Lisa and I went away to the shore to unplug. We walked on the beach and stared at the sunrise over the ocean and the sunset over the bay. Overall, the unplugging worked. I felt restored and was less caught up in thinking and more interested in watching myself think. A recurrent topic that came up when I was watching myself think was “lists”.
I’m a big list maker. On my list are goals and then under the goals are the tasks needed to accomplish the goals. The goals and the tasks have boxes next to them—and I get to check the boxes when I complete a task or accomplish a goal. I have to say that at the end of the day I have a lot of boxes checked. However, not many goals are accomplished.
A perfect example is my goal to hire more LMTs for our massage business. We can’t fulfill all our massage requests, especially for the weekend. Every morning, I attack my list, but we still don’t have more massage therapists for the weekend. Why? It took the 4 sunrises and 4 sunsets and one article to figure that out.
Here’s why I have not found more therapists for our business: I have more than the “hiring more therapists” goal on my list. I have marketing and other operational goals on the list, too. So, when a “hire a massage therapist” task is difficult, I often jump to an easier task under a different goal. In my brain, I’m working my butt off and getting boxes checked, but when I dig deeper, I’m checking off boxes in business areas that are less important than the “getting more therapists” goal.
I don’t think my behavior is uncommon. We do what we like doing and avoid the uncomfortable or less desirable stuff, right?
However, my reaction is preventing us from taking our business to the next level. And that’s a problem.
Here’s how I corrected my behavior: First, I prioritized my goals on my list. The business goal that needs my attention the most is growing our massage business. To accomplish that goal, we need to hire more therapists.
Next, I prioritized my tasks of the day that will help me find more therapists. So, I don’t allow myself to switch to other goals until all the tasks for the day for finding more therapists are checked off. Once that is done, I reward myself by letting myself accomplish other tasks in my “preferred but not priority” goals column.
Here’s the thing: I’m sneaky. If I don’t watch myself carefully, I’m suddenly working in my goal column of selling and writing articles. When I catch myself I hear: But look at all the boxes I just checked off!
Yes, but none of those boxes are in your “growing your massage business” column.
This corralling of my desire is not easy. If I worked for someone else, it would be. I would have a job to do, and no matter if there was something else I wanted to do, I would have to do the tasks for my job or I would get fired. But when you work for yourself, you are the boss. And boss says: Party on, Garth. Do what makes you feel good.
The rewarding of myself for staying on track with checking off boxes in highest priority goal is important because it keeps me engaged so that I get the goodie at the end. That said, if I have too many tasks that I don’t like doing and never get to the reward, I’ll cheat and go to the reward way too early and get lost in what I want to do.
Here’s a reward formula that works for me: If I have time to accomplish 5 tasks for the day, I choose 4 tasks from the highest priority goal and 1 task (that I like doing) from a less important goal. That way, I know I’m going to get my reward once I get through the hard stuff.
This following article was really helpful with helping me figure out what I needed to do to stay on course for accomplishing high priority goals that are difficult, unpleasant or just not my favorite thing to do: Forbes article. There’s not a lot of research in this article, but the advice was spot on for me.
Lastly, throwing in a couple sunrises and sunsets to help clear your head from the inner-chatter couldn’t hurt with helping you accomplish your most important goal of the day, week, month and/or year.
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