Is Overwhelm Sabotaging Your Success

How to get reduce everyday overwhelm and thrive in business

Remember when you first started in business, you thought it would be the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done. My guess is it’s also one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. At times, owning and running a business can be daunting, stressful and outright overwhelming and for some it becomes all too much. When you have more on your plate than you can handle it can derail even the best of us. If the overwhelm continues you can get to a point of really feeling stuck. 

Owning a business can doesn’t have to be this way. Some people say success is easy, you’ve got to know what steps to take and in what order to take them. When it comes to franchising you’ve been told it’s as simple as “following the system” but what if you’re doing all of that and you’re still stressed, filled with fear, worry and everyday overwhelm? How do you get out of overwhelm and into a place where both you and the business can not only survive but thrive.

It’s one thing to get overwhelmed, its another to stay overwhelmed and as much as we can probably admit to feeling stressed, overloaded and in a state of overwhelm more than once, what we don’t realise is staying stuck in overwhelm is literally robbing you blind of trying to achieve the dreams and goals you’ve set for your business and for yourself.

Overwhelm is simply a state of mind that can sabotage your long-term success. If you are someone who finds yourself very smart and capable but constantly in a state of stress and overwhelm then you are probably doing one of the most common triggers that cause you to become overwhelmed and keep you overwhelmed.

What I’d like to share with you today is 4 key triggers that cause you to get you overwhelmed and the things that keep you there, which ultimately can sabotage your success and then some ways you can overcome everyday overwhelm in your business and your life.

OVERWHELM TRIGGERS

1.     Busyness Addiction & Over Commitment. In other words biting off more than you can chew.

Busyness is literally when you are doing everything you can to move ahead, you are so driven and so compelled to do more and have more that you literally fill your life up with stuff

The key to stopping the busy addiction, is to understand the difference between being busy and being productive. Somewhere in your subconscious mind you haven’t realised that being busy isn’t getting you anywhere and being productive is what it’s going to take to move ahead. People who are busy addicted have a bad sense of time for themselves, they have low boundaries and have no system for doing or completing tasks and projects. Where do you need to say no and make a start to taking bite size chunks? You wouldn’t shove a whole block of chocolate in your mouth would you? My guess is you would break a square or two and eat it in smaller bit size chunks.

2.     Doing it Alone

When we start in business we can be wearing up to 10 or more various hats. We are looking after lead generation, sales, fulfilment, accounts, customer care, marketing and management and more. We become stuck in a rut and want to do it all ourselves and then when it comes to the time to recruit staff and delegate tasks and activities sometimes the mindset of “no one else can do it better than me” can lead to overload and overwhelm as we are trying to be everything to everyone. It’s important to understand that there will always be more to do than you alone can ever get done.

Doing it alone is one of the biggest triggers to overwhelm

Doing it alone for too long costs you and costs the business. It takes it s toll on you, your mind your body – your business. If you’re doing it alone and your business grows rapidly then it will implode on you or it doesn’t flourish because there’s so much going on and you’re doing it all yourself.

3.     Clutter and Disorganisation

If you’re currently spending countless hours looking for something in your office or desk or your environment is messy, cluttered and has no system or sense of order to it chances are you are overwhelmed in some way shape or form. When your environment is cluttered it’s like everything that’s going on in your environment is pulling at your eyes, there’s simply no opportunity to give your mind a break and work with ease.

Clutter in general can create chaos in your mind and your environment. That chaos is one of the biggest contributors to feeling overwhelmed. Take a quick look at the filing systems that support you both electronic and paper filing systems and be sure you make some shifts to clear up the clutter as your environment is dictating your outcome.

4.     Boundary Issues

One of the biggest triggers to overwhelm is not being able to say no and having weak or no boundaries. We do see this mainly in service based businesses but it can also happen in multi location businesses where the owner is managing more staff, attending more meetings etc.

When you don’t value your time, or what’s important to you its easy to lose your boundaries. They can get stretched or worn completely thin. Lose or no boundaries can lead to busyness addiction, complication and extreme overwhelm. There is an easy solution to this and that is stop being a yes person and know when its ok to say no.

 THE FASTEST WAY TO GET OUT OF OVERWHELM

 Overwhelm happens to all of us. What you do when it strikes you starts to sabotage your success. Let’s explore some ways you can eliminate everyday overwhelm:

 ·         Create space and stop overcommitting.
If you make a standard in your business that you only have a certain number of meetings a day or you only work a certain number of days or certain times, then you will become more productive in the time that you do work.  Stretching your commitments out by a day or two will have a massive impact on your levels of overwhelm and will certainly make a big difference in your everyday.

 ·         Learn when it’s ok to say NO .One thing I learned  in business is the more disciplined I am with my time, the more I get done. It’s important to know where your boundaries are being stretched. Most of us have very loose boundaries. New business or marketing ventures and other commitments require time and focus. If you have too many things to manage all at one time you simply won’t be at your best. Spread them out and be clear about how many you will say yes to in a month. Here’s a tip: ask yourself; “If I say Yes to this, how is it going to get me closer to my ultimate goal? How will this make me money? What will I be saying NO to if I say YES to this?”

 ·         Set Higher Standards and Value You

A commitment to high standards will always serve and support you.

