I love to start over. Love to leave anything that wasn’t working behind and choose how I want to change or tweak my focus. There’s a coaching exercise that begins with naming the game you’re playing and the results that you’ll call “winning”. It’s an exercise that isn’t always as easy as it sounds!
Think about the difference between playing the game of becoming a well-known expert versus the game of doubling your practice. They might be related, but winning has a different definition for each game and you’d use different strategies for success.
Here are some games I’m trying on this week as I consider what 2009 means for my business:
- The simple game of self-sufficiency. Winning means that my business maintains a consistent level of profitability and contribution to my family’s bottom line.
- The game of significant impact. Winning means that I have at least 8 individuals who believe that working with me made a dramatic difference in their lives in 2009. The key is “dramatic”.
- The game of reach. Winning means that I increase my “tribe”. Increase my community and network. Attract new readers, new people into my classes. Publish regularly and in new venues. Winning will involve a degree of impact, but the impact is in breadth, not so much in depth.
- The game of coaching mastery. Challenging my skills by being critiqued and coached by very experienced master coaches. This involves having the really great coaches hear me coach and give feedback. It’s different than training. I do both consulting and coaching- and while I do think I’m good, I know there are different degrees of good when it comes to the coaching side. There are few master coaches, and you’ll know the difference if you have one. It’s harder to define “winning” this game; it would likely be getting excellent reviews on my coaching.
- The game of product development. Winning means I have a product set of some sort, video, another book, etc. etc. and a potential source of additional revenue and impact.
You can see where my priorities might be a bit different depending on which game I play to win. Every one of those games is one I want to win, but I can’t play them all well at the same time. I might end up blending them, product development might be a strategy focus in the game of reach, for example. However, my chances of winning are greatly improved by how clearly I focus.
So- I’m not there quite yet. How about you? What game are you playing this year? What does winning look like?
Start with those two questions and then you’ve got what you need to determine the strategies and skills to win the game.
Here’s to an amazing new year!
Note: If adding clients is your game, The Get Clients Now! program starting Tuesday, January 20th, still has places open. Great skills, great focus, great support- check it out: http://www.successfullysolo.com/courses_products.html#client
