I recently took my daughter to the zoo.  She was fascinated watching a tiger pace along the fence of its enclosure.  A little while longer, we observed a cougar doing the same thing.

The ground on which they trod was well worn, compressed and hardened.  8 inches away, plants stretched up from the earth, unmolested.  Each of these animals was busy and quite focused on its task.  But they weren’t going anywhere or experiencing anything new.

Sound familiar?

For a lot of people who’ve been at something for a while, they don’t in fact have multiple years of experience.  They have one year of experience multiple times.  If you’re income hasn’t grown, if your business has remained at the same level, if your frustrations are the same, if your relationships are the same, if your health/fitness is the same, you might be one of those people.

Make this the year in which you truly gain experience.

How, you say?

By changing something.  Continuing along, doing things as you’ve always done them won’t create a new income.  And, by the way, a pattern of changing what you are doing every 3-6 months is still a continuing way of doing things.  One approach just cuts a well-worn path, like the tiger and cougar.  The other is like trying to grow a crop when you repeatedly head out and plough the fields just before the seedlings reach sunlight.

This is the time of year when people reflect on the year that has passed and anticipate the year to come.  You may be tempted to make resolutions for what you will achieve this year.  I have one question for you: How has that worked for you in the past?

If the answer is “Not so well”, then why repeat it?  The main reasons resolutions don’t work include:

• there are no steps laid out as to how that goal is to be achieved
• there are no timelines set out
• there is no accountability for the resolution, making it more a wish than a commitment
• often, there is lack of clarity as to how to achieve the resolution, possibly because some new skill is required.

In other words, there is no plan.

That plan should identify what skills are required, when they will be acquired (either by training or by hiring), what are the action steps, who is responsible for them, when will these be taken, what are the milestones along the way so you can meaningfully check on progress and, as importantly, why this goal is important to you.  How will your life be made better?  If this isn’t clear, then you may view this as some onerous list of “to do’s”, rather than a path to a better life.

If you’re not sure what skills you’ll need to achieve your goals, then please check out my free video series at http://www.profitwithprinciple.ca/?id=blog The first video gives an overview of all the things you will ultimately need to learn.  You can then choose what to focus on this year.

If you’d like help planning, come out to our 90 Day Planning Session on Jan 6.  In a half day, you’ll be guided in the creation of a one page plan that lays out the specific tasks you will engage in during the first quarter of 2012 so you can proactively make this the best year you’ve had in your business.

We’re in a different location this time.  We’ll be at 4141 Yonge Street, on the 4thfloor.  This is at Yonge and York Mills.  There is lots of parking and is right on the subway route.

But however you do it, please move past resolutions and plan to make this the best year of your life!

You may have seen me write or speak about the value of being explicit and clear in your communication.  This is a wonderful example.  Try it next time you’re away.

http://gizmodo.com/5836537/the-most-cleverest-vacation-auto+reply-e+mail-ive-seen

This is not one of my usual topics.  However, it is an important one for entrepreneurs who are busy working away.  Your romantic relationships, when strong, provide you support, stability and even purpose.  However, they are easy to take for granted in the face of day to day business challenges.  Have a read:

http://www.blackjagexecutive.com/blackjag-lifestyle/relationships-dont-grow-apart

Here is your next issue of inspiring reflections on business success from Bill Shakespeare.  If you have been enjoying these and you find them useful, please forward to other entrepreneurs whom you feel may similarly benefit.  Fortune favours the generous.  I And now, this week’s quote:

Small matters to greater matters must give way. Antony and Cleopatra

Coughlin’s Comment:

“I can’t do everything.”  “There just isn’t enough time.”  Such are the laments I hear frequently from business owners when faced with the reality that their actions are not driving them toward their dreams.  However, when their time is examined in detail, it is often occupied with the trivial or the inconsequential.  Why? Because such things are easy to do and the pursuit of such activities presents the comforting illusion that by doing things, things are getting done.

It is clearly true that there is not enough time to do everything.  However, there is always time to do the right thing.  And by that, I mean both the highest priority item and also the proper thing, the ethical thing.  How often do people sacrifice their values upon the altar of expediency?  How often do we avoid the difficult and important to pursue the easy and insignificant?

