54. Tough Love for Q4

I’ve got some tough love that you might need to hear at this point in Q4. Grab a copy of your goals and let’s have a heart to heart.

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Transcript

Janice Cook: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode number 54, I have got some tough love that you might need to hear at this point in Q4. So grab a copy of your goals and let's have a heart to heart.

Janice Cook: This calendar year is not over yet. Q4 often feels like a runaway train. We can feel the chaos of the holidays right around the corner, and you might feel like throwing in the towel on your goals and just starting fresh in the new year. But I just know you have at [00:01:00] least one more focused sprint left in the tank.

Let's not give up on those goals just yet. One option to consider if you still have some goals that you haven't yet achieved this calendar year, is what I call a quiet sprint.

You know, from my business book club episode on the 12 week year that I love a sprint.

I also know that this episode is likely reaching your ears with less than 12 weeks left in a year. So let's talk about how sprinting sometimes looks different in Q4. One of the things I personally love about Q4 is that everyone around us is distracted, and you could likely go dark on your marketing channels for a few weeks, put your head down quietly to take a sprint through those tasks left on your list for the year, and not even be noticed.

Would taking a laptop to a library be just the change of creative vibes that you need to crush that [00:02:00] list. Could someone else take over a pickup or drop off of kids for just a couple weeks so that you can squeeze in a slightly earlier start time or stay in the office just a little bit later? Are there any levers you can get creative about and pull for a short term sprint?

As you look at the remaining tasks to accomplish your goals for this calendar year, do they fit in one type of bucket? Do they fit in two types of buckets? Do you start to see one sprint that you could take in early November and another sprint that you could schedule for early December? Even two focused weeks to go all in and be dedicated to those goals you had on your heart

could make a huge impact. A second option to explore is getting help. As you consider a sprint, you might notice some of those tasks feel light and easy and in your wheelhouse. If you [00:03:00] just had the right dedicated time block to work with, you could knock 'em out.

But also be on the lookout for feelings of tasks that do not feel light, easy, and in your wheelhouse. Maybe they felt important in January, and they no longer feel like the right next step. It is A-okay to change the plan. You know more about your business now than you did in January.

Changing the game plan based on data is totally different from not accomplishing your goal and failing, but it takes a clear head to be able to notice the difference and label those scenarios accordingly. You might notice some tasks that do feel important. Likely those are the ones you considered bringing with you into the new year to try again.

But here's the tough love. If they didn't happen in the first 10 months of this year, we have to turn within and ask why we truly think that next year will be different. [00:04:00] What has stopped us from accomplishing this goal in the 10 months that we just had?

Do we have a knowledge gap and need a course or ebook or workshop to help us get closer to being able to execute the task? Or is this task too far outside of our zone of genius? Sometimes we hope that we'll be able to get scrappy and do something solo, but in practice it's sucking the life out of us to try, draining too much of our energy for the week and not actually a great use of our CEO time and talent.

If the task truly cannot be accomplished by you before the end of this calendar year, it might be a sign that this task will eventually need to be hired out. And please hear me when I say that I understand that you may not have the budget to hire help in this moment. This is a very expensive time to run a business and to be an adult.

But there is great power in the clarity [00:05:00] of realizing that you will not be the one who does this task. That changes how you approach this task. It changes what the energy looks like that you do pour into this task. Taking steps to plan how and when to pass it off might be better use of your time than banging your head against the wall trying to actually do the task.

If you have a copy of my free hiring guide, open that up and look at all the free steps that I've laid out for moving this task closer to the finish line. So many of those steps cost $0, and that was not an accident. If you don't have a copy of that free guide yet

you know, I'll leave a link for you in the show notes. When I know I need support with the task and can't cash flow it yet, I still choose someone to help me with the task. I find out pricing and I write that cost investment number in the name field of my business operating expenses account. It reminds me what goal I'm currently saving up for and [00:06:00] helps me pause before spending money on something different knowing that that would slow my ability to cashflow help

for this goal that I already labeled as very important. There are so many baby steps that you can take to show up for yourself and those important goals and get them closer to the finish line in a way that doesn't cost money, wreck your mood, and make you wanna hibernate until January 1st. It might not feel like it right now, but there really is a lot of this calendar year left.

I believe in your goals and I'm cheering for you so hard. Keep going. Your dreams matter and the work you do inside your business makes the world a better place.