It's the beginning of February. How are you progressing towards your goals?
If you're like most leaders, you started the new year super-focused. And then the whirlwind of daily responsibilities caught up to you.
Of course, there's no use crying over spilled milk. You can't go back and change what's already happened. But you can intentionally gain momentum as you move forward from here. How? By ensuring that every day you take one step forward.
Take a minute to look at your most important goal. If you haven't already done so, break it down into the actions you'll need to take to achieve it. Now ask yourself, "What action will I take today that will get me one step closer?"
It may be an agonizingly small step. You might put the actions into a logical sequence, make a single phone call, or delegate one task. The size of the step isn't nearly as important as the fact that a step was taken.
Achieving organizational goals is similar to achieving fitness goals. Imagine I decide my goal is to increase my dead lift from 150 pounds to 200 pounds. How would I go about that? Well, the worst way would be to wait until the last minute and then push myself to increase the weight by 10 or 20 pounds at a time. That's a recipe for injury and disaster. Yet many of us approach our organizational goals in just that way. We're full of energy and excitement when we set them, but then somehow other things get prioritized on our daily task list and we're left trying to make up for lost time.
Momentum is the result of consistency over time. Disciplining ourselves to make some progress on our top priorities every day, no matter how small that progress is, will eventually get us to our goal. Waiting to act until we "have more time" or can "dedicate more energy to it" will only find us further and further behind schedule.
So, what step will you take today? I'd love to hear about it.