See how time flies!
July is here already, meaning that half of what was a new year in January is gone. Perhaps you have done an assessment or stocktaking, only to realize that you were very far from your set goals for the year. Maybe your case is even worse: you were distracted and lost focus, and haven’t even started the journey to actualizing your dreams or mission for the year yet. Or, maybe for you, circumstances beyond you: an accident or incident-sickness, bereavement, disappointment, or the unforeseen slowed you down.

Whichever, you are the one this article is talking to. DON’T ABORT THE DREAM! Yes, you can still do it. You can still achieve it. You can still go for it.

You may not get it 100% anymore-it all depends on what the goal was. However, trust me, you can still score 70% -if not more -which is still excellent. What do you have to do then to still have a beautiful end-year result? Three things essentially: Review, Re-plan, and Refocus.

REVIEW

So, the first thing is to review set goals and do necessary adjustments. The first question to ask, according to Brian Tracy, is “Why aren’t you at your goal already”? The limiting factors or constraints must be identified. Tracy advised: “Look into your company honestly. Look within your boss, your coworkers, and members of your staff to see if there is a key weakness that is holding your company back, that is acting as a brake on the achievement of your key goals”. The personal and professional development expert added: “In your own life, you must have the honesty to look deeply into yourself for the limiting factor or the limiting skill that sets the speed at which you achieve your personal goals.

Having done these, the next thing to do is to identify what is possible in the next six months and what is not. This may mean scaling down or outright cancellation of some planned initiatives/programmes or seeking external support or collaboration – depending on the goal and the action plan.

REPLAN

Now that you are faced with the reality of a shorter time than before, it becomes imperative to adjust your goals to fit into a new action plan. The best advice at this juncture is to reconsider the goals and identify the single greatest one among them which if actualized would have the greatest result, the greatest positive impact on your business or your life. Once this is done, take Tracy’s advice again “Do something every single day that moves you toward that goal. This exercise alone could change your life”.

REFOCUS

Having seen why you fell short of your expectations and having decided on the way forward- with a carefully crafted plan, all forms of distractions must be vehemently avoided. While doing something daily to facilitate the achievement of the goal, you must avoid procrastination of what can be done.You must ensure time management to achieve maximum efficiency and high productivity and effectiveness. You must learn to explore and maximize opportunities. Most importantly, you must also apply the 80/20 rule, also called the “Pareto Principle” after its founder – Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto who published it in 1895. Simply put, the rule says that just 20 per cent of your task could produce 80 per cent of the expected results. So, if you have ten things to do, identify two of them which when accomplished would earn you more benefits than if you did the other eight put together. This principle helps people and organizations to focus on the most important tasks first so as to achieve faster, better results rather than doing all tasks, especially the less important ones and getting less than commensurate results.

Let me conclude with the scriptures: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them”.