Key elements for your winning personal strategy.
We talk about hitting our goals, reaching our targets and achieving our dreams. What does it take to ensure we play all in and stay motivated? The above title might seem quite harsh but it’s one I use a lot and it changed my mind again this morning. There are many tips and tricks that we can use to stay on track and create changes that stick. For example using anchors, finding something that we are already doing well and consistently then attaching our new habits to them. Saying your affirmations while cleaning your teeth might be something you would do without fail, because you know the consequences of not cleaning your teeth so never miss. What if there’s nothing to anchor it to? Your motivation has to be greater than the desire to stay in the comfort zone.
The alarm went off at 5 this morning as I had arranged to go to the gym. My whole being said ‘noooo I’m too tired’! So what made me get up? Using an accountability buddy like a trainer helps because you have someone to be accountable to, but you need to want to do it. My motivation needed to be stronger than the desire to be in the more comfortable place, my warm bed. So I used the questions, how badly do you want to be strong and fit? How will you feel after? The result – I got up and went to the gym.
When we have a big purpose we need a strategy and plan to keep us aligned, but does your plan excite you and motivate you? For some it may even be a trigger word, plans and stuff were left behind in a corporate world that shall never be revisited. Our triggers are just our shadows that need to be shone a light on so keep working on them and you will find an answer to the trigger. If you are not energised and motivated constantly, how are you going to consistently hit those goals and make things happen?
I certainly had trigger points and elements that literally made me freeze rather than take action. Below are the personal elements of the strategy that I share to help move and motivate others.
Be ok with desire
When you are here to serve as many of us are then desire can be a dirty word, especially when associated with money and sales. It is quite amazing the power that desire has to motivate us and we need to build a healthy relationship with it. The one important success factor to note here is that desire is not wishful thinking as that has no power at all and tells our subconscious mind that it is not possible. Desire has intent behind it and decision, there is a purpose to this that is for the highest good of all involved. A vision that benefits many rather than just you alone contains far more power in motivation, there will be times when the road is tough but you will never lose sight of the reason for the journey.
When coaching/mentoring it is always important to understand the ecology and ethics of every situation and ensure what is best for the client. Your personal success is not only defined in business alone it has to reflect every part of your life – we need balance. If there is imbalance then something has to give and it is you that suffers, we need to assess our needs, wants, desires & values then assess where we are in each.
Find your tribe
Asking for help is important and so is surrounding yourself with the right people. When we emotionally connect to our vision it can be a powerful start to manifesting what we want but when we share that vision we amplify it. Who do you have around you that shares and believes in your vision? Now imagine the power of one multiplIed by many – your own tribe that wants for you what you want! Things happened far quicker for me when I started to VOCALISE my dream. Others start to share the energy and listen out for opportunities for you (like referral partners)! When you have a desire to serve, people around you will want to help the cause. You will always find a way when desire and community are strong.
Maintaining your energy and vibration is very important, so surround yourself with others who raise your vibration not take from it. Protect your energy and boundaries when helping others and look after your own wellbeing. It can be easy to let this slip when you are a natural empath or people pleaser even.
Who inspires you? What do they do that makes you feel so great? Having others on a similar path that are further along the road to us can keep us going. Seeing the proof of what is possible is important to help keep the fire in our belly to motivate us further. Never be afraid to reach out and ask others about their journey, people love to share. You never know you might just find the perfect relationship as a mentor with one of these conversations. Take time to think about who you are at your best and maybe who you can share this knowledge with. We are all just on a ladder really helping others who maybe a few rungs below us and how wonderful to reach out a hand and help someone on the climb.
Know your numbers
I cannot stress enough how important the focus needs to be on your numbers. It doesn’t have to be complicated, start with what you need on a monthly basis then work out your utopia for the gap. This is not to scare you but to plan a strategy for achieving where you want to get to. If there are set-up costs then these need to be laid out in your business plan, carry out careful cash flow planning to remove risks and cover any unknowns. Do you need to invest in stock to produce saleable products?.
Think about your unique offering, what is the value of your services and how many do you need to sell. Do you have a variety of price points that the customer can engage with to enter into your pipeline?
To ease the cash flow can you charge part of your price upfront? When you map out your income streams over time it becomes clear how much they could contribute and when to your profit. When we are focusing our efforts to drive the business forward and get into a stable cash rich position we need to put energy into the money side of the business. Energy flows to where the attention goes, ignore the figures at your own peril.
Get in a good money mindset from the start.
