Calendaring Your Goals — What an Athlete Would Tell You

Setting goals is a fairly easy task. However, actually completing these goals is another thing altogether. Then there are all of the suggestions you receive from well-meaning individuals — practically everyday. But one way to discover what is really important today is to see what an athlete would tell you. An athlete would tell you exactly what Nike would say to you, “just do it.” At this point — just do it — add what you have to accomplish to your calendar to-do list, now.

Calendaring Goals — “Just do it.”

Goals: these are the goals that you intend to complete. You know that you intend to complete these goals or tasks because you have added not only the goal — but the steps of exactly have you are going to get these done — on to your calendar.

As Dan Weiden (an advertising agent who came up with the Nike slogan in the first place) said, “doing great work leads to great business.” This feeling and the essence of having your ultimate goal done, is contained in the phrase, “do great work.” Doing great work is where you want to end up with your calendaring goals. It’s where your calendar will take you. 

What the athlete would tell you.

When trying to par-down to a real understanding of goal setting — look to the athlete. Here’s why.

Athletes put great visualizing power to use on a daily basis to achieve their lofty goals. But an athlete is not going to be able to run that race, lift that weight, wrestle in that weight class, make that jump, or do any of the feats achieved by peak performers in every athletic endeavor — if they haven’t practiced.

These “practices” have an exact schedule on a calendar. An athlete will not miss accomplishing what is on their calendar that day. They won’t — and you shouldn’t either.

In a way, the athlete has a leg up on business in the hyper-focus department, and in the goal setting department. The athlete has one goal — and that goal is to have hyper-focus on whatever they are working on at that moment. With each and every “action” that an athlete undertakes to complete, they have done it a million times. How to get there is listed step by step right on their calendar, and they have the ability to focus on that task at hand. The athlete knows exactly what will be accomplished today.

The athlete has to do the work that is on the calendar today — and you need to do the work that is on your calendar today. With an athlete, if today’s goal is “weights” at the gym — an athlete is not thinking about the game on Saturday. They have total focus on the weights today.

This is why if you will take the time to read about the athlete training and how-to’s — you’ll up your game in business.

For an athlete, every part of the workout will be carefully thought-out. The athlete knows exactly what running-the-stairs this many times will do for the end results in their sport. Do you know what a certain task is doing for your business? What is the goal and the end result of what you are doing today? Which brings us to the next thing an athlete does that we can take a lesson from. An athlete has a coach.

Get a coach — or a business mentor.

You don’t see an athlete in any sport that I can think of — without a coach. Skating – has a coach. Basketball – has a coach. Swimming – coach. Soccer, hockey, lacrosse, basketball, track and field, professional biking — yup, a coach.

What makes you think that you can attempt to build a business — or maybe even continue in the one you are working in, without input?

Whatever business you’re going into business, especially if this is your first entrepreneurial venture — consider finding a coach or a mentor. If you’re building a business, you will have many tasks that have to be done. You’ll need a business plan that has to be followed, and you will want to talk to others who have built a business before. You will want to have a way in place that will help you stay motivated when the chips are down. You need a cheerleader, but a coach is better.

With a coach or mentor by your side you will be able to make your business plan with greater accuracy.

Depending on your business ideas, you have a lot of work to do. Start by reading-up on what is demanded of every business, legally, when you become an entrepreneur. Read about all of the steps you will have to take before you take the leap with all of your financials. Your mentor or coach will keep you on task.

This isn’t easy and you will have many people (mentors and professionals) you will want to check with as you go along. Let a professional help you add all tasks to your calendar at first.

Someone familiar with finances will be like your accountant, or bank. They will be intimate with the workings and ins and outs of many pieces of the business puzzle you will need. Think back to what you learned in business school. Get in touch with some of your contacts there who may be willing to help or mentor you.

Contact family who may help you with your business endeavor. But with family — think about the athlete again.

Mom thinks their athlete is perfect. The coach, not so much. “That big ole mean coach,” family and friends may think. The coach will perfect you and will make you better — mom can’t. Listen to your coaches and mentors, they have been there.

You will have so very many tasks and expectations when building a business and you’ll need a place to keep track of everything. Consider writing down or calendaring everything you’re working on or have your coach help you calendar the most important moves to do first.

Because there are so many aspects to building a business, your business plan will need to include a lot of details and the how-to’s. These are the steps. Many steps have to be done in a certain order. You’ll add the order to your calendar as you learn them so they won’t be overlooked.

Take your plan and add the steps — day by day — and week by week. You will want to have all the to-dos listed today — to arrive at the correct point tomorrow.

There are too many business “musts” to list here. This post is merely a reminder to put all of these “have-to’s” on your calendar. If you don’t get a critical task done on that particular day for your new business — take that goal or task and move it to the next day on your calendar.

You may want to move your to-dos from a master list to your day-to-day calendar to make sure the work is accomplished. If you can’t get that precise task done right then or even on that day, don’t lose what has to be done. Keep all information and lists with your Calendar.

Remember what the athlete would tell you. Add due dates to your Calendar to up productivity. Listing step by step information to your Calendar also leaves you a record of when each task has been accomplished. An athlete would also tell you to know the reasons you are doing what you’re doing.

Maybe you don’t have to know the reasons when someone tells you what you should be doing. You definitely have to “hop-to” and just do it when you’re told to. But, I like to know what this power expenditure will add to the lift. Maybe you don’t need to know what concrete goal is being accomplished with an action. I feel a great need to know this information before I put all of the effort into a project.

When you really plan to have great success in building a new business, or growth-hacking your current business — check out how an athlete would execute that goal. And “just do it.”