Success and Fulfillment –Two Sides of the Same Coin

It is impossible to realize a fuzzy goal, one that you have yet to articulate with clarity and simplicity.  Clarity is what it takes …

“If you can imagine it, you can believe it and if you believe it, you can create it.”

Success begins with a clear and inspired vision; one that is rooted in yourself – your understanding of yourself, your values, vision and mission; one that inspires passion, motivation and drive and enhances your focus and commitment to action. This approach to success building enhances the potential for personal fulfillment and sustainable success. The coach – coachee partnership is built on a deeply inter-personal relationship where success and fulfillment are two sides of the same coin with the coach’s success, a manifestation of their own personal fulfillment. Now that’s pure magic!  

Envision Success – Imagine Fulfillment

Defining what success and its inverse, fulfillment, means to you for year 1, 2 and 3 and identifying success indicators and factors that will contribute to success initiates the planning process.  Once your vision of success is clear and firm, you are well on your way to clarifying your short term goals and can brainstorm the many ways (strategies and tactics) you can employ to help you achieve your goal and the fun of testing your assumptions in the real world begins.

Working with the right coach can streamline and accelerate this process. Rather than it taking you 3 – 5 years to sort out your options, you may have clarity by the end of 6 months to a year or much less, depending on your vision. Once your  vision is clear, implementation follows requiring creativity, discipline and determination without which success cannot be realized. 

4 things you must have in place to achieve your goals:

1. The Right Mindset – as with an actor who prepares for a new role, cognitive priming is required to create beliefs and habits that build the necessary inner culture for success.

2. The Right Knowledge – awareness of your target market context and how you and your services fit – ie you’ve identified the pressing needs and wants of your target client and identified the features and benefits of the service you offer and how to offer them) to inform your marketing message, strategy and sales approach.

3. Commitment to life long learning and building connectivity – you’ve made a commitment to step up to play this new role, upgrade your knowledge, skills and capacity to serve and engage in an ongoing effort to reach out and connect, build your team, gather and share resources.

4. Energy and commitment expressed through daily, consistent action – progress happens only through action.

 

Develop Your Framework for Action and Action Plan

Depending on where you are at in your pathway to success, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail….Planning Exercises done periodically can help you stay on track. Here’s one, I invite you to do:

1. Define the What – What do you want to create? Dream & envision (begin with the end in mind) and sketch it out.
2. Prioritize – What in this picture is most important?  Build an ordered sequence based on values – identify your objectives.
3. Why – clarify your purpose and know your motivations.
4. Where – Situate your project service delivery or business – what is the context and why that? (internet, face to face, B2B; B2C; Independent or hired gun)
5. By When What – Identify attainable milestones
6. How – identify strategies, tactics and resource requirement – the right actions, in the right order, at the right time. Go from macro to micro (big picture to action for today)
7. Who – will do the work? What can you delegate? Barter, Trade, Partner, Defer payment

Considering the risks associated with your venture, helps you face and brainstorm solutions. Make it fun. It is common, in every new start up to overestimate your capacity in the short term and to underestimate your capacity in the long term…resulting in a state of overwhelm marked by fear and anxiety and general paralysis.

Remember, “The turtle wins the race – small consistent steps can create big, positive change.”

6 Strategies to Stave off Overwhelm

1. Chunking your goals to clarify deliverables and milestones
2. Grounding for focus and clarity – emptying and refocusing your mind
3. Taking small focused steps to stay on track and move forward
4. Celebrating small gains along the way – taking breathers to appreciate progress
5. Recognizing that you have both financial goals and non-financial goals help you cultivate a balanced approach.
6. Assigning one day dedicated to planning each year – and ½ days every quarter to review results and actions taken and celebrate achievements can help you stay on track, focused and happy…in other words, at your best. Taking this approach provides you with a structure for informed decision making that keeps you in the driver’s seat.

My recommendation for success of course, is to partner with a coach. The coaching partnership will keep you grounded, focused and in action to achieve and enjoy the fruit of your efforts.

Here’s to your personal fulfillment and professional success whatever pathway you choose to take.
 

 
An earlier version of this article, entitled “Coaching Pathways – Requirements for a Successful Journey  was first published in the September 2015 edition of Worldwide Coaching Magazine.