It’s that time of year again (can you believe it’s nearly the end of 2016 already?!) when attention turns from this year to next and you may have done something similar to me.
I’ve finished writing my 2017 goals and planning what my team and I will be doing in the business to accomplish them.
I also reviewed 2016 to see what things did and didn’t go to plan, the goals I accomplished and those I haven’t yet and took it all in to make some sense of the lesson learned from both sides of the coin.
What I realised was there were 2 key things, that when used, made all my goals happen and when they were not used, they made it more difficult. They allow you to be productive, get loads of the right things done, and ultimately lead to your definition success.
Clarity
To have clear in your mind exactly what it is you want to accomplish, what you need to do and when to make it happen.
Focus
To work on those tasks and little else.
Sounds simple, right? That’s because it is. But let me give you two examples to make it come to life. I was clearly focused
Getting my book finished and launched on 21 September was my big goal for 2016.
Getting my book finished and launched on 21 September was my big goal for the year. When I clearly had in my mind how this would work, what would need to be done, when to do it and focused on this I made huge amounts of progress.
This was so true when, despite my best efforts to sabotage myself – I left the book marketing plan and implementation to be done in the last few weeks before deadline – I still managed to make it a successful launch getting the book in hundreds of people’s hands to help them and helping give clean lifesaving water to children with each copy sold.
It was clarity and focus that allowed me to accomplish so much in a few weeks. I pretty much did nothing else, especially in the last week before launch. I knew exactly what I needed to do by when and lived and breathed my book to get it all done in time.
Here’s a goal I haven’t yet accomplished.
There’s still just over a month left in the year but at present I can play only 2 songs on my guitar by heart (Blackbird by the Beatles and Super Massive Black Holes by Muse). My goal was to be able to play 5 by the end of the year.
I had clarity on the goal but not clarity on the songs I wanted to learn. Had I listed say 10 possible songs to learn the 5 by heart then I may have been more focused and then accomplished more.
The other challenge was this goal was a good way down my list and because of that, I didn’t focus on it that much. Having a new born in the house again when Nia my youngest daughter was born in August also changed things. It was clear to me that my family were the priority and that’s where my focus went.
This also taught me that life happens and changes your priorities so what was a clear goal you were focused on today may not be your priority tomorrow and so your focus may change.
Here’s the really interesting thing. If you have clarity on a goal and if it’s a priority, focus will naturally follow. You don’t even really need to make yourself focus, it just happens. As a result you will accomplish your goal.
So really you just need to work on the clarity, ensure the goal is a priority, and the rest will fall into place. You will of course, need to put some effort in too 😉
Are you clear on your goals and what needs to be done and when to accomplish them? Which of your goals is your priority? Where will your focus be every day?
Have fun and a great day ahead!
Steve
