Why Your To Do List is Missing The Point

Show Notes

Happy New Year! So today we are talking about big rocks. We are talking about goals sticking. Anybody can set goals but making them stick and work throughout the whole year is the important thing.

Goals Need a Plan, Just Like a Holiday

So when we think about doing a holiday, we don’t just go, I’m going on holidays, pick up our bags and off we go. We start by perhaps thinking about the time of the year. What time do I want to go? In March, where can I go? Am I going locally? Am I going each state? Am I going internationally? Those kinds of questions are the things that we ask. Or conversely, we might think about a seasonal holiday.

So we might be wanting to go on a winter holiday. So are we going winter in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere? That’s going to dictate what timing we go. So those are the kinds of things that we ask. And then once we’ve decided on the time or the type of holiday, then we need to ask other questions. Who’s going? What kind of holiday is it? Is it a budget holiday? Luxury, all that kind of stuff.

Set Bigger Goals

We need to set that big goal. We often overestimate what we can do in a year and weigh and estimate what we can do in 3 to 5 years. So we need to think that bit and longer and then break it down and then make it really manageable. That is the reason why the big rocks really work. Because we can think of that overall goal of the big rock. So maybe it’s a case of I want to make a million dollars in ten years. So then what do I need to do for my five years, my three years and my one year? And yes, they will all change. Year ten, year one probably. Won’t you still maybe continue to stay the million. But maybe it’s a case of after three years, you have made a million. So maybe ten years becomes 10 million, or maybe after three years, you are nowhere near it and you need to adjust.

And this can be one of the worst things because did you know? That if you get a dollar a day and you compound it, it won’t turn into a million dollars? But it’s not until that last couple of days, because then the compounding really kicks in. And it can be exactly the same with coaching. You put all your foundations down, you might call those contacts, you start getting it really happening. But the compounding effect doesn’t start until you have got those runs on the board, until you have done those client calls, until you have maybe now got a group or program because we get to a point where we can only scale so far in one to one, which is why having a database and using emails is so important.

Follow Big Rock Theory

Have you heard about Big Rocks? It was an experiment done by a university. I think it’s in Canada and what happened was that a university set up an amphitheater for a lecture and they had a glass jar and some rocks, some gravel, some sand and some water. And what happened was they got a couple of volunteers and had to get them to put all the components into the jar.

The first person started by putting in the water and then the sand and then it overflowed. The second person saw the error in and started with the gravel and then the sand and the water and still, it overflowed.

By then, the third person had got to understanding what was going on and put the big rocks in first. Then he starts to fill it with the gravel and then the sand and lastly the water. That way, the jar didn’t overflow at all. So what does this represents?

The big rocks are the big decisions that you want to make. So quite often when you are thinking of the diary, it can be your family situation, or the holiday you want to take this year or it can be your rule of not working on your birthday or your husband or children’s birthday. Those things need to do in first. All of those big rocks need to go into your diary first.

Then the gravels are in the in between. So if you’ve got school aged kids, it might be a case of showing up during their sports carnivals for swimming or go to a parent volunteering event or some workshop days. It could be your payday days for your team or your annual planning days or quarterly meetings, anything like that. So that’s your gavel.

And then your sand are the smaller things that needs to happen. And then, the water. Of course the water. It reflects the distractions that often hinder our productivity. The Big Rock Theory is all about knowing your priorities (your big rock), what matter most to you and put it first because if you don’t, you’ll never get them in at all.

To know more about Big Rock Theory, click here.

Make Your Goals Visual

Every time I sit down at my computer, I can see my 90 day goals. Some people have them on their screen savers, other people have them on their time savers, things like that, Post-it notes or whatever works for you. There are multiple different ways of doing it. It just needs to be visual. You need to be able to see it and it needs to be in your face so that you don’t just forget it and yes, sometimes you can’t work on those every day but you need to be looking at least once a week unless you are on holidays.

Sticky Goals

Make sure that you are putting your big rocks to get 2026 your best year ever. You see, setting goals is amazing but you also need to get them sticky and make sure that you don’t forget them by February or March or as far as November.

Test And Adjust

If you decide that you want to make 100,000, for instance, and you are only going to work ten months of the year, so that will be 10,000 a month. So how are you going to do that? Is that going to be ten $1000 per client? Is that going to be five $2,000 per client? Or a mix of that? Well, you wont know the exact how until you get there but you need to have some kind of hypothesis so that can you can think like “ I’m going to do 20 clients on on one once I get to 15 and then I’m going to start to look at project program. Whatever you are planning to do, make sure that you are filling within those goals.

You can do one on one or it could a combination of coaching and training or you might do some facilitating but it should start with that hypothesis. Work out what it’s going to look like, put out those things that you need to do. Put your petri dishes, any chemicals or whatever you need to put and then test it. See what the results are. If it’s working, amplify it. If it’s not, maybe you need to change something. Maybe the chemicals are not right. Maybe your pricing? Just remember to change and adjust your strategy.