Somehow, each year I start off with the best intention but as the year continues my life and diary seems to get more and more complicated.
There are the things that I want to do/create/experience, yet at the end of each day or even month I rarely feel closer to those things. Not as much as I would like anyway.
So during the end of the year Christmas break I mentally log where my time went to understand what the hell has been slowing down my progress?
Emails! With short questions or requests for services I do not provide.
Phone calls from sales people.
IT and integration problems that are a mystery.
Companies call me in for more meeting than they do tasks.
Final details on a project that require time. (Devil is in the detail)
Five text messages or emails back and forth to work out a location or time for something. It should have been one phone call.
Functions.
Coffees.
Meetings.
And people! Relationships require a great deal of time.
Now I know that as an intelligent reader your brain may instinctively jump into solution mode. Something in our DNA makes us all do it. We become great at advising others on fixing their crap when in truth we are all dealing with exactly the same distractions in our own lives.
“Just tell people ‘No.’”
“Set up an automated system.”
“Get someone else to handle that stuff.”
“Have people come to you.”
“Work on your goals first.”
“I use to be like that but now I just make people fit into my schedule.”
Really? Well if all that really worked… wouldn’t we all be doing it? Wouldn’t the distractions go away and we all would fly forward unhindered? Why are we not all flying forward unhindered?
In reality, this is the human experience and the list of distraction is the same list we all have every year because that’s the game; to navigate the distraction.
Success is when the emails, phone calls, meeting and the people that distract us are remnants of the things we were working on in years gone by. The distractions a fundamentally an indicator of growth!
The game is to recognize that they are the past and not allow ourselves seduced into thinking that these lead anywhere new. They need to be addressed, but not invested in.
Each year our growth is dependent on our ability to let old elements go, creating space for the next aspect of our growth. Do not niavely expect the old elements to remove themselves from your life in a heart beat. They will be intertwined into your diary and relationships. I still get calls and emails for services I stopped providing 10 years ago. Our past lingers. It takes time for them to fade and it will take leadership on you part.
This year I want to grow more than I ever have! I want to create a community of go getters! I want a business Disneyland where magic happens! I want for the people in that community to get undisputable growth. I want, that when they are sitting in their rocking chair later in life, that they look back to this community and smile at how it liberated their life. At how special that era was on so many fronts. How it changed their life.
To do that, the issue is not so much the distractions but my personal clarity on how to create my vision.
It is easy to blame the distractions life throws at us; ‘blame disperses pain’. ‘Blame’ means we avoid acknowledging that we are deficient in some areas and need to develop our capacity to make the dreams, real. ‘Blame’ absolves us from doing the harder things.
The truth is that for many, when we do get that free time to ourselves, to do what we want to do, do we know what to actually do? Where to start? What potent activity will create the snowball effect we need? We are in uncharted territory and don’t the way, with any certainty.
Personally, I have always been fairly good at managing the distractions. An agent takes many of my calls and handles bookings. A P.A. manages events and correspondence. Designers update webpages and bookkeepers and accountants handle the paper work and famously I open mail once a month. This year I want something bigger though which means the methods I have been using will need to change.
I will need new morning routines. New networks. More specialized help. Clearer targets. Increased skill. I will need to think differently and at a higher level. I will need mentors that have walked the journey and I will need to be even better than I ever have been at what I do.
So January is allocated to making these changes. By the end of Jan the outcome will be clear and also the path. When one can see the path and the path leads to what one desires, you cannot help but run that path as hard as you can, with a grin of excitement.
Our journeys are the same you and I. Granted, setting goals and achieving them is something I have focused much of my life on so I have specific clarity and tools in this area, but at the end of the day, the principles to success is the same for both of us.
If you want to be part of a team doing that this year, on Jan 21 & 22 about 25 of us will be all setting our goals together, strategizing together and helping each other make our ambitions come true.
I will show you how to get clarity on your personal direction and then as a community we will get each other there.
If deep in your gut you want this year to be significant, with more clarity and direction than ever, this group may be a match for you. Here is a link with the information: Live More Goals
Whatever method you choose this year to create your goals, don’t let be tricked into blaming the distractions because the distraction are evidence you are in the game. Your role is to find a way.