  • Self-care & Time Out. Make sure you get enough sleep and fuel your body with good nourishment and exercise every day.
  • Systems. Systems are essential to reducing overwhelm for you, your team and the overall business. What systems do you need to support you in operating at a higher standard
  • Under commit and over perform. Be willing to start under committing and you will be amazed at how your performance levels will soar.

          Stop Doing it Alone –Stop wearing all the hats in your business and be willing to get the right help to take the pressure off. Having others support you in the day to day operations of the business will support faster growth, increased profits and a reduction in overwhelm.

 ·         Set realistic expectations for how much you can get done. One of the Overwhelm Triggers is thinking that you can get everything done in a short period of time. Start looking at what’s already on your calendar BEFORE you set deadlines for yourself. If you have to double the time estimated on all tasks until you start truly knowing how long things actually do take then do it.

 ·         Simplify how you run your business. If you have a habit of complicating things then you might need help with simplifying your operations. Complication leads to overwhelm so it’s time to get back to Keeping It Simple Sweetheart. J Sometimes the simplest solution is often the best.

 ·         Schedule tasks in your calendar. Develop a habit of scheduling your tasks from checking email and voice mails to completing other tasks. This will prevent you from running your day from your To Do List or worse still your INBOX.

 ·         Release things that no longer serve you. Letting things go be challenging until you realise that if it’s no longer in serving and supporting your bigger vision then it’s just holding you back. This can be staff, your emotions, your habits, your clients and even your family and friends.

 ·         Start your day off right. One of the best ways to prevent overwhelm is to start your day with a exercise and or meditation. When you set your mind and body on the right frequency for the day your brain will hone in on better choices and your body will feel energised.

 ·         Take time away from your business to recharge every week. One of the best ways to prevent overwhelm is to make you take time out every week to really to recharge your batteries.

 

Get More out of Business and Get More out of Life

How much do like what you do right now to make money? Do you wake up at three in the morning, and can’t sleep because you are just so eager and excited to get going on your work? Such people are happy people, and very often they get either rich, famous, or both.

If you don’t have this kind of passion for what you do, you’re wasting your time and your life. Even if your job pays well, hating that job is like living a kind of ‘half-life’. You suffer through the work week and live for the weekends.

I urge you to quit the job you have right now, or sell your business if you hate it, and find something you can be passionate about. If you are just not in a position to move on from the business you are in then I urge you to find the passion within what you are currently doing. Re-ignite it. They say if you do what you love, the money will follow.

Even if you don’t really hate your job or your business, but don’t particularly care for it either, I still say you’re wasting your time. You’re merely ‘running out the clock’ on your life as you wait for retirement. It is said that an artist never retires. Why should they when they love what they do? Their work is their play. But it shouldn’t be true of only artists. The world of business can provide all the fun, creative stimulation and joy an artist gets from his or her work.

All this leads up to an important business concept I’m going to tell you about right now. It’s this: You must be aggressive and proactive, rather than passive and reactive, in order to create higher levels of success. A passive business owner may have a steady supply of customers who support the business, but that business never really takes off to achieve spectacular sales and profits. A reactive business owner only makes a change when something negative happens. They react and sometimes not to their best advantage. If things are going along fine, they’ll just continue to go through the motions.

A proactive business owner never settles for ‘good enough.’ Even if business is brisk, the proactive entrepreneur takes aggressive action to make things even better. For example, a proactive business person makes a single successful sale to a customer, he won’t rest until he does everything he can to make second, third, fourth, and maybe even more sales. That means he or she has to take action. They’ve got to develop new products for those new sales. They’ve got to reach out to the customer with direct mail, a phone call, or key advertisements. They’ve got to come up with a ‘can’t refuse offer’ for those additional sales. They’ve got to test the market to find out where more business can be squeezed out.

I have mentioned this before and it’s worth mentioning again. There are two types
of business people I have found over the years of consulting and coaching. Those
who are interested and those who are really committed to their success. Those who are interested will do what is convenient to them and they wonder why they don’t seem to progress as fast as others do. Those who are committed do whatever it takes to realise their dreams and goals and more.

Time to Take Action

Why not get out your customer list right now? Select the names of 20 of your best customers. Instead of just waiting for them to come in again—get proactive and go after them. Give them a call to thank them for their business, and then tell them about the new product or service you know will make their lives better. Or send them a postcard with a hot offer. Send them a sales letter or send a live person out to visit them. Whatever you do, don’t lay back and be passive. Sure they might come in again and buy from you, at some time on some day, whenever! When you take a proactive stance, you can’t stand waiting! You go out and get them!

I promise you this ‘20 Customer’ exercise will open your eyes. You’ll be amazed at how many extra sales you get, sales you might not have had without taking aggressive action.

The only fuel for a proactive, aggressive business stance is passion, a love for what you do. If you hate your job or the business you are in, you may get aggressive and proactive for a while, but you’ll quickly burn out and go back
to ‘dull normal’ mode.

So do whatever it takes to shake up your life and get passionate about what you need to do to make money. When you do, you’ll make money, and better yet, you’ll have fun while you’re doing it!

Whatever You Do, Stop Wasting Time

Why do you think banks traditionally placed clocks outside their buildings? Because they know that time is money. In fact, it’s with banks that this whole idea of calculating interest rates, based on time, got started. If you have a loan, it’s that inevitable, unstoppable ticking of the clock which is determining how much money you owe in interest payments.

