Reprinted with permission from C.J. Hayden’s Get Clients Now! Answer Center

Year-End Review

To set yourself up right for the new year, it’s time to celebrate your successes, acknowledge your failures, and assess where you are right now. Follow the steps below to wrap up 2008 and move into 2009 with a clear vision.

1. Make a list celebrating all your successes, breakthroughs, and revelations in 2008.
2. Make another list acknowledging all your failures, disappointments, and breakdowns for the year.
3. Score your current level of satisfaction in each wedge of the Wheel of Life.
4. With the above information in mind, choose three to five areas of your life, career, or business you would most like to make changes in over the next year. For each focus area, provide a simple heading, and a description of your desired result in that area. In describing your desired result, use the present tense. Example:
   Be more organized
   I have a system to follow up on calls and emails, I know where everything is, I plan ahead to meet deadlines, I eliminate a sense of overwhelm, I set realistic goals for myself.
5. For each of your three to five focus areas, design one goal, project, or commitment that will anchor your desired changes to a specific course of action.
   Goals are exciting and motivating all by themselves. They are targets that draw you and inspire you. State what you want, and by when, in specific terms. Examples:
   I will have 10 new clients by March 31.
   I will book a vacation in Hawaii by May 1.
   Projects are a means to an end. They may not be exciting, but need to be done to accomplish an end result that is important to you. Examples:
   I will file and pay my taxes on time, by April 15.
   I will clear the top of my desk by Feb 1.
   Commitments are activities to perform on a regular basis, in order to make significant changes. Rather than an end date, they have a frequency. Examples:
   I will go to the gym three times per week.
   I will make my marketing calls first thing every day.
6. Throughout 2009, review your goals, projects, and commitments each week to align them with what appears on your calendar. Plan to repeat steps 3-5 at the end of each quarter to reassess where you are and what needs to happen next.

Have a great year!

(Note: Password protection is removed from the Get Clients Now! Answer Center until January 4, 2009. Take advantage of it until then.)

Now that we are back to a “normal” routine (hubby’s back at work, kids at daycare) and I’m home with Jasmine trying to work between naps and feedings, I’m finding it difficult to avoid distractions. And there are, oh so many distractions!

The usual suspects are: social media (tweet, tweet), email, internet, baby care and — can you guess??? — blogging.

With the (extended) end-of-month deadline for my Designing a Compelling 30-second Intro v2 guidebook looming over me, I’m feeling the pull of distractions even more. Does this ever happen to you?

Here are 3 ways I use to eliminate (or diminish) distractions:

• Close my speakers. This made a huge difference, because programs, like Outlook, Twhirl, Vision Board, make a sound when updated. If I don’t hear it, I’m not lured into stopping my work to check it out.
• Close all windows on my PC except what I’m working on. For my guidebook, that means keeping only these programs open: MS Word, Notepad and Visual Thesaurus. Everything else gets closed. Out of sight, out of mind.
• Close my PC. This is the most extreme measure, but must be done when I’m in crunch mode. I work much better with pen and paper anyways. I’ll print notes, close my PC, take a notepad and favorite pen, set myself up on the kitchen table and write away. When I’m done I go back to my office and type what I wrote. It may not sound efficient, but I save time by not fooling around on other things.

My latest procrastination-beating tool is Havi Brooks’ Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic (Havi is my current flavor and I’m stalking following her work closely). She teaches a super quick technique (something you wouldn’t expect) to immediately get you into action. I’ve had her book for a week and it’s worked wonders.

Finally, if I’m really resisting doing whatever it is I need to do (and I don’t feel like doing anything about it), I simply stop pretending to work and try not to beat myself up over my lack of focus and discipline. I’ll get up, play with Jasmine, walk to the store or give in to whatever distraction I’m avoiding. I know I’ll do better next time, so there’s no use white-knuckling it.

What are your culprits? How do you overcome them?

October 2008 marks the second annual Anti-Procrastination Month on The Savvy Entrepreneur.

Now I ain’t an anti-procrastination expert… In fact I’d like to get something out in the open right now — I’m a terrible procrastinator or should I say I’m good at procrastinating? Either way, what I’m trying to say is that I struggle with productivity, procrastination as much as the other guy.

Anti-Procrastination Month is my attempt at boosting productivity and regaining momentum. Along the way, I share with you what I’m learning. How does that sound?

