Goals – Page 6 – One Insight Closer

Risk, Success and Failure

December 6, 2012April 10, 2018 by EvieBurke, posted in attitude, Fear, Goals, planning, Quote

I came across this quote last week:

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they’re really not. They’re companions – the hero and the sidekick. – Laurence Shames

Interesting quote isn’t it?

I thought of it again over the weekend when I was given the topic of risk to discuss with the Jr. High youth group. The focus was on making your own decisions versus other people making decisions for you. So, we talked about risk, success and failure.

This week the speaker at an event I was at spoke briefly about taking risks and how some failures really set you up for your next success.

Sitting in the audience I was suddenly struck by how often the topic of risk, success and failure had come across my path in the last week.

Interesting.

If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk. – Rosalynn Carter

I searched through my collection of quotes, looking for ones about success, and this one stuck out.

You see, last week I set some pretty ambitious goals for myself in the coming months, but they are possible with time and attention. I wondered out loud if I was expecting too much of myself in too little time. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I won’t meet some of the goals I set. Perhaps I will fail. And perhaps in failing I’ll be that much closer to another opportunity. Perhaps I’ll still have accomplished more in the failure than I would have if I never tried.

But maybe, just maybe I’ll succeed.

Success and failure, hero and sidekick. I’d wager that success usually follows what looks like failure. We just don’t always hear about the failure. We’d rather hear about the success – the hero of the story, right? But the sidekick is there, quietly supporting the hero in lessons learned.

What does this mean to you?

Risk, success and failure. How do those play out in your life? In your business?
What topics or ideas seem to be appearing over and over again? What do they mean to you? Why are you noticing them?

I’d love for you to share your observations in the comments below.

And I’ll leave you with one last quote:

So fail.
Be bad at things.
Be embarrassed.
Be afraid.
Be vulnerable.

Go out on a limb or two or twelve, and you will fall and it’ll hurt. But the harder you fall, the farther you will rise. The louder you fall, the clearer your future becomes. Failure is a gift, welcome it.

There are people who spend their whole lives wondering how they became the people they became, how certain chances passed them by, why they didn’t take the road less traveled.

Those people aren’t you.

You have front row seats to your own transformation, and in transforming yourself, you might even transform the world. And it will be electric, and I promise you it will be terrifying.

Embrace that; embrace the new person you’re becoming.

This is your moment.

I promise you, it is now, now, not two minutes from now, not tomorrow, but really now. Own that; know that deep in your bones. And go to sleep every night knowing that, wake up every morning remembering that.

And then… keep going.

– Unknown (emphasis added)

you! hey! you - we like you - you're great! know yourself - believe in yourself

Others Believe in You

November 21, 2012November 20, 2012 by EvieBurke, posted in Fear, Goals, Gratitude

The past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about what I’m grateful for. Fitting since this week is Thanksgiving for the US.

There are many things to be thankful for and one that’s been on my mind off and on for months is the people who asked me to take on responsibilities that I didn’t think I was capable of. These people saw potential in me that I didn’t recognize. They offered me opportunities that I would have never asked for and for that I am very grateful.

One wish for you dear reader, is that you find yourself surrounded by people who recognize you are extremely capable of things beyond your current belief in yourself. Surrounded by people who encourage you to seek out (or create) those opportunities just beyond your comfort zone.

Occasionally, take a step back and see yourself as they see you. Take strength from that.

If you currently do not that have those people in your life, I encourage you to look for them. Join groups where you can find them and also be that person for someone else.

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you know that I’m a big fan of quotes. Here are a couple to think about:

Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. – Brendan Francis

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas A. Edison

If you need any help finding those people who know you’re capable of great things – let me know by leaving a comment here or emailing me at support [at] OneInsightCloser [dot] com

35 Days and Almost 500 Emails Later – A Review

November 8, 2012November 8, 2012 by EvieBurke, posted in Goals

I have a separate email address that I use for 95% of the subscriptions and newsletters I get. October 1^stI decided to start tracking all the emails I receive there. Why? I was curious about who ended up in spam (how does gmail decide this?). I currently do not receive any emails there that I did not sign up for. So, why did some emails end up in the spam folder while others weren’t? I tracked every single email I received at that address for five weeks and in that time only 13 ended up in spam. So, not nearly as many as I thought. I didn’t learn exactly why emails ended up in spam, but I did learn some things.