If you really want to look into this more deeply, read up on the history of capitalism and banking. You’ll be amazed. Our entire monetary system rests upon a modern concept of time, which was given to us by astronomers, such as Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. Indeed, it is Sir Isaac Newton’s ‘clockwork universe’ that has shaped our modern conception that time is money, perhaps more than anything else.

Ever wonder why we say: “How do you plan to spend your time?” It’s because time and money are intimately tied to each other. Okay, had enough of the history lesson? Want me to get to the point? The point is that the statement that time is money is far more than a cliché. It’s a basic reality because of the fundamental way we do things.

And I can’t make this statement strongly enough: NOTHING IS MORE VALUABLE THAN
YOUR TIME! At the start of each new day, you are issued a fresh 24 hours, that’s 1400 minutes and 86,400 seconds. If you think of each of those hours minutes and seconds as having a monetary value, and they do, every one you waste is money lost forever. You must start paying attention to your time each day, and how you spend it.

How much actual time do you commit to making money with your business? You don’t know if you don’t pay attention. If you start keeping a daily log of how much time you actually spend on money making activities, you may be in for a surprise. What about all that time spent chatting around the water cooler or the coffee machine? It can be nice, but it earns you nothing. Do you waste time with people? Most do. If you decide to spend 15 minutes shooting the breeze about the World Cup, even if it’s with a client, that time is lost money. And we all know people that are what I call ‘dumpers.’ These are people who call you up or visit personally and steal 20 or 30 minutes just telling you about their problems. It’s great for them because they feel better after unloading on you, at the expense
of your precious time. But you get nothing, except for the reputation of being a ‘good listener.’

There’s nothing especially wrong with that, but when it’s time to conduct business, then you should be doing business. I suggest that no less than 85 per cent of your day be focused on making money, and making things happen for your business. The biggest reasons people waste time is because:

A. They have not internalised and do not remain conscious of the fact that time is money.
B. They simply aren’t paying attention to where they spend their time

Time to Take Action

Play a mental game with yourself, starting at minute one of your next day. Every 15 minutes or so, stop and ask yourself: “Is what I am doing right now moving me forward toward my earning goals?” Do it every 15 minutes.

Set an alarm clock if you have to. A wrist watch with a timer on it that beeps is great for this or even your blackberry. The idea is to shake up your conscious and unconscious mind. Wake yourself up as to how you’re spending your time! Put yourself on notice: “I will stop wasting time!” or “I always maximise my time!” The thing about wasting time is that it’s insidious. It creeps up on us while we’re not paying attention. Before we know it, days, weeks and months are lost in nonproductive activity. You can really get on top of this by keeping a time log for a week or so and recording every activity you do in your business and the amount of time it takes. You will be amazed about how much time you really do spend on non-productive tasks.

Once you get aware of this, once you awaken to the idea that every moment counts you’ll stop wasting time, and you’ll start getting things done twice as fast, three times as fast, or even faster. When that happens, I promise you that you’ll notice a magical effect. You’ll start getting a lot more done and again, this
will seem magical you’ll start making a lot more money and start enjoying a lot more time freedom!

Managing your time during work actually frees up more time to spend with family, loved ones and your favourite non-work activities. So stop wasting time. Ultimately, you’ve only been allotted a certain amount of time on this planet, so why waste it?

Promote Your Business for Free

How would you like to get twice as many new customers for one-third of the cost of anything you’ve ever done before – or even for FREE? If that sounds out of reach to you, please find a quiet spot and read this article very carefully. You are about to learn an affordable and effective way to get new customers, extra sales and leads for your business.

In today’s economic climate, in fact in any economic climate, people are very cautious about dealing with strangers. This means, that no matter how good your product or service is, you have to overcome two major hurdles.

1. You have to convince the purchaser that your product or service is what they really want and need. (Remember, people buy more of what they want, rather than more of what they need).

2. You have to assure them that your company will deliver as you promise. In other words, that they can trust you. To some extent you may overcome these hurdles with a money-back guarantee or some sort of a free trial.

However, you’ll do far, far better if you:

Stop trying to do business with strangers

Let’s face it. It’s hard. It’s expensive, and it can be draining on you and your staffs’ energies. After all, to win the trust of a person who doesn’t know you takes time and effort. And at the end of it all, you still can’t be sure if you’ll get their business or not. However, having the trust of a person is crucial if they are going to buy from you. That’s why the easiest sales are to people who have already bought from you, or from referral business. So how do you get someone’s trust in a way that won’t break the bank? Quite simply like this…

Instead of approaching prospective customers who don’t know you, get someone else to introduce you first. Of course, being introduced to someone is no guarantee of a lifelong relationship. However, what it does do, is give you the chance to state your proposition. In other words, the other person is more likely to listen to you and give you a chance to sell yourself and what you have to offer.

Now you may be wondering, ‘Why would another business want to introduce me and what I’m selling?’ There are a number of reasons why someone may want to recommend you. Here’s a few of them:

1. They may recommend you if you have given them value far above and beyond what they expected, and they like you and your product.

2. Maybe they’ll do it because they want you to introduce them to your customers.

3. Maybe they’ll do it because if their customers buy your products or services, they’ll then need more of their product or service as a result. This is especially true if you show your customers how to grow their business and get more customers. As they grow, you get more business from them.

