As the year winds down and we start to look back over what we have accomplished in 2013, a lot of us are tallying up just how many of our goals we reached this year and making a list for next year. One thing those goals may have in common is the amount of time spent on reaching them. But a better use of our time would be to figure out just what we can do for ourselves that will make our goals easier to reach in a lesser amount of time.

If we track our time for a week or even a day, it’s surprising just how much free time we really do have and how much of that we waste on frivolous pursuits – Facebook and Twitter come to mind, as well as several other popular social networking websites. Technology in general has added an element of laziness to our days that we often contribute to work related tasks. If we aren’t participating in social networking throughout the day, we are left feeling as if we are missing out on something. Is this really investing in ourselves and using our time well?

Investing in yourself doesn’t mean you have to spend a fortune, or anything at all. But it does mean you will have to spend time on you and for a lot of us, we are quite often the last person we spend time on and when we do, it isn’t spent wisely. When asked how they would prefer to spend their time, most business owners answered with the following: family, health and education. Runners up were long term projects and yoga or meditation. When asked what was stopping them? Lack of time!

Quit wasting your precious minutes and hours. Technology has allowed us to have access to a world full of news. While it’s nice to be informed of everything that is going on globally, focusing yourself locally will cut down on time wasted with news items that will never concern you and shouldn’t concern you. Do we really need to know what every celebrity is doing every day? Spend that time on yourself, your family and your friends. Spend it on your business, your customers. In this way, you are investing in yourself and not scattering your energy.

Spend a few minutes and make a list of what you really want to do this year. This can be personal or business related. Then spend a few more minutes researching, shut down all of the distractions and go do it. Even a few minutes a day can create a habit, especially if it’s at the same time each day. This time can be for exercise, courses you’re interested in, other recreational activities or even getting to know your own locale again. I lived in Toronto for years and never did spend any time getting to know the city – I was too busy working and commuting back and forth to work. What a waste of my time!

Investing in yourself means paying attention to what you are doing. It is a commitment, a promise to yourself to move forward instead of staying in one place and then having regrets once again at the end of the year. It means choosing yourself over the distractions that take up your time. Investing in yourself leads to growth and if you’re finishing off the year feeling as if something is incomplete in your life, now is the time to figure out what you’ve left unfinished and resolve to change it within the coming year. Deciding to change your life from a feeling of incompleteness to one of fulfillment is the most important step in deciding to invest in yourself.

If once you’ve completed your list you find there are tasks that you shouldn’t be spending so much time on that could be delegated, schedule a Discovery Call with us to find out how we can help!  (And don’t worry, our call won’t be a sales pitch…  We love finding more about entrepreneurs’ businesses and sharing how our team can help you achieve more in less time.  The best working relationships are beneficial to both.)

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2013

image courtesy of Melody Campbell

Time and again we hear the same story from small business owners – they are stuck in a rut, juggling too many things at once and unable to organize the various parts of their lives.

When you look closer, everything seems to be right on track. Their businesses are doing well, their finances are in good shape, they have enough time to just relax and enjoy their families and activities. Yet they still feel they are staying in place, going through the motions each day.

Act: Commit to action.

A commitment to action means you stop procrastinating. You stop putting off the hard decisions, the work that you really don’t like to do and the steps that are keeping you from moving forward. Try being stubborn with your business. Refuse to let the little things stop you in your tracks or slow you down. Get help with the jobs you don’t like to do, hire a remote team and let them help you get organized. Don’t quit until you’re finished.

Recognize your self-defeating behaviours.

Self-defeating behaviours are those that keep you from doing what you know needs to be done. Ignoring your to-do list, letting less important things or those people who just want to chat interrupt your work, purposely finding something else to do so you can tell yourself you really didn’t have time to get to that item today. We all have behaviours we indulge in when we would prefer not to do something. Once again, don’t let yourself be distracted and hire help for the rest!

Realize that it really is that simple.

Deciding you’re going to do something is as simple as finding the initiative to really want to reach your goal. Not so easy? That’s true, but at some point you will realize that the way you are doing things now is actually taking more energy than tackling the things that have to be done. Finding the discipline to start an initial effort can seem exhausting especially if we are used to receiving things immediately without waiting for a return on our time and energy. Focusing on our goal can help but for most of us an attitude adjustment is in order. Our goal can be reached by taking a series of small steps and it really is that simple.

Getting out of a rut, changing ourselves and as a result, our business, can give us more energy by reviving our interest in what we are doing and shaking us out of the same old boring path. Do it one step at a time, choose your optimal plans, gather all of your necessary resources and don’t make it harder than it has to be.

We are all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work. ~ Paul Rudd in How do you Know

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc 2013