Now that the awful dirty truth is out, in order for Anti-Procrastination Month to be a success this year, I need your help.

I’ve posted the question on LinkedIn Answers and now I’m throwing it to you.

I’m looking for your favorite productivity-boosting/procrastination-beating tips, tasks, ideas, thoughts and suggestions. If I like it, I’ll use it as one of the daily Anti-Procrastination Month posts (with full attribution, of course).

Are you an Anti-Procrastination expert? Would you like to participate at a higher level and get a little more exposure? If so, please c’ontact me. Let me know your desired level of participation and what you want in return. Some ideas are:

• Interview (live, recorded or blog-interview)
• Guest post
• Daily/weekly tips, assignments
• Etc… (suggestions?).

I look forward to reading your comments — and please, no smart ass replies like “I’ll tell you tomorrow” or “I’ll get back to you on that one.” They are highly predictable and it’s old already — I got my (over)dose on LinkedIn.

Until next time, just do it (another popular reply received thus far)!

Summer is over, baby is born, hubby is back to work and kids are in daycare. So there are no more excuses… I’ve been slacking off long enough.

This blog has been sorely neglected, with only a minimum of posts (have you at least been enjoying my weekly Savvy Snippets? Please say yes! ). I’m ready to get back on track.

Helping me this month is Crissy Heron Gipson from IndieBizChicks. Today marks day one of her Back To Blogging 4 week program (it’s free). I received my daily inspiration email and I’ll be posting soon.

Won’t you join me and get back to blogging too?

Taking action, no matter how small is much better than waiting around for the perfect situation to present itself.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I find comfort in these words as I contemplate slowing down (yet again) to care for a newborn. The Achiever in me makes it hard to be balanced in this area. During the next few months, I need to keep in mind that taking small steps represents forward movement.

As longtime member of the Virtual Business Group (free annual membership in 2008), one of the perks is its Book Club — a benefit I hadn’t taken advantage of until late last year. Boy, am I glad to be participating in this months’ activities, since we’re discussing Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance.

This is turning out to be a life-changing book for me.

In the introductory chapter, Buckingham explains the emerging strengths movement — a technique to getting unstuck, taking back control of your time, and steering yourself towards your strengths and away from your weaknesses.

It may sound simplistic at first, but it’s not that easy. A little less than 2 people out of 10 succeed in capitalizing on their strengths. Why? Society puts more emphasis on identifying and improving our weaknesses as opposed to working toward and favoring our strengths — it’s what we’ve been programmed to do since childhood.

The strengths movement, and more particularly this book, is about becoming one of the 2 out of 10. It’s about moving beyond a label and putting your strengths to work — identifying what is best and most effective in you and applying it in the real world.

The 6 steps walk you through a practical process of sorting through your everyday activities and pinpointing which ones invigorate you and which ones deplete you. Discover how to get more of what “juices” you and steer away from everything else. Find out how to to push vs. being pulled. Learn how to explain what you’re doing persuasively enough to get others to help you (and hopefully they’ll participate in the process too).

The 6 steps are:

1. Bust the Myths — So, What’s Stopping You?
2. Get Clear — Do You Know What Your Strengths Are?
3. Free Your Strengths — How Do You Make the Most of What Strengthens You?
4. Stop Your Weaknesses — How Can You Cut Out What Weakens You?
5. Speak Up — How Do You Create Strong Teams?
6. Build Strong Habits — How Can You Make This Last Forever?

How can this book help you run and market your business? The benefits are more numerous than I can come up with, but here’s a list to get you started:

• You are an expert at something. Once you’ve figured it out, you can clearly communicate and market it.
• Build your business around your unique specialty and carve your own little niche.
• By pinpointing what invigorates you, it’s easier to delegate activities that deplete you. (Can you believe there are people out there who actually LOVE to do what you HATE doing?)
• By concentrating mainly on activities that inspire you, you will be more productive, fulfilled and you’re more likely to stick around.
• By being very clear on your specific strength areas, you won’t be sidetracked by other opportunities.
• You will still have to do activities that aren’t the most exciting for you, but your focus will intentionally be tilted toward the stimulating ones and away from the others.

While I don’t know where this journey will lead me and my business (that’s a scary thought), I am keeping an open mind and remaining curious about the discoveries and breakthroughs I’ll make along the way.