4. They may do it because you pay them to introduce you or you offer them an incentive.

5. Or they may do it because they know their customers will want your product or service and that they’ll get goodwill and thanks from their customers for letting them know about it.

Before I show you how to apply this knowledge in your business let me share a very important fact with you: Every single person you want to reach, is already someone else’s customer. Which means they are already currently buying products and services similar to what you offer. Providing that the business they are buying from is doing a good job, these customers will trust a recommendation from that business.

Here is an example of how it could work.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you have just released a really hot new marketing manual. This manual is full of information and materials to help you increase your business.

Now, let’s suppose the people who have invested in your manual are really switched on business owners and professionals, who have as their customers and friends, other business owners. And these switched on people understand that if they make this money making information available to their customers, then their customers will learn how to get more business, and they in turn will also benefit. Imagine this, you are an accountant, a printer, or any supplier to other businesses and your customers double their business. What happens to your business?

Navigating the Rapids of Business

Navigating the rapids of business

Have you ever been white water rafting? in 1994, my late husband and i decided to be adventurous and give white water rafting a go.

We were on a short holiday. After all, we couldn’t take too much time off as we were  in business for ourselves and there were only  so many days we believed we could be away from the business before things would surely go wrong. This was our little getaway so whilst in the midst of relaxation and “away time” we decided to experience the thrill and excitement of white water rafting.

Now as beginners, our job was to sit in the raft, hold on tight, use the oars when we were instructed to, scream a little, feel terrified and experience a sense of thrill at the same time. Whilst we navigated our way around the rocks, through the rapids, we had one ultimate objective: stay in the raft until we made it to the calmer waters below.

At one point our raft did tip and after those few panicking moments we all eventually managed to get back into the raft, coughing and splattering as we climbed back in. It was terrifying, yet we found ourselves laughing with adrenalin rushing throughout our bodies as we got back in the raft secretly wanting to do it all over again.

As a team we had to work together, aligning our actions and our focus directing the raft and maneuvering it through to the calmer waters below. Every action required quick thinking, clear strategy and zero procrastination. Yes, at times we were uncertain, not knowing what would come next and whether the next move would take us further out of our comfort zone.

At other times we were on top of the world and Masters of white water rafting. Once in calm waters, we wanted to do it again and take our experience to the next level. “Okay, who’s ready for the next level?” the instructor would ask. There was no turning back once we had made the decision to go for it and give the next level a go. We were fearful of what the unknown adventure would be like, but moving to the next level requires a certain type of attitude – ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!’

Operating a business is a bit like white water rafting. At times it’s scary, hectic, and sometimes unbelievably out of control.

It takes you out of your comfort zone and pushes you into very unknown waters. At other times, it’s exciting, challenging and ultimately rewarding.

The key to navigating your way through business successfully is the same as navigating your raft through the rapids.

Once you know how and what to do, it’s important to be sure you implement that knowledge so that you arrive at calmer waters with confidence and without too many knocks, bumps, cuts and bruises. It’s about making the right moves at the right time and in the right order, so that when you are ready to move to the next level you can do so with confidence.

One of the keys to success in business is how you handle each stage of the journey. In our case, with white water rafting, each stage represented the starting point, the rocky road of the rapids, the free falling down the dips, and the calm waters below. Success was achieved as a result of many things aligning together, the quick maneuvering, the quick decisions and action-taking before arriving at your destination. The destination is not the end of course; it is just the beginning, as you take your experience to new and higher levels. Business is the same. Once you reach a certain goal, milestone, or outcome, it’s not the end; it’s just the beginning of something bigger, better and more exciting.

Doing the right things in the right order is crucial to success. Being sure you take consistent action every day and with a big focus on income generating activities and not just any activity is a key component to building the business of your dreams.

I believe one of the key elements to achieving success is having an open mind and being committed to doing whatever it takes to learn new skills and knowledge, and following through by implementing that new found knowledge and skill set.

What is your motivation? What is your motive for action?

Growth starts to happen when you extend yourself beyond your comfort zone and beyond the edge. You must lean just over the edge every day to achieve exactly what it is you want. Extend yourself. Have the courage to push yourself beyond your own fears, embracing them so that you can make your life and your business phenomenal.

Make a commitment to develop yourself and learn whatever is necessary to be the best. Strengthen every weakness until they become your greatest strength.

Stop Blaming and complaining and Just Get on With it!

Have you ever been in a position where it was easier to blame outside circumstances or someone else for your shortfalls? It is unfortunate that for most of us it is quite a natural habit to blame outside circumstances and events for our lack of results. Because of our past programming and conditioning, many are living a very average way of life because they have chosen to accept that this is just the way life is. If you are someone who is convinced that your circumstances are because of the actions of others or outside circumstances, may I encourage you to open your mind and be prepared to make a decision today to change that level of thinking or to change your current circumstances.

Think about it. How would your life or business change if you knew you were the only one responsible for your success? Not your franchisor, not anyone else, just you.

There would be a lot more doing and a lot less complaining and blaming, wouldn’t there? There would also be a lot more people living the life they truly deserve.

Learn to replace complaining with being proactive and taking action. If you find yourself in a situation that you don’t like, either make it work or simply leave. The worst thing you can do is stay and then complain later about it. Stop missing the pieces of the puzzle! They’re right in front of you.

You are the only one responsible for your success! If you don’t have all of the pieces yet to build whatever it is you want, then it’s your responsibility to acquire them. The world doesn’t owe you anything. You have to create what you want.

