Don’t let your goals slip away. Be a Leader of yourself.

“Inspire and get inspired”:
agile coaching interviews on
SELF-LEADERSHIP.

Today we talk about perseverance and motivation to achieve goals.
We address the importance of linking professional and personal growth.

Three questions to Alessandro Principali –
Personal Marketing Coach and founder of the A.L.P.H.A^® method.

Inspire and get inspired

S.
Dear Alessandro,
thank you for accepting my proposal to participate in “Inspire and Get Inspired”.
You are a Coach of Personal Marketing – the marketing of oneself – which you define a concrete strategy of Professional Evolution. You have written a book on the subject, you are writing a second one, you manage a Facebook group with a large community and you have created a specific and structured method to apply the principles of Personal Marketing to Practitioners and “Solopreneurs”, the A.L.P.H.A.^® method.

You say that:
“Professional Growth for a Solopreneur professional must necessarily be accompanied by Personal Growth, so that this growth represents a healthy, lasting and sustainable evolution.

Your A.L.P.H.A.^® method therefore links personal growth to professional growth.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM ACCOMPANYING MANY PRACTITIONERS ALONG THIS PATH?

A.
I had confirmation of what I had already realised some time ago.

That is to say that Solopreneur practitioners have a life that is certainly exciting, but also more complex than anyone else.

In fact, just as entrepreneurs live with the uncertainty and risk typical of those who run a business on their own, but unlike the latter they cannot count on a team to help and support them.

Solopreneur professionals are on their own: they are like “a company in a single person”.
In fact, they have to be at the same time technicians (i.e. those who know the “subject” they are dealing with and keep themselves constantly up-to-date), employees (i.e. those who deal with administrative matters), managers (i.e. those who set objectives and organise work accordingly), and business owners (i.e. those who have the vision, imagine developments and design the overall strategy).

It’s a hard life: that’s why I think it’s impossible to imagine a professional development that doesn’t also include personal growth.

Personal growth that makes one’s shoulders broader and broader, through increasing self-knowledge, awareness of one’s values, limits and strengths, and simultaneous growth in the ability to take responsibility.

In short, you have to become a strong LEADER OF YOURSELF.

S.
You say that the life of a Solopreneur is “a hard life”, because at the same time you have to be a technician, employee, manager, business owner.
You talk about the need to become strong Leaders of oneself, that is, professionals capable of leading one’s personal and professional life.

ONCE YOU HAVE DEFINED A GROWTH OBJECTIVE – be it personal or professional – HOW CAN YOU MAINTAIN CONSISTENCY OVER TIME AND MOTIVATION TO FOLLOW IT?

A.
Certainly the most important driver that leads us to achieve results is MOTIVATION.
When you are motivated, you don’t feel the fatigue or the sacrifice in carrying out your activities, but rather you find that you enjoy doing them.
Quite a spell, isn’t it?
For motivation to work, we need it to give us:

• TRIGGER, i.e. make us start
• PERSISTENCE, i.e. keep us going over time
• INTENSITY, i.e. it makes us do things at the highest level

Well, for all these three conditions to be fulfilled, it is not enough for motivation to be linked to ‘doing something you like‘.
This may work at the beginning, when it is a question of activating an action, but it will hardly work in the long term, when it is a question of persisting and maintaining a high level of intensity.
Yes, because at some point you might not like that thing so much, or something else might come along that you like more.
And it doesn’t work either to link the motivation to “doing something that is convenient for you“.
Because convenience is measured on criteria that can be very fragile and shaky.

In order to guarantee not only the trigger, but also persistence and intensity, we need to link the motivation to something more solid.

I believe that this solidity can be found in this:
DO WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
It means:

do something that you feel is consistent with your deepest system of values and beliefs.

This is both from the point of view of objectives and methods.

Let’s be clear: Values and beliefs can also change over time.
But they usually change in a much slower and more reasoned way than simple tastes, or criteria of convenience.

What you believe in, in fact, has to do with your idea of yourself as a Human Being.

S.
I find this a very interesting point. You, Alessandro, propose to align our actions with what we believe in. This is to have not only the initial determination, what you call the “TRIGGER“, but also PERSEVERANCE and INTENSITY.
It seems to me that you introduce the concept of intrinsic motivation into self-leadership, that is, the motivation that comes from within. I had personal experience of this in the choice of my career change.

WHAT ARE THE STRATEGIES YOU PERSONALLY USE TO BE AND EVOLVE AS A LEADER OF YOURSELF?

A.
I try to support the goals I pursue with practical and concrete “tactics”.
In fact, it is not always enough to refer to your Values every time you have to do something.
In short, it’s fine to link your Motivation to your Values and Convictions, but this works as a polar star, i.e. as a general reference point.
Motivation protects you from giving up or changing your mind every fortnight…
…but you also need a little more practical strategies to use in daily life.
For example:

1. Break the objective into many SUB-OBJECTIVES,
   to be completed one at a time, so that you feel satisfied more often.
2. Create a kind of RITUALITY,
   so that each moment you dedicate to that activity has its own specific space and timing.
3. OBSERVE what you have just done and CONGRATULATE yourself for the progress.
   Remember that when you look at a road, you can focus on the part of the road that is left to go, but also on the part of the road that you have already travelled since you started.
4. Remember that often (not always) the best is the enemy of the good.
   Or if you prefer… perfectionism is the enemy of doing!

If you wait until you have only aces in your hand to play, you seriously risk never playing. 
Starting today is better than starting tomorrow.

S.
Thank you Alessandro. I am particularly moved by the point of looking at the progress made and congratulating yourself on it.
You reminded me of a project management course where it was argued that 25% of a project should be dedicated to celebrating the good work.
25%!
That is a quarter of all the time spent on the project.
It seems impossible, especially in today’s society where speed is increasingly seen as the key to success.

And therefore:
Have the courage to take time and stop to observe your progress.
And emphasise the good and the beautiful that emerges in front of you.

Fantastic and inspiring!
Thank you Alessandro.

And you…

And you reading…what point moves you?
Write it in the comments.

The co-author