Ok if you know what to do why haven’t you done it?

This is not about beating yourself up but just be real… what are you really committed to?
Do you really have the skills?
What is really stopping you – is it a belief that you are not good enough?

What is stopping you from achieving your goals?

Why is that the biggest obstacle?

What do you need to do/ be or have to overcome that obstacle?

What do you have to give up to overcome that obstacle?

This will show you what you are really committed to.
If you say that your goal is to increase sales by 10% over the next year and you have set out an action plan on how and where you are going to market to increase those sales but you have failed to take action you are not really committed to that goal.
If you are not committed to the goal in reality you will not achieve it. In my experience most people say one thing and do another. It is what they DO – their actions that really demonstrate what they are committed to.

It is not about being good or bad but being real and having an honest look at what is so. Like most small business owners you may feel tired and disillusioned ( see the previous question on how passionate you are in business) and the thought of having to put more effort into marketing and talking to your clients or customers is what is really going on.

In this case your commitment is actually to not really moving from where you are, or your fears and security may be a bigger pull than the desire to meet your goals. This is why most news years resolutions fail. I know this is not news to you, but if you want to be a success in business, you have to be clear about what is really important to you, what you are passionate about and where your skills and knowledge lie.

I can almost guarantee you that the main thing you need to do is to change your attitude to business and the way you think about business. This isn’t about getting more tips and tools. Sorry if this is what you were looking for.
Ok, assuming that you haven’t gone off in a sulk it is worth thinking about the following:

Are you frustrated, exhausted or overwhelmed or burnt out?

If so it is probably that you are doing too much and adding to it won’t help. You need to look at what you can get rid of, not what you can add to your day.

First of all you may be looking at the incorrect goal and the action plan to meet that goal… are you sure you really want to meet that goal?

One thing that you can do is to look at all of your goals, personal and business and actually compare them one against the other and rank them.
Suppose you have 8 key goals in various parts of your life by ranking them one against another you get a real sense of what has to happen. When doing the ranking bear in mind what roles and responsibilities you have too.
As a single mother I have as one of my goals to work abroad but that would be in conflict with the needs of my daughter to have a stable home life and be with her friends at school and concentrate on her studies. So I shifted my goals: my long term (3 year) aim is still to travel and work ( migrating as much of my businesses as I can online)
So look at your number1 goal (1 being the highest) and make sure that you are working towards that. For those that are lower down the list what can you get rid of and what you do with a smaller goal? Sometimes you can amalgamate goals and take actions that will meet more than one goal. An example from my own experience – developing an app is a way of marketing my coaching business and is also a way of creating a separate income stream which is not reliant on where I am living, so meets both a shorter term goal ( developing the coaching business) and the longer term goal ( working and travelling).

It is about being strategic…

What do you need to not do?

As a business what can you do less of and still be successful, particularly when you are working on your own?
The first thing you can do is map out your systems and see where you can eliminate, automate or delegate.

In a later question we will look at what you can do to challenge your belief systems.

If you get stuck and are unsure how to do this do email me.

Do let me know how you get on.