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business coach ely

The 1% Change

As soon as you have set a goal you have created a destination you want to reach. When you have set the destination, you have created a gap, a gap between where you are now and where you want to be, this gap of course, must be bridged.

If the gap is relatively small and/or what it takes to bridge the gap is something we’re pretty familiar with, then it’s easy to bridge and obtain that goal.

But what if in order to move ahead, you need to learn how to do something new? Or what if the gap is large? A big gap to your destination or the need to learn something new can stop people before they even get started as the destination suddenly looks unachievable.  Also, setting a big life changing goal that calls for really big changes all at once often makes us very uncomfortable and of course we don’t want to do what makes us feel uncomfortable.

So for example, what happens when we set a goal to double our sales next year? A BIG GAP is what happens and we’re not sure what to do or how to do it.

The answer is to break the goal down into chunks – 1% chunks.

If your annual revenue is £1,000,000 now, doubling that obviously means an additional £1,000,000 in sales.  Whoooaaa!  Big Gap!  If that causes you to feel dizzy and “Sounds great Tim but how the hell are we going to do that?” is currently bouncing around your head then change the 100% goal into the 1% goal.  So, 1% of that goal is only £10,000.  A whole year is 260 working days so, 1% of that goal is roughly 3 days. If your average sale is £3,500 you only need to make one more sale a day.  If you’re currently making one sale per day could you not figure out how to make 2 by implementing new strategies, fine tuning systems and maybe even getting some help?

Results will vary depending on your motivation and resources you’re prepared to throw at it but if you find your gap is 1,000 metres long, simply break it down into 1% chunks – those steps are only 10 metres each and getting 10 metres closer every few days is substantially easier!