The Surround Sound Method of Personal Development
When some people work towards achieving their goals, no matter how much they try, they keep falling short of personal expectations. Often the response is “I’m going to try hard, I’m just going to make this work.” You can stop working against yourself, and reshape your environment to help you make it work. How do you do that?
The mind is constantly multitasking and distracted, and it is helpful to outsource as much of your personal development to your environment. This is known as the surround sound method of personal development. This is a list of goals, habits, accomplishments, whatever else motivates you to be your best self.
It’s important to keep your goals front and center in your environment. Look at them daily, and write them over day after day. Secondly, you should list the habits you are trying to build, and maybe even use a habit tracking tool to help prompt you to do the things you need to do in order to build better habits. Finally, set your intention and be mindful of how you want to show up every day, and how you want to approach your work.
TRANSCRIPTION:
This is about bracelets and stickies and papers and pens and stuff like that. You're probably wondering what the hell am I talking about. Let me clarify. What's happening as I coach PMs, non PMs, bunch of people, is they're all shooting for something grander, something higher, and they know that they need to build habits. They need to build new routines. They need to keep their mindset amazingly like well-oiled machine. They're shooting for the stars. They have big goals, but somehow they keep falling just a little short of their expectations, just a little short. And every time we chat about what can you do about it, the answer is always, "Well, I'm going to try harder. I'm just going to make this work." You can make this work or you can reshape your environment to help you make it work.
The reason why I put bracelet was I, literally, I am sitting here and I am surrounded in my environment including the bracelet that I normally wear. We just happened to have left it upstairs right now. My bracelet says, "Bring the joy." And that's one of the things I remind myself which is whatever I'm doing, always bring the joy to it. Don't assume that that activity will be enjoyable on its own. But it's not about the activity itself. Really what it's about is are you keeping front and center in your environment the things that are going to help you move to the next level? I'm going to give you a bunch of examples. An example right in front of me below this monitor is my set of words that reminds me what my best self is all about. That's what stays there. Hanging by the side of my monitor right over here where I'm pointing is a list of papers, the common ways I think, the common frameworks I use, the common questions that I raise. Those are all there. Always reminding me and giving me easy access to things that matter.
My notebook, the first page, it's something I read every day in the morning. I hope you can see it. I hope you don't see it too well because I don't want you to know what's in there. Right here is the habits that I'm trying to build up. Behind my monitor over there, it's a list of my goals, in coaching, what I'm shooting for. Those are right there. Right next to me is my daily accomplishments. Things that I'm proud of I write down right here. Right about there, it's a list of other papers and other things that remind me to show up as my best self.
The point is I am surrounded by things that help me as much as possible stay to my best self so I don't have to hold all these things in my mind. Because look, life's tough, or life can be tough especially if you're a product manager. You're going back and forth shifting between multiple things. You are one moment thinking about strategy, and then suddenly you go deep down and solve a customer problem or, then tell you have this visual presentation. Things are happening all around you. You're busy. And even if you're not a PM, you're probably always busy. So, why not outsource as much as possible to your environment rather than trying to keep it in your mind? That's the principle I go by. Now, I call it the surround sound method of personal development. Surround yourself with the sound rather than trying to create it always yourself. Just surround it, don't create it yourself.
Now, there's three things that I believe are important for you to keep front and center in your environment always. I'm going to go through them. Number one, it's your goals, your objectives. What is it that you're trying to achieve? I remind myself of my goals daily. Right behind me, as I mentioned, is my list of goals. This quarter, what I'm trying to achieve. Those are all right there. Every morning, I do this thing called a one-page planner where I have these three main initiatives that I'm working on. Every day, I literally write them down again. It's not just about passively seeing it, but it's actively engaging with your goals. That's what makes it operational. That's what makes it work. So keep your goals front and center in your environment. It's not enough to just sometimes look at them. You have got to engage with them. You have got to change them. You have to keep them front and center.
The second one is your habits. What are the habits that you're trying to build? And for that, I have my habits right here, but I also track them on a habit tracker. I cross them off when I'm done. I have prompts that remind me when to do the habits. So that's level two. Goals, habits. The highest level, the one that most people miss and never put it in your environment, is your intention. What's your intention is it's not about what you're trying to achieve but it's simply how you plan to show up. It's how you want to behave, what's your best self will look like at that point in time. I have some words that remind me of my best self in general, but before I go into any significant activity, I actually write down the three words that are going to represent my best self in that conversation.
For example, before coming here, I wanted to be present. I want to be enthusiastic, and I wanted to be focused. Those are the three methods I had. And because it was late night, those were the ones I put in. On other days, other things that I might've put something different, but those were the ones that were important to me and I wanted to put those. And that changes things magically. Because look, what happens in life, it might or might not be under your control, but how you show up, that is always, always under your control. You can always put a space between what happened before and what you're about to do next. Sometimes it's a little difficult than other times, but just make it part of your standard. It's just something you do. It's not a chore. It's not a thing you do occasionally. You always do that.
So, to sum up, surround yourself. Put in your environment the three things that are going to make you successful, and those three things are your goals. You've got to actively remind yourself, actively engaged with them. The habits, that you're trying to build. Bring those front and center. And last but not least, your intention, which is all about how you're going to show up in that particular interaction, in that particular situation. And as always, if you need, actually, you do need, but when you're ready to get a coach who is going to help you accelerate, get to that next level, you know where to find me. Shobhitchugh.com/apply.
Instead of a breakthrough call with me, we'll create, we'll go deep into your career. We're going to figure out what's working, what's not working, and where is it that you want to go. We'll build a step by step plan. And look, if I decide at the end of the day, at the end of that conversation that I can help, I'll certainly show you how, but 50% of those conversations, I decide that it's not a good fit. And so then I refer you to other people who I think might be able to help you solve that particular challenge in a much, much better manner. That's the purpose of this call. It's all about discovering your truth, discovering what is going on in your life and what is it costing you right now. This is Shobhit, and I look forward to seeing all of you very, very soon.
