If you’ve often wondered how you can get your team working towards goals with the same sense of urgency that you have — you are not alone.

As a leader, meeting deadlines and goals are important, and yet you can’t accomplish this unless you have the whole team on board.

So what do you do when everyone isn’t on board? Or, have the same sense of urgency that you do?

In spite of the strategies you may try in growing your business or stepping into a broader leadership role, having ideas to pursue is only half the equation for success.

Often we know what we need to do, but why is it so difficult to do it sometimes? To internalize it.

There can be so many reasons why we humans don’t do the things that are good for us all the time or don’t always make choices that support us, but one of those areas that we could bring focus to is our mindset.

Your mindset WILL support you to navigate challenges and is an important determinant of your success.

Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: , says that…..”Mindsets frame the running account that’s taking place in people’s heads. They guide the whole interpretation process.”

If you look back on this year, how do you feel about your business?

Do you feel proud of your efforts weathering the uncertainty of this year? Do you feel frustrated or disappointed? Do you feel gratitude? Or perhaps a combination of all those things….

If you were to look ahead at how you would like to feel about your business in the coming year, what would come to mind? Accomplished, proud, successful, fulfilled……

Of all the things you could do in your business, often overlooked is how we want to be in relationship with the work we do and how the business can serve us and the people it depends on.

Particularly, if you’ve identified that HOW you show up in your business has a big impact on what gets accomplished and how the business does.

We all have them….things we want to accomplish in our work and in our personal lives.

Whether you’ve got many goals or just one or two, the steps you’ll take to get to each goal may look different but there’s ONE thing that is the same for every goal you work towards.

How you start.

It takes a commitment.

A commitment towards a future where that goal has been attained….We won’t move forward unless we commit to that decision.

And, after you commit and start working towards your goal….You’ll need the follow-up strategy of…

Let’s talk about WHY you started your business:

Was it to:

• Have flexibility and freedom

• Secure a financial future for your family

• Make a difference in the lives of others through your products & services

• Make a greater impact more broadly on the world

• Do what you love to do

Do any or all of these reasons ring true for you?

There’s a power and practice we all have access to that I would say is one of the most underutilized tools in our everyday toolbox….and I would venture to say, also in life.

First, here are some questions to consider:

Do you ever feel like your business or work is happening to you - a force unto itself and you’re not really in the driver’s seat?

Have you often wondered about the next step to take or how to navigate tough decisions?

Do you feel regular swirling thoughts of uncertainty and lack of direction or lack of focus when you think about your work or business?

Do you find yourself off course often - realizing that what you were doing all day or all week isn’t getting you closer to your goals or aligned with your vision?

Here’s the thing: I know how it feels to be uncertain about the next steps, to feel like it’s ‘hard’ to figure out what’s next or to wade through the noise and chaos of what comes at us daily.

I have found a simple tool and practice helpful and I wanted to share it with you today.

What kind of impact on the world are you aspiring to make through your business?

Companies who are moving towards their vision and accomplishing big things through their businesses are very thoughtful about WHO they need to communicate to (and with!) in order to get their message to the right people so they can fulfill their mission and purpose.

Having a big vision and achieving that is largely about getting your message to the people who need to hear it.

The question here is: HOW do you get your message to those that need to hear it?

With the current light being shone on systemic racism, I see many of you checking in on your own understanding of what this means.

As am I.

If I were to ask you this question, “What is the mark of a good Leader?”

What attributes would come up for you?

What often comes up would be attributes such as:

• They are Visionary

• They develop others

• They set the goals for the organization

• They are good communicators

• They navigate change

Another that I’d like to add to the mix here, is: They recognize when they may not have all the answers.

I write this as I sit here in the sun - taking my work outside to write to you today - because…..why not?

We, in the northern part of our hemisphere, are starting to experience the lovely warmth of spring and anticipating the coming summer days.

Some of us may even be starting to experience a relaxing of some of the restrictions that we’ve been living with for the past 2 months.

As the weather warms and I think ahead to the summer months - approaching summer this year is unlike any other spring ever. Usually, I have things very planned out. I know which weeks will be vacation, I’ll have everything booked, kids’ camps/activities booked and it will usually be mostly all set by now.

This year, in a year where we’re unsure from one week to the next what will be open or what we will be able to do, the coming months may look very different AND my level of planning around it has shifted.

If you’re looking to make big changes in your life, career or business and wondering where to begin, you may be thinking too big.

Stay with me here…

I’d like to suggest that it’s the small things or small steps that can make…sometimes….the biggest change of all. It would get you into action.

What would be an example of a small step that you can take that could make a difference to you right now?

Here are some examples to consider, depending on what you’d like to accomplish in your career or business:

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would share the year-end review that I conduct in my business to close out one year and move forward in the next.

By sharing my process I hope this supports you to hone in on what’s important in your business. 

My mission is to help Leaders and Business Owners create sustainable businesses. In order to create a sustainable business, knowing the metrics that convey the health in your business is so important. This way you spot problem areas that need to be addressed and successes that you can leverage or lean into.

If you chose to grow your business, you know whether or not you have a healthy foundation in which to do so.

I like to keep it simple.

This isn’t a post about time-blocking or using your out-of-office responder strategically. While these can be effective strategies to put boundaries around your work, what I’m talking about here is a step before all of that.

First off - Is the work you’re doing…. the RIGHT work?

I can hear you saying – yes absolutely!

Before you exit out of this page, I want to challenge you to really think about that.

Are you doing the work that will move you towards your goal?

Living with intention is a way of tuning into your own desires, needs and goals and not letting yourself be swept away by the goals and desires of others. 

In my years of working as a sales professional and teaching sales at a Fortune 500 company, I've seen people held back by their own self-diagnosed assessments that they 'can't sell' or don't know 'how to sell'. 

I now coach people who are promoting their small businesses or in career transition and I've seen trends that can make a big impact to your personal sales process (whether selling your skills, product or service).

This chance encounter was not so 'by chance'. And, it reinforced a concept that I learned early on in my sales career...

I've been thinking about the relationship between intent and behaviour.  

In life, so many of us have goals - to eat better, to increase our exercise, to be present at home more...

I'm guessing you can relate to the idea of intending to eat well and then making a poor choice of snack. Or, intending to get more sleep, yet, making the decision to check your social media accounts late into the night.

When it comes to your business or career, we also set goals and then find ourselves making poor decisions that don't get us close.....

I always find it interesting to look at our behaviours towards those goals because it tells us what our relationship is to them, and it can reveal something deeper at play....

What is coaching? And what does it mean to be coached?

Before going into a definition of coaching – first let me share with you these words:....