For spam, the only thing I learned was it’s probably not a good idea to send out 6 emails over the course of three days. Three were sent out on a Monday (2 teleclass reminders and one wrap up) and another three the following Wednesday (same sequence for the teleclass replay). The last email on Wednesday landed in my spam folder (I opened the first email on Monday and Wednesday). Another email was sent Thursday and that also landed in my spam folder. Basic lesson: don’t send 6 emails out over the course of 3 days. Side note: I received emails from two people that send daily emails and they never ended up in spam (even if I let them stack up for a few days without opening them).
The most popular day for email to arrive? Tuesday, followed closely by Thursday.
The most popular day/time combo? Tuesday from 10am and 11am, Wednesday from 8am-9am and Thursday from 1pm-2pm
48% of the emails I received were sent via InfusionSoft and AWeber.
I unsubscribed from 11 people as a result. Those 11 people accounted for only 46 total emails.
I get a lot of newsletters. I received 487 emails in a 35 day period. That’s 97 emails a week and almost 14 emails a day – of just newsletters and other things I’ve signed up for! I just counted and I get emails from almost 70 different people/businesses, just at this one address – yikes!
Of the 487 emails I received, I read/skimmed just over half of them.
It takes a LOT of time to track every email received, even if it is only at one email address.

Will I do this kind of thing again? Probably not. It was fun at first (I like spreadsheets and figuring out different ways to look at the data – I created almost 10 pivot tables from it), but by the end of the 5 weeks, it was a time consuming distraction. That said, it was interesting to take a step back and look at how much email I actually receive a week and how much time that takes to process (regardless of whether I actually read it or not). Lessons going forward:

Don’t send out six emails over the course of 3 days. It’s too much despite the best of intentions.
Take a look at your trash folder every once in a while to get a feel for how much email you receive each day. Look at what you’re deleting without opening (you’ll probably quickly realize if you rarely open emails from that person). Unsubscribe from those you regularly delete. And don’t feel guilty about it! Remember, since you rarely open the emails anyway – by unsubscribing you’re making that person’s open rate increase!
If you are subscribed to lots of newsletters like me, then set up a separate email address for them. This serves two purposes (1) they’re not sitting in the same inbox as emails from your clients and colleagues (so you’ll be able to find your important emails quickly) and (2) you can choose not to check that inbox when you have higher priority things happening (and be honest, isn’t a lot of stuff more important than those newsletters?) – so save them for later.
Have some fun or interesting goals, because, well they’re fun! Review them to check that they’re not interfering with your income generating or business growth goals. And if they’re not fun or interesting any more, give yourself permission to move on.

What’s your biggest challenge with email? Share in the comments!

Now, for a disclaimer. As sample sizes go, my inbox is actually pretty small and is restricted only to people that interest me – so this is by no means scientific. It’s just me tracking what I received in one of my inboxes.

Impromptu Visits – Should You Ignore Your Schedule?

November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 by EvieBurke, posted in balance, Goals, schedule

You have your schedule all planned for the week and things are going according to plan. Maybe a couple of hiccups, but all-in-all, you’re on track. Pretty much everything is getting done on your list. Until… a friend (or maybe family member) calls and says “Hey I’m in town today, want to grab lunch?”

Now what? You’d like to see them, but you know if you go then a couple items on your list won’t get done and your schedule will be up in the air for the rest of the day.

So, what to do?

I used to automatically say “nope, sorry, I don’t have time today! But let me know next time you’re in town.” My reasoning was I needed at least 24 hours’ notice to adjust my schedule. And then I realized I hadn’t seen my sister for a couple months or so (she’s usually the one who calls me with these invitations). And I missed seeing her.

Then I realized, one of the reasons working for myself was appealing was so I could occasionally have these impromptu visits. And here I was acting like I was tied to my schedule and to-do list. What happened?

