When you’re working in your business it’s very easy to put together a plan, go through an exercise, or create something and then it sits on the shelf and collects dust. Think about it, you just spent all that time and all of those hours creating something that you truly believe is going to change your life and the trajectory of your business and then you never look at it again.
Sound familiar?
Well it happens all the time and I haven’t met a single person who hasn’t done that exact same thing, including myself, so you’re not alone. The thing is that you just wasted a bunch of time on something you’re not going to implement or use that could have been spent somewhere else towards something that generates revenue or decreases your expenses.
Business planning and execution is essential to your business and it can be hard to stay on task at times. We all know that business is a variable and your days can flux from super high to super low in an instant. The important thing when these types of days happen is that we have a defined purpose and aim for where we’re going. That’s where business and life planning come in.
Let’s face it we all have limited time on this earth and we want to maximize our time spent here. The last thing you want to do is look back on your business or life and say “I wish I did this” or “I wish I did that.” That’s no way to live. Until you have a a definite purpose in your life you will be drifting in all areas. Finding that definite purpose and aim isn’t easy. In fact it’s one of the most important yet impactful elements you can inject into your life.
At WinRate Consulting we talk to our clients about identifying their legacy. The way you do that is by asking yourself “What do I want people to say about me when I leave this earth?”
You may be immediately putting a roadblock up in your head asking “Well I have NO idea how to answer that!”
No problem because I’m going to give you a few examples of my legacy to help you get yourself started. Before I do I want to make sure you know that this is your permission to dream big, as big as you want. I’d even tell you to put a 5 minute timer on, close your eyes, sit back in your chair, and go to that place where you’re most at peace and you’re 50 years out.
Can you feel that space? What the air feels like? What the environment smells like? What does it sound like? Put yourself there for a few minutes.
Then grab a sheet of paper and take another 5 minutes and write down as much as you possibly can think of that were your feelings, thoughts, the love you felt, emotions, physical feelings, anything and everything.
Most importantly think about the person you are, who are you loved by, and what do the people around you say about the qualities of you?
I’ll give you an example of mine to help you so you can get a baseline…
“He was someone worthy of a great life because of the good I did in this world.”
“He was a fantastic husband to my wife and children.”
“His impact helped millions of people.”
“He was a humble warrior who had been through many battles that have produced uncommon strength.”
“He was a leader who gave away significance in success.”
A lot of getting what you want is about reverse engineering everything. The only caveat behind that is there are multiple layers and it’s an ever changing landscape. Time can be our best friend or our worst enemy if we let it. It just depends on how long we decide that we want to keep drifting through life without being able to enjoy true fulfillment.
That’s where we start. The Legacy. What do you want people to say about you when you and more importantly we revisit it frequently throughout the year to ensure that we are producing activities that are helping us get one day closer to that legacy.
The next thing we do is we talk about 10 year goals. For most people 10 years is a long way out and they can’t think 10 days in front of them. That’s ok. The most important thing is that you start. I’ll get to the follow up in a minute. Starting to identify what you want your life to look like in 10 years is a huge factor in your success. People vastly underestimate what they can do in 5 years and grossly overestimate what they can do in one…sometimes.
The reason for the ten year goal is you now have a closer more attainable target that aligns with your definite purpose. Your compass if you will towards that North Star or your legacy. Sometimes it’s going to shift a few degrees left or right but you know the general heading that your ship is going. Here’s what I do to help my clients get over this hump. We always use time as a factor because in these activities it’s too easy to overthink and then get nothing done. We’re looking to get out what’s in your brain and down on paper.
So again we set a timer. This time 5 minutes. Do the same visualization exercise I told you about. Things become much easier for you to articulate when you engage more of your senses.
Once you’ve written everything down then it’s important to break things into different categories.
Family
Friendships
Marriage/Partner Relationship
Health/Fitness
Career
Faith / Spirituality
Personal Finance
Fun
You may be asking yourself why “fun” is on the list? Well the answer is that you need to make sure that you enjoy your journey and the ride. Taking time for fun and to recharge your batteries is imperative to your well-being and so you can stay focused when you need to be to reach your level of success.
Once you’ve broken out your categories it’s time to start thinking about the next 1000 day sprint. This is your three year plan and the difference here is that you are looking to map out the most elite version of yourself from today in each of the prior categories. The exercise stays the same. You have to do your visualization and put yourself in that space. Then write down every detail. Start with the physical detail that you see. When you close your eyes, what kind of shape are you in? What type of shirt and color are your wearing along with your muscles. What DO YOU LOOK LIKE?
The reason why this is so important is your physical appearance has a lot to do with your discipline and consistency in at least three of the prior categories. It’s also the way our bodies handle stress and the better you are at being disciplined, consistent, and accountable then the better you’ll look in your life and the longer you’ll live.
Then you want to think about your mindset and be honest with yourself about how that mindset aligns with your legacy. Think about the people you’re surrounded by and what they’re doing in their lives? Are they ahead of you, behind you? Where are they going? This will have a major impact on your long term development.
The final piece to this exercise is the next 12 months. It’s critical that you have the next 12 months of your life planned out in the prior mentioned areas. Same thing as before. Do your visualization and write down all the details with the timer. I always shoot for twenty items to accomplish in the next 12 months that are aligned with my legacy, 10 year, and 3 year vision.
Once you’ve done this exercise now you have you baseline. At WinRate Consulting I take my clients through this exercise multiple time a year.
Why?
Because we need to revisit this and see if anything has changed, first of all, and secondly we want to make sure that we are setting up the next month and 90 days to align with hitting our targets and goals for the year that we said we wanted.
Revisiting these daily and evaluating them weekly allows us to make sure that what we’re implementing is driving us closer to those goals that we’ve set for ourselves. It also allows us to make those minor tweaks and adjustments so we can continue on our evolution towards our ultimate legacy. This is what helps us produce amazing ROI’s for our business coaching clients especially coaching contractors.
This is just the start of where everyone begins with us here at WinRate Consulting. When you take an approach like we do by operating with our core values with our client’s personal and professional best interest in mind that’s how our clients see amazing results. Because they are willing to follow our lead and we’re willing to help them through the entire process.
Business coaching is something that is much more than accountability for an entrepreneur. When you find the best contracting coaching company in the world, WinRate is on a mission to have that label by making an impact one conversation at a time.
WinRate Consulting has helped over 500 companies systemize and simplify their business to scale and grow their sales and marketing, operational efficiency, manage the business through financials, debt, and assets. We have clients that have been named to to Inc 5000 list and range from as small as $500,000 in revenue to $100,000,000+.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you with your business please reach out to us!
