Guest Contributors
Well the New Year is here and it’s time to take a look back at the past year and see what worked for us and what hasn't worked for us. Take a few minutes and look back at all the business and personal goals that you set for yourself last year and put a check mark next to each goal that you achieved. Congratulate yourself for your successes and ask yourself “What did I do to achieve these goals?” Make a mental list of what you did. Now look at the goals that you didn't achieve. Don’t beat yourself up over not achieving them; we’re going to figure out how to achieve more this year than last, but you have to ask yourself, “What happened? Why didn't I achieve them?”
Most people don’t achieve their business and personal goals for one of two reasons: lack of discipline or lack of drive. Lack of discipline is a no-brainer; if you’re not disciplined in setting up a certain amount of time to work on the important task at hand it will never get completed. As an entrepreneur or business owner it’s sometimes difficult to set and stick to a work schedule, after all we don’t really have anyone to be accountable to other than ourselves or maybe our spouse, when they want to know why certain things aren’t finished or moving in the right direction.
So this year make a commitment to yourself and to your business to set up a schedule for yourself just as you would do for an employee. If you have payroll due on Wednesdays, and you always seem to spend Tuesday evening rushing around to get all of your employees’ time sheets together so you can have the information over to the accountant by Wednesday morning, schedule that as a task to be completed Tuesday morning by 10:00 a.m.m and do not waiver from that deadline. Go through your entire work week and lay out a schedule for yourself and when each task must be completed. If you worked for someone else you would have a schedule and you probably would keep on task and deliver your work early, anxious for the next thing that the boss wants you to complete. So make a commitment to do the exact same thing for your business as you would for someone else. If you don’t, you just may end up working for someone else; that thought alone should be enough to scare you into submission.
Now that we have the discipline part down, let’s look at the drive. Look at the goals that you didn't achieve last year, when you look at the missed goals do you feel bad or do you feel sort of like it didn't really matter? If you feel the goal not being achieved really didn't matter why did it stay on your list all year? Ask yourself, “How much time did I waste working on a goal that didn't matter?”
Many individuals and businesses set up goals and never re-evaluate why they want to achieve those goals; maybe when they set a goal it served a purpose, but now that they have moved along for a month or two and things have changed they didn't look back to see if the goal was necessary any longer. However, since the goal was on their list they continue to waste time on something that didn't serve a purpose any longer and their drive to complete the goal dwindled to almost nothing. The time and effort they spent on the goal was wasted and could have been spent working on something more important.
Now that we have it figured out, all we need is a little discipline and some drive to make it happen and we’re on our way to a better year this year right? NO!!! We need to create new habits in order keep us from falling back into the same old rut. Usually businesses set up sales goals, marketing goals and productivity goals on a monthly or quarterly basis but Maximum Thinkers™ knows that’s a recipe for disaster — we see where it got the below-average thinkers last year.
In order to create a new habit studies have shown that it takes 21 days, so why do businesses work on a thirty- or ninety-day cycle to meet their goals and for creating new habits? If you set out to create a new habit every thirty days, the best you can do is create 12 new habits a year. If it only takes 21 days to create a habit why not work on a 21-day cycle? There are 365 days in a year; if you divide 365 by 21 you come up with 17.5. That means you can create 17 new habits a year instead of 12. That’s almost a 50 % increase; what will a 50% increase in positive habits do for your business?
Let’s take a look:
If the average person attends one network meeting per month, that’s 12 opportunities per year to meet new potential clients. Maximum Thinkers™ uses the 21-day cycle and attends 17 network events per year, which is a 50% increase over their competition to be seen and to meet new clients.
Average thinkers increase the number of sales calls by 5% a month if they start with 20 and increase by 5% per month — that’s a total of 351 calls a year. Maximum Thinkers™ will increase their sales calls by 5% every 21 days if they start with 20 and increase by 5% every 21 days; that’s a total of 511 calls.
If you consider a 25% closing rate look at these numbers:
351 x 25%= 87 sales
511 x 25%= 127 sales
Take some time make a list of your goals and new habits that you want to create this year for your business and pick one new habit per 21-day cycle. At the end of each cycle re-visit your list and make sure that the habits or goals that are left on the list are still important; if not, remove it from your list. Most businesses only review their goals and habits every quarter, so as a Maximum Thinker™ you will have a huge jump over the competition and will be sure to finish far ahead of them at the end of the year. Next year when you re-evaluate that list, the amount of task you have completed and the number of new habits you created will be huge compared to last year.
About the Author:
Chris Livingston has become known as America’s Maximum Thinking™ Coach. He’s the author of the book Pathways to Success: A Better Way for Your Today. His "can–do" attitude and effective ability to teach interpersonal skills that bring forth rewarding real-life results, has made him a valuable "go-to" consultant and mentor for those facing challenges in business, career and life. With over 20 years as a successful entrepreneur, Chris has helped many businesses to shift and change their company’s mindset to achieve greater success in sales, team efficiency, strategic business development, and in making excellence "The Standard." He believes in and embraces the philosophy of Dr. Wayne Dyer, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
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