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2 Words That Will Change Everything About New Year’s Resolutions

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I hereby resolve… yeah, there’s a better way.

First the bad news on New Year’s resolutions – Only 8% of people who make a New Year’s resolution keep that commitment. Worse yet, if you’re making a dieting resolution, you have a 5% chance of keeping the weight off, but an 83% or higher chance of gaining back more than you lost. Research shows that resolving to lose weight is actually an indicator you are going to GAIN weight!

Now the good news. You get what you intend, not what you hope for. Change can be real and lasting.

The Random Hope Strategy

Most New Year’s resolutions are built on the random hope strategy of life–if I think and feel something, who knows, I might get motivated enough to do something about it. A very few resolutions, 5-8% are built on something very different than random hope–intention. Intention is different than expectation. Intention assumes I’m going to have to work my ass off, but if I do, I’m very likely to get what I am chasing.

Conation

There are two words that describe why 92% of people don’t keep their resolutions and why the 8% do. First, if you really want to keep your resolution, you’ll learn and embrace the word “conation”.

Conation is the most important, least known word you’ll ever learn about success (we use it as a foundation for helping business owners succeed). Conation is

the will to succeed that shows up in single-minded pursuit of a goal,

or, “Get out of my way, I have somewhere I need to be.” Conative people actually don’t have to tell people to get out of their way. You can see the determination in their eyes, and you just step aside.

In the 1970s my Mom was a three pack a day smoker. A doctor told her she had pre-cancerous lesions on her larynx from smoking, so that day she quit and never smoked again. She didn’t need a New Year’s resolution or another week to get her last few smokes in. There was even a full case of Kools in her smoking drawer for another few years before she finally threw it away.

Mom’s actions were classic conation. As soon as she knew what she should do, she did it. No ceremony, no waiting period, no walking on coals, chanting at a vision board, or hypnosis. Conation is defined by this–as soon as we know what we should do, we start doing it. Realizing the need is directly followed by action.

Velleity

Can you see why New Year’s resolutions don’t work? We “resolve” in early December that we need to do something on New Year’s day, while binging on whatever we know we should stop; a sort of extended Mardi Gras that clearly demonstrates we don’t actually want to do what we say we want to do. This brings us to the second word–velleity (vah-lay-ity).

Velleity is the second most important word around being successful and is the direct cause of why 92% of resolutions fail. Velleity is,

the desire, with no intention of doing anything.

Wouldn’t it be nice if…? Someday I’m going to… I sure hope that… – It’s all velleity. We fool ourselves into thinking we actually want change because the emotional desire is so strong–“I really do want it!”. But it’s just emotional desire, with no intention of actually doing anything.

Just Priorities

I can see why Mom was able to be so conative. She once told me, “Chuck, there is no such thing as excuses, there aren’t even reasons, there are only priorities.” Conation is built on deciding that something (losing weight, stopping smoking, being a better husband, etc.) is more important than something else (food, nicotine sedation, being self-absorbed, etc.). It’s all about priorities.

For every well-intentioned resolution to lose weight, stop drinking, call Mom, get sober, be more helpful, control your temper, or finish installing the molding in the kitchen, there are unconscious commitments to keep things exactly the way they are right now. But velleity gives us the cover we need to think we actually want change. The emotional desire to see things differently (velleity) passes for real desire to change something, which results in immediate action (conation).

The Only New Year’s Resolution That Will Actually Change Something

Here it is:

I hereby resolve that going forward, I will never again wait for some future date, including New Year’s Day, to do something I know I should do. I will be conative and decide that anything worth changing, is worth changing as soon as I recognize it, and that any time I want to put off that change, I will remind myself of velleity–the emotional desire, with no intention of doing anything.

Or the short version:

I know I want to change something, because I’m already doing it. Everything else is just velleity/desire.

Remember, there are no such things as excuses or reasons, just priorities. If it’s important enough to change, I will do it now, not later.

Conate!

Be part of the 8% who succeed – resolve to be conative in 2016. It can change your life!

(Pssst – Don’t wait for New Year’s Day to resolve to be conative. Waiting is just velleity.)

Article as seen on Inc.com

Contentment is dangerous.

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Pursuit, Not Acquisition

We work so hard to achieve contentment. Be careful, it could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Since the early 1900s we have been taught to pursue the three S’s of the Industrial Age; Safety, Security, and Stability. The three of them together can lead us to contentment, which at first blush seems pretty cool.

