We trust that 2006 has started out being a wonderful year for you. Many exciting changes are in store for IMPAQ and we will keep you posted as they unfold.

This month we are excited to announce that Mark Samuel, President and Founder of IMPAQ, and Sophie Chiche, our Chief Creative Officer, have been asked to be regular columnists in "Strategies," a business publication that offers creative solutions for innovative leaders.

Below you will find the first column, as it appears in the February 2006 issue of "Strategies." We hope you find this article helpful and would enjoy hearing your thoughts after you have read it. Please email us at contactus@impaqcorp.com.

Five Steps to Achieving Your Goals
While January is a time for beginnings and goal setting, by the time February rolls around, reality sets in. You may be inundated with challenges you had no idea were coming your way. Some of your old habit-patterns have shown their ugly faces. While the vision of success in your head is clear, your results may be less than stellar. It is time to steer the ship back on course and not fall into the same traps that you experienced in previous years. It is time to step up to a new level of personal accountability.

Are you guilty of any of these common misconceptions
of personal accountability that undermine success?

Trap 1: Setting goals automatically leads to accountability.
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Say your goal is to lose 20 pounds or a desire to increase sales by 30 percent. That's not a clear enough desired outcome. While it is important to have a goal, it is critical to develop a complete "picture of success" that integrates the goal and the realities of your environment. These may include competing goals, resource constraints and linkages to your goals.

Trap 2: If you make a mistake, you aren't accountable.
We all make mistakes. Even the best athletes, musicians, surgeons and business leaders make mistakes on their road to success. Accountability is not tested by your level of perfection. It is tested by your ability to rebound quickly. Successful leaders always have a "recovery" plan for getting back on track.

Trap 3: Hard work demonstrates accountability.
While commitment and hard work are essential, personal accountability involves working smart. It emphasizes learning and change. When we work hard using outdated methods and practices, we tend to struggle. When you act with personal accountability, you are constantly in the game, challenging your current ways of doing things. You look for new approaches, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, processes and technology.

Now that you know about some common misconceptions, it's time to put in place a personal accountability system:

Step 1: Set a clear intention.
Start by describing your picture of success. Clearly state your goal. Describe the level of performance, communication and leadership you need to achieve that goal. Be specific. What would it look, feel and sound like as you take action? What is the mindset, the attitudes and behaviors that you need? Document your answers with a journal, a computer file, a picture, a collage. Be creative. Take the time to make this your personal story of success.

Step 2: Develop new habits.
If you keep doing what you are doing, you will not make a dent in your list of goals. To create different results, you need to develop different habits. What are some of your habits that are incompatible with your goals? Once you identify the habits that do not get the results you want, replace them with new ones, ones that will create different and better results, the results you want and will sustain.

Step 3: Develop a recovery plan.
This is a critical step for success. You will mess up. You'll get stressed and overwhelmed. If you have this perfect image in your head, you might get frustrated or angry. You might even get discouraged and quit. Expect to stumble. It doesn't mean you are failing; it means you are progressing. The question is how fast you can get back on your horse when you fall from it. And that's where the recovery plan comes in.

Step 4: Forgive.
Forgiveness is the master key to achieving what matters to you. If you are unable to let go of what you (or others) did wrong in the process, it will paralyze you. One day, you will feel stuck, but you won't be sure why. Remember, beaches are made of tiny grains of sand. As little as those grains are, a lot of them make for a large volume. Forgiveness allows you to build your dreams and not waste time with old resentment and bitterness.

Step 5: Track results and celebrate along the way.
Too often, people wait until they achieve their final goal before they celebrate. Celebration builds the sense of trust in yourself that you are going to make it. Success breeds success. Celebrating gives you the fuel you need to carry yourself so you can end your year and joyfully tear up your list, knowing you made it.


This article was reprinted from the February 2006 issue of "Strategies".
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IMPAQ
2321 Nichols Canyon Road
Los Angeles, California
800 332 2251
contactus@impaqcorp.com