How the ball bounces......

....Excerpt from my daily message to the company

“The man who complains about how the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it.” – Lou Holtz

Yesterday, I covered the third step that has worked for me to help me achieve and surpass my goals – visualizing the successful outcome. Today is the Daily Accountability step.

1.     Plan 

2.     Emotion

3.     Visualize 

4.     Daily Accountability (today)

5.     Rewards

I have written in a past message about the epic battle of YOU vs. YOU. How most of the challenges you face in life exist between the 5 inches of your ears. How most obstacles and blockers of your goals are self-imposed. How your inner voice can be your best friend or greatest limiter. Your inner voice is like a muscle, you have to train it with repetition and continued work until your inner voice is picking you up, pushing you to do and achieve more, laughing at obstacles, and overcoming everything that stands between you and your goal…your new best friend.

Patty and I still look to 2017 as the best year for us as a married couple with our annual resolutions and goals. We selected 5 categories that we would like to focus on in that year. The difference maker in 2017 was that for all of the categories we followed the 5 steps outlined above and this week in the messages. The Daily Accountability step was probably the one that required the most discipline from both of us. 

As an example, one of the areas that we wanted to work on was our personal finances. For 60 days, literally every single day we kept all receipts and logged at the end of each day in a financial journal every dollar that was spent. This daily activity later became a weekly activity and then a monthly activity once we both felt like we had firm control of the situation and our goal. 

Bottomline, we were able to quickly see where our money was being spent and oftentimes wasted. It enabled us to pivot when needed and save more money, apply money toward debt, and spend money where we wanted. Our daily communication eased frustrations around finances and enabled us to work together and control the finances instead of the finances controlling us. At the end of 2017, we were in complete control, and this early and repetitive discipline was what enabled us to win in this and the other categories. It also created a muscle memory that we still use today.

In the last paragraph, replace “money” with “time” and “finances” with “sales quota” and re-read and visualize your communication each day with Kurt.

1.     Step One “Daily log”- whether it is a pen and paper journal or digital notebook, record your progress toward your goals every single day. Start the day with a micro goal that helps you advance toward your macro goal. Progressively make these micro goals bigger as your success starts to really take-off. Check your results at the end of each day. Try this for 60 days straight and see what happens – your future self will thank you, that I am absolutely sure!!

2.     Step Two “Communicate”- Either with your manager, significant other, peer, mentor, me, anyone. You are not alone here, and we all share the same goal – success with delivering Accuryn to clinicians and patients worldwide to help protect the kidneys! Pull people in and communicate your progress toward your goals. Make sure you have someone that is holding you accountable and remember usually there is no one that will push you harder than yourself when you have properly followed the first 4 steps of goal planning and achievement!

3.     Step Three “Assess”- There will be times that you need to assess progress and adjust. For example, Patty and I after 60 days realized that we could move to a weekly accountability for our finances and other goals and once we had control of those and goal achieving muscle, we moved that to monthly. Assess where you are and be honest with yourself and those that are helping you achieve your goal. Expect that this will be a daily activity for you when you first start and ask others to give you that time to help you achieve your goals. 

Daily Accountability can be fun if you make it so. Gamify it and make it a challenge – always drive activity toward results and remember the micro goals achieved add up to the macro goals. When you break it down and drive toward it every single day with a singular tunnel vision and hold yourself and others accountable toward your goals, you will quickly realize that you are truly unstoppable. Your future self will thank your today self.

Tomorrow – Rewards

ALWAYS FORWARD!!!!

Joe

This is a series of articles based on the daily letters that I write to my company (slightly modified - company specifics removed). My hope is to share some positive thoughts that gently push the world toward positive thinking and encourage many to achieve their fullest God-given potential