Happy New Year from Ask the Mompreneur! Have you made any business or personal resolutions for 2012?
As an executive coach, I work with senior leaders and business owners all over the country to help them achieve their goals, break their own records, and reach their personal bests. During a weekly 1-hour phone call, we focus on their highest priorities and design action items that will make them a reality. Here is a quick summary of some proven techniques that you can apply to your own 2012 resolutions.
Coaching tip #1 – Goal setting
One of the most powerful things you can do when setting a personal or professional goal is to simply write it down. This can be as simple as scrawling “Sign-up for Saturday morning yoga” on a yellow sticky note and posting it on the handle of your phone or as involved as printing up signs saying “10% more sales by Christmas!” and putting them up in every room. Whether handwritten or computer generated, whether taped to your computer monitor or kept in your wallet, committing something to paper gives it a physical presence and sends a powerful signal to yourself that you are serious about turning an intention into reality.
Coach yourself action - Take 2 minutes right now to grab the nearest pen and paper and write down a goal that you want to achieve in the next 90 days.
Coaching tip #2 – Building a strategy roadmap
So now what’s the next step? Most people will want to jump right into action, and that’s a great instinct. It is important to move forward and starting doing things to advance towards your goal. But first take a moment to ask yourself which things should you be focusing on? That’s where the concept of a strategy roadmap comes in.
You can begin by brainstorming the first actions that pop into your mind – call that guy, buy that thing, read that book. Then, take a step back and figure out the larger category – create a board of advisors, build a supply budget and procurement strategy, research industry best practices. Finally, put your categories into a logical, chronological order and prioritize the ones that you absolutely must complete in order to achieve your goal. These items are sometimes referred to as your “critical path,” and taken as a whole, you are now looking at your new strategy roadmap.
Coach yourself action - Set a 5 minute timer to brainstorm as many actions and strategies as you can think of that might help you achieve your goal. When time runs out, take an extra minute to put stars by the Top 3 strategies that are most important/ most likely to get you there.
Coaching tip #3 – From intention to action
Now that you’ve created this list of strategies, it’s time to focus on transforming your intentions into action Start by taking the first step of your critical path and design the actions that will lead to completion. For example, let’s say the first step of your critical path is to “Set a budget” for achieving your goal. Specific actions might include “Discuss budget with my spouse,” or “Review my savings and credit card accounts.”
It is important to make actions as specific as possible. Instead of “Research start-up costs,” set your action as “Research price of raw materials for 1 hour on Sunday.” Instead of “Try to start saving money to start my project,” commit to “Set up an automatic $50 transfer into my savings account.”
Coach yourself action - Write down one action item that you can commit to completing by the end of the week. It can be small, but make it concrete. Perhaps a phone call you’ve been putting off, or even just 15 minutes of online research. Then put it in your calendar for a specific day and time, scheduling a realistic block of time to get it done.
To get your business featured in this column, please email your entrepreneurship, parenting, or work life balance questions to Charlotte executive coach Dr. Jennie Wong at Jennie.Wong@LimelightExecutiveCoaching.com.
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