Who Moved My Cheese is a brilliant little book by Dr Spencer Johnson.  It comes highly recommended but…I’ve put off reading this book for quite some time.  I didn’t really know what it was about but I had this idea that it was about changing your vision when the shitaki hits the fan.  And I thought it might be about you know, giving up on what you thought you wanted or changing what you want.  So I put it off.  I didn’t want to be influenced.

But this weekend I read it and all I can say is wow, I was wrong.  It’s an easy read,  and it has a very simple message which makes it very powerful.  There are some good messages in this book,  but the one I’m going to talk about today relates to awareness.  Humans are not known for loving change but change is constant.   Particularly when we now live in a digital world facing almost daily innovation in some form.  Innovation means change – sometimes  game-changing change and it’s very easy to be caught out if you’re not following that age old business advice to ‘measure what matters’.  Keeping an eye on your key drivers is how you notice when things start to change.

Make it a ritual to review the things that matter in your business.  Hopefully you know what your key drivers are.  Check-in daily.  Be vigilant.  And keep your sneakers handy.  As per the book, be ready to put them on and get running again.

Have a good week.

I am a goal setter for sure and make extensive use of calendars and task organisation software for scheduling client work so I’m pretty organised there.  But last week I watched Marie Forleo talking about how she plans her week and I realised there was room for improvement.  My business goals have always been a list of things I review when I get down-time in-between client work.  You know, at the end of the quarter, the calendar year or the financial year.  But at these times I am looking back and can’t change the result!  Looking back is not as useful as being in the now and thinking forward.  I actually do believe in the power of setting goals and trusting this to unconsciously steer you towards them (yeah I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo early in life!).  It does work but… if you’ve got a lofty vision, you’ll need to plan, in detail, and ‘check-in’ on a daily basis.  Otherwise, you might find it’s a really slow path to success.

Why?  Let me explain.

When you plan, it forces you to break things down into tasks and think about the time it actually takes to do these things. There’s really only so much we can achieve in a week so if you have a big list of general goals you’re unlikely to tick things off each week so you won’t get that feeling of moving forward.   It feels really good to look back at a well planned week and see what you’ve achieved.  In fact it’s a well researched aspect of human happiness. I think half the time we have the big plans but not the detail that’s needed.  And it’s the detail which holds accountable and moves us forward.  Detail provides tasks for action and action turns dreams into reality.

The way I start this process is often just with pen and paper but I always end up in Xmind creating a mind map as I find it’s super simple and quick.  Once you have your lofty goals sorted,  take some time to break it down.  Which task is key to your next step for your business?  That’s the one to focus on for now.   What’s the first task for that?  Write it up as your goal this week.

Have a good week.