Playing your A-C-E
How have the first 90 days of your year gone?
Has this been a quarter of breakthroughs and achievements?
Have you achieved the goals, the “wins and highlights” you set out at the start of the year?
What went well?
What didn’t go well?
Are you on track?
And what are the lessons?
Or have you been back on the treadmill, the hamsters wheel?
Does the first 90 days of the year reflect your Greater Goals, or has it quickly become more of the endless quagmire of reactivity?
If you find yourself in that position, time to play your trump card… this is the ACE in your hand. It’s a way of asking yourself, “How truly serious am I about achieving my Goals?”
A is for Attitude.
This is your whole thinking, your beliefs, your perceptions, your conscious and subconscious reactions and your whole approach to your business, to your working environment, to your goals, to your life. As displayed in the words you use, the way you behave, the way you think, your physiology.
Attitude is passion, excitement, enthusiasm, cheerfulness, happiness, personal and business zest. Are you upbeat and positive? Many people say things which indicate that they aren’t positive, such as, “I try to be a positive person, but…”
You can choose your attitude, you can cultivate your self-belief, you can develop your faith (like a muscle). It’s amazing how, simply by changing your attitude, you can often create a whole new result!
This goes for you individually, for teams, and for whole businesses.
What is your attitude, really deep down, to your Goals?
C is for Commitment.
This is about making a deliberate Choice.
Before setting off on a new path to achieving new goals and new levels of success, it is critical to identify the investment you are prepared to make. Note, I don’t say “the price to pay”. There is only a price to pay in failure. For success, it’s an investment.
Time to get off the hamster wheel.
Commitment is about identifying the investment and resolving that you still want to do it. It’s about saying “Enough’s enough. Time to change.” And then putting a line in the sand from that point.
Whilst “involvement” can be accidental, Commitment is always deliberate.
It’s better to be committed to a few things, than involved in lots of things. Success is about how you devote your resources to the most important opportunities. Better to deliberately devote and commit to what’s important in terms of your values and goals, than involve your resources in many far flung and disparate issues.
Commitment is black and white. It’s absolute. It’s about being able to say without wavering “Yes, I’m very serious about achieving x”.
It’s about being definite with yourself and others, with every part of your heart, soul, and mind, and with every ounce of your energy, time and focus.
How committed, really, have you been to your Goals? Have you taken a ‘nice to have, but…’ approach, without putting the full focus into them?
E is for Energy.
This is Action, focus, physical application, the stark reality of doing it… making it happen day-to-day, every day, step-by-step until you have reached it or achieved it… and then setting new horizons.
It’s about keeping going, whatever it takes, with vigour, vitality, versatility (even when one route is closed, being able to find another without losing sight of the goal).
It’s about putting energy in at every stage… into setting the goals, into producing a strategy/ plan, into developing a regime and disciplines to get you there. And it’s about having energy in the moment… to perform effectively, to your absolute best, when most needed. It’s about just pure productive Action, persistence and resilience. It’s about being focused on the outcome, the result. Being a Resultaholic, not a workaholic. Never giving up, always learning, always improving and perfecting, and always ready to go that extra mile which others don’t go. The Energy you put in is the outward manifestation of your true Attitude and your true Commitment.
For teams working on a specific goal, how is this Energy manifesting itself. Is the environment vibrant, fresh and energetic. Is there lots of physical action happening
Have you genuinely put the required level of focus and energy into your goals?
For the second quarter, maybe play your ACE, and approach your new goals with a fresh perspective of focus and zest in terms of Attitude, Commitment, and Energy.
Every Success…