The Contentment Fence
But contentment is a kissing cousin of balance, and both of them are like sitting on a fence; you can’t stay there very long. Pretty soon you’ll either fall off or jump off, and the question is, on which side of the fence? Falling off one side begins a downward spiral to victimology. Making the decision to intentionally jump off the other side leads upward to better things, and the fourth S of the Participation Age, Significance.

How can contentment drag us down? Living in contentment (and balance) could very quickly lead to boredom, because you have no vision for how to challenge yourself to take your life to the next level. Boredom is the first step down and it breeds pessimism, doubt, worry, blame, anger, insecurity, and eventually powerlessness – I’m a victim.

If you find yourself content, the best thing to do is proactively get the heck out of there by figuring out the next challenge and chasing it with everything you’ve got. Contentment can be a great springboard to the next challenge. If you get a solid picture of the future and what you want next, then contentment will lead right into optimism, hope, powerful expectation, enthusiasm, and passion for something new.

Jump Or Fall Off
Contentment is fleeting. You are either going to fall off or have to jump off. You can fall off on the side of victimology, or you can take control of your life, and intentionally jump off on the side of chasing something worth catching.

Have you “arrived”? Are you on cruise control with your business or your life? Be careful. It won’t last, it never does. So take charge, jump off the fence, and intentionally run toward something. You won’t be content while you’re chasing it (or balanced), but that’s ok, because the joy is never in the acquisition, but in the pursuit.

A goal realized is no longer motivating.

What’s the next thing you want to pursue? Jump off the fence and go catch it.

Goals & Friends are like Peanut Butter & Jelly.

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Grab a pen and a friend. Quick.

There is new evidence from a Dominican University study that you can really, truly move yourself forward, whatever your objective, if you just follow a simple three-step process.

The Dominican University study broke people into five groups:

  • Group 1 – were simply asked to think about their goals
  • Group 2 – write them down
  • Group 3 – the above, plus create an action plan
  • Group 4 – the above, plus send their action plan to a friend.
  • Group 5 – the above, plus send a weekly progress report to a friend who would be supportive.

The Result?

  • Group 5 – Those who reported weekly to a supportive friend accomplished significantly more than those who just sent the action plan once.
  • Group 4 – Those who sent the action plan only once to a friend still accomplished significantly more than those who simply wrote their goals and an action plan.
  • Groups 3 and 2 – those who wrote down what they wanted accomplished significantly more than those who just formulated the goals in their head.

The point?

This study is even more evidence that three things create success – a written objective, public commitment to it, and ongoing outside support to finish the plan. I’m a recovering “rugged individualist” who has learned that the most effective results are achieved in community, not by ourselves.

Once you know your objective, success is three simple steps away:

  1. Write it down
  2. Share it with others in public
  3. Work with friends on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to achieve those objectives.

We call these types of business groups, “Committed Communities”. These live at a much higher level than any of the standard networking groups, with much better results.

I used to lead small mastermind groups of 6-8 business owners as a great expression of Committed Communities. We now have three Committed Community approaches to working with business people – 3to5 Club, FasTrak, and OnTrak. All three were built around the belief that written objectives, public commitment to them, and ongoing outside support are the best way to get where you want to go.

So go it alone if you want, but just know you’re taking the road more traveled – the hard one. I’ve been on that road – it’s really bumpy and slow-going. Lots of blowouts, over-heating and break downs.

If you want to move from survival right through success to significance with the least number of rebuilt engines along the way, find a Committed Community of business owners near you and jump in with both feet. If you can’t find one, guess what you’re next step should be.

What an old guy told me that changed my life.

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The Time, Money, and Energy Conundrum – When I was just starting out, a creepy old guy (about my age – mid-50s) told me life had a built in problem. He said “The problem with life is this.

When you’re young, you’ve got all the time and all the energy to enjoy life, but no money. When you’re in your middle years, you’ve got all the money and all the energy, but no time. And when you’re retired, you’ve got all the money and all the time, but no energy.”

He then went on to say something very profound. “The key to a good life is to figure out how to have all three at once – you’ll make a lot bigger impact in the world around you if you can figure that one out.”

Lifetime Goals are foundational for figuring out the Time, Money, and Energy conundrum, for a very important reason. The definition of a Lifetime Goals is:

A goal which can never be checked off.

A true Lifetime goal can never really be fully completed – there is always something more you can do to make it better, more complete. Any goal that can be checked off as complete is not a Lifetime Goal. Been dreaming about that house on the spit of land at the edge of the lake with the thirteenth tee behind you? That is not a Lifetime Goal – it can be checked off, and once it is, it will no longer be motivating.

