Even though it seems like New Year's Day was only yesterday — half the year has already passed. As an entrepreneur, I always experienced some sense of anxiety by summer because I felt like I didn’t reach the goals I wanted to. And if you feel like you’re in the same place at the 6 month mark of the year, this article is for you so you can counteract that anxiety. Today is all about the 5 steps you can take so you can make sure you hit your goals in the next 6 months.
Let’s go, shall we?
1. Dive Into Your Numbers
The first of 5 steps you need to take to hit your goals is: track your data aka know your numbers. One of my favorite quotes is: “What you measure is what you know.”
However, I’ve made my own adaptation on this quote, namely: “What you measure is what you increase.”
The mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make, is not knowing about their numbers and as I often say: “you can’t fix what you don’t know”. So, it’s only natural you get anxious by summer because you have no idea if your business is thriving or not.
And if you don’t feel comfortable tracking all your data — at least make sure you have eyes on your cashflow because if you lose sight of that, it’ll be hard to keep your business afloat.
2. Successes VS Challenges
Take a piece of paper to identify your successes and your challenges. You’ll probably have an easier time to remember the challenges because we, humans, have the tendency to hold on to the negative instead of looking back on the positive.
Some examples of successes:
- Selling out your pre-order
- Getting X amount of views on your social content
- Growing your leads (aka potential clients) by X
Some examples of challenges:
- Getting content out on time
- Having some technical difficulties on your website
- Prepping your sales emails on time
Those challenges are potential lessons you can learn. You can take a closer look and identify what you could do differently in the future to prevent it from happening again.
Take some time out of your day to list at least 10 successes and 10 challenges you’ve faced over the past 6 months and start looking for those potential lessons.
3. Stick to your plan like glue
When you set goals for your business and by the 6 month mark, you notice you’re not reaching them, you think you need to pull out the big guns to reach whatever goals you set.
That’s where you’re wrong. If you had a plan set up for your launch or for the year, do not change a thing.
Something I teach my team and my clients is: follow the f*cking timeline!
A comparison that might clear things up for you is: a workout program.
Let’s say someone gets a bad workout program and someone else gets a good one — they both need to do 3 workouts every week.
Who do you think will book the most results?
- The person that follows the bad workout program consistently
- Or the person that occasionally does a workout of the good workout program?
Consistency will always bring in the best results so be consistent and stick to the plan.
4. Take a Walk Down Memory Lane
Step 4 consists of looking at your history to identify what worked for you then. People often tend to look for the newest trends, or new solutions while they forget about their existing toolbox that they’re not using.
Stop chasing new things and instead work with what you know.
I’ve got a tip for you: make it boring. Fully developed techniques, products and tools might become boring, but they will get you the results you need.
5. Let’s go back to the start
The fifth and final step is basically the same as the first. When you’ve applied the first 4 steps, you need to go back and start meticulously tracking your numbers.
That’s when you’ll know if a different approach is helping.
Now the great news is that you don't have to be good at maths. You don't have to be good at numbers in order to be able to do this. You need to know what's coming in and what's going out.
And because I want to help you become the best solopreneur possible, I’d love to gift you the data sheet I use every week to track my numbers.
You can download it for free through: fastforwardamy.com/trackingsheet
Is it the fanciest sheet you’ll ever use? Probably not, but it will be practical and efficient.
Happy tracking, folks!
Watch this episode on YouTube or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 190 of The FastForwardAmy Show.
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