Where has time gone this year?! I like to think I am getting younger every day but the speed at which the past 6 months has flown by at makes me feel very old!
We are officially now in Q3 of 2023. Big businesses measure themselves in quarters and the last days and weeks of the quarter are a manic and focused time where the companies are frantically trying to hit their numbers.
As an entrepreneur or small business owner you should have the same level of obsession over targets and making your numbers.
And even if you don’t have a business, you should be running your life in exactly the same way. You may think you don’t have city analysts to report to and that you are your own boss, but I would argue it is even more important to hit your personal targets and keep your promises to yourself.
Keeping your promises to yourself is what helps you build confidence. Knowing you can do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it. Breaking your promises to yourself is a slippery slope to becoming a loser.
When I was back in Leeds doing a run around my local park. There are these steps that I always like to sprint up when I am out on a run there. Each time I am there I set myself a target of how many times I am going to run up and down them. This time it was 10 times. But they are tough! And as I don’t practise them often I find it struggle.
By number 3 or 4, I was already exhausted and wanted to quit! I was making excuses in my head, negotiating with myself. Telling myself that 5 would do. Why did it matter, I was only doing it for myself, 5 was still a good number.
‘THEN I HAD TO SLAP MYSELF AROUND THE FACE (METAPHORICALLY!) AND SAY ‘NO MATT YOU FUCKING PUSSY! YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO 10 SO YOU WILL FUCKING DO 10!
IF YOU CAN’T KEEP A SIMPLE PROMISE LIKE THAT TO YOURSELF THEN WHERE DOES IT END? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO LET SLIP NEXT? CARRY ON LIKE THAT AND YOU WILL BE BACK TO BEING 100KG OR YOU WILL BE SLACKING OFF AT WORK.’
So, I powered through, got to 10, and hit my target. I gave myself a win and ensured I built not just my cardio ability but my willpower and confidence too.
And you must do the same for yourself. You must set targets and you must deliver on them. That is the only way confidence is built and progress is made.
It doesn’t matter what the targets are specifically, as long as they are positive and moving you forward. It can be as simple as you will not eat any biscuits today – but then you must do it!! Don’t get to the end of the day and say ‘Oh, well one biscuit isn’t going to make any difference so I will just have that before bed. It won’t affect me and no one will know.’ SLIPPERY SLOPE REMEMBER!
Struggling for target ideas? KPI’s to set yourself? There are unlimited ones that you could be applying across all aspects of life and business sectors!
Personal:
100 press-ups a day, 15,000 steps a day, no chocolate, 3 hours a day with your kids, 1 date night a week with your partner
Business:
Profit target, revenue target, staff retention target, units sold, sales calls made, outbound emails send.
The list is endless, only you know what targets you should be setting, what you should be measuring. What isn’t measured can’t be managed. But coupled with the specific areas of targets you are creating, your other key metric should simply be growth. Higher this year than last. More this week than last. Better today than yesterday.
If we aren’t growing, we are dying. You are either moving forwards or falling backwards. There is no such thing as staying the same. If you are staying the same then there is someone else moving forwards – so that means you are going backwards.
I like to back work my goals into targets. And then break those targets in to smaller chunks that can be closely monitored. Monthly, Weekly, DAILY.
The simplest hack here is you can almost ignore everything else and just set yourself 1 simple target – BE 1 % BETTER THAN YESTERDAY. That can be at anything. Be better, Do more, Try harder.
1% is nothing right? It’s so easy! Even the laziest person in the world must be able to achieve 1% growth?! But what people never appreciate is the power of compounding. Those minuscule daily gains, adding up and up. At first invisible. Then barely noticeable. Then looking quite small. Then one day BOOM! You’re a millionaire, muscular, overnight success story!
It works with money, with fitness, with improvement in your hobbies – with everything. But it’s usually ignored because it is boring! But the image shows all you need to know. 1% daily growth gives 37* growth after just 1 year. Even in 90 days you are 2.5* better off than when you started. But time is what really makes compounding fly.
But don’t forget it works in reverse too! 1% daily loss is unnoticeable at first. But then then same thing happens. Time compounds until 1 day – not too far in the future – BOOM! You are bankrupt, fat & single!
We often see success in terms of single defining moments. An individual achievement or action. That’s probably where we get the term ‘overnight success’ from. But whilst it is the glory moment that most people may remember, it only happened because of that compounding of daily effort and activity that has gone on for months & years.
Daily work. Daily Exercise. Daily eating habits. Daily love.
The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.
Ernest Dimnet
Good habits or bad habits are easily in your control. Make the right choices and start building today!
Want some accountability? Drop me an email and tell me some targets and habits you are going to set for yourself or your business and start TODAY!
