Are you sitting back in your office chair scrolling through social media reading everyone’s highlight reels of the past year? Are you feeling envious of the travel, the food, the promotions, and family time? Have you started asking yourself, “Why not me?” Why not YOU?
You have every opportunity to create a life or environment that supports those same dreams. However, you may be overzealous in your approach and overwhelm yourself with an “I want it all” mentality. You can work toward many goals. It is best to start with one or two goals you want to accomplish to avoid overwhelm otherwise you put yourself into a split focus situation.
Get Clear on Your Priorities
Do you have a clear sense of what is most important for you to accomplish in the upcoming year? What will you be most proud of? What will have the greatest return on your investment of time, money, resources, or energy? I know you are an achiever because you are reading this. Achievers continuously look for ways to refine their strategies to become more productive, more efficient, and more effective.
In Gary Keller’s book, The One Thing, he asserts that “Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for essential. They pause long enough to decide what matters to drive their day. Achievers do sooner what others plan to do later and defer, perhaps indefinitely, what others do sooner…Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.”
Write out your top priorities. When you get your goals out of your head and onto paper, you start thinking about the ways to accomplish those goals. If you are not sure, start writing out different ideas that come to you. Some people refer to this as a “brain dump”. After you write everything out you can then go through everything and circle or highlight what resonates with you the most, you can start identifying what is most important to you right now. Another suggestion would be to write down all the questions you have about your priorities. Your brain will be stimulated to start searching for answers – do not get stuck on the “how”. When we write things out it gives us clues as to what we want.
Create a Plan and Be Great
You need to create a plan to achieve your goals. You do not get a LEGO set already built. You have a step by step instruction booklet guiding you of each step along the way. Reverse engineer your plans starting with your end in mind and working backwards and forward writing out each step you need to take to become successful. Many people have the end in mind, but they fail to thoughtfully write out a plan of what actions they need to take.
In the 12 Week Year, Brain Moran states there are three principles that form the foundation of personal and professional success: accountability, commitment, and greatness in the moment. By writing out a plan, you are holding yourself accountable. Create milestone check ins to assess where you are at and if any adjustments need to be made. Why wait until very end to get disappointed if a change needed to make and you did not make it. When you make a decision, you put a stake in the ground committing to do something. Finally, greatness in the moment “is not achieved when the result is reached, but long before that, when an individual makes a choice to do what is necessary to become great.”
Eat Your Frog in 5-4-3-2-1
Now that you have identified your priorities, you may be a tad nervous. You know what you want, what you want may stretch you out of your comfort zone. This is where you need to follow Brian Tracy’s Advice from his book, Eat that Frog – “Start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first…Resist the temptation to start with the easier task. He says, “you must develop the routine of “eating your frog” before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it.” This concept works well with the work of Mel Robbins in her 5-Second Rule book. She says you should launch into action before giving yourself too much time to analyze or talk yourself out of what you know you need to do.
When you are clear on where you are going, have a plan, beat out procrastination, you can accelerate you career, business, and organizational growth, you will be more intentional with your time and choices, and you will take back control of your day. A winning strategy will help you reach your goals in record time.
Debra Kasowski, the charismatic host of the thought-provoking
podcast, The Millionaire Woman Show, is committed to
enriching the leadership potential of her countless clients,
essentially guiding them to go within to capitalize on their true
personal power, so they can achieve the measurable success
they desire in business, and in life.
After graduating with distinction, having earned a Bachelor of
Science in Nursing, this award winning, three-time international
bestselling author, speaker and Certified Executive Coach spent
many years as a clinical manager exceling in leadership
development, before founding Debra Kasowski International, a
world-class training and consulting venture focused on helping
aspiring business owners and solopreneurs develop the winning
“success habits” that transform human potential into sustainable
profits.
Clearly, if you’re motivated to move beyond the mediocre,
inspired to forge on to the forefront with a proven plan of action,
there’s no doubt that the indomitable Debra Kasowski is your solution.www.debrakasowski.com
