Tags
exhaustion, failure, goals, peace within, stress, success, your mission
© 2015 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.
Looking Backwards Through 2014
For several days, we’ve been talking about New Year’s Resolutions. Those are great, if you follow the wisdom in the last 3 articles. On New Year’s Day, I recommended you wait to make resolutions, and just gently transition into the New Year (http://wp.me/pw4HM-kV). On January 2d, I shared the biggest secret roadblock to resolutions working (http://wp.me/pw4HM-l0). Yesterday, I covered resolutions that will work powerfully for you, and why they will (http://wp.me/pw4HM-l5).
Today, it’s time to really look backward at our recent failures. Let’s see why some of your previous business goals FLOPPED. After all, why waste time pushing yourself toward a goal, if it’s a non-starter? So get out your paper and pen, your iPad or the like, your iPhone Notes app or something similar, and let’s rock!
This is the hard part: look backward through your 2014 and list your attempts that failed, starting with December, because it’s freshest in your mind. No one will see your notes, so be honest. You can burn them or delete them, right after we cover this, if you like. Now, what do those failures have in common? I’ll wait. Ready with your list? Then consider if the following examples ring familiar chimes.
Goals are simply tools to focus your energy in positive directions. These can be changed as your priorities change, new ones added, and others dropped.
~ Christopher Columbus
The biggest reason for your business goals flopping are that they were the wrong goals—for you. Striving to meet someone else’s goals is a major waste of time and energy. So you took up product sales with a company that has great products, great customer service online and by phone, and even a training system. But you stalled out after a few weeks, exhausted and fog-brained. Exhaustion is your biggest gift: it tells you you’ve been on the wrong track.
Selling product and a sales system involves many hundreds of interactions with people. Maintaining others’ interest in your team requires incredible amounts of energy. So whose idea was it for you to take up multilevel sales? Who are you trying to please, Uncle Louie, who said he really needed you on his team? But maybe you are a true introvert and you’re drained by sales meetings and hundreds of emails and calls trying to line people up and get those sales and maintain that team. Getting more and more tired and foggy is a sure sign you’re in the wrong business or wrong business structure. Look for something with a different structure, or a different role in supporting Uncle Louie, like doing all his bookkeeping, inventory, and scheduling. Louie comes back from those meetings all jazzed. He’s the extrovert and he’s the one suited to it.
Maybe you got yourself into medical school, and you hate the material and sick people, but you feel obligated to become a doctor and “make good money”. What about moving sideways into medical research, where it’s quiet, or into medical device design? Now set your financial goal for the year. Or maybe you’ve become an accountant, because your whole family are accountants, but you are going insane sitting at the keyboard all day. You can’t wait to go to group lunches, birthday happy hours, and professional conferences—and actually see some people! What about taking over the marketing for your family’s business, and going out to give lively and popular talks to different groups about healthy money management? A true extrovert will wither in a quiet environment. There’s no point in setting “audacious goals” for financial success when you really don’t even want to be there.
This pointer is for those of you who are people of faith. Maybe you’ve never really felt you were in your groove, professionally—yet. Maybe you’re not yet in your life’s mission? Maybe you haven’t yet heard your Call? I know a couple who were successful by others’ standards, when they realized they were called to devote their lives to furniture ministry. They heard the Call to sell almost everything they had and create a new nonprofit, collecting furniture for veterans moving into newly provided housing. They are one of the happiest couples I know. Ask yourself now if you have been hearing guidance to shift what you are doing. Pray for direction and clarity, and be open to what you may hear. It may not involve any dramatic changes like moving to a different continent. But being on track with your life’s mission will certainly bring you satisfaction and peace within.
So check in with yourself as you think backward through the last year. Do you need to dump some activities, goals, or Board positions you thought you “should” have? Do you need to downsize or rightsize or move sideways in some of your activities? Once you’ve corrected your compass bearings for this year, then it’s time to actually set your goals. And prevent a repeat of last year’s flops. This year, I wish you the greatest joy, satisfaction, and success!
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Energy – Peace – Meditation
- Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert. She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office. Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.
- For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: bookings@kebba.com .
