On this week's episode of my Monday Morning Pep Talk, I will take you through the process of choosing a daily strategy to stay focused on your destination, an essential part of Take Flight. Creating a "12 Week Year" tracking method displaying the different parts of your vision is a critical step in any goal attainment strategy. Personally, I like my goals stated in written word. I know a lot of people that are more visual. On today's episode, we'll explore the reasons why it's so important, how best to go about choosing and creating the right method for you and putting it into daily practice in your lives.
I use a goal board and keep a copy in my daily planner. A goal board, similar to a vision board, is used to document your goals and guiding principles so that you can review them daily. I made mine out of out a 17 x 21 foam board that I can easily pull out in the morning and review. I review it every morning during my first cup of coffee. It primes my brain for the steps I need to take to meet all of the goals I've set for myself for the upcoming 3 Year Vision cycle. I took all of my goals and using Microsoft Word's appropriately sized font, printed them out and posted them towards the outer sides of the board. I use written word instead of pictures because it's more effective for me. If you are more visual, we'll discuss a few other methods that are proven for others. I leave the middle section open so I can post my "quarterly Initiative" which I will switch out each quarter.
Like I said, I use a goal board because it works for me, but other options are just as effective such as:
1. whiteboards in your workspace
2. vision boards
3. vision binders
4. screensavers
5. Pinterest board
6. notes app like Notion or Evernote
7. photo book
The point I'm trying to make is that you need to have your 3YV documented so you can easily review it every day. The goal is to re-program your brain to stay focused on what you are trying to achieve in your #3YV. In Episode #182: Take Flight - Flight Control (The Mind), I laid out all of the reasons why high performance starts with how you use the conscious mind to program the subconscious mind. Having a strategy or method to review your 3 Year Vision, your annual theme and your quarterly initiative on a daily basis, again, is critical if you want to "land safely at your destination." Reviewing your goals daily is not a new concept. I first read of it years ago on my initial pass through Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. If you don't write your goals down in one spot, you'll forget them and you'll go back to your old way of dancing around in circles and make no real change.
Your goals are personal and should really move you to want to jump out of bed in the morning and to put in the necessary action to achieve them. Some words of caution: keep in mind that we work to live, not live to work so make sure your focus areas are created proportionally to address all parts of your life. Decide how you want to live and who you want to become and cascade off of those 2 questions. In Episode #184: Take Flight - Create Your Destination (Vision), I go into great detail on how to build out your vision. Here are some areas that you could use to get started:
Financial
• Net worth - your assets minus your debt/liabilities
• Dollar amount invested in SEP IRA
• Dollar amount invested in brokerage accounts
• Dollar amount in your "Financial Freedom" accounts
• Investment properties purchased and operating
• Specific budget items mentioned
• All finances automated
• A complete financial plan built with the help of a financial advisor
Production/Business
• Total number of GCI earned during the full 3-year process
• Total number of GCI earned each year during full 3-year process
• Total number for production created in the total 3-year process
• Total number for production created each year during full 3-year process
• Progress towards Top 100 and other relationship management and database management goals
• Business niche and boundary goals documented
Personal
• Health and Wellness goals
• Travel goals/bucket list/ NINJA life list
• Wardrobe
• Home improvement goals
• Second home/investment property purchased
• Culinary and wine education goals
Self-Development
• Read a defined number of books per quarter or during the 3YV
• A secondary education degree
• Develop routines and habits that have eluded you
• Attend a Tony Robbins event or another in person self-development event
Now that you've chosen your method for posting your #3YV, schedule the time, if you haven't already, to create your board. In upcoming episodes, we are going to focus heavily on actionable items and you'll need the daily dose of inspiration to keep going. Next week, I will take everything I've taught in these last 5 episodes about the "Cockpit" of your business and boil it down into easy to understand, actionable steps to make sure you are fully ready for what comes next. You've got to create productive habits and put in the hard work - consistently and efficiently - to meet any goal. That is rarely possible if your mind is not right. We'll talk a lot about habits in the next set of modules that I will start next month and one of those habits will be reviewing the vision and plan you created to reach it. I'll leave you with this simple excerpt from James Clear's book Atomic Habits:
"The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington DC instead of NYC. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff - the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet - but when magnified across the United States, you ended up hundreds of miles apart."
How does that tie into this episode? If you don't make a daily habit of intentional focus on your goals and vision throughout your "flight," you will not end up where you want to go and you could be off by a long shot. Most people never even get off the ground.
Today's episode covered another easy to implement, highly impactful, low-cost strategy that will help you create an inspirational life and highly productive business. If you implement this strategy, you will not recognize yourself this time next year.
