Course-CorrectWe are half way through the year. How are your new-years resolutions working out? Are you closer to achieving your goals?
A lot of my coaching clients feel bad when I ask this but I want to encourage you to not feel like a failure if you have not achieved all that you had planned to do by now!
Course Correct
You will have heard the phrase “a pilot is off-course 90% of the time“.
I’m not sure if that is strictly true but it helps illustrate that you can still get there if you allow yourself to course-correct back on track.
Once you start course-correcting you will realise there is another factor you need to take into account …
Measure Progress
My new years resolutions centred around using Chris Brogan’s concept of three words.
I chose
- positivity,
- tranquility,
- and implementation.
But, oops, there is a problem! Only one of those words is really measurable.
More positive than what? More tranquil than what?
And even implementation, while obviously having a measurable outcome, doesn’t indicate what I should be implementing. It could be “implement more”, but how will I know?
The idea was to become more calm, more positive, and focus less on analysis paralysis and more shipping. Good goals, just hard to track.
OK, that’s the bad news, but the good news is I can fix this and I HAVE made progress. In fact in the last month or so I made a lot of progress due to some advice from Mr Tony Clark to get (and implement) certain books. The best one is Search Inside Yourself (not an affiliate link).
With this in mind, I am switching tracks and am going to set the intention to write more.
- At least weekly here (moving to twice-weekly as a stretch goal).
- At least one guest post per month (twice per month as a stretch goal).
- At least one Copyblogger post per month.
- At least one paid writing gig.
What are your 2012 goals and what measurable tasks do you need to implement to achieve them?
Focus your efforts and track your progress. You will get where you work towards.
Download the BizBudding Blogging Guide
Download the BizBudding Get Started Blogging PDF guide PLUS get my blogging advice in future newsletters
Accelerate
Once you are course-correcting and measuring progress, then you can put effort into acceleration.
This is the correct order, and a place a lot of people go wrong.
We look at super-productive people and think it’s all about massive energy and action. But what happens if you tread on the gas with your eyes closed and your hands off the wheel? Are you heading towards the finishing line or a brick wall?
In business, acceleration comes from three places:
- Doing more of what works – To do more of what works you need to know what is working. That means measurement, and it means experimenting.
- Using systems – I have a programming and IT background so I naturally think in systems. For example Authority Blogger is the outcome of developing a system for effective blogging for businesses. Systems help you create consistent, predictable progress, to a certain level of quality, and allow you to optimise.
- Overcoming constraints – Discover where your bottlenecks are and either remove or work around them.
Bottom Line
Most of the people I know who are successful (in whichever way you regard success) have had to work hard to get to where they are, and work hard to stay there. Luck does factor in success, of course it does, but also being prepared, knowing where you want to get to, and daily focused effort all play a major part.
It’s not a good idea to rely on happy accidents to get where you need to be. Decide what you are working towards and work out how you are going to get there!
Most of all, don’t be afraid of “failure”.
Everything is a work in progress, and we all have some things work out as planned and others that don’t. We all make mistakes, every single one of us (me more than most I expect). Not getting the desired results is an education not a failure.
So … what are your half-year resolutions going to be now?
Please share your thoughts in the comments …