Reach Your Full Potential in 2018 All of us want to live a life that matters. Ideally, we want to look back at the end of the year and know that we’ve done everything possible to reach our potential. But, how do we make that happen? From my experience, if there are gaps between where you are and where you want to be, it helps to get clear on your process for making progress. Because if you aren’t where you want to be, chances are, your process is broken. And, if you have a process that is somewhat working, knowing how to improve it so that it helps you knock it out of the park, can be a real game changer. That’s certainly how it was for me. I had never been taught how to do “goal setting”. So I would just read blog posts and listen to what other people were doing and then piece something together. It was basically a mess of tips and tricks – definitely not a proven process. Then a few years ago, my friend and former business partner, Michael Hyatt, mentioned that he wanted to share his year end process with the members of a membership that we had built together. I thought it sounded like a great idea and the more we thought about it, the more we realized that this was more than just “one lesson”. And long-story short, it blossomed into a course called 5 Days To Your Best Year Ever. Now here’s the interesting part… After we filmed all the course content, I actually went through the materials myself. In fact, my wife and I did it together. And by intentionally going through the lessons together, EVERYTHING changed. One of the first things I learned from Michael was how to set compelling goals. In order to do this, it helps to know your ‘Why’. I remember Gail Hyatt (Michael’s wife) once telling me, “When you lose your why, you’ll lose your way”. That’s because . . . Your Why Brings Your Goal to Life And I remember the first time my wife, Amy, and I sat down to work through Michael’s process together. It was such an eye opener. When we were finished we had such clarity about the deeper meaning behind all that we wanted to accomplish. It wasn’t just “to make more money” or “to spend more time with the kids”. The meaning was much deeper. It became “to have more money to give to people and causes we’re passionate about” and “to become the biggest positive influence in shaping our kids attitude and perspective”. That shift was directly connected to the “why”. And when you know your ‘Why’, your goals become more exciting. So let me bring it back to you… Do you know the ‘Why’ behind your goals? If not, start there. Otherwise, your goals will become boring words on a page… and you’re much less likely to do anything about them. Speaking of keeping things exciting . . . One of the things I find challenging is that I love to set BIG goals… but in the past, I found it hard to know where to get started. And it meant I didn’t end up doing anything. I became stuck So . . . I learned to 1)Break Big Goals Down into Smaller Little Goals During 2016, this was SUPER important for me. And truth be told, there were still things I wanted to do, but couldn’t squeeze them all in. But, none of them would have happened had I not broken it down. For example, I decided that I was going to start a new company teaching everything I knew about launching, growing, and scaling a membership site. And I had BIG financial goals that I wanted to hit. But staring at the big financial goals just made it feel out of reach. However, once I started to break things down, it became more manageable. First I needed to get experience teaching the content. So I started hosting small workshops. And filling them became a smaller goal. Next I needed to get affiliate partners on board to promote the course when it was ready. So that became another smaller goal. Then it was preparing the launch of the course. Then the course content. Everything was broken down and little by little, it all started to come together. And the punchline is, not only did we hit our goals, but we far exceeded them. I also know the value that comes from only focusing on a few things and doing them really well. So, I’ve learned that it is super valuable to eliminate the excess and first just focus on the essentials. 2)Focus on Fewer Things for Bigger Momentum For me, this is one of THE hardest strategies to implement. Why? Because as an entrepreneur, new, exciting opportunities are EVERYWHERE. And I’m drawn to them like a magnet. It makes the elimination process difficult. Elimination is hard, but it’s necessary. And that leads us to . . . 3)Keep Your Eyes on Your Dreams All Year Long One of the little tricks I learned from Michael was to keep my eyes on those dreams all year long. He taught me that it is super important to keep your goals present. You’ve got to keep them in front of you at all times. So, one of the things that I did was turn my phone wallpaper into a daily reminder. In fact, here is a screenshot of the 2016 goals I was telling you about earlier: By doing this, I would see the goals multiple times a day, right? That little wallpaper enabled me to keep those goals in front of me ALL THE TIME. So, that’s a little hack I recommend for you to do too. Because when you do this, every time you open your phone, your goals will be there to remind you of where you are headed. There are so many wonderful things I learned from Michael Hyatt when it comes to setting and achieving goals. But two of the big ones are: Know your ‘Why’ behind each goal Keep your goals front and center Now here’s the thing… This is just the beginning. That’s why I am SO excited that you are going to have a chance to learn from him too! His book, Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals is coming out on January 2nd. It’s an achiever’s guide to living a life that matters and it teaches you how you can live to your full potential. And it’s also the process that I’ve used the last 4 years to set myself up for a big year. I encourage you to check it out. I believe it will be a game changer for you. I know it was for me. Take a look at Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals and get your copy today.
