Well, it’s Friday and it’s been a great week for me. How about you? I hope that you have some better insight into some of your next steps in life. I started this entire idea for the week 
because I have so many people tell me they just want to give up and start over. It’s a huge topic and I couldn’t fit it all into just five days of writing so we’ll do this theme again in a few months with some other ideas and direction to help you if you are starting over.
Today I want to close with one more idea about starting over. It’s a pitfall some people fall into. They take on more than they can handle. Now, we know there are only 24 hours in a day. There are only seven days in a week. We have to eat and we have to sleep. So let’s not overdo it. Do not give up all your extra free time and sign up doing as much as you can. Leave some breathing room.
When I work with clients over the phone, they are always shocked in the beginning to find that I encourage them to have a lighter load of goals than after, say, six months into the coaching program. When you have just crashed at doing something, do not use this time to fill your schedule up. Instead, take some time to learn to balance all the things in your life.
If you fill up your life right away, you have a very real risk of running into overload. Adding on one more project at work because you think it will get you ahead, and not going home for a game of Guitar Hero with your kids on XBOX, might not seem like much at first. But if your mindset is that the more time you put in at the office, the better your chance of success, you may be masking the fact that you have inefficient work habits. Pretty soon, you’re the guy who never goes home at all. Is that really what you’re working toward, what your goal is? To devote your entire life to work at the expense of other things?
Instead, use this time of starting over not only to find new ways to achieve your goal, but to find better ways to work. Take on smaller lists of things to do and work your way back up. Taking the time to fit everything into your life is important. Then stretch yourself little by little to work towards the success you want.
While I had found what I wanted to do with my life, in the beginning, it seemed like the results were not coming as fast as I wanted them. In retrospect, I believe I tried to push too hard, too fast without a good plan. My goals and dreams were right but my methods weren’t.
If you keep piling on more and more things to do as you pursue your goal, maybe because other people keep giving you suggestions, maybe because you aren’t committed to your actions, before you know it you’re adrift. You’re sitting down with a consultant one day and he asks the question, “So where do you want to take this business idea you have? What is your business plan?” And you stop and think, “What am I really doing?” The original plan went out the window when you took the 10th person’s idea of what you need to do next. Now you have a great business idea, and it’s headed in four different directions.
Remember, you’re starting over; this time, let’s do it right – take your time and make sure your methods are going to get you where you want to go – not off on some tangent.
Last week I was able to sit and have a meeting with good friends and consultants from Business Rising, a Dallas-based firm. On the bottom of Javier’s card it says, “Why do businesses fail?” Sounds like a post I did a few weeks back. Well, he told me that many times they meet with companies who tell them where they want to go with the business idea they are building. Then, when they look at all the facts and figures they find out the business is actually going totally opposite of where they say they want to go.
When you take on too many different ideas at the same time, you can end up heading in too many different directions. But if you have a single focus, a purpose, a dream, a plan, then it
should help you when you need to say no. You will be asked to go many new directions when you change your life. Make sure they are the ones that fit where you want to go, what you want to do. If they don’t, say “No.”
So to wrap this up, now that you have started over, you have a dream, a plan to get to that dream, take on small goals first to reach that dream. No matter how many people ask you to help in the many ways they need you to help them, ask yourself “Does this fit my purpose at this time?” When Ray Kroc came to call on the McDonald brothers, he was able to see how to take their idea to the world. It fit his vision. They didn’t have that vision and were willing to sell their chain of restaurants to him because keeping them wasn’t that important to them.
When you are asked to do things that don’t get you to your dream, you will know it and you’ll know when you need to step back, say “No.” Last year I served with a charity as an outreach director. I was asked to host a bike night at a local Sonic. Well the Sonic was 35 miles from my home. It was good in the beginning, but as the year came to a close, I was glad to pass that off to someone else because it took such a large amount of time. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it. It just did not align with my purpose and dream and I knew I was not going to reach my goals if I kept heading the opposite direction.
So, get the laser focus on so you’ll know what is a good choice to help you reach your goal, and what does not fit. Need some help solidifying your goals so you know what will advance them and what will not? Do you need some help finding your dream, finding a place to start? We’re offering a free 30-minute coaching session just to help you do that. There’s no obligation and no commitment – just 30 minutes with the Rocker Life Coach to help you find your dream. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Until next week, I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach, telling you it’s time for you to Live the life you always wanted, Love what you do and those around you. Let us help you become the RockStar in your world.
