B066: How to continue strong with your annual goals

Let’s talk about how to continue strong with your annual goals. I don’t mean to alarm anyone but we are now halfway through 2019. Half of the year is gone and it’s time to check-in on the annual business goals you’ve set.

How’s it going?

Are you on track with where you want to be?

In order to continue strong and achieve the goals you’ve set out for yourself, you’ll need to do 3 simple things:

• Reflect
• Reset
• …and GO!

Let’s break that down into 3 simple, continue strong steps.

1. Reflect

Earlier this week, I was talking to a journalist about the time I built a 22’ long human-powered Hamster Wheelmobile art car.

The Hamster Wheelmobile art car

It was a work of art – here’s the story…

A long time ago in a land far, far away (ahem, Austin, Texas), I received a grant to build this art car to be part of the First Night Austin – New Year’s Eve parade. It was a bit of social commentary on the hamster wheels we tend to find ourselves trapped in when we work.

Side note; I’m really good at building golden hamster wheels for myself, and must continually remind myself to break that cycle, over and over again.

When you are intentional, and you step off the wheel to REFLECT, you gain insight and clarity on how far you’ve come. Step one is all about carving out the time to look back, and:

• Celebrate the wins you’ve had this year
• Review the mishaps and
• Take stock of your lessons learned

Without this vital step, you’re likely to make the same mistakes over and over again. Or find yourself putting in a TON of effort with very little return. So give yourself this gift and take some time to reflect.

2. Reset

Where you are now, versus where you were at the beginning of the year, might be night and day different.

Did you experience a big life change, an unexpected illness, or was there a shift in the market?

As a business owner and entrepreneur, one of your primary jobs is to be nimble, and quickly pivot when change happens. This is vital if you and your business is to stay the course, continue strong, and thrive.

Change can happen when things are soaring! Let’s say you’ve grown quickly in this last quarter, or a recent sales campaign went viral. If so, your focus is less on raising visibility, and more on delivering your products and services to your customers.

Either way, step two is all about knowing which goals to reset, and which goals to continue strong with. Ask yourself:

• What’s changed around me?
• Do any goals need to be shifted (even a little)
• To make this shift, what resources (time, money, talent) do I need?

3. … and GO!

If you are a Type A ‘Do-er’, it might be tempting to hopscotch over step one and step two.

Don’t!

Take the time to reflect and reset before you jump back and hit the GO button. Once you’ve done this assessment (either individually or with your team), it’s time to create your Super Action Plan and make things happen.

Break it down in super, simple terms.

For example, “Here’s our one quarterly goal we’ve set as a company. Here’s our revenue goal. And here are the steps we are going to take to get there.”

Once you start to document your plan on paper, you’re getting it out of your head. This will help to build your roadmap, train your team, and take action.

No roadmap equals no clarity on where you’re headed.

Remember to keep this simple. It’s likely you’re not going to know all 80 billion steps between where you are now, and where you want to go. But you should have clarity on the first 5 steps.

Write those down, delegate it to your team, and then get to stepping! One foot in front of the other, you’re totally doing the thing.

Earlier this week, I spoke with The Productivity Specialist, Amber De La Garza. She and I agreed… there’s no point in doing more if you don’t have focus on where you actually want to head.

If you follow the 3 simple steps above, and check in quarterly on your progress, it will set you up to continue strong.

You’re likely to accomplish more in less time. And that is the true measure of simplifying!

And just one final whisper, from me to you, dear friend… come in closer.

Change is hard, isn’t it? It’s scary.

It can seem totally outside of your control, and so your natural instinct is to hold on tighter.

I know that’s what happens with me if I don’t hit the pause button every now and again.

As a child of the 80s, I loved to fill up my sticker chart, in hopes for approval, recognition and validation. “Am I doing enough? Please reassure me because I could do more!”

If your inner child is saying this to you now, I want you to hear this thought instead:

“Is this my North Star? Does this thought really, truly help me get to where I want to go? Or is there a better way?”

When you ask your inner child what she really, really wants, you might be surprised. Does she want to…

• Have fun?
• Feel free of crazy jam-packed filled schedules?
• Spend time doing messy, finger-painting art-making time, alone?

Remember you are her, and she is you.

Acknowledge her. Reassure her. Show her you’re listening by carving out time to have fun, or nourish her in the way that she wants. Build that trust with yourself.

Focus on how you really, truly want to feel every, single day. And then, ask yourself daily, “What am I going to do today to get one step closer to my annual goals?”

Listen. Breathe.

And then go out there and #Dothething.

You can do this, I believe in you.

It’s time to SIMPLIFY.