I let my schedule and my to-do list decide everything I would be doing each day. If it wasn’t on the list, and took longer than 10 minutes, I probably didn’t do it (but it might be added to the list for next week).

Here’s what we forget about to-do lists sometimes: they are there to help you, work for you and you do not work for them. Sounds funny to say it like that, but sometimes in our quest to get as much done as we can each day for our business – we forget that there are other things to do. Life doesn’t always fit in nice little compartments and since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you probably really don’t want it to. You want a life with some flexibility.

That’s why Wednesday morning at 9am I was pulling into a local pancake house to have breakfast with Nate (my husband) and some family – instead of sitting in my office starting the day’s work.

However, I’ll admit that when the idea was proposed to me on Tuesday night I wasn’t sure about it. I have things! that must be done! I can’t start my day late, those things! might not get done! (anyone else have those thoughts running through their head sometimes? Or am I the only one? Comment below to share) Then I took a breath and realized I had no appointments scheduled and the things! can be done later.

I have some questions that I tend to ask myself about these unplanned visits:

Are there any appointments or meetings that this will overlap or interfere with?
Are there any deadlines approaching that will be negatively impacted?
Have I already spent time this week with unplanned visits? How will this impact progress on my goals?

The gist of these questions is: will my business or my goals be negatively affected by spending time elsewhere? If so, is spending this time with this person more important than my business and/or goals?

Notice I wrote “is spending this time with” and not “is spending time with.” That one little word changes the meaning of the sentence a bit.

Again, your schedule and to-do lists are meant to help guide you and make your day flow smoothly. They are not a ball and chain that keep you tied to your office or computer. If you’re treating them like that, step back, get curious and ask yourself why.

When was the last time you said yes to an impromptu visit? Leave a comment to let me know!

Two Forms of Overwhelm and What To Do About Them

September 20, 2012November 19, 2012 by EvieBurke, posted in Goals, Overwhelm

This month’s teleclass topic was about “Ending Entrepreneurial Overwhelm.” And as I outlined the topic, I thought about was what causes it. How does it show up for me, how does it show up for my clients and other entrepreneurs I talk with?

It comes in many forms and the two I hear (or recognize) the most are:

Information overload – “they” say I need to be doing this and this and that. And I’ve heard about this other thing I should be doing – Oh and then there’s this – and I can’t forget about that. But how do I find or make time for all of that?
Everything’s started, nothing is finished – last month I started doing this, but then last week I decided I should really be doing this instead. And two days ago I decided I should do this too. So, I have a lot of things I’m working on right now! For some reason I just can’t get anything finished, I just run out of time.

Both of these have the same root cause –you’re focusing on too many things at once, specifically new things. I get it; new things have a bit of a new car look and smell to them. Then you get started on it and the “newness” melts away. You notice that maybe your new car isn’t as perfect as you thought. You’re not getting anywhere any faster than you were in the old car. And now you’re even more frustrated.

So, why are you focusing on so many things at once? Why is it when you pick out one thing to focus on you stick to it for a bit and then find yourself picking something else to focus on before finishing the first one (don’t worry, you’re not alone)? The reason is you don’t have clarity. Yes, you probably have a goal, make this much money or have this many clients or sell this much product, but you aren’t clear about which strategy to use to get there.

As a result, you jump from one strategy to the next. And none of them are really given enough time to determine if they work for you or not. So, pick one strategy and see it through. Purposefully work on each step and tweak as necessary.

The next question is: How do you get clarity? One of the simplest ways is to clearly define what you want and the strategy you’ll use to get there. Think of it like a taking a trip. If you’re going to Chicago, there are lots of different roads and methods you can take to get there. You pick out the way that makes the most sense to you and set out. Halfway through the trip it probably doesn’t make sense to decide to take the train. However, you could make a note that next time you’d like to take the train.

The strategies we use to reach our goals are similar. Once you plot out your strategy, stick to it. And if you come across another strategy on the way, make a note that you thought it was interesting and maybe next time you can use that strategy.

I’d love to know one of your goals and the strategy you’re committing to using to achieve it. Leave a comment and let me know!