Hands Down Fastest Way To Reach Your Goals

Have you been seeing all the posts and blogs about planning for 2017?

I have. Everywhere.

Kind of makes me nervous. Like, what exactly is my plan for the year? What are my quarterly goals? How will I lay out my months? My launches? My products? My sales?!

Barely making it through the end of this year and already stressing about my plan for the next one.

Don’t get me wrong. I know planning is important. And I know you know this too. Planning is imperative for your business. Cuz if you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know how to get there.

BUT…even with a lot of planning for the upcoming year, you might still wake up tomorrow morning or next week thinking…what should I get done for today?

I see this so often with my clients. They have a big picture…a vision of where they’d like to take their business, and lots of milestones along the way.

But when it comes to the day-to-day, all this planning can leave you confused, overwhelmed or in a general state of paralysis.

And that’s why today I want to talk about the most effective way to plan…so you’re consistently moving forward and reaching your goals – for real.

** Pay attention babycakes, this is about to change your goal setting forever. **

Create and embrace two-week sprints.

These  are goals and the tasks to reach those goals over the next two weeks.

Why two weeks?

Because it’s enough time to work on and reach goals, but not so far into the future (like monthly, quarterly or yearly goals) that they’re too far away.

Two week goals give you guidance, on a daily basis, on what to focus on, what to give your energy towards as well as what to say “no” to, and what to avoid.

When goals are longer than two weeks, you tend to do everything you can to procrastinate getting started or taking consistent action. Without a deadline in close sight, accountability and success metrics fall by the wayside.

But with only two weeks, you know you have to get started on your goals now, plus work on them consistently to make them happen.

Before I get any farther into how to create these goals, I want to remind you of one super critical element of having success of any kind.

The difference between being successful and not is this:

People who make goals and reach them, succeed.

It’s as simple as that.

You must make goals. They don’t have to be enormous or life changing or six-figure producing, but they do have to be.

And I want to do everything I can to help you reach them. In other words, I want to help you succeed.

Ok, so now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and you agree that consistently making and reaching your goals will drive your success…lets get back to the two-week sprints.

There are two important elements to them:
1) The goal itself
2) The tasks to reach this goal

Here’s an example. Your big picture goal might be to “get more sales.”

One way to reach this goal would be to actually have conversations with real live people about what you do and what you have to offer.

So instead of making this an arbitrary quarterly goal, lets reframe it for your two-week sprint.

Your goal in the next two weeks is to have 5 sales conversations.

(IMPORTANT: your goal must be specific, reasonable and measurable. Get out of your comfort zone a bit, but don’t make it unreasonable or totally undoable).

The specific tasks to make that goal happen are:

• Create a spreadsheet with a list of people to reach out to
• Outline exactly what you are going to say
• Practice this out loud at least 10 times
• Create one thank you and follow up email
• Call or email 10 people to see if they’re up for a conversation with you

My recommendation is to keep your two week sprints to no more than three goals. More than three and you risk doing way too much, getting unfocused and back to overwhelmed, confused and even in paralysis.

And if you’re worried about not getting to your dozens of other goals, DON’T.

You will get to them in two or four or six weeks. But trying to do everything at one time will keep you moving at a snail’s pace on many things, vs. sprinting through a few at a time.

You can spend the next year seeing teeny tiny improvements or make impactful strides every two weeks. You choose. 😉 

Lastly, I haven’t covered the emotional and motivational benefits of two-weeks sprints.

When you set yourself up to make and achieve results quickly, you build the confidence that you can keep doing it.

You feel good about yourself, you’re inspired to keep going and this energy re-fuels your creativity and drive. It really is an incredible result for a relatively simple effort.

Making and reaching your goals IS the backbone of your success. So, however you add it to your business or your life…do it sooner than later.

I’d love to know how YOU are currently setting goals for your business and life.

Join me in the comments below to let me know that you’re going to set up at least ONE two week sprint. EXTRA CREDIT: Share at least one of your goals so you stay uber accountable.

I would truly love to hear from you!

Here’s to getting more of the right things done!

Xo,
Mridu

P.S. If you haven’t taken me up on your “Jumpstart Winning Sessions” ($99 for 90 minutes), this could be where you nail your two week goals and get on a kick-ass schedule to make them happen! Find out the deets here.