Knowing you are responsible for your success and doing what it takes to be a success are two different things. In the past I always knew what I had to be doing to achieve higher levels of success, though

I found myself not always doing those things consistently enough to produce the consistent results I wanted. My results would either be fantastic or just plain average. I started to see a clear pattern forming and it was a pattern I didn’t like. I set out on a path to really make a change in what I was thinking and doing so that my business and my life could progress forward and produce the consistent results I wanted every day. This was the time I truly took ownership of building a new foundation, taking a new direction and committing to taking consistent action towards the success I desired.

What can you do right now to take true ownership of the direction and success of your business? Taking your business to the next level need not be complicated nor does it require excessively long hours or extremely hard work. What it does take is a commitment to your success, a commitment to taking consistent daily action, and doing the right things in the right order.

Your Beliefs & Thoughts Affect The Results in Your Business and Life

Your Beliefs & Thoughts Affect The Results in Your Business and Life.

They say if you believe you can, you can, and if you believe you can’t then you’re probably also right.

I am sure most of you have heard this before. However, what are you doing to improve and change your beliefs and thoughts in order to bring about different results in your business and your life?

Everything you do in life will create a result. Even if you do nothing you will still get a result. Our beliefs which have been formed over short and long periods of time determine the actions we are taking in our business on a daily basis. These actions be that positive or negative is what is ultimately determining the results we have in our business today.

How happy are you with the results your business is currently producing?

Most of us associate positive thinking and changing daily habits with our personal life and forget to transfer those positive habits, thoughts and daily actions into our business. For some it just seems too hard. These are all excuses. If this sounds like you (someone making a lot of excuses) it’s these excuses that have produced the results that are your current reality.  It’s vital you don’t let your past results dictate your current thoughts though. If you do, your results will repeat themselves.

If you are not currently happy with the results you are getting in your business then perhaps it’s time to consider bringing about change to your daily thoughts, feelings and actions. You are going to have to change the thoughts first in order to change your results. You will be amazed at the difference just this change can bring to your business and your life and you will wonder why you didn’t focus on it sooner.

We have become such busy beings in such a busy society that we tend to be just doing and talking about what we don’t want rather than focusing on what we do want. It takes a lot of discipline to focus purely on what you do want, however I can guarantee you once you do just that you will be happy with the results you start to see.

The average person has 25,000 thoughts every day. Unfortunately they are the same thoughts day after day after day. Have you ever had a day off and found yourself automatically driving to work? It happens and all to often I must say. This is because most of us live a habitual life and you don’t have to put much thought into a habit. So make a commitment to changing your habits. Drive a different way to work. Change some ways you do things at work, and start being aware of your thoughts and feelings. By changing consistently your results will also change.

So here’s my first tip for you in creating better results in your business and also your life.

Focus on what you want, rather than on what you don’t want.

Slow and steady will win the race, so go easy on yourself in the first few weeks or even months, if you find yourself falling back into some old habits. Acknowledge them and move forward, is the best way to deal with them. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day so I encourage you to set yourself daily targets for improvement. These could be on a personal level and also in some areas of your business. No matter what area they are in, it’s the Daily Consistent Improvement that will make a difference to your long term success.  1% improvement every day will produce a 365% improvement over the course of one year. The challenge so many of us face is we do nothing at all and wonder why we are in the same position we were in a year before.

With all this said you have to be willing to change and willing to learn new habits along the way.

I have this quote by Albert Einstein” on the wall in my office as a constant reminder that if I want something to change in my business I must change my level of thinking first.

“All conditions and all circumstances in our lives are a result of a certain level of thinking.

When you want to change the conditions and the circumstances, we have to change the level of thinking that is responsible for it. 

Here’s some ways you can start making a change in your business and life.

The 7 Steps To Achieving What You Want

  1. Change Your Thoughts First In Order To Change Your Results
  1. Know What You Want!   Confucius says, “ man who aims at nothing is sure to hit it!” be sure you know what you wanting to achieve in your life and in your business.  Make sure you write down your goals.
  1. Know Why You Want It.  If the why is strong enough the how will fall into place.
  1. Create A Plan Of Action
  2. It’s important to chart your course of action. By creating a plan of action you will go in the direction of your goals a lot faster.  Make sure you have a time frame for what you want. This will ensure the actions you are taking every day are in fact taking you closer to your goal and not further away from it.
  1. Take Action  You will be surprised at how many people create action plans for their goals and then fail to take the necessary action required to see it come to reality in their life. Take Action, you will be amazed at how much you will achieve.
  1. Monitor and Measure By monitoring where you are at with the attainment of your course you will be able to adjust your course of action where necessary. By not knowing where you are going it’s very difficult to make a change if and when it’s needed.

A friend of mine says: “Sleeping is for dreaming , being awake is for living your dreams”

I encourage you to start focusing on changing your thoughts, taking the necessary action and living your dreams today!

Don’t Just Set Goals, Achieve Them!!

“Goals give your business and your life direction.
Taking consistent daily action at the right time and in
the right order will then help you achieve your goals
easily and effortlessly.”
Tania Allen, Founder,
Vision Alliance.

We are all familiar with the art of setting goals.  Like most business owners, I’m sure by now you may have set some goals for the next six or 12 months.  You have made a promise to yourself to do things differently, work more efficiently perhaps and of course make more money.  Setting goals is the easy part.  So how do you go from being a goal setter to someone who actually achieves their goals easily and effortlessly?

