Four years ago I hired a coach and she had me complete an extensive questionnaire before we started working together. I recently found the questionnaire and want to share a question and my answer because it has been a cornerstone of my business to this day.
Question: How do you want your future website to portray you and your business?
My Answer: Professional, approachable, to-the-point, knowledgeable and transparent. I always felt shut out by highly successful people who list all their accomplishments and never shared that, YES they have days where they stay in their pajamas and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. These people seemed so disciplined and perfect, that if I ever had a bad day, it felt like – well, Jack Canfield never has a bad day, so I guess since I slacked for two hours today I’m screwed.
In reality, successful people do have bad days – something I didn’t realize for years. And I really let the idea of perfection hold me back. Or, I used not being perfect as an excuse, take your pick.
Letting a sidetracked day or week completely derail you or punishing yourself for getting off course is judgmental, detrimental and unproductive (i.e. “OK, I’ll need to make 50 phone calls for being such a slacker last week” – yeah, that’s motivating). Just gently bring yourself back on course, ask if there are any lessons you can learn, forgive yourself, and move on. We are all human!
I never thought of it, but you are right. People have days when they don’t get things accomplished because they are doing non-productive things, successful people are people, ergo, they slack to. Fun how that makes me feel better. Now off to spend an hour on surfing Facebook. Thanks Mary!
I love the way your mind works, Candy! You make me laugh!