Go Hard, Go Early! 5 Success Steps for 2018

Calendar year endings and beginnings are often out of kilter with corporate Financial Years, however they are still a useful tool for us to use. In our busy lives, time for reflection seems limited and if we are not careful we can miss the chance to grow year by year. Do we want one year of experience twenty times or twenty years of experience? The answer to the latter is to make each step along the path a winner by maximizing the learning we gain each year. Let's play a bigger game and get moving early to do that. Don't leave it until January, that is too late. We need to get our planning done now for next year. Here are five steps to take us forward for a great 2018. Go early, go hard.

Step One – Capture The Good

Rather than beating yourself up and remonstrating with yourself, switch mental gears and capture the things which you did well in 2017. What wins, no matter how small, did you have? What projects did you complete? Which clients did you acquire, retain or grow? Create a list of the things that worked that were new developments or were established things done in a different, better way? Reflect and then write them down.

Step Two – Nominate the Better

The good thing about 2018 is you get to keep doing many of the things you did in 2017 but this time with the benefit of hindsight. We can apply the concept of kaizen or continuous improvement to all that we do and look for leveraging small gains over time. We may have found there is a better way of doing things through our experience, so 2018 is the time to try again.

Step Three – Make The Second Effort

We often have too big an appetite for projects or pieces of work and we can’t get them completed. We have made a start and we now need to marshal the resources – time, people and money - to get them done. Decide the new priority order of projects to be completed in 2018 and start working on getting them done this time around. In sports, coaches look for athletes who don’t give up, and make that second effort, after the first one failed. Choosing priorities, while hard, is necessary - we can’t do everything but we can do the most important things and we can do them in the order of priority.

Step Four – Set Goals

Perspectives do change and last year’s goals may not be as relevant this year. Time has a habit of overtaking us. Having reflected on what was working well, what would you do better this time and which projects need attention, it is time to get your goals down on paper. Writing them down has some weird magic about it and increases the clarity and commitment to getting them done. Trust me, you won’t remember them, so write them down.

Step Five – Commit Yourself

Goals once defined are not completed and need that final stage - execution. Set the timetable for the completion of the goals and align the team behind their achievement. Break the work down to bite-sized pieces and check progress regularly to keep things on track. Sounds easy, but often the reason we don’t get everything done is we lose our way through being overwhelmed by a bunch of stuff out of left field. We need to keep ourselves and our people moving forward regardless. Stuff happens, as they say, but we need to regroup and carry on anyway. The key is making a personal commitment to get it done, no excuses accepted.

These five steps are not difficult to do and the beauty of doing them is we can rearrange our workload in a way which brings mental freshness to our daily work routines. The start of a calendar year may be an illusory time trick we play on ourselves, but why not make it work for us? Our lives are so much more complex today, more interconnected every single minute of the day. We need bigger and bigger efforts just to keep up. We should use the start of the calendar year as a reinvigoration for a better business year – let’s make it a mental trick in our favour!   Winners go hard, go early.

 Action Steps

1.      Capture the good

2.      Nominate the better

3.      Make the second effort

4.      Set goals

5.      Commit Yourself

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.