Just as I put down my mat to start my stretching at the gym yesterday, a guy put a mat right next to mine.
This guy was a complete stranger to me, and apparently to the gym too, and his mat was so close it would not be possible for me to stretch out.
Obviously, this is a guy with a New Year’s resolution and very little if any gym experience.
After I moved my mat respectfully away from him I noticed many “new faces” like him. Yup, the January resolution people have arrived and will be with us for a few weeks.
It’s sad to know, based on statistics and experience, so many good intentions will get off to a great start only to fall very short of their goals for 2020. It happens every year.
The same thing can happen in business. Our businesses if we are not careful.
Courage, determination and hard work can make all the difference, but that’s not enough in the pursuit of our goals, aspirations, and hopes.
The first thing we need to do, and the most overlooked, is to make sure we have goals that make sense. Our goals need to challenge us and motivate us to grow in new directions, without setting us up for failure.
The first step is a thorough analysis of the past. This is exactly what we do with clients with their fitness goals. We need to learn from the past and not be held back by the past.
In two previous posts, I wrote about how to review our past and use that information to create new goals for the future. You can catch up with part 1, or part 2 here.
Once you have this analysis, it’s time to create new goals and a new plan.
Most people overestimate how much they can accomplish in one year and as a result create very aggressive goals. I am not opposed to aggressive goals at all, but behind every great accomplishment is a proverbial boat-load of work that goes into the goal before we see results.
Here is where the decision is made. And the decision is not to accomplish goal XYZ, the real decision is to do the work to accomplish the XYZ goal.
First, is that you have to create the time in your schedule to do the work that will lead to the accomplishment of the goal.
Second, we need to embrace that accomplishing this new goal will involve learning new things and doing new things, all of which will be uncomfortable.
Third, the goal must be broken down into small incremental and measurable small steps that build on each other.
Fourth, accountability is paramount. Accountability to ourselves only goes so far and it’s a very slow process if it even works at all. We’re human and prone to cutting ourselves lots of slack.
Being accountable to other people speeds up the process and keep us on track. The best options are mastermind groups and mentors.
There are many lessons from successfully training people that we can apply to running a business. Once we learn to apply the same principles to our business life, success happens. And it happens even faster than we ever imagined it could.
Let’s talk about your goals and options you have that guarantee you will thrive in 2020.
Click one of the links at the bottom of this email, but do it now.
Remember, you get results if you take immediate action on your ideas.