Achieving your goals comes easier when we know where we are heading.  Goals are like a destination.  They are where you want to go.

Without goals, you simply cannot arrive at a destination, and if you don’t know where you are going then how will you ever know what actions you need to take to achieve higher levels of success and achievement.  It would be fair to say then: Goals give your business and your life direction.  Taking consistent daily action at the right time and in the right order will then help you achieve your goals easily and effortlessly.

If you look around you, you will notice successful people have very different habits.

They think, and do things differently.  They are however no different to you or I.  We can achieve what they do and more.  They just have particular habits that anyone can apply.

Here are some key essentials to help you build the momentum so that you get closer to realising your full potential and getting  closer to achieving your dreams and goals.

Know your why

Why you want to achieve your goals will always play an important role in whether you will achieve them or not.  When setting your goals the stronger your why, the more committed you will be to doing whatever it takes to achieve them.

Set holistic and balanced goals

Successful people set goals in all areas of their business and life.  When working on your goals be sure you develop goals in six areas of life: relationships, spiritual, contribution, financial, health and business.

By pursuing goals in each area, you will create a more balanced and integrated life.

Be clear about what you want

All goals must be clear and concise, so when setting your goals be specific about what it is you want.

Aim high

Most of the time we are all aiming too low.

It’s time to get out of your comfort zone.  As the now-clichéd saying goes: Shoot for the stars, if you miss you’ll still be on the moon.

Make your goals slightly unreasonable; in other words, don’t allow your (perceived) limitations to get in the way.  Don’t allow your old conditioning to stop you from going after what you really want.

Write your goals in detail

Just the act of writing down goals sets the process in motion, so be specific.  The more information you include the more probable the final result will be.  By being as accurate as possible you invoke some of the natural laws of the universe in your favour as well as getting your brain to work for you in the most efficient way possible.  It’s always a good idea to follow the SMARTA criteria

(Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time bound Actionable) when setting goals and be sure you always set a date for achievement.

By writing your goals down you will be much clearer on where you are heading.

Look at it every day, stick it on your fridge, or your computer, it can be a picture, the words, whatever will motivate you to keep striving to achieve your goal.

Make your goals consistent with your values

Most people don’t do what they value first and therefore find themselves stressed and out of alignment.  Create a list of your highest values and then create your goals around them.  This will give you a sense of being on purpose consistently.

Know the consequences

It’s very important to look at the consequences of achieving the goal.  Ask yourself when setting your goals: “How will achieving this goal affect me or others?  Is this outcome good for me and others.”  Not all goals will have positive effects on others so it’s important you understand the positives and possible negatives to achieving your goals.

Review your goals daily

This is an important part of achieving success and must become routine.  Review your list of goals each morning when you wake up.  Visualize your completed goals and how your life looks and feels as a result.

Each night before you go to bed, repeat the process.  This is a great way to train your brain to expect your goals to materialize.

Create a Plan and take Consistent Daily Action

This is in fact the most important element to achieving your goals.  It’s okay to know where you are headed and what you want to achieve however if you don’t get off your backside and take the necessary action to make it happen then nothing will happen at all.  Be sure the action you take is consistent.  Get into a daily habit of knowing what actions you need to take and in what order you need to take them in order to move closer to achieving your goals.

Take some time now to get clear on your goals and create a plan, once you have your goals worked out you need to ‘reverse engineer’ them starting with the end in mind and working back to the starting point.

Check your Progress and Celebrate your Wins

Goals by nature are high achievements in life, and sometimes it can seem too hard to reach them, we lose motivation and give up!

Break your goals into smaller ‘milestones’ so you can celebrate your wins along the way.  It’s important to measure your progress to determine if you have gone off course.  Measuring your progress regularly will enable you to shift back on course quickly with minimum disruption to your momentum.  Keeping a check on your goals is also important as sometimes goals change so you can bend and flex where you need to, moving the goal to meet your changed conditions, requirements or intentions.

Don’t get discouraged

You will either achieve your goal, or you will gain insight into whatever is in the way of its achievement.  This is not a setback; rather, it is part of your forward progress.  Stay focused on what you want to achieve and you will find ways to solve difficulties or break through barriers.  Celebrate every success and before you know it, you’ll have to make a whole new list for ‘next level achievement!’

Finally, be committed!

There’s a big difference between being interested in achieving your goals or being committed to their achievement.  Those who are interested tend to do what is convenient, what is easy and what everyone else does.

Those who are committed will be able to achieve whatever it is they want no matter want, because they will learn what they need to learn, they will rehearse what they need to rehearse, they will practice and they will do whatever is needed to be done.

Committed people don’t have excuses; they relentlessly give up all their excuses and the reasons why they don’t have what they want.  They get rid of their excuses and they stop blaming  their outside circumstances and  put their attention on how they will and how they can achieve their goals.

So the most important question I encourage you to ask yourself today is: Are you Interested or Committed in Achieving Your Goals?

If you need some help and support in gaining clarity around setting and achieving your goals, email tania@vision-alliance.com to receive a Complimentary Goal Achiever Pack valued at $97.

 

Generating Leads

Your aim is to generate leads and opportunities and convert these into increased revenues to your business. This article outlines some of the challenges you may be already facing and highlights some quick simple steps of how you can generate more leads into your business.

