Seven Easy Steps to Reach Your Goal

It’s easy to lose focus and fritter away your summer. We need to relax and have fun, but don’t let the season slip by without achieving what you want. Following the steps below will get you where you want to go.

1. Identify where you want to go. Write down your goal—where you want your business and your personal life to be at the end of summer, or the end of the year. What will you have achieved? How will your business and your life be different?

2. Document what you’ll need to do to get there. Write down the steps you’ll need to take to reach your goal. What will have to happen? What will you need to do? Be very specific. Make note of specific milestones along the path to your goal.

3. Add a timeline to your plan. Be realistic. Allow for unplanned interruptions, especially in the summertime. Build in some flextime, family time and social time. You’ll be more productive if you also plan some time alone time just to relax and think.

4. Prioritize! Each morning, list the tasks you’d like to accomplish, then prioritize them. Decide on the one most important thing to get done that day, even if nothing else got done. Stop occasionally during the day and ask yourself, “Should I really be doing this now?”

5. Work your plan. Arrange to work in time blocks. Experts tell us that we’re more efficient when we concentrate on a task for two hours, then take a break, walk away from it, relax and do something else for a short time. You’ll return to the task with new energy and focus.

6. Complete one project at a time. You’ll be more effective if you focus on and finish a single task. Multitasking is proven to be stressful and unproductive. Be aware of your weaknesses and prepared to deflect those BSOs—the temptations that easily sabotage your focus.

7. Enjoy the journey! Plan appropriate rewards for yourself at milestones reached along the way. Recognizing and celebrating successes, even small ones, en route to your desination will encourage and spur you on to get there.