The red herring we’ve been fed is that the accumulation of junk is the same as Lifetime Goals. “My lifetime goal is to have $5 million in the bank, a Mercedes, a 6,000sf house, and a nice boat.” No it isn’t. Making money is not an empowering vision, and a goal realized is no longer motivating. This is just making money so you can check off the accumulation of junk. Wouldn’t get me out of bed for three minutes in the morning.

If you’re initially motivated by those things and obtain them, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you don’t have a bigger reason to have them than just having them. The old bumper sticker from the 80s – “He who dies with the most toys wins.” – was wrong. No, he who lives with the most motivating Lifetime Goals wins.

I believe every one of us was made to do something significant with our lives. Have you figured that out for yourself yet? If you’ve got a burr in your saddle or a blue flame coming out behind you for something that really excites you, you know you’re on to something. And everybody is going to want to be part of your life. Nobody runs to catch a stopped train – get yours moving and watch what happens.

You can solve the time, money, and energy conundrum and have all three at once, and make a lot bigger impact in the world around you.

Retirement is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea

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Retirement is a really bad, bankrupt, industrial age idea that was never a good idea in the first place. It was invented by big businesses to steal the best 40 years of our lives so they could discard us when our good years were all behind us.

What makes it so wrong? A few very important ideas:

1) A goal realized is no longer motivating.

Retirement is a goal that can be realized, and once it is realized, it’s not what we were promised. In the Industrial Age, the average life expectancy for men after retirement was 18 months. No longer motivated. Out to pasture. Stick a fork in them – they were done.

Men are beginning to live longer after retirement, but for reasons connected to Lifetime Goals – they’re finding meaningful things to do after they stop going to work every day (or choosing to continue going to work).

2) The very concept of retirement teaches us to put off doing anything really meaningful and substantial with our lives.

I heard it hundreds of times growing up from future pasture-geezers still in their 40’s – “When I retire, I’m going to….[fill in the blank.] What a horrible way to live – always hoping for a future time when you’re actually free to do something with your life.

3) The other really bad notion of retirement is that you’re supposed to work until your 65, then begin enjoying life.

The not so subtle message here is that work and play do not mix, and that you are really supposed to live two lives – your work life, and your meaningful life (shouldn’t work be meaningful, too?). And the ideal way to do it is to live your work life first, and hope you have time left to live your meaningful life afterwards, when you have no energy left to do so.

Wealth is the freedom and the ability to choose what to do with my time.

The retirement game teaches us you won’t be free until you retire. What a load of crap. Stop living for a future that never arrives. Don’t be that guy who, when you’re gone, others say “Too bad he didn’t get to enjoy his retirement.”

Lifetime Goals give us something to begin to enjoy today that we find meaning in, the rest of our lives. Do you have Lifetime Goals that you’re already living, without any need to be retired to get after them? Life should be meaningful, fulfilling, and satisfying today.

Tomorrow never comes. Carpe freaking diem already.

Seven Words a Business Owner Can Never Afford to Use

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1) Try (the uncommitted’s word)

“We’re going to try to…”

Yoda – “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” Intentionality is a huge key to getting where you want to go. When a business owner uses “try”, their escape route is clearly identified, and they have no intention of seeing things through, especially in the rough times. Great business owners don’t try, they do.

2) But (the victim’s word)

“This could have worked, but outside forces kept us from…”, or “But I don’t know how…”

“But” is the victomology word for business owners. It keeps us from figuring things out and pushing through to victory. Great business owners don’t use “but”. They make lemonade with every lemon they’re given.

3) Can’t (the unbeliever’s word)

We “tried”, but we *can’t*…

Vision is critical. If you don’t have clarity about where you’re going, you won’t believe you can get there. Great business owners are too busy getting where they’re going to give in to “can’t”. They’ll figure it out.

4) Settle [for] (the unmotivated’s word)

“Good enough.”

Great business owners don’t settle. What was the passion that brought you into business in the first place? Why would you allow circumstances to change your commitment to that passion?

Circumstances don’t make us who we are. Our responses do.

5) Goals (the heroic activist’s word)

I have only one set of goals – my Lifetime Goals (things I can never check off as completed). I have no goals for my business, only objectives and waypoints. My business exists to serve me in getting to my Lifetime Goals, so each month, quarter, and year I set objectives and waypoints in my business to use my business to get there. This keeps me from having false victories by beating a quarterly or annual “goal” and or false defeats by not having achieved them. They are merely milestones or waypoints along the way to my Lifetime Goals.

