ACHIEVE MORE, RAISE YOUR GPA!

A man was intensely
focused on helping his son raise his Grade Point Average
(GPA) before High School graduation. We all recognized that
the son's GPA would determine his class ranking, impact
admission to college, and his chances for a scholarship.
This was a big deal!
The father hired a tutor, worked with his son on his
homework, talked with some of his teachers, and took every
step he could think of to get that GPA as high as possible.
And it worked! The son is in college and doing well.
But it also reminded me that you and I--everyone-- faces a
far more important GPA every single day. And too often, I
fear we fail to get our GPA where it needs to be. Our GPA
fails to reflect either our capabilities or our best
efforts.
So, outside of school, here's what your GPA really stands
for:
    Goals
    Planning
    Action

The problem with goal-setting programs is that they are
impotent. They are nice, sometimes exciting, but merely a
vision of future possibilities. Like a beautiful painting
or an elegant "to-do" list, they hold no assurance that
things will change. Goals, by themselves, are merely a
wish-list, a vision or hope or dream of how we would like
things to be in the future.
By themselves, dreams may be inspiring but usually lack
detail.
Goal-setting is a critical but inadequate first step. Goal-
setting helps define what we do and do not want. Goals help
us focus our desires, perhaps even move us emotionally, but
they do not change anything. That is a vital distinction!
Goals, like a compass or a map, may tell me that my
destination lies East of here, but by themselves they do
not take me one inch closer to New York.
Only Plans and Action can move me in the direction I want
to go!
The second part of raising your GPA is making specific,
detailed Plans. Plans give you the map, the schedule, the
how-to-do-it that is critical to achieving your goals.
Without plans, without a way-to-get-it-done, President
Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon would have remained an
inspiring but impotent dream.
Everyone cheered when he made his famous speech. Congress
stood and roared their approval. People were excited. But
few realize that when he announced his goal, no one--no one
in NASA, no one at MIT or in the military or anywhere else-
-knew how to actually do it. It was a goal without a plan
and NASA's first job was to develop a plan.
They started by thinking about giant rockets that would fly
directly to the moon, land, then take off and return to
earth. Quickly, the math told them it was impossible. Such
big rockets weighed far too much. It couldn't be done.
Then one man--think of that, one guy with a chalkboard--
wondered if they couldn't use "modules" and leave the empty
junk "lost in space" or sitting on the Sea of Tranquillity.
If they brought back only the men and a few lunar rocks,
suddenly the job became feasible. And that's what they did.
Except for one big additional step. They took ACTION! For
ten years, America took massive, expensive, risky,
adventuresome action. They selected the first astronauts, the
Freedom 7. Soon, Alan Shepherd rode what was essentially a
bomb and become the first American in space. He survived.
And John Glenn followed, orbiting the earth on February 20,
1962.
The key was massive, sustained ACTION. The entire nation
got behind the goal. They developed a budget and a schedule.
Entire industries were developed. Universities did
research. And the thing got done, safely and on schedule.
The key to Falling Forward and achieving more by the end of
the year is not merely goal-setting. That's an essential
first step--what do you WANT? But the key to success is
raising your GPA--Goals, Plans and Action.
Goals without Plans (budgets, schedules, sequences and
partnerships) and Action (work!) are impotent. Set goals.
Then raise your GPA for success.