A Goal Setting Process that Works! : How to Achieve Your Goals Year after Year Goal setting can seem daunting at times, right? But, with the right process in place, what used to be painful can now be easy (and maybe even a little fun too). I used to hate December because the weather gets cold here. The skies get grey… and they stay grey… for what seems like forever! And it’s the time of year when I’d look at my goals. For a long time, December would come and I’d start feeling anxious because I knew I was nowhere near accomplishing my goals – and so it would get me upset. I’d feel awful because I’d realize I was falling further and further behind where I wanted to be. The contrast between the goals that I set in January (at the beginning of the year) and where I actually ended up by December was depressing. There was always this massive gap between the two. After a couple years of hoping things would just “change” and I’d suddenly get better results, I knew that I had to refine my process. The bottom line is that you and I can continue to do things the old way and continue to moan and groan about the results that we’re getting (or not getting)… OR … We can learn a process that works. And that’s what I did. So let me reiterate. If what you’re doing isn’t working for you, you’ve got to… Learn a process that works Here’s the thing… It’s not our fault. We were never taught goal setting in school – at least I wasn’t. And that’s why, for me, my “make shift” goal setting process never worked in the past – no matter how much I read about setting smart goals. It just never happened. However, now, things are totally different and I want to share one little trick with you that made all the difference. But first, let me show you just how well this trick has worked for me. 2016 was, by far, my best year ever. So, here’s what happened. . . From a business standpoint, we launched a whole new business that took off like a rocket ship, far exceeding our goals. That gave us the ability to contribute WAY MORE than we had ever thought to causes that we are passionate about. And that super lights me up. The other thing it did, was give me more time to be with the people that matter most to me – like my wife, Amy, my kids, my family, and my friends. There were seven goals, in total, that I made for 2016. Here’s the actual screenshot from my phone: My 1st goal was to build an e-mail list of two hundred thousand small business owners by December 31, 2016. My 2nd goal was to attract twelve thousand paying members to Platform University by September 30, 2016. That was the goal, but it actually became obsolete, because Michael Hyatt and I, we ended our partnership in February that year, so that I could concentrate on my new business. My 3rd goal was to conduct a two million dollar launch of my membership course and donate two hundred fifty thousand of that to World Teacher Aid, which is our charity that my wife and I run. The goal date for that was October 31, 2016 My 4th goal was to exercise three times per week. Goal 5 was to schedule two ‘couples only’ getaways with Amy by July 31, 2016. Goal 6, to organize one friend get away by October 31, 2016 And, my final goal, #7, was to raise one million dollars for World Teacher aid by December 31, 2016. So, here’s the deal. Of these seven goals that I set . . . I hit or exceeded four of them. One goal I just missed. I didn’t quite hit it, but we were really close (raising $1M for our charity). One became obsolete (that’s the one with Platform University). And, that’s OK. Oftentimes you’ll set goals and then, for whatever reason, like in this case, the goal becomes obsolete and doesn’t matter anymore. And then one goal, I completely missed (adding 200,000 to my email list). Although we put every effort into that one goal . . . I just completely missed. And that happens sometimes too. I made some good headway on this one, but we got started late in the year and I think that was the big difference. Even though I underestimated the time it would take for me, in terms of getting started, I made progress on the one goal that I missed. And guess what? When you reflect on your goals, don’t look at what you didn’t do, but focus on the progress you have made. Overall, I was happy with my progress for the year. And this year, I’ll be reviewing my goals again (I’ve still got a few days before the deadline to squeeze some magic in 😛 ). The point is, I’m able to achieve most of my goals like this, year after year, because of a goal planning process I learned from my friend, Michael Hyatt. When I first started using it, I had my best year ever. And then the next year, I bettered my best. And, the year after that, I bettered my best. And, this year, I will better my best again! Before that. I would always fall short of my goals. Now, I’m constantly hitting them. And now, I’ve got momentum on my side. I’ve got a great track record the last few years because of this process. It’s called Best Year Ever. So, every year I continue to refine the process so that it gets easier and easier for me. And it’s going to get easier and easier for you the more comfortable you get with it. Because then you can begin to tailor it to what you want to accomplish. My recommendation is that you first learn the process and follow it to a tee. That’s exactly what I did. Then, once you’ve got the process dialed in, you can begin adapting it to your own specific needs Michael will be sharing more about the process in this presentation. I want to encourage you to go and follow his process. It works. It has helped turn December around for me in terms of it being a month that I would not look forward to. Now, it is one that I absolutely look forward to. In fact, when a whole bunch of snow gets dumped on us, I go home and build a snowman with the kids. That’s always fun. And when you start to use this process, you’ll have something to look forward to each year too! So, go check it out at Best Year Ever . Disclosure: When you join Best Year Ever, we get a little something for recommending it to you.
