Make a 100-day accountability plan, and other nuggets of inspiration for reaching your goals

On setting goals

Make sure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based).

You need someone to help you be accountable for your goals. Set a 100-day accountability plan with a friend or mentor and check in on days 15, 30, 60, 90 + 100.

Goals help you find your path, the tactics to achieving them are reverse engineering and grit. There’s nothing you can’t achieve if you set a goal, work backward, put a plan in place and roll up your sleeves.

When you consider your obstacles–depletion, tiredness, lack of credibility or funds–go home and make a list of everything you’re doing that’s sabotaging you. Then do the opposite. That’s your action plan. Sometimes you need to get real with yourself.

Create a dashboard for yourself. Take a pen and copy paper, and draw out some of the measurements and metrics you’re going to use to make sure you reach your goals.

On mentorships

Relationships are everything. Try to build relationships where you can both give and take.

If you’re a solopreneur, try to think about building your personal board of directors, made up of:

1. A mentor, someone who keeps it real and be honest with you (download the Enthuse Mentoring app to find someone great!)
2. A cheerleader, a fan who will support you and lift you up
3. A wise person, someone who will challenge your assumptions and get you to think of problems from a different perspective.

If you’re starting from a standstill, with no one in your network, you should:

1. Go to free Eventbrite conferences, Chamber of Commerce meetings and take as many free webinars as you can (you might end up chatting with someone in the comments).
2. Use LinkedIn to find thought leaders and inspiration in your sector.
3. Be courageous, be vulnerable and be willing to put yourself out there.

On time management

Take a simple time audit. Look back at your calendar and think about where you spent your time in the past five days. Was it doing busywork, checking a to-do list, or something that will help you reach your goals?

Know what your biggest derailer is. If you don’t know what dragged you down last week, you’re doomed to repeat it this week.

Take at least one hour a day to work towards the things you don’t have to do, that you can’t delegate, that can really move you forward and produce a significant result: inspiration, research, making plans, mapping goals. As your business grows, your strategy should take up 30-40 percent of your time. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to decide how to split up your day.

Start your day with a miracle morning. Hal Elrod wrote a book about making the most of your mornings, and his website has some free resources about how to find the best part of your day.

Remember, you need recovery, you need sleep, you need a good mindset, you need movement, and you need nutrition. You are not superhuman and if you deplete yourself, your cognitive decision-making skills are going to be compromised.

…And some quotes we want to put on a fancy background and upload to Instagram.

Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.

Do you worry? Can you do something about it? If the answer’s yes then do something about it, if the answer’s no don’t worry.

If you’re trying to be perfect, you’re holding yourself back. If you’re not asking for what you need, you’re holding yourself back. If you’re not building a network, you’re holding yourself back.

Keep doing; keep getting.

We get in our own way with automatic negative thoughts. You need to reframe them. Your thoughts create feelings and emotions, which then make you act, and that equals your outcome. If I look at my goal and say ‘I can’t run a marathon’, I’m right.