Can you remember the last time what you thought was a great project didn’t really work? Did it fail with a big crash, or did it die a slow, painful death because of competing priorities or loss of energy?
Every business operates within a whirlwind of activity, with your time and energy spread thinly. All of the emails to send and calls to make, sales to achieve, marketing to do, social updates to make, admin to go over. Many have urgent deadlines which can smother creativity and create a lack of time to focus on new initiatives.
So, what do you need to do to focus on making progress on your major goals? Focus on these four disciplines to truly make a difference in your business:
1. Focus on the Really Important Goals
A lot of the activities that happen in the day to day running of your business can be grouped into ‘bad work’ ‘good work’ and ‘great work’
The good work is important, often the lifeblood of your business. It’s the important, productive work, some of which is exciting and others which can be mundane but ‘have to happen’.
However, many of the tasks seem important and urgent but can you describe them as ‘great work?’ Great work is activity that means something to you, is your highest level, revenue generating activities that deliver impact and make a difference. Most of the tasks in the day-to-day running of your organization are urgent but not necessarily
The great work is often the 20% of work that can deliver 80% of the results for your business so it’s essential that you carve out some time to focus on this work.
When you commit to achieving goals it’s always a great idea to translate the concepts as targets and think about the amount of good work and great work you need to accomplish the goals.
2. Track your progress
When you’re pursuing a new goal it’s important that you track your progress to give you that constant stimulation, encouragement and confidence that you can achieve what you’ve set out to achieve.
You can use previous examples of success to spur you on, explore what you’ve achieve already to boost your confidence but it’s essential to look to the future to help drive you to achieving your goals.
Look at what’s working, what your challenges are, what progress you’ve made and shift your timeframe accordingly. I always look at reframing roadblocks and looking at previous examples of how I’ve overcome adversity to get the job done.
Track your progress, analyse what’s working right now, reflect on how you’re feeling and move forward with energy and focus.
3. Maintain a Personal Scorecard
Sometime the best way to keep track of your progress towards your goals is to celebrate success and have something visible you can refer to.
If you’ve achieved something important why not get some friends together and go out to dinner and share what you’ve done? This can have the added benefit of getting those friends involved so they are constantly rooting for your success?
Or, how about taking some time out to reflect? Or, spend an afternoon on Me Time, just enjoying some time away from the business, celebrating your success and building up more energy to help you achieve your goals.
You could create some positive affirmations and have them on your desk or on your wall, that you can refer to in times of difficulty or when you achieve success.
Find something visual or emotional that works for you.
4. Build in Accountability
If you don’t have a coach or mentor to work with, the best way to fight back against the whirlwind of activity is to be clear on your most urgent and important work and build in regular catch ups with a supportive friend.
Whilst you’re working in your business make sure you lift your head up every day and give yourself some time to work on the business and check in with your accountability partner.
Reflect on what progress you’ve made, what great work you’ve accomplished and identify some of the challenges you’ve faced.
If you don’t have anyone, then create a daily reflection hour when you can review your progress and get focused for the day ahead.
About the Author
Mark Pettit coaches successful, talented and ambitious female entrepreneurs, and his company, Lucemi Consulting, makes it faster and easier for them and their teams to multiply their performance, results, success, happiness, and personal freedom with unique and effective strategies, systems and tools.
He helps entrepreneurs find their purpose and create a lifetime of confident high performance by giving them the clarity and focus to maximise their time, simplify their lives, grow their business and do the things they love.