November 24th, 2016
3 Questions To Ask Your Business Every Week
It’s that time of year.
We’re looking for inspiration – like last week. We’re reflecting on the year.
But what if it’s NOT that time of year.
What can you do on a regular basis to take the temperature of your business, your productivity, and your achievements.
Every single week, I’m part of a mastermind group. We’ve done a check most every week since June – with very little structure. We do a round robin and then wish each other a great week.
But this month I decided to switch things up by asking a few questions that I generally just ask myself every week.
Today I’m sharing the questions and why you should ask them.
I’ll give you a bit more background inside the episode, so make sure to listen and here how we arrived at the questions.
Regardless – the idea of routines and rituals has been on my mind to implement and practice NOW…instead of waiting for the new year.
These 3 questions are simple–you can ask and answer them with your own mastermind group or do it as part of your weekly planning session.
Now, you will feel more energized. And the more than we can kind of have these small rituals throughout our week and our days, things that we repeat and do and build-in reflection time into our business, the stronger we become as entrepreneurs as business owners, better decision making, less time waffling over things.
You might experience less time stuck in a project you’re not really thrilled about.
These might be things that you’re already thinking about on a weekly basis.
These might be things that you can implement if you plan on forming a small group that meets every single week for accountability.
These are great questions to ask yourself and they’re easy and not at the same time, and likely will change depending on the week for you.
Question #1: what are my wins the week? What are my wins for the week? What did I accomplish this week that I feel really good about?
Doesn’t have to be business related.
I want you to open up the window here and allow your real life to come in as well, so for me, that might include my sleep practice, my meditation practice. That might include having activities that my daughter and I do after school.
It also might mean that I turned around a planning class right away, which is what I did when I hosted a class last week.
I was still in promo mode for the closing of Fearless Launching and I said, “You know what? I’ve gotta get this going right now,” and something about the energy of launching, of being mid-promotion, allowed me to just rock on it and get that thing set up.
That was a huge win for me and you can still actually still sign up for that class if you want to. I’ll put the link in the show notes, just so you can see what I’m talking about.
Question #3:What are my wins for the week? Acknowledge your wins.
The next question is, what’s on my list to do this week? By the way, these three questions, you can ask at the beginning of the week, at the end of the week, you get to decide. Change the language so it makes sense for you, so if you’re doing this on a Saturday or a Friday, what’s on my list for next week? These are things that projects you want to take care of stick to no more than five focuses for the week, and they might all be inside one main project.
I think the lower number of projects you have, the more focused you can be. It doesn’t mean you don’t have projects coming up, but it means what you’re focused on in the time after you ask this question. You get to decide when that is. It’s a simple list of things that are gonna be on your radar that you’re gonna work to finish during that week.
Question #3: What’s one thing that scares me or feels outside my comfort zone?
Entrepreneurs push the boundaries that others are unwilling to push. So, if you want to live in this world, I do think you need to be okay pushing yourself to take chances and do things that are scary.
Set a deadline on something you can at least start in the next week!
Say, “In the next two weeks, I’m gonna finish this by this date” or “I’m gonna reach out this person because I want them on my podcast” or “I’m gonna do this because, but I’m scared, I’m scared to go to this thing, whatever, this meet-up, this networking event because I’m uncomfortable meeting new people, but that’s the one thing I’m gonna do” or “I’m gonna find one networking event that I can go to in the next two weeks.”
You just decide what that means for you. It should be something that you only have to take one or two steps to complete.
You don’t have to say, “I’m going to launch something next week even though I’m not ready.” It doesn’t have to be THAT scary.
What Routines You Can Start This Week
I think that this question of rituals, what we do, actually lays a foundation for us to realize what’s working and what’s not. You don’t have to do everything all at once. You don’t have to take your vitamins, go to the gym, eat perfectly, all in one day.
You can start with the vitamins and then you can take a walk in a couple weeks. You can layer things on top of each other.
It’s like the concept of Kaizen, which is this process of continuous improvement. Little by little – step by step.
While I’m a huge proponent of CBB–yes everything “could be better” and shipping before you’re ready, I also think that we should be in that mode of continually improving what we’re working on, improving ourselves on all levels.
Remember that routines can be internal, but set them in your calendar at first so remember to do them, to ask the questions, to check-in with yourself regularly.
Check-in just like you’ll do when you have a team or you’re working on a launch and need to check your progress through the multi-layered launch to do list.
Now – in the comments below, I’d love it if you’d answer these questions and then let me know how (and when) you’re gonna start implementing this starting now.
Mentioned On The Show
CBB (could be better)
More Resources!
1) Free Launch Workbook/Planner: Grab this completely free launch planning workbook. Download, print, and start planning your launch today — don’t forget to add in the test and secure your website tasks!
2) Free Systems Cheatsheet: A Free Checklist & Cheatsheet to make sure your systems are in order before you launch — plus the one I mentioned on the podcast today!
3) Want to work with me one on one? If you’re a business owner who knows that you need a coach, someone to work through your launch strategy, figure out your launch plan, get spot advice as it comes up…then we could be a perfect match!
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Of course, I’d love to know what you thought about today’s episode. Leave a comment below or shoot me an email!