Are you fast out of the gate but only for a short burst—like a racehorse, or do you make slow but steady progress toward your goals—like a workhorse? It’s the old fable of the race between the tortoise and the hare. We all know that steady progress beats a fast start every time.
At my Weight Watchers meeting, fifteen people stood in line ahead of me for the first meeting of the New Year. The previous week there had been none. At the gym, the month of January is always the busiest, but by April the numbers decline.
We all want to be a racing work horse, right?
How can you keep up the momentum of early January through the rest of the year?
- Think about your vision statement. Remember why you wanted to develop your business, whether it’s writing, selling, or something else. Are you following your vision?
- If you were given a diagnosis of one year to live, what are the key things you would accomplish? Make sure you work on these every week.
- Write down and visualize your goals every day. Some people create a vision board of their goals.
- Develop long-term goals, and then break these down into steps, then smaller steps. Formulate a monthly and weekly plan to reach these goals. Set deadlines.
- Although writing these steps takes time, it gives you a roadmap of where to go. You also feel a sense of accomplishment as you cross off each step.
- You might need to adjust your deadlines, but just keep working toward them.
- Organize your task list and prioritize. Set deadlines. Start with your most important goal and work on it until it is completed. These are you’re A tasks. Tasks that are good to do, but not quite so important are B tasks. Tasks that are unimportant are C tasks. The rule is to never do a B or a C task when you still have an A task to complete.
- Write down all your expenses and create a monthly, quarterly, and annual budget. Make estimates, you can always adjust your goals at the end of the month.
- You likely will be surprised where little expenses add up.
- Estimate your time. Too much gets wasted when we get side-tracked with emails or the bright shiny object syndrome of drifting to the newest gadget, class, or project. A time-budget is almost as critical as an expense budget.
- Budget in educational and networking expenses for conferences and trade shows.
- Sign up for these early and develop goals to accomplish before attending. This gives the added momentum for you to complete them. Do you need to develop materials for your booth, prepare for a speech, or have contacts to make? Always go to a conference with a plan.
- Don’t forget to follow up after the conference. Critical connections occur during the follow up.
- Can you get others to help you with your goals? Can you hire someone to assist you or perform various tasks? Some of these could involve hiring a web developer or a copywriter to update your website and content.
- Review your plan weekly and monthly and adjust as necessary. That is the key—review!
Now get to work and reach those goals!
Have you set work goals for 2018? Please leave a comment below and subscribe to my blog.
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