Consistency trumps inconsistency- every time

At the Advance we talked about living a process- about identifying where you want to be in business, in family, in health... in several areas of your life... and then planning specific steps to get there. As a general rule, we teach participants to focus on the action steps you've committed to taking every day- instead of look at the outcomes only. That is, know where you want to go long-term, but focus on the next best step as you head there.

You see, if you focus on the things you do every day a few things happen:

1. You don't get overwhelmed by the bigger picture. Face it. If you're looking only at how far you've got left to go, your emotions may feel like a kite dancing in a hurricane.

On the other hand, if you're committed simply to the next best step... well... you can do that. It's way more enjoyable, too. 

2. You've already determined where those little steps go, and you can be confident in taking them. In reality, the steps do lead to your end destination. Every time. 

Yes, the right actions always yield the right results... eventually. Sometimes the result doesn't come quick enough, so we quit. 

And, sure, the action steps may seem so small that you don't see the progress in the moment. But, add a bunch of steps together... and you're there. Incremental change, over time, leads to exponential transformation. 

You know the saying- it's cliche, even: How do you eat an elephant?

Yep, one bite at a time.

How do you crush a big goal?

The exact same way...  

Break it down

At Advance, we outline it like this. We tell guys to take actions that line up in all three of these areas- 

• Regimented- Don’t do random, set a routine and stick to it. Make sure you're doing the same things every single day. Face it: if you zig left one day and zig right the next, you're not going to move down the field very fast. 
• Repetitive- Do that same routine over and over, regularly. A day off is, well... a day that you're not moving forward.
• Reliable- Do actions that get the intended results. That is, don't just "be busy." Do things that actually move you towards your destination.

Make sense? Here's the graphic we use...  

Real life examples of goal crushing

Alabama Football Coach Nick Saban encourages his players to focus only on the next play. Rather than looking at the scoreboard, he tells them to look at what's happening now. The scoreboard will eventually reflect that.

Oh... Saban's unique slant on coaching... is called "The Process." By focusing on the small things each day, during each play... the results prove amazing.

Here's another example- the guy on the left is James Lawrence. Verick Burchfield and Ernie Yarbrough are in the back. We took this dune buggy off-roading at the Iron Will camp in Utah (and about scared James to death getting close to the canyons and curves!). 

At that event, he was just James, our friend... 

But, BEFORE then he debuted as The Iron Cowboy, the mega-athlete who cranked out 50 Ironmans in 50 different states in 50 consecutive days.

People, obviously, seek him out for advice on all kinds of fitness- especially weight loss. He those people this about their weight: "Don't worry about it... focus on eating right and exercising... and the scales will eventually tell the story of what you're doing every day."

Again- there's the focus on the process, on the unique steps, instead of the end goal only.

Finally, entrepreneur and leadership guru Darren Hardy says something like this: "Focus on actions, not outcomes."

That is, he tells business leaders to do the things that they've already planned to do to make their businesses successful. Some days go great; some not so great. Over the long haul, though, by doing the right things consistently, you get the right results.

When you do the right things, the right results follow- even if you don't see them in the moment...

Question time

Alright... so what is your dream? That's the first question... 

You're going to have trouble getting here if you don't know where you're going, because you won't know what steps to take unless you know there direction to head. (And, wow! That was a mouthful- but I think you know what I'm getting at.)

Second, what steps will get you there?

Now, third, focus on those steps...

Looking for "the process" for your YL biz?

There are three things that actually grow the biz. Just three. Everything else you do must point to these three- if it's going to move you forward. The regimented, reliable steps that you must REPEAT are... 

* new enrollments (never stop this, even as your "warm market" is reached)

* Essential Rewards (i.e, repeat buyers, repeat customers- you don't want to have to find "new business" every month, do you?- if not, see this post here, too)

* multiply leaders (if you teach one class this week AND have 9 other leaders who teach one, you leveraged their efforts to teach 10... if you all got one new enrollment... you got 10... etc.)

Here's the graphic: 

By the way... here's the 60 minutes clip on Saban's coaching that we showed at Advance 4.0.