The Three Pillars of Success

Do these three things on a regular (daily) basis for 90 days. You will be stunned at the progress you will achieve.

1. Plan your day before it starts

Planning your day begins with planning your week.

Your success is a perfect reflection of your calendar – and calendars never lie. If you’re happy with your results, it means you’ve been doing a good job of matching how you spend your time with what you want.

If you’re NOT happy with your results, you need to change how you spend your time.

Start here:

• Take 20 minutes before the week starts to map out your default diary
• Take 10 minutes at the end of each day to make tomorrow’s to-do list while it’s still fresh in your mind

This way, when you get to the office, you can be immediately productive instead of taking the first 30 minutes or so puttering around trying to figure out what you should do.

In addition to putting yourself on the road to success, you’ll sleep better (because any anxiety you’ve been feeling will diminish as soon as you take stuff out of your head and put it on paper) – and you’ll put your subconscious to work on your list.

Don’t be surprised if you wake up in the morning with new insights!

2. Begin with the end in mind…and commit to that end!

This is something I learned from Stephen Covey.

He taught me that everything we create as humans gets created three times. The first time is when we set new goals and imagine our future state. The second is when we create a map or a plan. The third is when we manifest it in the real world.

No architect in the world would show up at a jobsite with a truckload of bricks and say “Hey, let’s start mapping it out.”

Yet, I have clients who want to do more business, but all they have is an idea in their heads. They haven’t actually produced a revenue plan or a marketing plan. All they have is a desire to make an extra 300 grand.

Goals like that don’t count until they’re on a piece of paper, you’ve committed to them, and you’ve made a plan.

That commitment part is important, by the way. A lot of people make goals and think of them as “nice to have” – they see them as negotiable.

A better approach is to make decisions instead of goals. That way there’s nothing left to negotiate – you simply do what it takes to make it happen.

3. Figure out the quantity of action you’ll need to take…and commit to that!

In your plan, you figured out WHAT to do. This is about how MUCH to do.

And this circles back to your calendar – making time to get the right things done – in the right quantity.

If your goal is to make more sales, this might be the number of phone calls you need to make.

If your goal is health related, it might be how much time you need to spend exercising.

Saying “I need to make some calls” is not as powerful as saying “I need to make 60 calls every day.”

And when you know you need to make 60 calls per day, you can block out the 3 hours you’ll need to make those calls.

Bonus tip: create a feedback loop for yourself

Measure your progress. Track your time, log your calls, write down when you exercise and for how long.

Then get a coach or accountability buddy to help keep you honest.

When I was building my coaching business, I made a commitment to fully book my calendar with sales calls. If my calendar wasn’t fully booked for the following week by Friday, I didn’t get to play golf. (If you know how much I like playing golf, you’ll know that this was a heavy penalty!) And to make it extra embarrassing, it was my membership and tee time – so if I couldn’t play golf, my buddies didn’t get to play golf either.

A little extreme, perhaps – but it worked!

To summarize…these are the 3 pillars to success:

1. Plan your day before it starts – set your week up for success, then update the next day’s to-do list at the end of each day
2. Begin with the end in mind…and commit to it – visualize your goals, make a plan, commit to do whatever it takes
3. Figure out the quantity of action you’ll need to take…and commit to that – put a number on it! It’s not “make some calls” – it’s “make 60 calls.”

My clients would add “hire a business coach” to this list of success tips. 😉 If you’d like to be as successful as they are, you can book a 15 minute call to discuss coaching here: Book a Call with John