Someone once posed a fascinating question to me. He said: Picture yourself in the middle of the ocean in a small boat. You have four days worth of food, and you know an inhabited island is four days due north, but it is too overcast to navigate by the sun, moon or stars. Would you choose a motor or a compass?
Most professionals I know run their business with a motor...they are constantly on the go and working incredibly hard. Unfortunately, they are not getting the results they want. Are you getting the results you want?
So many people have heard the phrase, Work smarter, not harder, but have no clue how to apply that adage to their business. They simply end up working harder and harder and harder. They use the motor to go faster to nowhere. STOP! Use a compass, work smarter and go somewhere. Have you realized that smart work makes you successful and hard work makes you tired?
That sounds great, but exactly how do you work smarter? There are three keys to working smarter. The first step is having clear goals. In the above parable, the goal is very clear. If you have four days worth of food, you want to find more food within four days. Your goal is to get to an inhabited island so you can survive. However, goals in your life and your career are not as crystal clear. That is why it is so important that you set clear goals. Until you do, you will just be moving quickly with very little chance of achieving success.
Take a little bit of time to create a map of the goals you want to accomplish. Then, follow the map. The best strategy I have seen involves setting your 10 year goals and working backward. For example, let s say my 10 year goal is to have 2 best selling books. Perhaps my 5 year goal would be to have 1 best selling book. My 1 year goal would be to finish a book. My 3 month goal would be to finish one fourth of the book and my 1 week goal would be to write a chapter. Use this strategy to set challenging, but realistic goals and to create a map that leads you in the right direction.
The second key is focus. The biggest obstacle to huge success is moderate success. Many people start to follow their dream goals but get distracted by an idea or opportunity that is pretty good. They create goals but get distracted from them too easily. For the early part of my career, I fell victim to this obstacle several times. Business was going well and increasing, but someone would introduce me to an opportunity that appeared to have good potential and I would lose site of my true goals. You will achieve your goals faster by focusing on your goals and having the discipline to block out distractions that are not the best use of your time.
The third key is relationships. I have read dozens of biographies and hundreds of books on success and I have one valuable observation: NOT ONCE did a successful person say that they achieved success by themselves. Every single time, the successful person acknowledged their family, friends, and colleagues who helped them along the way. The most important factor in these successful relationships was this...both parties tried to make the other one more successful. In other words, you cannot establish a solid relationship that is one sided.
Help them succeed and let them push you to the top. The best way to apply this is in the marketing of your business. When it comes to increasing your business, do not try to do it by yourself. Establish mutually beneficial relationships, not casual contacts, with a few key people. Find ways that you can benefit when you help them succeed. The biggest turning point in my business came when I made this realization...when I stopped trying to grow my business and started trying to turn others into millionaires.
Exchange your motor for a compass. Stay focused on reaching the island. Find someone else you can save. Before you know it, you will be sitting on the island with a friend having a feast and relaxing.
The question from above was posed to me by C.J. McClanahan, the Guru of Goal Setting. More information on goal setting can be obtained on his website at http://www.GoReachMore.com
Author Resource:
Steve Lawson is the Principal of Steve Lawson Consulting and the Founder of The Prospection Network. Since the early 1990s, he has been training independent professionals to grow their business while spending little to no money on marketing. http://www.ProspectionNetwork.com
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