A visionary thinker, you’re excited about the New Year because you’re already thinking of where you want your business to be at the end of this year.  I’d like to invite you to take a step back.

We focus so much on what’s next that we forget to enjoy the moment and celebrate our accomplishments.  As you checked each task off your To Do list last year, your first instinct was probably to look for the next thing to do.

You’re excited by your projects so you’re eager to see them come to fruition; however, there’s also a lot to be gained by looking back to celebrate and learn.

Celebrate!

I only realized how focused I always was on the future when my first coach pointed out that I rarely took time to celebrate my accomplishments.  At her invitation, I went through my previous year’s agenda and listed everything I had accomplished in my first year in business as a coach.  I filled two pages of significant milestones that had zipped by unnoticed and un-celebrated!  All this time I thought I wasn’t making progress; I felt I wasn’t very successful and that was very frustrating.

So I sent my coach this list and together we celebrated what I had accomplished that year that I’d almost missed!  By the way, if you’ve never done it before, do it.  You’ll be amazed how great it feels to celebrate your own accomplishments.

What Have You Learned From Your Accomplishments?

Looking back also helps you learn.  Look at your accomplishments.  What did you do to achieve them?  What kind of person did you become in the process?  What have you learned from the experience and how can you use this knowledge in the future?

If you began to network with other business people last year, you might have needed to get out of your comfort zone.  By doing that, you became someone who doesn’t let fear stop you, or you discovered that meeting people wasn’t as difficult as you thought is was.  Maybe you discovered you enjoy connecting with people.  You may even be so encouraged that you decide you’ll take bolder steps to connect with others.  See what I mean?

Turn Failures Into Learning Experiences

Now, doing this exercise may remind you of your failures as well.  The most amazing part of looking back is the shift that occurs when you notice what didn’t work.  I’m going to tell you something many gurus (and it doesn’t really matter what they’re gurus of!) will never tell you: it’s ok to look at your failures.  In fact, it’s essential if you want to learn (and you do want to learn, right?!)

But instead of dwelling on how you “screwed up”, I want you to embrace your so-called failures as the learning experiences they really are, use them as the opportunities to grow that they represent, and become wiser and better.  The next time you encounter a similar situation, you’ll be looking back at it as one of your accomplishments instead of one of your failures.  Just ask yourself:

1. What did I learn from this experience?  What went wrong (and even in the middle of the failure, did anything go right? How can we make sure we don’t lose what went right?)
2. If this or a similar situation happens again, what changes can I make to achieve a better outcome?
3. What systems, habits or structures do I need to put in place to be ready for the next time?  How will I recognize that the same thing is about to happen?  And how will I be sure to react to it happening in the new and improved way?

Can you imagine the meteoric improvement you’d spark if you looked at every accomplishment and every failure as a learning opportunity, and actively worked as pulling out every single lesson and acting on it?  That might just be worth taking some time to look back for a moment, don’t you think?

So, on your mark…  Get set…  Look back!

I watched Elvis Costello’s interview with U2’s Bono and The Edge the other night.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable show, particularly for a fan of both U2 and Elvis Costello.  At one point in the interview, Bono was speaking about the U2 members’ decision to form a band and he mentioned that they had decided to form U2 before they could even play any instruments.  That month, Bono also met his now-wife for the first time.  As he said, “That was a big month!”  That was thirty years ago, and both U2 and Bono’s marriage have lasted.

Bono went on to explain that the band just learned as they went along, acting on complete faith, listening to the music they liked and taking their influences from industry greats to create their own unique sound. They knew talent and ability had to be there as well, but as Bono said, “We just never considered that we might not have any talent or ability.”

He went on to relate some embarrassing moments; once they began to take off, they had the opportunity to meet Keith Richards and Mick Jagger.  Keith played along on one of U2’s songs, and then invited U2 to play a Stones song with them.  U2 had to decline the invitation, explaining that they couldn’t play along because they hadn’t learned to play any music but their own yet!  Of course, today, we consider then all extraordinary musicians, but what they realized is that the power of a dream comes from the ability to see yourself as an extraordinary musician before there’s any evidence to back you up.

Every entrepreneur faces that same moment.  The moment when you see something, a possibility, that no one else sees.  What decides your future is what you do at that moment.  Do you wait until you know how to build a business, or until you conduct enough market research that you’re sure it’ll work?  Or do you make a decision?

No one can decide for you.  And you can’t wait until you’re sure it will work before you decide.  The only way it works, the only way it has ever worked, is that you decide, and then you MAKE IT WORK.

A decision, belief in yourself, and the power of your dream, makes all the difference.

If you want to increase your productivity, spend more time thinking than doing.  And when you’re thinking, think about what not to do!

We must focus to succeed, as an entrepreneur, or in any endeavor, and the easiest way to focus is to eliminate all distractions.  There will always be more to do than the time available, so that’s what draws our attention.  We ask, “Ok, what do I do?  What do I do first?  And what do I do after that?  Then what?”

Staring at a crowded agenda and ever-growing To Do list (book?!), trying to spot the commitments and tasks that are most likely to help grow your business right now is challenging at best.  You “can’t see the forest for the trees,” and you end up constantly busy but not making significant progress toward your goals.

Productivity isn’t just a question of efficiency.  It’s a question of effectiveness.  Is what you’re doing making a difference?  The Pareto Principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort.  It’s great to be efficient, getting things done quickly and with the minimum expended effort, but that’s only useful if you’re doing things than advance you toward your goals.

When you have overwhelming demands on your time, it’s very difficult to target the 20% of activities that will result in 80% of your progress.  Strategic, deep thinking demands both time and energy.  For entrepreneurs, your time and your energy are very limited resources.  Depleting your resources in the trenches is not effective.

To improve your focus, clear some trees.  When you sit down to plan your week and decide which of your many To Do list tasks you will assign to a precious spot in your agenda, make a habit of eliminating at least one item from your To Do list each time.  That is, take it off your To Do list and DON’T schedule it in your agenda.

We’ll look at options for those tasks in future articles.  For now, however, you can save a lot of time by eliminating tasks that don’t contribute to your goals (your goals have changed or you shouldn’t have accepted the tasks in the first place).  If you’re feeling ambitious, delegate tasks that someone else can do almost as well as you can and outsource tasks you’ve been “too cheap” to pay someone to do.

What tasks did you find hiding on your To Do list, adding to your stress without contributing to your bottom line?  What was the most surprising task you found?  What was the most creative solution you found for eliminating a task?