“You don’t get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that produce results” — Mike Hawkins

Have you ever felt like you are regularly falling short of what you want for your business or life ?

Maybe both. I know I have.

Whether it’s to double your company’s revenue in the next year, or to spend more time with loved ones, we are not getting the results we want in one area or another.

Often times, we are achieving what we want and more in one or two areas of life, but lacking in others. Meaning, whatever the area, it’s out of balance.

Identifying and understanding what is holding us back is an important step to create change. The next step is to DECIDE that you will commit to what you are after.

Here are 5 reasons you are not achieving the results you want

“If you’re not actively involved in getting what you want, you don’t really want it.” — Peter McWilliams

Reason #1: You don’t know what you truly want

Pretty straightforward. If you don’t know what it is precisely that you want, how do you expect to go about getting it?

I like this paraphrased example from Tony Robbins.

“Most people say they want more money. Ok. Here’s a dollar. Let’s move on.”

I imagine that a dollar is not what you had in mind.

The point, you need clarity. You need to be specific.

I am personally guilty of being vague, at times. In business, I told myself, “I want more clients”. Of course I want that, that’s how you keep a business running. But what I left out, at the start; how many, by when, and where will I find them.

Continuing “I want more money”, ask yourself:

How much money do you want?

When do you want it by?

What do you need to do to get it?

Why is it important to you?

What are some steps that you can take TODAY toward making that happen?

Think about it this way, if we don’t know specifically what we want, how the heck are we suppose to develop an action plan to achieve what is most important?

Simply, we can’t!

I ask that you replace “money” in the scenario above” with something that is either a focus of yours currently or that has been on the back burner, and answer the questions listed above.

You must first have that awareness, before you can achieve.

Reason #2: You don’t make what you want a MUST

Now that you have more clarity about what you want, the next step is to make a decision to commit to it.

Make a decision right now. A decision to yourself that what you want is a MUST, and is non-negotiable.

When we remove the wishy washy; “I’ll try”, “maybe”, etc from our vocabulary and the equation, we are setting ourselves up to make concentrated effort that will move us closer and closer to our goals.

Make a decision. Commit to what you want. Either you are all in, or you are not.

I’ver personally experience the variance in results from being fully and partially committed.

During a large transition in my corporate job, of which I was taking point on, I recognized the importance of it; to my employer, client, and team.

With that awareness, I fully committed to defining and achieving the outcome that would best benefit the above parties, and I went to work.

The result, not only did we complete the transition on time, under budget, and without day to day interruption, but the assumed risks that we undertook, situations that were highly likely to arise, were avoided completely.

Notably, the success of this transition was the result of team effort, but as John Maxwell is famous for saying, “success rises and falls on leadership.”

If I had my head in the clouds, was partially committed, and not fully present, I would have been a chokehold on the progress and outcome of this transition.

Adversely, I’m reminded of an interview process I took part in a few years ago, where I was only “interested” in the role and company.

In preparation of this interview, I spent a couple minutes writing questions that I would like to ask, and that was about it.

I didn’t research the company, review my resume, think about salary expectations, nor did I even feel excited about the opportunity.

What do you think was my outcome?

I didn’t even make it to the second interview. Understandably so. While I can not control what the interviewer decides to do, if I had decided that this was an opportunity I wanted, and committed to putting forth the actions, I would have highly increased my chances of making it to round two.

Now that you have made your decision to take action, it’s imperative that you schedule time on a recurring basis to work towards your goal. Whether it’s 15 minutes or 60, daily, or weekly, commit to that time. Go ahead. Put it on your calendar, I will wait.

Did you schedule time to take action?

Good. This is an important accountability tactic you can use to keep you progressing towards your goals.

During your scheduled time, focus only on the actions that will support what you want. Ignore everything else. Put your phone on airplane mode. Turn off the TV. Shut your office door.

I personally schedule my week out on Sundays. For my business, I make sure I have scheduled time for; content development, networking, learning, and client appointments.

Since I have a full time gig and my business, this approach has proven successful for me to stay focused during the week.

When you start doing this yourself, you will be amazed how much you can get done when your time is spent focused on one key goal.

Reason #3: You are afraid

This was a big opportunity for me. I use to be petrified;

To make mistakes.

To go big.

To go after what I wanted most.

Why? In short,

I was afraid of failure.

Afraid to standout.

Afraid of criticism.

When I became aware of these patterns, I made a decision to change it.

How did I do that? I started with understanding the reason for the fear. And would ask myself;

Is this fear keeping me safe, or keeping me small? 99% of the time, the answer was “keeping me small”.

After identifying that the perceived risk was not a life threatening situation, I committed to go for it. I’m not going to pretend it was or is always easy, but remember…

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” — Mark Twain

When preparing to do anything of importance, like launching a new business, leaving the 9–5 world, or moving across the world, we can only prepare so much before making the leap.

Our gift of analysis easily turns into our enemy, when we move from simply planning, to analysis paralysis. I’ve seen people and organizations with analysis paralysis a few times in my life, and the results, well, they are not positive. Inaction does not create results.

Opportunities are lost

Revenue is lost

Relationships are strained or lost

Notably, there is a fine line between being responsive and reactive. The line is different in every situation, and ideally you make that decision based on; emotions, logic, and intuition.

Think about the last time you perceived failing.

What was your goal?

What’s the reason you failed?

Most importantly, did you learn something of value?

We learn the most through doing. When we have our target, and have sufficiently planned, and go after it, we learn the most valuable lessons through experience. You don’t learn while you are simply sitting on the idea.

A life principle I live by; if I fail, I learn. If I learn, I succeed.

So what fear is holding you back from your goal(s)? As mentioned briefly before, common fears are;

Fear of failure

Fear of critcisim

Fear of standing out

Fear of success

I ask that you question any resistance that may be holding you back. Then, find out if that fear is, “keeping you safe or small”.

As Tony Robbins said, “success in anything is 80% psychology and 20% mechanics”.

Meaning, get ahold of the emotions, the fear that is holding you back, because having that control is one of the most important components to achieving what you want most.

Reason #4: You don’t celebrate your successes

The first thing I ask every client at the beginning of a session is, “what are we celebrating today?”

The reason for this is simple, most of us, myself included, have the tendency to under value our achievements, big and small.

When you are working towards a large, potentially frightening goal, it’s imperative that you keep a log either written or mental, of the achievements along the way.

It could be as simple as congratulating yourself verbally for sticking to your daily commitment of two hours spent writing your new book. Or, it could be something larger.

It’s different for everyone. Find what works for you. Find what makes you sit back and be proud of what you have accomplished.

When you stop to tell yourself; good work, nice job, I’m a badass; you strengthen your motivation to keep going.

With your goal(s) in mind, what are your celebration milestones? And, how will you celebrate?

Most of us do not take the power of this seriously enough, I recommend changing that.

Reason #6: You don’t have an action plan

Now that we have:

A clear picture of what you want

Time dedicated to work towards it

A commitment to your must

Awareness of fears that you will overcome

It’s time to create a plan of action.

An action plan will provide clarity around the steps needed to meet your goal. Essentially, it breaks down the WHAT and HOW you will achieve.

I recommend setting up a Google document with the following questions:

What is my desired outcome?

What resources do I need to accomplish it?

How much time am I going to dedicate to this?

What skills or abilities need to be learned or improved?

What are all the steps to get me from here to there?

What steps can I take today to move towards my goal?

As you answer these questions, you will gain clarity the tangible steps that will need to take place to make your goal a reality.

It’s important to note, that HOW we get to the end goal may evolve along the way, but you won’t know that until you start taking action today!