The other night I was walking from my kitchen towards my bedroom, holding a hot cup of tea, when the lights went out. Total darkness. Apart from being freaked out in that instant, I could not see a thing. I stopped instantaneously as I didn’t want to spill the hot tea and trip over something. I could do nothing but to stop in my tracks and wait a few seconds until my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. I became aware of my surroundings again and could then safely continue on to the bedroom. Thankfully the power outage did not last long.
So what might this have to do with STOP-ASSESS-MOVE when we look at our life and business / career? Well, sometimes we become so used to the routine of life or we are constantly in motion albeit on auto-pilot. We do things but we are not really convinced that this is what we want to do or love doing. We don’t know whether we are on the right path. We are too busy to connect with our inner selves, to find out what it is that we really want. Where we really want to go in life. We have a family to look after, a mortgage to pay off, upkeep the cars, save for the next holidays whilst still paying all the bills – the daily grind, the rat race, never stops. Can you relate to that?
As a sole parent I sometimes don’t take the time to stop, assess my situation and create the plan to follow towards my ideal situation. I get stuck in the daily grind and in the worries of how I can sustain my family. I can tell you that it is and has been a great worry for me in the last years. Now is the time that I am ready to make the big change and focus on what I want. I do things, yet it just doesn’t seem to be enough.
In relation to my coaching and speaking business, for example, I have made it a point to stop and assess where I am and where I want to be in future. Last week I attended a full day working with 2 of my mentors and several other business owners. It was eye-opening yet extremely daunting to assess my situation up till then – we had to dissect every inch of our business and what it is that we had achieved. Then we spent hours figuring out what we wanted to achieve for 2016. The easy part was to have the big picture of what I wanted to create and achieve by the end of 2016. The daunting part of it was to break all that down and place it on a 12 month calendar – I usually shy away from planning that far in advance. Remember to plan for holidays and rest/celebrate times too – healthy for you to focus on a good balance.
The benefit of chunking your goal down to bite size activities (in my case coaching programs, events, etc), is that it does not look as daunting AND you can then plan other activities to achieve those mini goals. It makes it so much easier then to move towards your end goal. It was such a great feeling at the end of the day. I patted myself on the back for making the commitment to myself for stopping for that day [the logistics of having the kids looked after and getting up very early (not my thing at all) was another thing! J]. I was able to spend the time with great mentors who do that in their business all the time and have great results from it. It was also very inspiring and empowering to learn from other like-minded individuals, which kept my energy and focus high. After stopping and assessing, I can now easily and confidently move towards my goals for next year.
What do you do to STOP – ASSESS – MOVE in your life and business? Drop me a line or two to let me know so that I can celebrate with you, I’d love to hear from you! If you need some help on how to chunk it down over 12 months, let me know – sometimes 2 heads are better than one.
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