PHOTO BY: Abulic Monkey
I gave myself the challenge to come up with three words to help build my goals for 2010 for Actuate.
I’m doing it for my personal life too, but I’ll keep it business focused now. Again we can thank Mr. Chris Brogan for the suggestion. I swear I could be his guinea pig for suggestions. I could do everything he suggests for a year and see how successful or frustrating my life becomes. I expect if I took 25% of his suggestions and mulled them over, I’d be better off.
I have to say, I did my favorite thing for brainstorming. Mind Mapping!
I have loved doing these since I learned about them in some class or another that I took years ago. In the center I wrote “Actuate 2010″ and I set a timer for 10 minutes. I heart timers. I used an online timer because I was too lazy to go to the kitchen and set the one on the stove and this one is particularly good.
Since I was looking for three words/themes for the year I was pretty happy when they popped out.
I came up with Produce, Systematize and Commit.
For each the obvious results are more create offerings, make for smoother machinations (a word I love because of Patrick of Sponge Bob fame) of what I do and show up. Showing up is hard to describe but on the mind map I had “fearlessness, ending self doubt and emotional barriers” that could keep me from doing all I want to do.
Identifying the path or the action items is next.
Produce- is creating classes, workshops, templates, applications of my theories, and book ideas. Also there’s blogging and potentially video blogging. That’s on top of making more one on one coaching connections. I love doing that!
I mean really if I had to say it this year is about brainstorming my business by doing. It’s trying to tap as many avenues as I can to see what sticks. You know throw the spaghetti at the wall, which is really a bad way to see how cooked the pasta is, but throwing stuff out there and out of my head is the best way for me to move forward; it’s the best way for me to see if it will serve the goal. I’m an extrovert, that’s what Meyer Briggs tells me I do.
The path to systems is doing the work such as create mailing lists, contacts, logging hours, billings, plus templates and book stuff, which aligns with produce.
I’m all about alignment.
Those are some real tangible things which I feel pretty confident about handling. So whew.
The last one, commit is pretty much about not being scared. I know I can talk myself out of anything if I let the evil little voice of fear in my head have control. You know the one that says people will think I’m foolish, silly, stupid, inept, an impostor, etc. if I show up. It is the same one that tells me it’s too cold, too far, too insignificant to spend my time and energy doing. I hate that voice!
That’s going to need a good cop/bad cop kind of approach, I think. There are times when I’ll have to power through the self doubt and other times when I have to be gentle with myself. Does that make sense? The obvious results will be more connections.
The overriding goal is to make connections and contribute to the lives in my life.
I’m convinced that if I do good work the money will follow. Part of doing good work is asking for the sale, but it’s also proving my value. Doing good work is contributing. It’s kind of a cycle thing, know what I mean?
So what would be three words for your year? What’s your goal or goals? Do you have a mission/vision for what it is that you are doing?
