YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION

If you are part of the 68% who make New Year’s resolutions, chances are you may NOT be in the 8% who experience great success with those resolutions. For awhile, it’s WOW! But as the month passes that daily 5:00AM workout is kicking your butt, and not in a good way. The truth is MOST New Year’s resolutions have been greatly rethought and altered by February 1 and by June, they have all but disappeared.

I was intrigued to read that the word “resolution” comes from the Latin word “resolutionem” meaning “the process of reducing things to simpler forms or breaking into parts.” This is a similar process to how I approach presentations and public speaking.

I often encourage people to break down a speech into components, but I’m not referring to sectioning off the script. In fact, I find that most people are well versed in their perspective fields so that content, or script, is saved for later in the process. (Sort of like deciding what your actual resolution will be AFTER examining the goal.) Instead, we start with Purpose and Intention; both of which are influenced by Outcome. So, let’s work backwards, and examine desired outcome: dream big! What is your ideal outcome? What do you really want? In presentations we answer the questions: how do you want your audience to feel? What action do you hope they take?

The Purpose of a presentation may be to introduce a new product to your sales team, but you’re really hoping to stimulate enthusiasm, excitement and interest, which ideally results in higher sales, larger commissions, product awareness and job satisfaction. Whoa! All of that from an informational meeting? Yes, if one’s Intention is clear from the beginning. By looking past the purpose (introduce new product) to desired outcome (enthusiastic comprehension and acceptance) the speaker’s intention is more focused on peaking the team’s interest, generating excitement and building their confidence and knowledge base of the product. Now, the speaker has the inspiration for building a presentation and developing a forward thinking plan to get you to the objective.

Many New Year’s Resolutions can be stretched beyond the idea that “I’m going to start waking up at 5:00 AM and get to the gym!” Sounds great, but with thought, the desired outcome might include spending more time as a family, so that a twice a week early workout is complimented by softball and swimming with the kids.

Whether it’s a resolution, or a presentation, start small, keep it simple and see if your success rate improves. Begin with a desired outcome, (within reason) explore your intention for the audience, (include yourself!) and see if you can be one of the 8% who finds success in their yearly resolutions.