Grow revenues, increase profits, develop more products, improve customer service, reduce costs, increase prices…and you must work on all these items in your business at the same time. Do any of these items bear resemblance to your 2008 goals?
The first quarter of the year is ending, and now is a good time to reflect on the progress you have made toward reaching your business (or personal) goals.
Right now, do they seem impossible to reach; are you losing your grasp on them? How about considering a new approach to your goal planning?
I have found over the years that many people don’t like planning. They don’t even like mention of the word! Planning means work; hard work. People mean well, but it’s so easy to get distracted by the daily challenges of our work and home lives.
Maybe there’s something deeper at work if you haven’t made satisfactory progress toward reaching your goals. Could it be that your goals aren’t exciting to you? Maybe they’re too abstract, or perhaps you’re not the type of person that’s passionate about “profits”, etc. You might even harbor self-beliefs that it’s impossible to achieve your goals.
Most goal planning programs suggest you set a probable goal with interim milestones to keep track of your performance (think monthly or quarterly). Even though I emphatically condone this method of achieving outcomes, I want you to stretch yourself and think about accomplishing something that you currently think is impossible. Is that exciting to you? Does it make your heart race? Good!
Now, I’m not talking about doing something humanly impossible, like flying off a building with mechanical wings. What I am asking you to do is look at areas in your life where you’ve become resigned that your ideal desired outcome or “way of being” is impossible. These places could be your business, your job, or even personal issues. You might think the task is physically or mentally impossible for you to achieve, you’ve made up your mind this just can’t be done (by me)! Examples of such things are:
1. Double your sales or income this year.
2. Lose 20 pounds
3. Go on a 4-week vacation
Before you can achieve the seemingly impossible, you must break through the barriers of resistance that tell you can’t achieve something. This powerful “shadow belief” is sabotaging your ability to successfully achieve your goals. So, let’s eradicate them!
To break through the barriers of resistance you are feeling, you first have to do some simple research about what you want in your life, in a business or personal sense. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. “If I had more time, I’d…”
2. “If I could I’d…”
Finishing those statements gives some substance to things you want to accomplish, but may seem impossible because of current circumstances in your life. The actual activity on the surface may not seem impossible, but, if I asked you about making plans to do them, you’d stammer something like, “There’s no way I could do that!” But, other people do these things, right? Somehow, they accomplished the same things you desire, and I bet you’ll agree with me it probably wasn’t simple or easy for them. Undoubtedly, they first had to have a vision of what they wanted their life to look like, and they had to overcome the internal barriers holding them back.
ACTION POINT
Describe your ideal vision about what you want your business or personal life to look like in the next year, how you want to “be”. Describe it in as many ways as you can see it. What changes will you see in your life when you accomplish your vision?
This is a great first step to take, because it helps you become aware of what you want. It’s almost impossible to achieve your dreams and visions if you haven’t articulated them clearly in your mind. By creating a clear vision of what you want, even if you think it is impossible right now, helps to set you on a path toward accomplishment. Why? Because half the battle is breaking through the resistance, you may currently feel about the impossibility of your goal and vision.
Even if you don’t achieve your goals exactly as you defined them in the next year, by playing the game with passion, and a desire to win, you’ll certainly make progress toward achieving your dreams. After all, a championship tennis player doesn’t know if he will win every major tournament. But, like any champion, when they lose a game, they continue to play and reap the rewards.
What do you think is impossible? Go for that in 2008.
Copyright 2008 Bonita L. Richter. All rights reserved.