Successful people do not avoid the difficult choices; they embrace them.  And in embracing them, they focus on the most important – on those things that, consistent with their values, will most quickly and effectively achieve their goals. In so doing, they cast aside the “small matters.”  It is in the heat of challenging problems that leaders are forged.  And one of the characteristics of effective leadership is the ability to prioritize and to focus.  Are you willing to let go of the small things to fulfill your greatness?

Action Steps:

1)   Make a log of every activity in which you engage over a 3 day period and how long you spend at it.

2)   Evaluate whether those activities are the “greater matters” or whether you have allowed small matters to stand in the way of the great.

3)   Assess whether the great matters are being put off because of avoidance.

4)   Plan your week so that the greater matters are given top priority.

Until next time, remember:

Success is Yours…Go Get It!

Here is your next issue of inspiring reflections on business success from Bill Shakespeare.  If you have been enjoying these and you find them useful, please forward to other entrepreneurs whom you feel may similarly benefit.  Fortune favours the generous.   And now, this week’s quote:

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.  The fated sky gives us free scope – All’s Well that Ends Well.

Coughlin’s Comment:

How often do people blame the fates for the state of their lives or their businesses?  Do you ever engage in this thinking?

One of the qualities I have always loved and admired in entrepreneurs is the courage of the pioneer; the willingness to step out and take responsibility for one’s own life.  However, as brave as the original impulse is, entrepreneurs are just as likely as other to cast aspersions at the stars when things begin to go awry.  Tempting though that may be, it is really just a form of excuse and of denial.  It somehow relieves us of responsibility to believe that our circumstances are outside of our control.

If you do engage in such thinking, I have to ask you one simple question: Does it serve you?  If the circumstances in your life are not changed after raging against the vagaries of fortune, then perhaps another strategy may be in order.  More often than not, our remedies lie in ourselves.  That does not mean that you must know all the answers instinctively.  Indeed, finding the solutions within ourselves often requires enough confident humility to proactively seek out the information you need and the perseverance to put that knowledge into action.

If you want to find the source of meaningful and lasting change in your business and your life, stop looking to the stars and to the astrology pages and start looking in the mirror.

Action Steps:

1)   You know there are things that would change your business if you started doing them right now.  Identify 3

2)   Schedule when you will implement them or when you will seek the help you need

3)   Implement.

4)   Evaluate.

Until next time, remember:

Success is Yours…Go Get It!

Today’s blog is another in the Bill Shakespeare, Business Coach series.  Please let me know what you think.

One good deed, dying tongueless;/Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. Our praises are our wages. –The Winter’s Tale

Coughlin’s Comment:

Often we assume (often at our own peril) that our opinions and feelings about others are psychically perceived or naturally understood.  Today’s quote applies in both work relationships and personal/romantic relationships.

There are in your life people – employees, family, lovers, friends – who are invested in your good opinion of them.  They do things, in part, to please you.  When such deeds pass unacknowledged (i.e. die tongueless), the incentive to continue can diminish.  In both romantic relationships and employment relationships, the sign that past efforts have gone unappreciated is the utterance “What’s the point?” or “It doesn’t matter.”

How many marriages stagnate with one or both partners diminishing their giving because they feel it is no longer cherished?  The other partner, who may well have appreciated those gestures, but failed to express that appreciation, is left wondering what happened.  “I guess s/he doesn’t love me anymore.”  And it would take so little to reignite the love.

How many employees look for new jobs because they feel their contributions hold little value to the boss?  The employer feels too busy to get around to it, or assumes they must know their value because “Hey, they’re still employed, aren’t they.”  However, that is of little solace when a resource that you spent energy and money investing in takes that knowledge down the street.  Thus, a thousand good deeds in waiting are slaughtered, are forsaken.

The Italian actor Roberto Benigni once said “It’s a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.”  Do not allow yourself, in any aspect of life, to be mediocre.  You are better than that.  If you continue to read and reflect on these blog posts, you are one who aspires to rise above mediocrity.   Show your gratitude.  Commit to acknowledging the good that others do for you.  That simple act will give birth to more such good deeds and, more importantly, to stronger, more vibrant and more resilient relationships.

Action Steps:

1)   Identify those in your life, personal or professional, who have recently done any kind of generous act (even if not directed at you.)

2)   Acknowledge that act

3)   Commit to noticing such acts every week!