Category: planning

Are You Waiting For It To Be Perfect?

by EvieBurke, posted in planning, rules

It’s not done yet.

I’m not ready.

It just needs to be tweaked a couple more times.

I need more time.

Tomorrow is a better day to do that.

Ever find yourself saying any of those things over and over again? I know I hear my clients saying these things sometimes and I’m guilty of it too.

Voltaire wrote “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Don’t wait for the project, speech, presentation, web page, timing or whatever to be perfect. Few things we create go out into the world completely and utterly perfect.

A question I like to ask myself (and clients) when I find myself looking for perfection before I try something or put something new “out there” is “what are you afraid of?” What is it that you’re afraid might happen if you don’t have it perfect? Are you afraid someone won’t like you? Are you afraid of being ridiculed? Ignored? Overlooked? Seen? Known? Maybe it will force you to a higher standard and by keeping it to yourself and perfecting it you don’t have to worry about that.

I heard someone talking about speaking say that the person out there giving an imperfect presentation is always making more money than the person sitting at home continually trying to make their presentation perfect. It’s true right? Anytime you’re putting yourself out there you’re introducing new people to your business and your services. Why wait for it to be perfect? There are people out there who are waiting for your services and honestly, they probably don’t realize that it’s not perfect yet!

Are you waiting for the perfect time in your business to take a vacation? Don’t wait! Plan it, make it happen and set an intention to enjoy your time away!

Are you waiting for the perfect bit of inspiration to hit before you work on that project? Don’t wait! Start working on it! (If I waited for the perfect bit of inspiration before I wrote my weekly articles there would only be about one a month!) Sometimes you need to create the space (physically and mentally) and trust you’ll make exactly what needs to be made in that space.

Are you waiting for things to slow down or speed up or do something else before you sit down and spend some time with yourself to plan your week or your day or commit to making that big goal actually happen?

STOP WAITING. The time is rarely perfect. And when it is, you don’t realize it until afterwards.

I recently re-watched the movie version of The Music Man and this quote popped out at me:

You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering.
– Meredith Willson, The Music Man (said by Harold Hill)

What will you create today that’s worth remembering?

 

First Week Back, Did You Plan?

by EvieBurke, posted in planning

Vacations – they’re wonderful things, right? They’re a time for you to disconnect from your business and reconnect with yourself and maybe your family (if you invited them 😉 ).

The other week I wrote about how great vacations are. And behind the scenes I planned for my vacation by putting together my newsletters in advance, catching up on those “to read” emails and setting up my out-of-office auto-responder.

I also planned to spend an hour or two on my last day of vacation, or on the plane, planning my first week back home. Wait… I planned to do a bit of work on vacation? I could go on to list the reasons why that was a bad idea or the reasons *cough*excuses*cough* why it didn’t actually happen, but I’ll spare us both that.

Instead, I’ll say, for all my planning for vacation, I didn’t plan my first week back very well.

In retrospect, I could have planned my first week back at work before I left – even if it was a brief written outline of rest, laundry and morning routine. Instead, my week was spent sleeping and thinking about what needed to be done and breaking one of my own rules about writing things down instead of leaving them to bounce around in my head.

The plus side of that week was being well rested and readjusted to my time zone. And I have a reminder of what happens when I don’t plan.

Saturday I started writing things down again and that kick started me into planning my second week home. I did two things that got me back in the swing of things:

  1. I recreated a morning routine. Some things were missing from the morning routine I had before I left, so I created a new one for myself. This was probably the best thing that I did for myself. Your morning routine can set your tone for the day.
  2. Created a list of the things I wanted to get done. It was a brief list of about 10 tasks (tasks, not projects). That gave me specific things to do each day, instead of spending 15 minutes trying to remember what the highest priority task was, and then getting overwhelmed and frustrated and doing something else entirely.

So, when you’re planning your next vacation away from your business, don’t forget to plan for your first week back. It will help your re-entry go much smoother!

PS. If you’re currently stuck try the two steps above.

Two Reasons I Didn’t Set Big Goals

by EvieBurke, posted in Fear, Goals, planning

Big dreams. Do you have them? Big goals that might live in the back of your mind that you know you want to accomplish, but have no idea how?

Do they scare you? Excite you? Or even annoy you because they seem unattainable?

One of my mentors told me once “Enough with the baby steps Evie! Make big goals!” Now, that might be a slight paraphrase, but I clearly remember her tone and meaning.

And I remember thinking something to the effect of: “Goals have to be attainable in a set period of time. I can’t guarantee that I’ll successfully meet those big goals. Smaller goals are easier and more comfortable.”

Here’s the kicker, I wasn’t accomplishing those small goals either. I would dip my toes in the water and then decide that it was too cold and somehow expect my goals to magically materialize in front of me. Yeah, they didn’t.

One reason I didn’t set big goals was that I believed the myth that all goals must have a hard date that cannot be moved or adjusted for anything. And I didn’t want to dream about something that I’d be really disappointed that I didn’t accomplish in my specific time frame. It’s better to set reasonable expectations, right? And save yourself that pain of disappointment.

Well, that’s just bull.

Another reason I didn’t set big goals: I had to know every single detailed step I would take to meet that goal. So, any dream I had that I couldn’t do that with couldn’t be a goal – it had to stay a dream, an unattainable one. Again, why create goals you don’t logically know you can accomplish.  It’s better to see the path clearly laid out, right? And save yourself the potential pain of the unknown.

