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“I thought this would take years!” I hear this pretty often from coaching clients. They are amazed at the amount of progress they can make in a short amount of time. Whether a new skill or a character trait, you can achieve significant change in a single week. Here’s how.

1. Choose One Thing as a Focus

What is the single thing you want to change this week? Want to build better relationships? Wish to become more organized? Hope to eat more mindfully? Anything is within reach, as long as you focus. Doing things with intention is a huge component of growth.

2. Research

Use the internet to research a few exercises to learn the specific skill or trait you have chosen in step 1. These days there are expert tutorials for everything. Find exercises that are short and concrete. You can also ask people who are great at what you are trying to learn. Ideally, select less than 3 exercises.

3. Practice!

Once you have chosen your exercises, do them! Get out there and practice as often as you can. There’s a reason why the saying “practice makes perfect” is so popular.

Common practice exercises may include:

Performing the activity in a “safe” environment. You can branch out as you learn.

Interviewing people to get their perspective on you and/or the activity you are trying to master.

Keeping a journal to gather your thoughts and observations on the activity.

4. Reflect

Reflecting on practice is a powerful way to learn. What did you do? What did you not do? How can you improve? What did you learn? How did you grow? These types of powerful questions create awareness. Thus, they create change.

You can reflect every night on that day’s practice. This will add intention to next day’s practice. You should also debrief at the end of the week.

This loop of focus-research-practice-reflect is powerful. You can apply it to many areas of your life and work as a social leader. If it can lead to progress in a week, imagine what it can do over a lifetime.

You can also go through this process accompanied by a coach…like me!!

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