In my experience one of the fundamental challenges most business owners face is not being able to generate enough leads into the business. Without a consistent supply of leads into any business, the business is usually faced with poor cash flow and finds it difficult from one month to the next.

You may have already experienced this and you now can be in a position where you have the opportunity to change what’s going on.

If you want to create amazing results in your business, and want to turn your vision into reality, the only way this can happen is if you are fully accountable for your success and are responsible for the actions you take on a daily basis.

Leads are prospects or potential customers.

It’s important though to attract quality leads into the business and not just any lead as this can waste your valuable time and money.

Your marketing efforts will determine the quality of the leads you bring into your business and the challenge businesses face in this area is 80% of all marketing doesn’t meet the expectation of the business owner.

Try not to limit yourself when it comes to advertising and marketing your business.

Traditional marketing methods include local paper advertising and emailing.

Opportunities let outside the square and can include strategies such as, building your referral networks.

Ads and direct mail are only the beginning!

They are important, however they should not be the only source used for generating leads for your business.

Not all lead-generating techniques are created equal either. Some techniques will work well for a certain business, and those same strategies won’t work for another. Much is dependent on your type of business, your location, timing, how well you apply the lead generating strategy, and a host of other variables that tend to make marketing an inexact science. Therefore it’s important to test and measure each strategy to find out what works, and make it work.

So here’s a brief look at what you can do to start bringing more quality leads into your business.

Firstly start thinking WHO, WHERE, WHAT, HOW & WHY when it comes to marketing your product or service.

Who are my ideal clients / market?

Understand who he/ she is and why.

Where are we going to find our clients?

Why will they buy from me? What makes us unique? Remember people shop on value and emotion.

Now you know who you want to target,

Create a Lead Generation Action Plan for the month

  • Listing at least 2 to 6 different lead generating strategies,
  • What steps you need to take to implement the strategy.
  • Who will complete the task/s required  to complete the strategy, and
  • Be sure you also have a Due date for the activity so you stay on track for the month.

Daily Consistent Action will produce results in your business that you need!

Here is an example of a lead generation action plan. (Click the image for a bigger version)

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Increasing Your Personal Effectiveness and Revenues

If you want to grow your business revenues much faster than you are now, it’s important to start focusing on the right activities in your business.

The key in achieving personal effectiveness is to focus the majority of your time on high- impact, revenue-generating activities that are most essential to your business. To increase your overall effectiveness, it’s important to know and understand how to accurately identify where you spend your time.

The 80:20 Rule

I’m sure you have heard of Vilfredo Pareto or at least Pareto’s Law. Pareto came up with an economic principle that said 20% of the people typically own 80 percent of the wealth. Two decades later, management guru Joseph Juran introduced this “80/20 Rule” to the business world, calling it Pareto’s Principle, or Pareto’s Law. Over the years, Pareto’s Principle has been applied to many areas of business, concluding that 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our results, or 20% of your team produces 80% of your results.

For you, this means that to increase revenues it’s important you focus on the right activities in your business and then hire, barter or outsource people to do everything else.

Multiply your business revenues and personal effectiveness many times over using the 80:20 rule.

Suppose your business has 25 different activities, such as sales, marketing, operations, finance, customer service and more. According to the 80:20 rule, 20% of those activities will generate 80% of your revenues. Conversely, 80% of those activities will generate only 20% of your revenues. Doing the math shows that 5 out of the 25 activities will produce four-fifths of all the income your business generates.

Now, assume that your business takes in $50,000 a month. According to the 80:20 rule, 5 of your 25 activities would account for $40,000 of your monthly revenue, which works out to $8,000 per activity. Conversely, 20 of the activities would produce only $10,000 each month, which works out to be just $500 per activity. Sixteen times 500 equals 8,000 so your top 5 revenue-producing activities are 16 times more effective than the bottom 20.

Suppose you took it even further and moved the 80/20 ratio to 90/10, so that only 10% of your activities produced 90% of your revenues. That would make you 81 times more effective than you currently are now. Merely by focusing your time and attention on the five or ten activities that have the highest impact on your business, you can increase your revenues and income by 16 to 81 times!

Here’s the million-dollar question: what specific activities should you be focusing on?

Here’s a brief three-step process to help you work more effectively in your business.

Step 1. Identify your Passion and Purpose

Passion is a very powerful emotion and is infectious. When you express passion, people are automatically attracted to it. When you’re passionate about what you do, your product or service speaks for itself. So the first big question is: what are you passionate about. What do you love doing?

Next, look at your purpose. Are you in business merely to earn an income, accumulate wealth or do you have a strong desire to help others and be a service to others?

When you can match up your purpose and passion, magic happens. It puts you in front of all the others who have lukewarm enthusiasm for what they do. What is your purpose in business, how does it match up with your passion, and how do you combine the two to make the world a better place?

Step 2. Identify Your Strengths

The biggest mistake business owners make is thinking they have to do everything themselves. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. In order to succeed in business, you must get very clear about your unique abilities and then focus on them almost to the exclusion of everything else.

You will become a better business person when you identify your strengths and spend most of your time using them to perform the highest-impact activities in your business.

Step 3. Manage Your Time

When you’re a business owner it’s difficult to manage your time. What you can do is manage your activities by tracking where you spend your time on a daily basis and using that information to help you focus on high-impact activities.

