Every Friday I give you something different to think of. While people with normal jobs take the weekend off, most business owners just work.
But us business people, we can always find something to do. And so what I want you to do is not do work work as such but to challenge yourself — make yourself think a little.
Think about your future, build your future, improve your business life, because I am sure it can be improved in some way.
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Now what I am going to suggest today is to think about stretching your goals and the reason I say that, oh by the way by stretching your goals what I mean is more time.
Now we all, or successful people have goals. That is something that differentiates successful people and not successful people.
Those with success not only have goals but they write them down and they have deadlines, they are the goals, form a purpose in their life, they aim for the goals and once they’ve achieved the goals, they set new goals. And they have short term goals and they have long term goals and so on.
But we can hear about goals over and over. In fact if you tune into any podcast or read any post around December, January, they are all about setting goals for the new year.
Why do you have to start at the New Year? Don’t know but it’s all about that and it’s the same. Now most people will think 3 months ahead or a year ahead and you are chasing everything, you are chasing, and you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself.
So what I want you to do is I want you to think in terms of longer term.
Weekend Challenge
#1 Get the Mindset
First of all consider how old you will be when you possibly retire? Now of course we are automatically going to think 65 years old, who knows?
Generally if you are entrepreneur, discussed that yesterday, but if you are an entrepreneur, you will probably not be able to stop working and if you have a good life, and if you have good success, why should you?
Your businesses should be running without you at the helm and you just take the money, why stop? But let’s say 65. Now how old are you now? Are you 30? Are you 40? Personally I am 50.
65 is 15 years away. Now if you are in your 20’s or 30’s, you are going to think, ‘Oh blimey what an old kid at 50.’ But it still 15 years till I possibly retire. And we all know, by the time I get there, it’s going to be 75 or something anyways.
So it could be 25 years. Nowadays if you live well, if you eat well, if you keep exercise being 65, being 70 is not such a big deal not like it used to be. So think of that.
That is longer than you imagine. And again if you are 30, 65 is 35 years away. You are not even half way through your life and you probably left school at 18.
You’ve worked for what 12 years. You’ve got another 35, that’s another 3 times as much work. So why pressure yourself for getting all those goals done in 90 days?
#2 Describe Your Future Life
Describe your future life. Write it down. Think about what you want. Don’t just think in terms of goals. Don’t say I want to be a millionaire. I want a porch, I want this.
Describe your future life. How do you imagine? What do you think? Does it include seeing your grandchildren, does include taking your kids or your grandchildren on a holiday with you?
Do you imagine living your life abroad later on? Describe your life. Think what you want in the future. Right think a long way ahead. Think what you want
#3 Foundations Need to Be Built
When we talk of goals where it’s quite often we are in sprints. I mean if anyone’s read Scrum, you know it consist of a lot of sprints.
It’s you know, Rugby sort of terminology. So here’s a lot of sprints. There’s 30 day sprint and all sorts. But does it have to be like that? Have you built the foundations underneath?
Right we need solid foundations to get to where we are going to go. And once we get there we need it to be permanent.
We don’t need temporary, we don’t want quick fix so in those quick sprint goals quite often you don’t get a chance to set foundation. So think a bit more like that.
#4 There is No Quick Fix
There just simply isn’t. Anyway so don’t go for it, don’t think I need to make more money. I mean I have people write to me all the time, I always invite people to write in, email me anytime by the way.
Its jon@marketingforowners.com, email me with any question. I actually read and answer them all and I am very polite. But people write in to me and say, ‘I need to make money quick.
What is the quickest way to etc., quickest way to improve my business.’ And I just think oh that’s just so wrong, it’s not going to work.
First of all, if you’ve got yourself into that position, that predicament and you need to make money quick.
How are you likely to fix it? Okay, you are the person who blew it in the first place. Fixing it, pretty takes some skills. It’s going to take time.
There is no quick fix. So whether you are building a business, whether you are trying to get to your goals. Anything that’s quick is not permanent. It’s just part of the growing process. Needs to be built on. So remember that.
#5 Just Give Yourself More Time
Now Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach talks in times in quarters of centuries. He said think of 25 years, 25 years contain one hundred 3 month periods. A lot can be done.
A three months period 90 days 3 months in my business, in my fire protection business we aim for three major projects.
One major project per month or we do three per quarter and of course one project might take one week, two weeks, another one may take 10 weeks.
So we just say three per quarter. Every year, that’s 12 major projects. If We get them done That’s progress. Next year another 12, next year another 12.
That’s huge progress if they are the right ones. Give yourself more time. Don’t stress, if it doesn’t get done this quarter, if you can’t get it done, don’t overdo it. Push it to 2 quarters.
That’s a long time, remember me, 50 years old, 15 years till I retire. 15 times for 60 quarters. Why do I have to worry about getting it done now?
#6 Take the Stress Off
I would love you to take stress out of your life. We are pressured by what we hear other people doing. Now you may have listened to my podcast for a long time, you may think, ‘Oh Gosh Jon! it’s easy for you. You are great at everything.’
Now, and by the way I am just saying that because you may think that because I am giving you tips, you may assume I am great at everything. I make mistakes day in day out.
I am also very lazy and also forever very annoyed at myself for procrastinating and not doing stuff. I have, if you could see my calendar, in fact may be on another podcast, maybe later next week. I’ll show you my calendar, it’s horrible.
But it’s to get stuff done. But I take the stress off if I don’t do something, I am not worried. Just destress.
If you compare yourself to others, if you compare your business to others, what appears to be more successful businesses, you will stress yourself.
You will add, you will make yourself worried, you’ll make yourself feel inadequate. But in actual fact all you’re looking at is what they tell you.
Have you seen their bank account, have you seen their personal stress, have you seen their home life, have you seen every detail about them? No, probably not. So don’t worry, just destress.
So that’s, that’s the general tip. It’s give yourself more time, stretch out those goals a little more. Just still achieve the goals, just give yourself a better timeframe. Destress. Take a deep breath. Enjoy life and once you are at it, enjoy the weekend.
I don’t know if it’s going to be sunny, I don’t know where you are in the world, I’d love to hear of course.
But enjoy, don’t work too much. Do this little exercise, so if you want to see more of the challenges by the way, go to www.MarketingForOwners.com/challenge.
There are, I don’t know, like 60 or 50 of them. Every single Friday, we do one. And some of them are great, some of them are ‘yeah’, but have a little scan through because some of them I do ever and over, because I find them quite helpful and I thorough them.
Anyway have yourself a good weekend, I’ll see you on Monday.
