Wading through a client’s massive list of ideas, concerns, strategies and more for the New Year, I was struck by the thought: “Dude – you’ve got to burn some of these bridges!”
My client is a successful trainer, and a corporate escapee. He has a laundry list a mile long of things he thinks he should add, change, explore and develop in his business. 52 items in total!
Carrying around this swirling mass of ideas about what he could do, could massively limit his ability to actually get things done.
How did we boil down the list so he felt more focused and confident about reaching his goals?
- I pulled everything off the list that I could answer quickly, as his mentor. Simple answers like “yes”, “no”, “2nd quarter”, whatever. Just cleared it off the plate.
- I asked him: what are three things that worked best this year? This gave us a starting foundation to build on BEFORE we started entertaining the new, the novel and the downright distracting.
- I separated the rest of the list into program development, marketing and processes. We evaluated each on ease of implementation, alignment with his goals, profitability, and capacity. This clarified his priorities.
- The priorities were broken down into a specific action plan for the first quarter. It’s a thing of beauty, if I do say so myself ;-).
- The last step was to decisively delete or delay the rest of the list. The rest of the items on the list will be ignored until our next evaluation before the second quarter. This one big decision freed up his energy to focus on what is most profitable.
Items #1-4 are all about identifying the best way to get into action. I’m a big fan of taking action.
But #5, being decisive about what NOT to do… that is how you create the space and the energy to actually get things done.
I wish you space and energy and much success in the New Year.
