“Diana, I feel as those everything in my business is an emergency … I feel as though I move from one emergency to another”
“I wish I wasn’t always hustling just to bring in revenue”
“I wish I knew where to start, what to do first”
“But Diana – I’ve tried planning and it doesn’t really work for me”.
Those are just some of the things I hear women entrepreneurs say about their businesses.
Although I totally understand …. it makes me feel sad.
WHY? Because I know you just want to feel in control of your business instead of your business controlling you!
You want to stop feeling that you have to HUSTLE all the time.
You want to wake up each morning and know EXACTLY what to do in your business that will bring you peace & fulfillment.
I get it because I used to feel EXACTLY the same way. I used to wonder WHY what I was doing wasn’t working.
I realized that I was just like a lot of you – we are creative beings us entrepreneurs. We love creating new offerings for our clients; new ways to help them. But often we aren’t so good at stepping up and following through to completion.
Many of us creative entrepreneurs suffer from what is commonly known as BSOS (bright shiny object syndrome) or Squirrel. We see something bright & shiny (new) and like a squirrel, we dart from one thing to another but never really completing any one thing. We might start off the year thinking we are going to focus on getting live speaking gigs but partway through the year, perhaps FB ads would be a better way to attract clients. Bright shiny object!!!
The truth is that if we don’t solve this, we actually limit ourselves. We limit how many people we can serve; we limit how many we can impact; and we limit the size of our business.
So how do we solve this??? How do we build momentum and feel as though we have gained control of our businesses?
The solution is that we need a plan. And not just any plan. I’ve come to learn, we need a flexible and dynamic plan.
3 tips if you have trouble sticking to a plan (and suffer from BSOS).
1. Simplify … Having big dreams is awesome however big dreams also often mean that they are complicated to implement. My own example goes something like this. For several years, I’ve wanted to create retreats for my clients and every time I sat down to plan out these warm weather retreats – too many moving parts so the plans always got side lined and never got done. So this year, I’ve simplified! I’ll be hosting a local retreat here in the Thousand Islands – less complicated, less moving parts. It’s a step in the right direction.
2. Use 90-day time frames when mapping out your 12 month plan. This allows you to remain flexible if things need to be changed slightly. It allows for course corrections. When you’re looking at your big picture, 12 months, don’t be married to the exact dates that things will happen. By using 90-day time frames, you’ll be able to switch things up if needed.
3. Focus on only 3 priorities during your 90-days. I know – we all want to accomplish so much. However when we have 10 things on our priority list, it makes it almost impossible to do everything. That’s when it becomes so difficult for us to really build any momentum. It’s like the circus performer who is spinning plates – the more plates he has to spin, the more complicated it becomes and the easier to drop one or more of the plates.
YOUR INSPIRED ACTION:
1. If you have a goal that seems to never get to completed, how could you simplify it? Could you start simple and make it fancy later?
2. If you have trouble sticking to your plan, are you reviewing it regularly at 90-day intervals so that you can re-work it?
3. Does your plan include just 3 top priorities? If not, review them and focus on only 3. I’m betting your success rate will be much higher.
Hope this helps!
If you’d like some support to create your 2019 BEST YEAR YET plan, there’s still time to join me for the CEO PLANNING RETREAT here – whether it’s in your pj’s for the virtual version or for the Live version here in Mallorytown.
Here’s to an UNSTOPPABLE year ahead!
Diana
P.S. Once you register (here), I’ll send you Step 1 of your plan – this part you can definitely do on your own!!! Then on January 25 or 26 – we’ll get your creative juices going!!! I’m so excited!!! (BTW – if you’re a current or past member of the Achiever’s Club, email me for your discount code!!)