So, is it more painful to try for the dream, try for the big goal and have those failures along the way (but are they failures or course correctors)? Or is it more painful to stay safe and think about those dreams, those “if only’s…” and “what if’s…”?

Here’s what I know now. Big goals, big dreams are important. They drive you and give you something to look forward to. They propel you into action when you might want to sit on the couch and watch TV, surf the web or do something else that eats time, but doesn’t feed you.

And you know what happens when you set goals that feed you? You know that you can accomplish them. It may not be logical, but somehow, you just know it is possible for you.

So, set that big goal. Make it as big and exciting and even as scary as you want. Does your heart swell just thinking about it? Good!

Here are some closing thoughts:

  • Dates can be adjusted. Write it down somewhere each time you do and review it. Look for any patterns and address them as necessary.
  • You don’t have to know every single step that you’ll take on the way to the goal. Having a vague idea can be enough. Just know the next step (or two) that takes you closer to your goal.
  • Be open to the unexpected opportunities. Some opportunities that move you closer to your goal you can’t plan for. That unexpected phone call or meeting that results in an opportunity that you didn’t expect.

So, what’s your big goal? And what’s the next step you can take to move you closer to it?

 

Two Questions to Ask Before Making Any Plans

by EvieBurke, posted in planning

The other weekend I was at an event and overheard two women talking about the great speakers and information that was being shared.

Woman 1: “I’m just now starting my business and there’s so much great information here!  I’m overwhelmed! I don’t know what to do first.”

Woman 2: “Really? Well, I guess I know what I’m looking for because I’ve been in business a bit. It’s great information, but I know what will work for me and what won’t.”

Ever feel like Woman 1? I know I have! In an effort to get all the bang that I can for my buck, I’m furiously taking notes and trying to figure out how to apply everything I hear to my own business. By the end of the day, I have so much written down that the only stuff that actually gets done later in my business (or life) is what sticks in my head. It’s just too overwhelming and time consuming to go back through all those notes!

I wrote a little bit about this topic in the post How to Avoid New Idea Overwhelm. However, that conversation I overheard reminded me that I missed a step. There’s more to it than having a plan for how you’ll capture new ideas.

You need to know what new ideas to capture. To do that you have to answer two questions:

  • Where Am I?
  • Where Am I Going?

Kinda sounds like you’re planning a road trip, right? Well, in a way you are – you’re planning the path your business will take.

Using the road trip example, you have to know the answers to both questions. Why? Well, think about trying to plan a trip without having some idea of about where you are or where you’re going. If you’re going from Chicago to Orlando it cuts down on the travel options, right? You know you’re headed in a south easterly direction and will probably be flying or driving. If you decide to fly, you know that a flight to California wouldn’t be helpful. And worrying about where the baggage claim is at the Orlando airport isn’t useful when you’re trying to find your airline counter in Chicago to check a bag.

It works very similarly for your business. If you know that you’re just starting your business, programs that teach you how to host large events might not be for you. Perhaps it will be useful information later, but someone will be out there teaching that when you’re ready for it. No need to worry about taking in all that information right now.

A friend and I used this method constantly at the conference. There were generally two speaker options. We’d look at both and decide which one made the most sense to us based on these two questions. There was at least one speaker that I would have loved to hear, but I knew that it wasn’t for me right now.

So, where are you and where are you going? Knowing both will help you set your goals, know your next steps and decide when the information, opportunity or program is right for your business (or life).

I’d love to know where you’ve applied this in your business (or life).

Are You Asking The Wrong Question When Preparing?

by EvieBurke, posted in planning, the gym

question marksI was at the gym, just finishing up my session with my trainer, Karen. Next on the agenda was cardio on my own while my husband had his session. Most times I pick my own cardio, but sometimes Karen assigns it.

That day she assigned it.

I didn’t really like what she assigned and she knows it. She told me that it’s time to start doing some different things with my cardio. She said it was ok to stick with the machines I like, but it’s time to start doing different programs. Basically, it’s time for a new challenge.

I started thinking about how I normally decide what cardio I’ll do. Usually I ask myself something to the effect of “What do I want to do today?” And instead I could start asking “What will challenge me?”

Then it hit me. BAM! This is how I approach planning my week! I ask myself “What do I want to do next week?” Of course I also keep my goals and long term plans in mind, but the basic question is some form of “What do I want to do?”

Instead I could ask myself: “What will challenge me this week?”

On its surface “What do I want to do?” isn’t a bad question. When I started regularly planning my week (or days) in advance there was a fair number of uncomfortable things on my task list each week. Uncomfortable things (those things outside your comfort zone) are funny though. The more you do them, the less uncomfortable they become. They’re no longer unknown and scary.

As time went on, that’s exactly what happened: my uncomfortable tasks were no longer uncomfortable. And I didn’t have a way to check for that, a way to make sure that I was consistently doing something that’s even slightly out of my comfort zone.

So, I have two questions for you:

  1. What questions so you ask yourself?
    Don’t just look at the questions you ask yourself around your business. Look at other parts of your life. Many times the questions we ask ourselves in one area of our life are the same or a slightly different version of the questions we ask in another.
  2. What questions could you ask yourself?
    Essentially, are you asking yourself the questions that serve you best? How can you tweak some of those questions to be more meaningful? In my example above, the purpose of the question is the same; it’s just worded in a way that serves me a bit better.

If you don’t immediately know, that’s okay! Sometimes you’ll need to sit with a question for a bit before the answer appears.

Tell me, what was your old question and what is your new question?

Photo credit: Questions by Valerie Everett via flickr