The One Thing That Causes More Dropped Balls Than Anything Else
For people or for teams who feel stuck or like they are always waiting on external factors to move them forward:
Give yourself or your team an accountability audit.
This assesses how clear your team is on their responsibilities, and where the gaps are. This is critical for pinpointing the systematic flaws that are enabling dropped-balls and missed opportunities.
It means accounting for achievable goals, not tasks that just took up time
Phone calls are not achievable goals that move you forward. They don’t add value to the customer or client.An email is not a task you achieved, your users don’t care how many emails you sent or how well intentioned they were.Closing the deal adds value, so that counts.Launching the book adds value, so that counts too.Accountability means tasks that are measurable.Accountability means thinking about the end user or customer first.Accountability means looking at the task list and interrogating impediments with a fury.It means facing reality and being honest with yourself about what actually needs to happen to hit the goal.
2 Minute Action:
Define the results you want/your goal.Call your best friend and ask them to text you every day until you get it done.When you start making excuses for why you didn’t make progress, you’ll either realize that you’re making excuses or you’ll continue to believe those excuses and see the same results.It’s up to you.
Ask This Question and Avoid A Life of Regret
Not sure whose job it is?Take the ball.Unsure how to get the work done?Take the ball.Waiting for someone to tell you to start?Take the ball.
Basically, it comes down to control and ownership.
If you decide to take ownership over something, it psychologically falls into your field of “stuff I can control.”
This is really useful for most things.
(There are some serious consequences for doing this in EVERY aspect of life, but in MOST aspects of work, this works pretty well.)When you frame something as “in your control” your approach changes. You start to see the ways in which you can make it happen.The neat thing is that even if you’re wrong and you “fail,” you’ll be left with the benefits of knowing that you didn’t leave any effort on the field. You did everything you could.No regrets.And when you only have one life to live, you really can’t afford to have many of those.The reality is that there are really very few negative outcomes to taking ownership and seeing most tasks and outcomes as within your control.
2 Minute Action:
What’s an excuse you’ve been making?What might you do if you couldn’t give that excuse anymore?What approach might you take if you had to make it happen even with your challenges?If you come up with multiple answers for this, try one of these today.The action may take more than two minutes, but what if it couldn’t?What if your life depended on it?(Because it kind of does.)
3 Small Reminders That Will Make You Relentless
It’s easy to be incapacitated by the hugeness of your dreams.Its just as easy to be incapacitated by the lack of huge dreams.If you’re serious about achieving your goal, you have to take a step back and clarify a few things:
1. Define the fantasy
Are you really sure that starting a non-profit is the way to your happiness? Did you know that you’ll have to put together a board and then THEY will be in control of your company?It might take some challenging to figure out if your fantasy of the perfect future is actually what you want.
2. Do the work
There is no substitute for hustle. Commit to something and see it through. When you’re done, assess what you should keep doing and what you should improve. Don’t start working again until you have a new hypothesis to test.
3. Make the work smaller
Most people bite off more than they can chew. It’s pretty normal, especially in American work culture. Make the steps smaller and more fun to accomplish and you will have a positive feedback loop that will lock you into a behavior pattern that will increase the chances of success.That’s it.You will read about tricks and tips and tactics and strategy and how to make your website better and how to get cheaper leads and how to write better . . .. . . and it’s up to you to stay focused.Its simple, not easy.You already know what to do.Just start.
2 Minute Action:
I firmly believe that everyone has 2 minutes to do something in a day. There is no excuse for not having 2 minutes.If your next step is too big, I challenge you to break it down into smaller pieces.”Start a non-profit” sounds like it would take more than 2 minutes—but “set up a call with my friend who works at a non-profit” is much smaller.“How to file for a non-profit” is a quick Google search.Looking up “pros and cons of a non-profit” takes 2 minute sor less to get a quick idea.Today, I’m asking you:What is your 2 minute action?What could you do today that only takes 2 minutes and can move your forward.It can be as small as you want—you just have to do it.If you still don’t want to take action and you know it only takes 2 minutes, it’s your job to figure out what other excuse you might have.More on that, later.This post took you about 2 minutes to read, so remember that when your brain starts feeding you excuses.