Great business owners don’t get hung up on intermediary milestones – they are completely focused on getting to the end game, their only set of goals, the ones they can never check off – Lifetime Goals.

Conation – the will to succeed that manifests itself in single-minded pursuit of the goal.

6) Later (the thinker’s word)

Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. The #1 indicator of success in early stage businesses is not how great your plan is, or how smart you are, or how much research you’ve done. The #1 indicator of success is Speed of Execution. Later never comes.

Three things changes us when we do them:

  • Make a decision
  • Put a date on it
  • Go Public

Great business owners get an idea, move on it, and figure it out as they go, and they understand the value of going public with their intentions.

7) Alone (the “Rugged Individualist’s [proud loner’s] word)

Everything we do in life, from taking a spouse to joining a bicycling club has the element of “community” in it, except for business ownership. Good luck with that one, you’re on your own.

There isn’t another place in society other than business ownership, where we have fully institutionalized the nonsense myth of the rugged individualist. A friend of mine did a study on leadership and found that the single biggest indicator of success or failure was whether the leader had people close to them who the leader gave the authority and permission to call them on their actions. John Wayne is dead. We should have buried the rugged individualist with him.

Great business owners have Outside Eyes on their business all the time.

Which of these words are you using to run your business? Here’s a way to remember them – “Try” to strike them from your vocabulary, “but” if you “can’t”, you can “settle” for only using a few and make a “goal” of getting rid of the rest “later”, when you’re “alone” and nobody’s watching.

Guidelines vs. Rules – Creating Wildly Successful Employees

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Employees have changed. Rules don’t cut it anymore. The newer generation isn’t sure it even wants to go to work and has in some ways decided to retire BEFORE working. They’re out there “gigging” instead of working. How do you as a Business Owner respond to this new world?

How is the new world different than the old industrial age employee world? The old world had rules the employee needed to live by. The new world has guidelines that create ownership, freedom, teamwork, and creative involvement for the employe:

Employee Guidelines (principles) → → Employee Rules (laws)

  • Provide Framework → → → → → → → → → Box to live in.
  • Gives you a “floor”-minimum → → → → → Gives you a ceiling – “maximum”
  • Encourages innovation → → → → → → → →Encourages conformity/sameness
  • Frees up employees to win → → → → → → →Creates fear of losing
  • Emphasis on effective result → → → → → →Emphasis on process/procedure
  • Emphasis on employee ownership → → → Emphasis on we/they blame games
  • Encourages participation/innovation → → Encourages hiding/work-arounds.
    Examples of each:
    Apple Computers → → → → → → → → → → U.S. Government

A Key Objective in creating happy employees: Create “ownership” of their job, and help them see how it fits into the bigger picture (process mapping is a great way to do this.)

How do you lead in the new world? By becoming a Servant Leader. The best leaders have always led this way, but if you don’t lead this way in the new employer world, you won’t keep your employees.

Leaders do not exist to be served by those “under” them. They do not have the right to have others make them look good. Having a title on a door does not make you a leader. Leaders are focused on how they can make everyone else around them more successful (the servant leader). Employees are very clear that the leader’s job is to champion them and give them the vision, environment, resources, training, and connections to be wildly successful. The smart leader knows that if everyone around them is successful, they won’t have to worry about their own visibility or success.

Be a servant leader – create ownership among your employees for their positions, and focus your energies on making them wildly successful. You’ll have a great business and make more money in less time as a result.

Deciding when your Business is Mature, and How To Pick a Date to get there.

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As a business owner, Business Maturity isn’t about how big your business gets or how much revenue it generates. It’s about 1) your own ability to choose what to do with your time, and 2) the ability to walk away from your business for weeks or longer and have it still make money while you’re not there.

You could decide that it means that the leadership is completely turned over to others and the business is ready to be sold. But at a minimum, a business is not Mature if you are still necessary to the daily production of products/services (there is a difference between being necessary and being able to choose to personally produce.)

