Around this time every year most people start thinking about some sort of Goal Setting exercise.
They listen to tapes, attend webinars, read books on the subject and then go to work on setting income goals, health goals, travel goals, exercise goals, spiritual goals and more … all determined to make the year ahead better than the year gone by.
While this is a great exercise for some people and it motivates them to achieve new heights … for many, it’s an exercise in futility! They set great goals then forget about them within days or weeks.
For many years I could have “copied and pasted” my goals from the previous year and used them again for the New Year as nothing had really changed. Sure, I knew if I ate healthier food and exercised more I’d lose weight or if I did better marketing and helped more clients I’d make more money etc. But it didn’t motivate me, I never got that epiphany or AH-HA moment that I’d read about others experiencing. Instead I’d set my goals, develop my action plan and go to work on achieving my goals “as usual”! While it did help me accomplish more each year … it all felt very “chore” like.
That all started changing a while back when I took a day to myself, “me time” to really think about what I wanted … what I really truly wanted. As I walked on the beach pondering life, as one tends to do on the beach, I thought about what motivates me. I realized, it wasn’t more money, it wasn’t to lose weight, it wasn’t even to help more people, while all of those things play an important part of achieving what I wanted, they in of themselves were just a piece of the puzzle. They were the stepping stones … not the true goal.
I realized what I really wanted to have more of was, what I labelled as “FUN”.
I don’t just mean FUN in the “more time doing fun things” sense. I mean I want to enjoy everything I do and have FUN in the process…every time!
Then I went to thinking about what does FUN look like … certainly doing monthly bookkeeping or paying bills is not fun, especially when funds are low and you are watching every penny. Working crazy hours to pay your bills is not fun. Avoiding foods you love to eat just to shed a few pounds is no fun … so how could I turn these chores into FUN to make them fit my new goal? What do I love to do … what gives me that euphoric feeling of “That was FUN!”?
I started to think about how I love to laugh with friends and family, how I love to make others smile and laugh, how I love when clients tell me I’ve helped them. I love to travel and explore new places, cultures and people. I love to cook delicious meals… etc. I made a long list. All of those things are my definition of FUN.
To have all that those things in my life every day, every week, and every month I knew I had to do something differently. I had to change my fundamental approach to achieving my goals.
I also knew from my 20 plus year in business coaching, and from my own experience with goal setting … most people don’t achieve their goals!
Not a very motivational fact I know, but unfortunately it’s true. Most people either don’t put a plan of action in place to achieve their goals, and/or they often are not committed or willing to do all the work that it takes to achieve their goals.
But everyone achieves their standards!
You can’t “not achieve” your standards! Your standards are what you have been willing to accept, tolerate or put up with. Your standards are what you have right now!
Until that day on the beach, I had been accepting, tolerating and putting up with so many things that I wasn’t happy with:
- A level of income that let me and my family survive, but not thrive.
- I had tolerated being overweight.
- I had put up with working 60 to 80 hour weeks just to keep the business going and the cash flowing
- I had tolerated, accepted and put up with a lifestyle that was far from how I envisioned how my life would be. It was time to change …
I had to raise my standards!
In order enjoy all of the items I listed as FUN, I needed to raise my standards when it came to how much income I needed so I could enjoy a better lifestyle for me and my family without stressing over bills every month! I needed to raise my standards in how I ran my business so I could be more “available” to enjoy time with friends and family … and time to be alone (I do love my “me” time!). I needed to raise my standards on the foods I ate if I wanted to feel healthier and lose weight. I needed to raise my standards on how I marketed my business and how I served my clients so I could have more happy clients… the list goes on!
At last I had my epiphany moment … I was extremely motivated by the idea of raising my standards and while my journey is still, and always will be, a work in progress, the results have been amazing so far: In the past few years, I’ve completely shifted my business model to being an online coaching practice, I am now free to work from anywhere (with good Wi-Fi!) my income has more than doubled and continues to grow, my clients tell me every week how I’m helping them grow their naturopathic practices, I work about half the hours I used to work, I am having FUN in everything I’m doing and as for my weight … it’s going the right direction finally and that is one of the standards I am focusing on raising much higher for the year ahead.
Did things change quickly? Heck NO! … I made so many mistakes and I failed so many times it was almost funny. But unlike in the past where I would just give up on the goal, the difference this time was I didn’t accept or tolerate or put up with the poor results – I tried again and again until I had achieved my new standard. Now every year, I go for my beach walk and little by little I raise my standards and add more FUN to my life!
So folks, if your goal setting process is working for you, great, stick with it. But if you, like me, find goal setting to be great for a few days, but then they fade into oblivion … try raising your standards.
- If you are having a tough time attracting quality new patients, raise your standards in how you market your practice.
- If you are struggling with patient retention, raise your standards in how you set patient expectations and how you follow up with patients.
- If cash flow is a problem, raise your standards in how you run your practice and/or how you charge for service. (Try charging for knowledge instead of time)
- If keeping on top of your patient charts or other tasks is an issue, raise your standards on how you manage your time.
Refuse to accept that what you have now is the norm, raise the bar in how you run your practice and/or your life by taking some “me” time and deciding on and committing to your new standards.
Let me know what standards you are raising this year in the comments below.
If you want my help to raise your standards and achieve more in the coming year, click here to learn more, tell me a little about your practice and let’s see if we are a good fit!
Leave A Response