Never put off planning
Themes are something that I talk about a lot, work needs to be fun and themes are something you can play with to energise and motivate you and your team. Even decorate the office with the theme if it helps. Our theme is what will drive us and excite us for the planning period, we need to get emotionally connected with it. The more we can spend time not only with our big vision but our journey along the way the more we will be in flow with the journey. Make sure you tune in to ‘what does the end result look like for everyone?’ Plan how you will celebrate and reward and always connect it back to your why and who you serve.
You can relate the power of this to the process of buying a new car, once we decide on the car we want we see that particular car everywhere; you are naturally tuned in! Our theme can work in this way.
When viewing our vision board or thinking about the big picture we need to look at the steps that will need to be made on a monthly and quarterly basis. Sometimes we identify a big gap between the now and where we want to be in the future. Take time to think about what is important to achieve now and the stepping stones to plan for later on the journey. I spend a lot of time reverse engineering these goals and planning the actions into a default diary, it removes procrastination and helps me be more productive.
Using a theme also prevents shiny object syndrome and keeps you focused. When we get ideas and new opportunities we have to evaluate what they mean to our plans. Ask yourself this question ‘Is it going to get me closer to my mission / goals for this month?’ If the answer is no then put it into the car park of ideas and make it part of a new theme and planning period. Focus on achieving what you set out to do first, prioritise what is going to have the biggest impact on what you are trying to achieve.
Keep doing your compass checks, are you aligned?
We are humans and life can be complicated, things change, what we need to prioritise in our life will move on our journey. I love the story about the little boy fishing in the lake looking up at the aeroplane and saying to himself one day I’m going to be flying those planes. Then we look at the future pilot in the plane looking down on the beautiful lake wishing more than anything that he could be back fishing and relaxing. As time goes by our wants and desires change, we need to stay in tune with ourselves to ensure that we make the right decisions at the right time in our lives. It comes down to the balance that we have already touched on. Over the course of time and life situations we will want different things and this must align with the business as it is our vehicle to deliver the life we want to live.
The reason we plan in shorter bursts is to put a stake in the ground and milestones, a place to review, reflect, re-energise and refocus. We live in such a fast paced world that to be crazy busy and moving from one project to another seeing this continuous moving as success somehow. Hence the need for the next point.
Hold the vision, embrace the stillness
ENERGY & VIBRATION – That was one of my earliest lessons – doing a vision board in the beginning then getting the mindset, belief and the focus right and finally to raise my energy and put it out to the universe.
If you want to meet the day head on with the right energy there are many things you can put in place for your own personal miracle morning. Aside from fresh air, water, movement and healthy food I rate stillness at the top. Meditation is something we simply have to find time for and this can be as simple as going for a walk in nature. The only way that we can ‘tune in’ to what is best for us is to quieten the noise that is our environment and world today. Napoleon Hill calls it our sixth sense. He said when you get it:
“You will be warned of impending dangers in time to avoid them, and notified of opportunities in time to embrace them. There comes to your aid, and to your bidding with the development of the sixth sense, a ‘guardian angel’ who will open to you at all times the door to the temple of wisdom”.
For me we need to listen before we create anything to bring out into the world, we come as souls on this human experience of discovery. We are constantly remembering what we came here to do, uncovering our inner talents and skills that we are to share with the world. We have everything we need, we just haven’t discovered it yet.
Own your wins and celebrate
We can sometimes forget to celebrate, not from an ego perspective but from a self love and gratitude perspective. Sometimes we fail to celebrate all that we have achieved on our journey – we don’t stop to look back down the mountain at the height we have climbed. When we look at what we have overcome then what is in front of us can seem small in comparison, giving us that all important boost to carry on.
I believe the universe does give us anything we cannot handle but if we do not tackle head on and learn from life’s experiences, the lessons will get bigger until we eventually take note and make the changes needed.
If we don’t stop to pause and celebrate the success of a project or stage in our business we rob ourselves of motivation further down the line. This doesn’t mean a post on social media either, it is something personal with ourselves to pause and reflect on where we have come. Do you plan how you will celebrate when you have reached goals?
So there you have it decide to go for it, believe it will happen and let go of attachment to the how. To be honest the letting go drove me crazy at first, I had to let go of the fighting and worrying about lack of and the gap between where I was then and where I needed to be. We all know we get more of what we focus on – focus on lack or what’s missing gives you more of the same!
Positive reframe where you are going, what do you want and how badly do you want it?
