Setting Up Your Year For Success
Every year when January winds to a close, one of two things begins to happen: You dig in and surge forward on the goals you made at the start of the year, or your commitment to those goals starts slipping away.
Simply having a goal and trying to attain it is not a recipe for success, which is why even the most committed action takers often struggle to reach their goals.
Without clarity on what you want and a plan to get there, it’s inevitable you’ll spin your wheels at best, and give up at worst.
Whether your new year goals have fallen by the wayside, or you’re still pushing toward them, tune into this episode to hear James’ and Dean’s personal strategies for setting up your year for success. They’ll also reveal the most common mistakes people make when striving for business goals, and tell you exactly what to do instead.
Stop Making The Same Mistakes
There are two ways to avoid mistakes. The first is to learn from other people’s. The second is, if you do make a mistake, learn from it and don’t repeat it. Not repeating your own mistakes requires being honest with yourself, and this is something that trips a lot of people up. Being honest with yourself is uncomfortable, especially if you confuse it with beating yourself up. If that’s how you see it, don’t beat yourself up. Just take an honest assessment at what happened, and use that information to avoid that mistake moving forward.
Know Where You’re Going FIRST
A lot of people plan their present without considering where they want to go. That’s like trying to use a GPS without putting in a destination. Step one is to look at where you want to be a year from now, three years from now, even a decade from now. Once you’re clear on that, reverse engineer the actions and outcomes it’ll take to get there. Map out the destination, then your milestones, which will help you plan effective immediate actions.
WHO Do You Need To Be?
Who you need to be to reach your goals is a step most people save until last (if they think about it all). Getting clear on your lifestyle, your business goals, who your customers are–all of that’s important. But who you need to be is most important of all, because it makes or breaks the creation of the life and business you map out. You can create a meticulous, step by step plan for getting your business and life exactly where you want them, but if you don’t believe you’re capable of following that path and having those outcomes, you’ll be right. If your business is stalled out especially, take a closer look at who you are now vs. who you need to be to hit and sustain that next level.
Focus On What Makes The Biggest Difference
One thing a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is thinking THEY have to be the one to do everything in their business. But there’s only so much YOU can personally do, which is why it’s critical to focus your time on the things that’ll make the most difference in growing your business. The rest can be outsourced. Always remember that the answer to more business growth may be to do LESS, not more. There comes a point when adding more splits your focus so much that you’re doing 50 things poorly, instead of five things impactfully.
Beware Aimless Execution
Yes, you’ve got to take action on your plans, but it has to be the right action. Some entrepreneurs get hyper focused on just “taking action,” but they’re acting on the wrong things. That’s like trying to drive your car from here to the store by randomly turning the steering wheel instead of following a clear path. Clarity on where you get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to taking action is an absolute must. Put your effort into the 20% that moves the needle, not the 80% that keeps you spinning your wheels.
Outline of This Episode
- When goals start to slip away [4:20]
- How to stop making the same mistakes [7:15]
- Using the future to plan the present [12:50]
- The entrepreneur’s two paths [16:10]
- Identifying what’s holding things up [21:00]
- Stop stacking chairs [26:30]
- Check yourself before you wreck yourself [33:01]
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
