I bet you have a clear sense of your goals over the next 1-3 years?

Whether they’re to grow your market through the number of client contracts and policies, increase your customer leads, put a new service into the marketplace, acquire a new property within your business, or add new team members….we typically have a sense of what we want to accomplish this year or over the next few years.

Knowing where we want to get to is key for effective goal setting.

But, how do we ensure we’re making regular progress so we don’t get half way through the year and realize how much time has slipped by - slowing growth?

You started your business because, and I’m taking an educated guess here, you want to have flexibility, create a lifestyle uniquely yours and make a positive impact through your work. Is that right? or close?

If you’re aspiring to or on your way towards something bigger and you feel there’s more to go and not quite there yet, amidst the strategies and the tactics, I’m inviting you to consider another aspect that will help you increase your success rate to achieve big goals.

Your energy: the mental perspective you’re bringing to your goal achievement.

There are common mis-steps that I’ve made and I see others making. I’m highlighting them here so we can support each other in our collective pursuit of our personal and professional goal achievement.

Three common areas where even high-achieving professionals can become derailed:

1. Allowing urgent items to take priority over our schedule, nudging goal efforts aside.

You may be thinking - of course…it’s urgent.

Well, is it urgent for you or someone else? Many times what’s urgent for someone else lands on your plate with a deadline attached, creating a sense of urgency for you. Particularly if you’re in a line of work where this is the norm rather than the exception, this can be a challenging environment to pursue those important but not urgent activities, which is the category that many goal efforts fall into. But, note I said challenging, not impossible.