There’s nothing like the positive pressure of a holiday deadline is there? It has the power to make you a super human for a few days and push out more than you think is possible in a standard week. This week was my last week IN and ON the business before departing on a family ski trip tomorrow. With two full days out mentoring, the window of time to move things forward in our other business endeavours has been limited however this looming deadline has lit a proverbial fire under my behind to crunch through a massively productive and rewarding week. Here’s a few of the highlights:
- Met with and signed up as an accommodation partner with a wedding venue
- Identified and made contact with 3 national business brokers to initiate commercial property searches
- Delivered online coaching
- Dropped promo fliers into a handful of building sites
- Confirmed 2 longer term SA bookings with a new direct client
- Delivered 2 full days of round table masterminding
- Watched my eldest son play basketball
- Cosied up for a movie with my 3 sons (and a wee G&T for me)
Deadlines and productivity have been a common theme in the coaching and mentoring conversations this week so it seems fitting to build on that for this post. [and in full transparency, I actually wrote a post like this back in 2017 so I can leverage that and repurpose much of the content now 😉 ].
Sitting behind my productive week were 4 key concepts (or ingredients) that I’ve been employing for several years now. I wanted to take a moment to share them with you because they will prove crucial to your productivity and goal achieving going forwards, if you’re interested. I am eternally grateful to one of my business coach/mentors and entrepreneur psychologist Peter Shallard, for teaching me these “4 Pillars of Productivity” as follows:
#1 – SPECIFICITY:
This relates to the ideal implementation granularity required to break a goal down into perfect bite sized chunks. For example a giant goal like climbing Everest can be broken down into taking 58,070 steps. Without specificity you would be hoping to achieve a goal without any actionable steps within your control. On the other hand, ask yourself, is it clear what I and I alone (i.e. what’s within my control) need to do in order to move closer to the goal?
#2 – MEASUREMENT:
Measurement assigns positive meaning and accomplishment to completing an activity. Without delving too deeply into the science behind this, suffice to say that building a streak in completed activity delivers a positive chemical reaction in your brain, this helps you feel good about incremental progress on the way to achieving a bigger goal.
A simple analogy is going to the gym to lose weight or build muscle. In the first 2-3 weeks we will likely see little or no change but by measuring and checking off our attendance 4 times a week we make a game of following through. This progress measurement helps us get to weeks 4-6 and beyond where we start to see the results of our work.
#3 – DEADLINES:
We’ve all experienced the power of deadlines early on in our academic careers. The looming deadline of a test has the power to make us study hard at the 11th hour (or in my case this week to compress more in before a holiday). Without deadlines, things can sit on your to do list for months. When all else fails, a real cut off point with consequences gets everyone moving. If you are up for achieving more this year then don’t shy away from deadlines, but instead look for opportunities to commit to things.
So, as an example, everyone on the Touchstone Platinum mastermind knows that Paul encouraged you to do something new and stretching before our next meeting on April 10th/11th. Why don’t you all challenge yourself to that? I’ll share ours below.
#4 – ACCOUNTABILITY:
Have you heard the saying that goes, “The easiest person to let down is yourself”? On the flipside, you can’t kid yourself on the goals you’ve made if someone holds you accountable to them. Accountability taps into powerful social behaviours because we want to look good in front of others. Accountability is like a secret weapon and serves to remind us of the commitments we have made. Successful business people build boards of directors and advisors to hold them accountable to goals and milestones. Where is accountability missing in your life right now?
Here’s a quote I love:
“Accountability is critical to anyone leading a group of people, because, after all, every business is a people business. Accountability is how people get things done—or don’t get things done. “
-Greg Bustin, author of ‘Accountability: The Key To Driving A High-Performance Culture’
I use these 4 Pillars to help set and achieve goals for each week, and if this resonates, you can too.
So here’s our challenge, I haven’t looked at BTL’s for 7 or more years now, but by April 10th, Chris and I are pledging to have bought/have had offer secured on either a BTL or mini HMO in a new area with little to no money left in. [See what we’ve done there, we’ve just layered in all the ingredients of those 4 key pillars above].
Anyone else keen to set a specific goal, with a deadline and share it for big accountability?
Have a great week ahead.
[image credit: Quotefancy]