I’m SUPER excited about this process (can you tell?) and I look forward to applying it in my life, my business, and using to help clients get unstuck. I’ll be sharing my journey with you, through each of the 6 steps.

Sound like fun? Start your own journey to see where it takes you!

If you’ve already subscribed to the strengths movement, I’d love to hear how it’s helping you in your business.

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Which Road Do I Take? Setting a Goal Will Show You the Way

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” — Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

When your focus is on getting more clients, it’s not enough to say, “I want more clients,” or “I want to grow my business this year.” Those destinations aren’t clear enough, and you’re liable to end up wandering around your business aimlessly, until you get thoroughly lost and give up from exhaustion.

Having a sales and marketing goal gives you a destination for your journey, which makes it all that much easier to choose a road.

Notice I’ve used the word goal in the singular sense? That’s because I want you to stick to ONE goal – and an action plan to achieve it – for the next month. We entrepreneurs are often bombarded with messages, information, opportunities and potential projects, and we (myself included) often suffer from the Bright Shiny Object Syndrome.

These Bright Shiny Objects distract us, tear us away from our goals, dilute our efforts and pull us in many directions at once. Having ONE goal keeps you from being overwhelmed and frustrated, and will give you:

1. Focus: You know what you have to do each day so that stays in the forefront of your mind. Knowing you only have 28 days to achieve your goal will narrow your focus on marketing and help you ignore distractions.
2. Evidence: By regularly measuring your level of effort and comparing it to the results you create, you’ll get a constant reality check on your progress. You’ll know right away if you’re not working hard enough or if you’re spending marketing time on busy-work. You’ll also be able to gauge when you’ve done enough and can take a guilt-free day off.
3. Direction: For the next 28 days, you don’t need to ask yourself what you should be doing to get more clients – you already know, because you created an action plan to reach your goal. When you’re unsure of what you should do next, simply ask yourself “Which action or decision is most likely to lead me in the direction of my goal?“
4. Motivation: By posting your action plan in plain view, you’ll be motivated to challenge yourself: “How early can I complete my marketing tasks today?” Set up small rewards for finishing a project, for beating the previous day’s record or for reaching a certain percentage of your goal. Invent your own game – the more fun it is, the easier the next 28 days will be.

So are you ready for a tough question? What ONE goal would you like to achieve within the next 28 days? Make it a S.M.A.R.T. one – that means it’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed. Come up with one of your own, or choose ONE of the following:

In 28 days, I would like to have:

• _____ new clients
• _____ dollars in new earnings
• _____ listings
• _____ training courses scheduled
• _____ appointments booked
• _____ products sold

Based on the number you wrote, you can easily update and track your progress. And please don’t worry about getting it right. There’s no rule against changing your goal mid-month if it becomes unrealistic or was not enough of a stretch.

Now, choose a reward – not just for results, but for your efforts. If you worked towards your goal, you deserve a reward, even if you come up short.

My reward will be: ___________________________________

Great work! You have a goal and you even have a reward lined up for when you reach it. All that’s left is your action plan. Simply break down your goal into the small steps you’ll need to take in order to reach it.

So before you head down the road to build your business and attract new clients, make sure you’re clear about where you’re going. Set a goal for the next 28 days and take a break from distraction, overwhelm and frustration.

Copyright. Cristina Favreau. All rights reserved.

ABOUT CRISTINA
Cristina Favreau specializes in teaching independent service professionals who struggle with marketing, so they get more visibility, build their credibility and increase their self-confidence. Get her complimentary “12 Mistakes To Avoid in Your 30-Second Intro” ecourse at http://www.cristinafavreau.com/index.htm

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER OR WEB SITE? You’re welcome to “reprint” this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered, including the “ABOUT CRISTINA” info above. Please send a copy of your reprint to web (at) cristinafavreau (dot) com.

If you’re procrastinating because you’re feeling stuck, try right-brain tactics to shake things up.

Tap into your creative self by using metaphors (stories, analogies, similes, humor, dreams, physical movement, projections, art, poetry, etc…). They help you bypass logic to alter the way you think and introduce possibilities.

