So what do I mean by that?

I mean taking specific, deliberate action to propel your business forward.

Clear, intentional actions, not just looking at the clock to hit a certain number of hours or butt-in-seat time.

The good news is, you don’t it in one giant leap or even overnight, it’s a series of consistent steps forward.

It’s showing up everyday to drive towards one goal.

What you do first is – figure out what your meter is.

You can’t move the needle on your meter if you don’t know what your meter is measuring.

Think about your speedometer – it measures the speed at which your car is traveling. You wouldn’t be able to know how fast you’re driving without it.

What are you going to measure?

Maybe it’s your confidence as a coach.

Or, your audience reach and engagement.

Or, the health of your business.

Decide on that. Declare it!

Knowing what your meter is for will actually allow you to get clear on what actions you need to take to move the needle.

Even better, it helps you get clear on the actions you’re NOT going to do.

Let’s be clear here, not everything that is not measured on your meter goes away. This isn’t permission to not file your taxes or not keep up with your bookkeeping.

For example, if your intention is to grow your business. Then tweaking your website colors for the twelfth time isn’t going to move the needle.

However, if your goal is to have a website as beautiful, clean and sleek as Marie Forleo, then by all means, tweak away.

But I’m willing to bet my house that it isn’t Marie’s website you really want, it’s her business success (and your website alone isn’t going to get you there).

Once you have your meter determined, you can more readily decide on what you need to do next and after that and after that.

It’s like you get to reverse-engineer your strategy.

You already know the endpoint. Now, what do you need to do to get yourself there?

Say your goal is to increase your confidence as a coach.

Then how do you do that? One way is to work with more people.

What are you doing each day to build that confidence muscle?

Maybe you offer one 30-minute session each week for the next two months to your community to move the needle.

Or, let’s say you want to reach more people and grow your audience through guest posting because you know that the more people who know about you, the faster it’ll be to grow your business.

Then your actions need to support the guest post activity.

Right now, you might be saying, “Lindsay, I need to research places to guest post and that’s doesn’t feel like it’s moving the needle.”

And here’s what I’d loving saying back to you, “This is where you might need to watch the clock because it’s super easy to get stuck in research mode. Being stuck is not moving your needle.”

Give yourself a research time limit, maybe 2, 3, or 5 hours. Even if you haven’t found the PERFECT site to post on, you will have at least one quality website that is a viable option.

Next, write your article, send the pitch, and follow-up to see if your article has been accepted.

Even if it’s not the 100% perfect site for your work to be featured on, you’ll have learned from your action. You’ll gain clarity on what types of sites are a good fit for you.

You’ll have successfully moved your needle.

Last up is the key to it all – take actions each day to move the needle AND reflect on what results you’re seeing, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly or all of the above.

Now tell me, dear reader, what’s your meter, what are you going to measure and what’s the next action in front of you that you can take to move the needle?

 

Photo by Thomas Kelly on Unsplash