You may have never considered starting your own business, but I have some bad news: if you live in a Western country, the next five years will be extremely difficult. We are headed for a recession or depression, so it's best to start preparing and thinking about what you need to do to plan for the future, which often involves starting something on your own.
There are straightforward reasons why some entrepreneurs are more successful than others and why some go on to build successful businesses and become multi-millionaires while others don't.
In this article, I will share with you the first of the 4 Secrets that I learned from my mentors, like Steven Bartlett, whom I have been so grateful to train, study under, and certify with.
These have become pillars of not just my business in my almost 15 years in business but also the key things I now work on with my mentoring clients to achieve. They led me to build and sell a profitable business; if I can do it, anyone can!
Like many business owners, I was very "technically competent" at what I did in my first business: devising and implementing Wealth and Health Strategies in Organisations. Almost four years in, I realised that despite my hard work, it wasn't growing any further, and I realised that I had to start doing something differently if I wanted better and different results.
Laser focus became an absolute part of my daily, weekly, and monthly routine. Laser Focus is knowing precisely what it is you want and knowing your goal. If you don't have a goal, you don't know where you are going.
"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want in life is this: decide what you want."
- BEN STEIN
The Oxford English Dictionary defines focus as "an act of concentrating interest or activity on something". That something is your goal. What do you want to achieve, by when; what do you need to do (and give up) to achieve it, and why do you want to achieve it? These are all the essential elements of Laser Focus!
Not the person with the highest qualifications in their field or the person with the best product or service on the market necessarily achieves the most success. It is the person with Laser Focus who knows what they want and what they have to do to achieve it and has a written, targeted plan of action for achieving that goal that will most likely achieve greater success more quickly. You also have to take responsibility for reviewing that goal and be 100% accountable so that you can ensure you are on track.
As a business owner by profession, the one thing my profession taught me is, "What gets measured gets done." You can have the most elaborate business plan in the world, but if you don't have a measurable goal of what you want to achieve and in what timeframe, it is unlikely to bring you the desired success.
Goals must be specific and measurable and stretch you out of your comfort zone to achieve them. Your goals should constantly change and move you to the next level, but this only happens if you set goals, have some idea of deadlines, and measure your success in achieving them. For me, I set the goal of building a successful business with a ten-year exit strategy. I aim to become a leading workplace health service provider, working with national and international companies and employing highly trained consultants to achieve financial growth and profitability yearly. Through weekly and monthly review of my goals, I was able to accomplish this, and annually, I reviewed my plan and set about planning new, bigger goals for the year ahead.
Did I hit roadblocks? Of course, I did. That is where the growth comes from. That kept me on track because the roadblocks were simply representative of something I needed to change or adapt, something I was doing that wasn't working as well as it could.
One of the fears we have when starting out in business or in the early years when we are looking to grow is how we are going to achieve our goals. How will we get there? In my experience, it is essential to do two things.
Set your ultimate goal and then break down the steps required to achieve it. What daily tasks do you need to do? Prioritise the top five steps of your goal. What weekly and monthly tasks do you need to do? Again, have a top five or, at the very least, a top three.
Identify why you want your goal and know why you have set this goal; that way, the "what you need to do and who you need to become to achieve it" becomes clearer.
I hope this helps for now - Secret #2 will be coming shortly.
Don't forget you can reach out to me for 121 coaching on any of the topics we cover.
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