1. Describe your challenge with a metaphor. (I’m so stuck on this article, I feel like I’m in a deep fog).
2. Use your metaphor to create a scenario. (I am the captain of a large ship stuck on the ocean, surrounded by a thick, impenetrable fog).
3. Play with it. Make up a story about how would you go about in your scenario. (First I’d need to determine my exact position. Then I would get my most experienced crew on deck. I would attempt to locate the lighthouse and throw my anchor out to keep me grounded until the fog lifts.) I’m making this up on the spot, but you get the idea.
4. Use your story to help you reframe your situation — to see it in a new way. (How can I apply this metaphor to my challenge? What are the similarities? What did I learn about my approach as a captain? How do I take this same approach with my article?) Again, you get the point.

This strategy is a lot of fun and really gets your creative juices flowing. Best of all, it’ll help get you unstuck and regain your momentum.

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Alright, so I spent all day yesterday switching newsletter providers. I went from Constant Contact to iContact. I must say, the entire process has been quite stressful — and will remain to be stressful for another month or so. I’m not sure how many subscribers I’ll lose, but at least those who opt-in to the new list will be those who still really want to be.

And now that my decision is made, in typical Cristina-style, self-doubt has set in.

You see, iContact performed a scheduled maintenance between 12am and 2am today (they warned us ahead of time), so if you tried to subscribe to my new list during those times, you would have landed on a page with this message:

iContact is getting a tune-up.
We’ll be back as soon as we can.

An unwelcome deterrent, I agree.

To that effect, I received an email today from a would-be subscriber who brought the (“not good”) message to my attention. Then, confirming my self-doubt issues, he asked why I didn’t opt to go with AWeber instead. I read: You are going through the trouble of switching, so why aren’t you using something better? (That’s not at all how he said it, but that’s how my inside voice read it!)

Believe me, I struggled with my decision. At first, I was leaning towards AWeber simply because many ‘experts’ in my field use it. But a trusted colleague, Michelle Ulrich (who is an ecommerce expert), strongly recommended iContact — her exact words were:

I use iContact.com (formerly Intellicontact.com) with one of my clients and LOVE it. I have not used Aweber.com largely because most of my clients do not like ‘text’ only. I do not believe Aweber has an html or design view, but I could be mistaken.

I tend to get stuck in analysis paralysis when faced with a difficult decision, so I had to take my own advice by not letting procrastination create a loss of momentum. Instead of allowing myself to get stuck, I took action, by choosing to go with iContact and going through with it.

So, yes, I could have made a better choice — I mean there’s always going to be something bigger and better out there — but at least I made a choice.

Thank you for your patience during the transition and for your continued support. As always, I’m open to your feedback, good or bad.

What issues come up for you that, if you allowed it to, would start creating a loss of momentum? How do you get unstuck?

Most of you know biking is, hands-down, my favorite sport. While I’m not yet smitten with my Trek, I predict it won’t be long before I am.

You hear me speak about the importance of being a passionate entrepreneur, but it’s even more important to engage in activities totally unrelated to your business — you know the ones I’m talking about — activities that allow you to disconnect, play, stimulate and restore your mind, body and soul. It’s the activities that, if ignored for too long, you’d soon suffer from discouragement, boredom, frustration, burn-out and overwhelm.

Admittedly, this (participating in activities I love) is something I haven’t been doing lately, which explains the slump I’ve been in. I ignored the crucial role physical activity personally plays in affecting my emotional state, creativity and drive to keep on keeping on. Reconnecting with my passion for biking has helped me get unstuck and regain the momentum I need to be the fully functioning, energetic and present mother, wife, friend and entrepreneur I strive to be.

Identifying key activities that stimulate and enthuse you is essential. List them all and post your list in plain view. When you start feeling yourself slipping or if you’re feeling stuck in your business, glance at your list, pick something and go do it. You’ll come back refreshed,

I’ve taken it a step further by creating a vision board of physical activities that juice me — biking, hiking, yoga and strength training — and placing it on my bulletin board, at eye level, right in front of my desk. Apart from physical activity, I’m quite adventurous in the kitchen. It’s a place that allows me to be creative and daring — trying new recipes, mixing unlikely ingredients together (who knew avocado and mango with chicken could create such a delectable experience for the taste buds?), being proud of my abilities and enjoying the fruits of my labor with friends and family.

So share with us what helps you keep on keeping on in your business. What juices you? What are you enthusiastic about? What non-business passions do you pursue? What activities do you engage in? How do you regenerate and energize? What keeps you going?