Want to change your life? Rock your to-do list!

Can you really change your life with your to-do list?

Yes, you can. And here’s how: Prepare the night before. Think on paper. Put your to do list together and write everything down. And be ready to limit the amount of things that are on that list.

If you just put down everything you think of, you end up with an enormous list – and you know what happens then. You start your day and you find the smallest thing on this list and just get that knocked out. telling yourself: “Let me just clear up the little stuff first.”

And you keep going like that. Here’s the danger in that: That little stuff will suck you into a time vortex that takes you away from your priorities.

If you are going to write things down on a list, make sure they are your priorities, or your manager’s priorities, or your customer’s priorities.

Work on the biggest ones first, until they’re done. Leave the little stuff until the end of the day. The most important thing to think about when you are working on this is: What’s the purpose of this activity?
Is it taking me closer to my goals, or further away?

Seven steps to achieving your goals

Here are the seven steps to setting and achieving your goals.

First, you need to be very clear. You need to clearly define each one of your priorities for this coming quarter.

You can’t say something like, “I want to make more sales, I want to make more money, I want…”

That is not specific. Don’t make your goal a wandering generality, like: “I want to buy a new car.”

If you want to buy a new car, be totally clear about:

• Make
• Model
• Year
• Color of the exterior
• Color of the interior
• Wheels
• Tires
• Sound system

Visualize that car and own it in your mind. Write it down. Find out how much it costs, what the down payment’s going to be, what the monthly payments going to be, how much the insurance is going to be, what’s the name of the insurance company, where you’re going to buy it.

Now you mentally own the thing.

If your goal is “more sales” then get specific. “I will open four new accounts in the next 90 days, averaging no less than $3,000 per week in purchases from me at a margin of an average of no less than 18%.”

That’s much clearer than, “I want to do more sales. I want to open some more accounts this month.”
Move them from wishes to priorities, real goals that are specific.

An attitude of gratitude: the top 10 things for which I’m grateful

Every year my family and I get away for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Whether we visit extended family or it’s just our immediate family, I always look forward to the reflection time I get.  I’ve noticed that as I get older, I often will take stock of and give thanks for three specific areas:

A.    I look “back over my shoulder” at the things that I have been able to accomplish, the people I have met, the business that I have done, the wins, the losses, and the growth during the previous 10 months.

B.    I take full inventory of where it is that I am now and where I stand in reference to my goals in business, quality of life, relationships, health, spirituality and personal /professional growth.

C.    And I look out over the upcoming year and begin to outline and plan who and what I will connect with in my business and personal life.

Each year, regardless of the economy, I find myself adding up the many good fortunes that I have been able to leverage. Also, like most, I start listing some of the challenges that I faced in accomplishing everything I wanted to.

For the purposes of this article, I have listed the Top 10 Things for Which I am Thankful every year:

1.    I am thankful for being given the blind faith and enthusiasm to believe that I can achieve most things to which I set my mind.  I have read many books on self-belief and attitude to the point where I guess I am just dumb enough to believe that it is me who, in fact, decides.