Geez, what happened to 2014? It went fast didn’t it? I hope it was a productive and prosperous year for you. I hope you kept all your resolutions and achieved all your goals. I hope!
Hope is nice but it’s no substitute for an actual plan.
If you’re like the vast majority of people, your resolutions were toast before you received your first paycheck in 2014. If you set goals your odds were somewhat better. If you set goals along with developing a plan for exactly how you would achieve them your odds of reaching them were actually pretty good.
If your plan included what you would stop doing in order to start doing something more productive then your odds of achieving your goals in 2014 were excellent.
Most of us are very busy people, we just don’t have much free time on our calendars. Yet when setting goals for the coming year we just add more to the mix. To be more successful we will start doing_____________. Go ahead and fill in the blank.
Do your goals for 2015 include starting new habits, starting new activities, starting new projects? Well that just isn’t realistic unless you first plan to stop doing something too.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve joined fitness clubs. I budgeted the money to pay for it, but not the time to use them. It was just one more thing that I didn’t have time to do. To be a bit more precise, it wasn’t that I didn’t have the time, I just didn’t make using the clubs a priority. To use them, I would have had to stop doing something else, I CHOOSE not to do that. It wasn’t really a concious choice but it was a choice just the same.
Unless you found yourself with an abundance of time in 2014 it’s foolish to add more to your “to-do” in 2015. Before you add anything new, take something off.
So let me suggest you begin your 2015 planning by making a “Stop-doing” list. A list of those “things” that you do which get you little or nothing in return. Make a concious choice about how you invest your time in 2015. Open up some time in your day to begin doing some new things that help you reach a goal.
Your success in 2015 might not determined by what you do; it may well be determined by what you don’t do any longer.
I ask two of your questions and one more:
What will you start doing? Stop doing? Continue doing?
Great extra question… I like it cause it makes you stop and think about how you have been investing your time, or in the case of too many people, spending your time.
I’m not thinking about what the ROI is on the stuff I’m doing today… well not specifically today, cause it’s Saturday and we all know what I do on Saturday 😉 but I’m thinking about the actions I’ll take this month and if I receive on return on that investment of time… Very good question indeed!
Reblogged this on Gr8fullsoul.