find a copy of the research in Admired: 21 Ways to Double Your Value, a book I co-wrote with New York Times bestselling author, researcher, and coach, Bonita S. Thompson.)

Here’s how it works, in Seligman's words: “Close your eyes. Call up the face of someone still alive who, years ago, did something or said something that changed your life for the better. [Thank] someone who you never properly thanked; someone you could meet face-to-face next week. Got a face? Your task is to write a letter of gratitude to this individual and (if possible) deliver it in person. The letter should be concrete and about 300 words: Be specific about what she did for you and how it affected your life. Let her know what you are doing now, and mention how you often remember what she did. Make it sing! Once you have written the testimonial, call the person and tell her you'd like to visit her, but be vague about the purpose of the meeting; this exercise is much more fun when it is a surprise. When you meet her, take your time reading your letter.”

Do it now. “When we feel gratitude, we benefit from the pleasant memory of a positive event in our life,” Seligman predicts with virtually certainty. “Also, when we express our gratitude to others, we strengthen our relationship with them. But sometimes our thank you is said so casually or quickly that it is nearly meaningless.” This exercise gives you a "do-over" of epic proportions. As our mentor Richard Branson tells everyone: "There is nothing more energizing than working on something important with people you love." (Pictured above with my daughter, Vanessa, and wife, Bonita Thompson.)

The bottom line is that highly effective leaders focus on what they’re for, rather than what they’re against. When you do that at home and work, you’ll get more done, feel richer, and, yes, you’ll even be happier crushing those goals for 2017!

To learn more about how to do more and be happier this year, check out the global executive coaches, professors and CEOs who Marshall Goldsmith hand-picked as his first cohort of world-class thought leaders (out of 12,000 applicants!) recruited for the Goldsmith100 initiative. Here's a few members of that inspiring community: Asheesh Advani, Prakash Venkataraman, Sanyin Siang, Deborah Borg, Judith Glaser, Carol Kauffman, Bernard Banks, David Peterson, Whitney Johnson, Mark Thompson, Pooneh Mohajer, Bill Simpson, Clark Callahan, Praveen Kopalle, Doug Winnie, Pawel Motyl, Frank Wagner, Everett Alexander, Aicha Evans, Feyzi Fatehi, Alexander Osterwalder, Margo Georgiadis, Sarah McArthur, Scott Osman, Rafael Pastor, Ayse Birsel, Garry Ridge, Michael Bungay Stanier, Gabriela Teasdale, Taavo Godtfredsen, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. I wrote a version of this blog for INC.com and LinkedIn.