Scary thought, but there are just eight full weeks left until the end of the year. Just eight weeks to complete your 2014 projects. How are you doing with those New Year Resolutions that you set in January? And in fact, it’s only 7 weeks, if you find that all semblance of normality goes out the window when the schools break up for Christmas.
Sometimes we set ourselves BIG goals. As an experienced coach, I would always encourage you to set big goals. Goals that will stretch and challenge you. Goals that might be a little bit scary, possibly even feel overwhelming. But it’s a fine line. The balance between it seeming a bit scary and it being so overwhelming that the goal feels impossible to achieve can be a tricky one. If the goal feels impossible, what I see time and again with my clients before I start to work with them, is that the goal is not achieved. On the other hand, if the goal is so easy and so simple, again it gets left because it’s not exciting.
Yet big goals can be achieved – it is simply a matter of breaking that goal down into smaller steps, into smaller goals. Into steps that are more manageable.
One of the corporate clients that I worked with last week had a BIG goal – she wanted to improve her department’s customer service. Well that’s a pretty big topic. We spent an intensive day together identifying what improved customer service would look like, from there we were able to establish her priorities, and then decide what to focus on first. This allowed her to break that big goal down into smaller steps, smaller goals, if you like. She then brainstormed all the possible options and ideas, and only then did she decide which actions to commit to taking forward. It was a fantastic use of her time – to take time out from her regular day-to-day business as usual “hecticness” and really focus on her department’s service, and how to make improvements. I will be following up with her in a month’s time to check in with how she is doing so that she holds herself accountable.
So yes, just eight or seven weeks left until the end of the year, depending on your definition of “end of the year”. What do you need to achieve by the end of the year? What help or resources do you need to achieve those goals? I will be happy to help where I can. If you are a mum, whether you are a stay-at-home mum, or a working mum, you are probably the default parent too (great article on Huffington Post). And that means in the run-up to Christmas, being aware of which child has what carol service or other end of term events on which day, overseeing the purchase and writing out of Christmas cards for all the kids in the class (am I the only mum that HATES this passionately), preparing Christmas wishlists for the rest of the family so you don’t end up with multiple versions of the same toys or clothes, planning Christmas dinner, and the list goes on.
What do you need to get done by the end of the year? How can you break it down into smaller more achievable steps. And by the way, public accountability goes a LONG way to keeping you on track. Share below what you WILL get done by the end of the year.
[…] Less than eight weeks? Are you kidding me? At this time of year, some of us go into panic mode – so much to do, so little time. If you work, you may well be starting to reflect on what you haven’t achieved. But wait, it’s not too late. We now have four weeks left until the end of the year, but still plenty of time to take action. You simply need to break it down into smaller steps. Think small, achieve big. […]