This week’s article is the third of three.
I’m going back to the basics for 2013 and I invite you to join me. This is what I’m doing:
- I’m creating and solidifying routines (or habits).
- I’m setting goals for myself that are supported by strategies and clear plans of action.
- I’m tracking each goal and strategy.
- I’m recognizing what does and doesn’t work for and making adjustments as needed.
Two weeks ago the article covered routines and the last week was about goal setting
Now, on to this week’s article:
Recognize what does and doesn’t work for you and make adjustments as needed
Sometimes things don’t work out quite as we want them to. Maybe you’d really like to get up at 6am every morning to get an early start to your day, but you don’t want to go to bed at 10pm (which would give you 8 hours of sleep). You’ve tried it and it just doesn’t work for you.
Guess what?! It’s not written in stone! If something doesn’t work for you then tweak it and do it a way that does work for you. You are not a slave to your goals! They are there to help you get to where you want to be. If you decide you want to get there a different way, great! Do it a different way.
And, as I mentioned a few times last month (here and here), many times you learn a lot more from your failures than you do from your successes. So, notice that something didn’t work, look at why it didn’t work, tweak the goal (or not) and move on.
Sometimes things work really well. And when that happens we sometimes don’t take the time to recognize the things we did that caused that. Instead we breeze on ahead to the next goal. However, there can be important things to learn from your successes! So, notice when something worked and why it worked. What was different? What did you do right? What did you do wrong that worked out for you?
Adjustments can be made to things that aren’t working for you and they can be made for things that are working for you. I’m not advocating changing everything that’s working, but I am asking you to take a look at what’s working and if you see a way to leverage that, go for it! Also, look for other places you can apply that success.
For example, perhaps one of the reasons a promotion went really well was because you were genuinely excited about it – you just couldn’t wait to share it with others! This is a great place to look at why you were so excited about it. What was it about that promotion that got you all fired up? What would it take to have that excitement or fire about other parts of your business?
So, take a look at what didn’t go well last year and what went really well. What were some of the factors that contributed to those things? How can you use that information when setting your goals or working on your to-do list?
I’d love it if you shared some of your observations on what works and doesn’t work for you in the comments below!