Here’s how to paint a good picture of what your Mature Business looks like:

  1. Know your Lifetime Goals. (Why are you doing this? To what end??)
  2. Calculate the cost of the Ideal Situation for living out those Lifetime Goals.
  3. Decide WHEN you want to be in that Ideal Situation. Stop reading here if you don’t want to put a date on when you get to your Ideal Situation. Growing a Mature Business won’t matter enough to you to actually do it.
  4. Decide what salary/cash you need to support your Ideal Situation.
  5. Make your best prediction of how much revenue your business will need to generate to allow you to pull the salary/cash you need to support your Ideal Situation.
  6. Make your best guess at how your business will do this. There are three ways to make money when you’re not around.
    1. Talent – The painter Renoir bought his massive French villa w/ two paintings, and his car with a pencil sketch. If you have unique talents then you can charge enough per hour to work very few hours. The problem with this approach is that it’s a crapshoot to have your talent recognized at this level, and your business really never matures because it still relies on you to produce. If you get sick or injured or worse, the revenue stream stops.
    2. Employees – this is the most common way to make money when you’re on vacation – buy someone else’s 40 hours a week at a discount, and resell it to your customers at a premium. The difference creates profit for you even when you’re not there.
    3. Products/Services – If you don’t want employees and you’re not über-talented, you can create products or services that you can license to others to produce. Or you can franchise your services for others to deliver, or create online software, products, or services that need very little maintenance.
  7. Paint as clear a picture as you can of what your Mature Business looks like in terms of the salary/cash it provides you, the time it allows you to use in other ways, and how the what will produce the revenue (Talent, Employees, or Products/Services), then
  8. Pick a Business Maturity Date – the single most important step in the process. If you don’t want to do this, don’t bother with Steps 1-7.

Don’t torture this – you’ll know you have a good enough picture when you’re excitement level for getting there has gone way up. If you have an Objective that is motivating enough, you will figure out the steps required along the way to get there.

Do you know what Business Maturity looks like for your business? Are you completely committed to a Business Maturity Date that you’ve gone public with? If so, welcome to the 3to5Club (see earlier posts)! Describe your Mature Business and your Business Maturity Date here – let’s get moving together!

 

Every Business Owner Needs Two Bosses. Do You Have Them?

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Ever feel like you’ve got 11 ping pong balls to hold under the water and only 10 fingers? There is a solution.

Last week we talked about the overarching swing and a miss we make in our business strategy: We think that our purpose in business is to make money when our purpose in business is to BUILD A BUSINESS that makes money. These two things are worlds apart, and almost every business I work with is absolutely buried in making money, which will keep them from ever making a lot of it.

This week we we’ll talk about how to create the proper balance between the Tyranny of the Urgent – things we have to do today to make money; and the Priority of the Important – things we have to do to build a business that will make money for us.

It’s not as hard as we make it.

The wrong focus – A focus on making money makes us reactive, trying to keep 11 ping pong balls under the water in a washtub with only 10 fingers – we’re never done. Every time we get one under control another pops to the surface.

The simple problem –We’re so busy trying to capture 11 ping pong balls with our own 10 fingers that we can’t spend time figuring out how to hold down thousands. Capturing every dollar today keeps us from figuring out how to capture a lot more down the road.

The simple key – Be willing to let a few Urgent ping pong balls get away to build a business that later can hold thousands of ping pong balls under the water without using any of your own fingers.

The simple solution – One motivator and two bosses that keep us moving toward building a business that makes money.

The motivator – Lifetime Goals. We think making money is the goal of business. Wrong. Making money is not an empowering vision, and it won’t get you out of bed when money is hard to make. But having a powerful over-arching reason to build a business will carry you through the tough times. What are your Lifetime Goals that you can use your business to achieve? Get a bigger reason to be in business than make money, or you’re likely never going to make much of it.

The two bosses:

Boss #1 – A strategic plan. Not a business plan – those are for bank loans, then they sit on a shelf. I mean a 12-month rolling strategic plan by which you manage every strategic and tactical move in your business. Four simple components – 1) A business vision (the big why/values) , 2) mission (the big what – your marching orders – the RESULT you get your customers), 3) 1-3 year strategies (how you make money), 4) 12 month measurable objectives (how you measure success at making money).

Once you have the vision, mission, strategies and 12-month objectives, you can easily figure out what to do in the next 3 months to reach those 12-month objectives. This makes it simple to figure out what you need to do this month. At the end of 3 months, plan the next three and push your 9-month Objectives back out to 12-months. Rinse and repeat faithfully every quarter.

A Strategic Plan that runs your business automatically keeps us balanced between taking care of the Tyranny of the Urgent (making money today), and the Priority of the Important (building a business that makes money.) VISIT YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN WEEKLY TO KEEP FOCUS!

