Do you feel it; the tug on you right now even while you’re reading or listening to this? You need to get back to your “Real Work.” You’re busy.
You have lists to keep your priorities straight, maybe lists within lists.
THE CHALLENGE is your competing priorities, between what needs to get done to keep the doors open AND what YOU KNOW needs to happen to move you forward. As these priorities all get jumbled together, it is impossible to know where you stand.
Your response to all of this? Hustle harder; work harder, put in another hour.
“92% of all people who set goals never reach them.” – American Psychological Association
THIS JUMBLE is what we’ll call the whirlwind. And unknowingly you are trying to get things done without knowing the rules of the game.
IF you’re willing, together, we will learn to reach your goals AND deal with the whirlwind.
The 1 thing you MUST DO or you WILL FAIL?
Get clear about your destination. What does your GOAL ‘look’ like? Where do YOU want to be… at the end of the year, end of the month, end of your career, end of TODAY?
ACTIONABLE ITEM: Pick a timeframe (use tomorrow); and in a SHORT clear concise statement; write down on a sticky note what YOU want the end of that timeframe to be/look like, what is the ONE THING you want to do/reach/complete by the end of that timeframe.
Example (real world, this is my ONE goal for today): (by the end of the day today) complete and publish blog post AND short-form video on the whirlwind.
When you want to give up, it is imperative that you continue. There’s a fine line between success and failure, and that fine line is perseverance… never, never, never give up.
I want to talk to you tonight about 3 things that are preventing you from reaching your business goals.
Over the next several days we’ll talk about what to do about them, but for right now it’s important that you are at least aware of them so we can unpack them as we move along.
The Whirlwind – The thousand and one things that feel like it’s death by a thousand paper cuts. The tremendous amount of energy required to run the business and keep the lights on and the doors open.
Competing Priorities – How many plates do you have spinning. at one time? How many balls do you have in the air. As the saying goes when everything is important, nothing is important. and it distracts your team from focusing on the goals for the business.
Lagging not Leading Measures – The monthly financials, P&L, Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flow, all VERY important to the business, but all live in the past; by the time you get the information, there is not one thing you can do about it. So you wind up praying each month that things will turn out right. It’s like driving a car while looking through the rear view mirror.
The GOOD news is that it can be fixed, and there is a way forward and laws that can help to focus on the right things.
