1. Find out your strengths (if you don’t know what they are, you need to find out)! What do you do when you’re at your best?
This question is deceptively simple but incredibly powerful. The world’s most successful people have discovered the things they are best at and build their work lives around those strengths.
If you don’t know what your strengths are, you can buy a book that offers the test, called STRENGTHS FINDERS.
2. Keep a time journal How do you (really) spend your time?
For one day, write down what you want to accomplish, and then use any of the online tools to keep track of everything you do. Do some research to find one that’s right for you. At the end of the day, compare your goals with what actually happened. You can also do this without the expense of spending funds if you are disciplined enough to do so.
This is an incredibly revealing exercise because it shows you how much time you are wasting on random and useless activities. How much time do you spend checking email? How long on Facebook? How long endlessly flipping through the news, feeling productive but getting nowhere?
As an exercise, see if you can identify the 20% of your time that produced 80% of your results. What can you do to have a more highly productive time like this?
3. Set weekly goals and review progress
What is your #1 goal this week? You need to set goals. They help you stay focused. You waste less time and less money.
This personal investment strategy is similar to time management, but it lasts for a whole week. Often, we are so caught up in the rush of day to day that we don’t step back and look at the things that are most critical.
It’s the old problem of the urgent versus the important. We spend our time dealing with small, urgent problems, when we should be focusing on important (non-urgent) tasks. This week, fight the chaos by setting one main goal that you want to accomplish in seven days. You can also pick two secondary goals if you’re feeling ambitious, but no more than that.
See how you did at the end of the week. Has setting goals helped you work more purposefully and effectively? If you had done nothing but work on your top three goals, what would have happened?
4. Get a mentor
This is a tougher challenge, but the benefits are worth it.
You need to find a mentor.
Make a list of everyone you know who has a lot of experience in your line of business. If you don’t know anyone who meets this criteria, broaden your search to people you know who have been very successful in another field or with whom you particularly resonate.
Then sort your list of potential mentors by preference and start contacting them! Try to establish a regular meeting time and general goals for the relationship when you first meet. I would also recommend setting a task to work on between each of your meetings, so you can get feedback and support from your mentor.
Mentoring relationships are a powerful source of knowledge, inspiration, and connections. Don’t miss out!
5. Read a great book
Great books are like boxes of prepackaged ideas, painstakingly put together by a brilliant author for you to digest. Why not take advantage of this amazing resource?
These are some of my favorite business books. I challenge you to read at least one of them over the next month:
Twenty steps to a more glorious life
Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
Cha Ching – Jeffrey Gitomer
Get Rich on Main Street – Rick Pierce
Each of these books transformed the way I think about business. Reading these books is like hiring a business coach for just a fraction of the cost!
6. Start a Habit that makes you “stretch”
What is one thing you would like to do every day?
Here are some ideas:
- write a blog post
- learn something
- working out
- get to influence
- brainstorming
- (think of a productive habit you would like to do)
- guest post
Take one of the ideas above or create your own. You are about to make your chosen activity a habit that you do every day, using one simple truth.
You can do anything for 21 days. Make it something you want to incorporate into your life..
7. Build your personal brand
How is your online presence? What happens when someone searches your name on Google?
The topic of personal branding is too broad to cover here, so I’ll stick with one practical suggestion.
Challenge: Create an “infographic resume.”
An infographic resume is a small, visually appealing information card/web page that provides your bio, contact information, achievements, and skills.
The next time you need to introduce yourself to someone online, just direct them to your resume page (that wasn’t that hard!).
8. Being thankful
Being grateful is surprisingly powerful.
As Shawn Achor explains in his TED Talk, taking five minutes each day to list three things you’re grateful for trains your mind to look for the positive. Surprisingly, keeping a positive mindset makes you more productive and effective at work (as well as happier in general!).
Who knows?
As an aside, I started doing this a few months ago. Within a week of adopting this habit, I had an absolutely incredible series of brainstorming sessions that gave me insight into the development of Viibrant over the next year.
That week was one of the most productive and creative periods of my life… and I wonder if it had something to do with my new “thank you” habit. It may have just been a coincidence, but we’ll never know for sure.
9. find your why
Purpose is a powerful thing. He gets you up in the morning and keeps you up at night. Anyone who achieved anything great was driven by a strong and deeply held belief in what is wrong with the world and how it can be put right.
What is your purpose? Why do you work?
Take an hour today to sit quietly and reflect on what matters most to you. What kinds of “bigger than yourself” activities really get you excited or make you feel more fulfilled?
Don’t skip this challenge. The benefits of knowing your purpose will last a lifetime.
10. The greatest danger is inaction
Change is always scary, and you may be reluctant to implement these suggestions for fear of what might happen to your business. But experimenting with these ideas will likely go unnoticed by most of your customers, especially those new to your business. If the changes are not beneficial, you can always go back to your previous policies and prices.
If you don’t take action, you’ll never know how much money you could add to your botom line
Conclusion: Are you ready to start with these challenges?
No one will do this job for you. How important