One of your most important tasks is identifying the highest income-generating activities in your business and devoting a minimum of 80 percent of your time to those activities. This principle works whether you’re a “solo-preneur” with one product or service or a larger operation with a larger product or service offering and a team to support your daily efforts.

Monitor & Measure Your Activities

You can’t manage what you don’t monitor or measure so your first step is to identify where and how you spend your time. It’s important you identify what you are currently doing and what you should be doing, based on your highest income-producing activities.

For the next two weeks write down every activity you do in all areas of your business and how much time you spend doing it.

High income-producing activities include making a sale or something that leads directly to a sale. High-impact activities include producing a great website or making sure that your ad copy is properly written to make sales for you. These activities don’t directly make a sale, but they play an important role in generating revenue. To determine whether an activity represents one of your unique abilities, ask yourself two questions: What drives me crazy when other people don’t do it as well as me? What do I play at that other people consider work?

Track all your activities over a two-week period, noting how much time you spend on each activity each day. Before the two weeks is up, you will probably begin to see that you need to be spending more time on some activities and less on others. You will also begin to see that there are lots of activities that you should not be doing. This doesn’t mean they don’t need to be done, only that you should not be doing them.

What activities should you be doing? For the entrepreneur and small business owner, the highest income-producing activity is generating revenue. Every day, your primary focus should be on how your company will generate more revenue. If you’re not spending a minimum of 80% of your time on income- generating activities, your business will struggle to grow and increase revenues.

What about all the other activities that are just as crucial to your business? Here’s the challenge: For a small business, generating revenue must come first and management second. Otherwise your business will never grow to the point where management becomes as important as sales.

Revenues are consistently increased when the owner leverages his or her personal strengths through the use of other people’s unique talents and abilities. In other words, successful business owners focus on their highest income-generating activities and then build great teams around them to do all the other important activities they don’t do well.

It’s a fact, you don’t have to do everything yourself. Start focusing your efforts away from working in the business and focus them toward working ON it.

Make a commitment to yourself to spend one hour each day to identify which activities you need to be doing and tracking how you spend your time. Over the course of 365 days, that adds up to the equivalent of nine 40-hour weeks, or two solid months of working on your business rather than in it. Just imagine what you could achieve with that kind of concentrated effort!

Time to Take Action

  • Keep an hourly log for two weeks of your business and personal activities during your working hours
  • Determine which are the real high income and high impact producing activities vs. the tedious menial few
  • Take consistent action and maintain focus every day to ensure you are focusing on the high income and high impact producing activities.

To receive an expanded whitepaper on this topic including a full worksheet on increasing effectiveness please email tania@vision-alliance.com or call Tania on 1300 76 49 20.

The 6 D’s of E-mail Management

This article is based on a portion of an Expert Interview with Laura Stack, author of “Leave the Office Earlier.” and is also based on personal experience.

How many items are on your to-do list? And how many of those will you actually cross off today?

Time management and planning are foundational to personal productivity, yet many people don’t approach each day with a plan, and as a result end up wasting valuable time in a reactive mode. Others at least have a to-do list, but typically attack the easy items first, which means the important items don’t get done very fast!

Of course, one of the big enemies of personal productivity today is e-mail. The constant flow of e-mail alerts during the day can destroy your concentration and cause you to flit from one project or crisis to the next. But you do not have to work in this state of e-mail-induced ADD.

Let’s face it, most e-mails are not that important. And almost none require you to drop everything. Set the expectation that you will respond within 24 hours, then live up to that standard. You can do this by setting a time to look at your e-mail twice a day, say every four hours. But first you have to break the e-mail addiction. The key is to turn off all your alerts if you are using Outlook for example or if you are like our company and have made the switch to the Cloud and are using Google Apps, it’s as simple as working from your calendar and Tasks list rather than your email.
Your next step is to be disciplined about looking at your e-mail for a half hour or so twice a day, and ruthlessly applying the six Ds of e-mail management: Learn how to control and manage your emails rather than allowing them to control and manage you.

 

Let’s take a closer look at the six Ds of e-mail management:
Discard it. This one’s easy. Make a snap decision and hit the delete key. Before you hit the delete key you may wish to “unsubscribe” from future mailings to ensure you eliminate the time spent on hitting delete.

Delegate it. Can someone else handle it? Is the email for someone else? Simply forward it with a quick note, and then move it to a personal folder (see below for more on personal folders).

Do it. If you can handle it in three minutes, do it and be done with it. You won’t have to come back and mentally process it again, which is a victory.

Date it. This is for e-mails that you need to reply to, but can’t right now. Many people get stuck here, but there’s a simple remedy if you know your software. In Outlook and also in Google Apps for Business, for instance, you can automatically convert an e-mail to a to-do item. It’s a great way of allocating specific time to responding to the email as an formal task in your workday.
Drawer. For personal e-mails or things that don’t require any action but you don’t want to delete, simply move to a specific folder so you can access or review another time.
Deter. This is for the stuff that makes you ask “Why am I getting this?” So take the step of adding the sender to your blocked senders list, or unsubscribe, or set up a rule that says anytime something comes from this address, it’s going into the trash or some specific folder.

There you have it – a simple system for defeating the tyranny of e-mail and taking back your personal productivity. Try it, you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you will be, and how much more you’ll get done.