Make Every Year Better Than the One Before: 2 Steps for Achieving Big Dreams When it comes to achieving our dreams, the small things matter. From my experience, the small details are the things that can lead to BIG results. And the good news is, it only takes a few steps in the right direction to make a huge difference in your business, in your relationships and ultimately your life. So the question is, what small things matter? Before I get into this, just know that internally, you’re probably going to have the knee jerk reaction of “oh I know this”. But knowing it and applying it to your life are two totally different things. So I encourage you to take it in and then ask yourself about how you could apply it to your business. Deal? Ok let’s go… 1) You need to know what you want to accomplish. Sounds obvious right? But if I asked you specifically what you want, would you be able to tell me? Unfortunately, most don’t. They may have a vague idea. But it’s “fuzzy” at best. Imagine if you jumped in your car and had no idea where you wanted to go? What would be the purpose of getting in the car? (for parents with young kids… you get a “pass” if you answered “to get my kids to sleep” LOL…. but that’s the only real reason you’d get in a car without knowing where you wanted to go). Unfortunately, too many of us live this way in our business and in our daily lives. At best we have rough targets of what we want to hit. Perhaps it’s sales or list growth or retention rates we want to aim for. But they’re too broad. It needs to be specific and clear. They should be so clear that if I asked, you’d be able to tell me right away. And if I asked 3 months from now, you’d say the exact same thing. So that’s the first priority – getting clear on what you want. Without that clarity, you’ll constantly flounder. The most important element I believe you and I need in place to achieve big things in our lives is a goal setting PROCESS. The second most important element you and I need in place is to develop a goal-achieving PROCESS. 2) Have a goal setting process in place. Many times we have clear and specific goals. But we don’t have a process for accomplishing them. As business owners, the goals are not enough. We also need a process for achieving them. For years, I used the same goal-setting process over and over. The problem was, the process was broken. And my goals were terrible. It’s why I used to get anxious towards the end of every year. In fact, I used to hate December, because it would send me into a total tailspin. I’d find myself reflecting on the year realizing that I hadn’t accomplished any of what I set out to do. Naturally, I’d be in a bad mood and would feel awful about things. Add to that the cold weather and grey skies of winter . . . it wasn’t fun. But here’s the “duh moment”… even though I kept getting terrible results, I didn’t make any change to my process. I kept doing the same thing I had always done. I just told myself that I had to try and be more disciplined this year. It was the same thing over and over again. I would start by writing down my goals. AND by doing this, I’d feel really good about them (and yes, my goals were SMART –you know, specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound). But that was never enough. Because fast forward to the end of the year and I’d look at the list and realize that I hadn’t accomplished anything that I had set out to do. Setting goals wasn’t the problem. It was the process of achieving them that was completely broken. One year it dawned on me… if I don’t fix this, I’ll continue to fall further and further behind where I want to be. So I started to work on my process for achieving the goals I would set. Today, my process is much different (and I’m getting far better results). It’s thanks to a process that I learned from Michael Hyatt. It’s designed to set you up for success each year, AND it helps give your goals more context and meaning. Doing this made all the difference for me. So here’s what my process looks like now . . . Every January first, my wife and I leave our home and get a hotel room in Toronto. Now, don’t get any funny ideas (you cheeky monkey!). We’re there to basically plan our entire year 🙂 Doing this away from home has been very important for us because it helped us “block the time”. We tried doing it at home one year and we ultimately got distracted and it wasn’t as effective. The whole process takes about six hours and we follow a specific set of steps guided by Michael. We watch his videos and then he walks us through his Best Year Ever process. Then after each video, he provides an exercise and a series of questions to answer. We reflect individually first. Then we share our answers and reflect together. The crazy thing is, it’s been amazing to see what this has done for our marriage as well. Reflecting and setting goals together has definitely deepened our relationship, because we’re having valuable discussions about our dreams, vision, and what we want to accomplish. And through it, I’ve gotten clear on how I can best support Amy and likewise, how she can best support me. Most importantly, it’s helped us get clear on where we were aligned with our family goals (and where we need further discussion! LOL). But it’s a far healthier way to come at it. But as it relates to my career, Michael’s process has also dramatically improved my “success rate”. Do I hit my goals every time? No. But do I have a higher success rate than before? Heck yeh! So what’s the takeaway with all this? If you and I aren’t satisfied with the results we’re getting, then we need to look at changing the process we’re currently using (just like my old process was not working for me). You’ve got to change it up. You’ve got to find a process that DOES move you forward. Otherwise . . . you guessed it. . . your results are never going to change. I look at that goal list now and it fires me up, because I realize we made so much progress this year. And if I really dig deep, what I’ve realized is that reaching the goal isn’t always the thing that feels the best. It’s making forward progress toward the goals. That’s what brings the greatest satisfaction. So even if I don’t accomplish the goals, I still feel good about them because I’ve made forward progress. These are two small ideas… but they produce big results. Know specifically what you want to accomplish Create a goal achieving process that gives meaning and purpose to your goals I’d love to know more about the processes that you use for achieving your goals. Let me know in the comments. If you have any questions about the process I use, let me know that in the comments too.
