Let's Not Make A Resolution

Posted on May 08, 2013 by Cindy Hillsey, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

New Year’s Resolutions. Do you make them? Do you keep them? Why or why not?

Rather than make a resolution just because it’s a new year, how about if you continue to set goals for yourself and your business and then lay out a path for you to accomplish those goals? Small steps will get you to the big picture goal you have, and at the same time allow you to do three things:

1. Begin working on the goal
2. Reward yourself for accomplishing/taking those small steps
3. Allow you to make changes/adjustments as you move along

Number 3 is really important because not only does it allow you to make changes as you move along, but it keeps you going so that you don’t scrap the whole goal just because something is different than you thought when you started out.

The danger of laying out an entire plan is that if something comes up (and it will!) that you didn’t plan for and/or have knowledge about when you started, is that you will feel frustrated and perhaps even defeated before you really get a chance to dig into the plan. If you’ve made plans for step 5 based on the first 4 steps going smoothly and then something happens differently in step 3 than what you planned, your step 4 and 5 are going to need to be adjusted. That’s easy enough to do, but if you’ve made plans for step 10 and something happens on step 2 the thought of having to re-do everything can become overwhelming and then it’s easy to just say it didn’t work out.

So, I’m going to encourage you to do something different this year and have a big picture goal and then plan out the first two or three steps and begin! Once you begin you’ll see if step two needs any adjustment or not. If it does, make the adjustment and keep going. Then you can plan step three, then four, and so on.

The ability to be fluid and adapt is really the key to having your business survive. Big brush strokes are great for the end goal, but small, incremental steps are necessary for the success of that goal.

Mind Maps can be a great way to lay out your vision and then detail the steps needed to make that vision a reality. There are also nice in the electronic form because you can move the items around as you begin to work your plan. Remember that fluidity we talked about above. smile Here are a couple of resources for mind maps:

http://www.xmind.net/
http://www.mindmeister.com/
http://www.spiderscribe.net/tour.php

Recapping the above:

1) You need to have a big picture vision. What is yours?
2) You need to have a plan, but that plan needs to have flexibility built in to it. What are your first three steps to make your vision a reality?
3) How will you measure whether or not your plan is creating success and forward movement? Based on the steps you laid out above, what milestone(s) will you measure to be certain your plan is working?
4) Get support! That can be a coach, finding a Master Mind Group, peer support, etc. Find either a place or a person who is interested in seeing you succeed. Where will you find support?

“Small amounts are manageable. Large amounts are confusing. Subtly arrange the outcome and nothing more. Do not use force.” —-Lao Tzu