Boss # 2 – Outside eyes on you and your business. A strategic plan that runs your business is great, but you also need others from outside your business to help you keep clarity and direction. My business is my baby; I’m subjective about it. Others will have a much more objective view and be able to see things I would never see. Get a peer advisor or better yet a full peer advisory group and meet once a month. GET OTHERS SUPPORTING YOU AND YOUR PLAN!

In the daily Tyranny of the Urgent, you are unlikely to use your Strategic Plan to run your business unless you have peers and/or advisor(s) helping you do so. Don’t fool yourself – get others involved from outside your business or don’t expect to build a real business.

Use your Lifetime Goals, Strategic Plan and monthly peer advisory group to force you to spend time on the Important, on building a business that makes money. If you engage these two bosses to motivate you to build a business that makes money, you’re much more likely to build a business that makes a lot of it, and more likely to get to your lifetime goals.

Next week we’ll challenge each other to get a Business Maturity Date and why that is so important in my business and in yours.

Don’t Be a Mosquito in a Nudist Colony

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Why Lifetime Goals are so important to what I do tomorrow, and why tomorrow is so important to my Lifetime Goals.

The mosquito in the nudist colony is thinking, “I know what to do, I just don’t know where to begin.” As business owners, we might have a similar experience, either not knowing where to begin, or not knowing what to do next to take our business to maturity. We have so little time – prioritizing what to do next is critical to our success.

How do we know what to do next? Frankly, there is no way to know unless we have the end game clearly in mind. Without it, we’re shooting a gun in the woods and calling it bear hunting. Or my favorite – “he who aims at nothing hits it every time.”

How do we understand the importance of tying each day to our future? If we focus on just today, we claim victories that are only imposters. If we focus too much on the future, we get fogged or discouraged by the lack of measurable progress today.

The key – always keep today’s action plans and our future Ideal Situation in clear view at the same time, and continuously make the connection between the two.

Here’s the progession that clearly gives us that connection:

  1. Lifetime Goals – what are the things I want to do the rest of my life that I can never check off? This is why I’m alive and why I do business. I’m using my business to get me to my lifetime goals. If I don’t know my Lifetime Goals, I’ve got no clue why I’m in business. Get clarity on your Lifetime Goals – it is foundational to understanding how today matters.
  2. Ideal Situation – FYI – Retirement is a bankrupt idea. Don’t retire, just get into an Ideal Situation for living out your Lifetime Goals – it’s a lot more fun, meaningful, and purposeful. And you don’t have to wait until your 63. You can arrive at your Ideal Situation at 40 or much earlier if you’re intentional about it.

    Critical to escaping the Mosquito/Nudist Colony problem – WHEN do I want to be at that Ideal Situation? Pick an exact date and work toward it (he who aims at nothing…)

  3. Business Maturity Date – usually the same as your Ideal Situation. Pick it – work toward it.
  4. At maturity, what revenue does my business need to generate so I can buy my Ideal Situation in which I can best live out my Lifetime Goals?
  5. How much time and money do I need in my Ideal Situation? What kind of house, car, boat, plane will I need? Do I have a non-profit or am I working in one? Is travel important? What revenue does my business need to generate over the next 5 years to get me to my Ideal Situation? Over the next 3 years? Over the next year? Knowing this is a huge step toward knowing how today fits into the rest of my life.
  6. One-Page Business Strategy – what do I need to do the next 12 months to get closer to a mature business?
    1. Vision, Mission – the big picture for why I’m in business and what my mission is as a business person.
    2. Strategies – the ways in which I make money (building websites, developing ISP software, etc.) THREE YEARS
    3. Objectives – The measurable waypoints for the next 12 months, next 3 months, next month – 12 MONTHS
    4. Action Plans – The actual actions I need to take each week/month/quarter to get to the one year waypoint, on my way to developing a mature business, that can support my Ideal Situation, so I can focus on my Lifetime Goals. It all comes together here.

If we know our Lifetime Goals, those goals we can never check off, and most importantly, WHEN we want to be in our Ideal Situation for living out those lifetime goals, we can then back into what we need to be doing tomorrow to get there. If you don’t know what the end game looks like, what in the world are you doing in business in the first place?

Continuously connecting your daily activity and your Lifetime Goals is the key to clarity and to knowing if each day is counting. Don’t be a mosquito in a nudist colony. Know what to do, where to begin, and what to do next. Connect your daily activity to your Lifetime Goals and watch the fireworks begin.