Episode 248: What should you work on first?
How do you write or create your goals? In today's episode, Fiona shares an important tip especially to those who depend on the last quarter of the year kicking in and giving them a huge amount of their total revenue for the year in their business. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The Four Disciplines of Execution
Go back to your goals
Mosquito tasks
Where do you sort of see yourself in five years? And does this matter?
Did you do things last year that you wanna repeat this year?
What does your gut say?
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Anna Brash
Ashley Simonetto
Boris Kezic
Marre
Yricka
The way I always ask people to create their goals, I only ask them to create three for a year. I think any more than that, I mean three to five if you really want to push it. Three, because too often what I see is that people set so many different goals and then they don't achieve any at the end of the year or the end of the financial year or calendar year, and they feel really disheartened and they feel all the kind of shame and these other negative feelings come onto them. If you can just stick to three, it not only is going to help you in the future, but it's also allowing you to focus on, what are the sub-goals underneath each of those.
Welcome to episode 248 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you're listening in real-time, it is towards the end of October. I know that that can be a particularly busy period for a lot of people who listen to this, who depend on the last quarter of the year kicking in and giving them a huge amount of their total revenue for the year in their business. If that is you and you're at a bit of a loss as to like, what do I focus on right now? Keep listening because that is very much in tune with today's episode. Today's episode is actually brought to you by a wonderful woman who emailed us and said, “I am challenged by this part of my business right now and I would love some help.”
That is what we do. We help a lot of people. Obviously, we have paid products, but we also have a lot of free education through this podcast. We have a Sunday email that goes out. We have a Facebook group, the Good Business Group, it's free to join. We also have Instagram, Pinterest, and a whole bunch of places where you can find free education from My Daily Business Coach. But today it is a response. This podcast is a response to somebody's email. I'll get into that in a second. But just a reminder that if you're listening to this and you're not necessarily in a stage where you maybe can work with us in a paid capacity and you want some free education, feel free to jump on board the Sunday email if you're not already, you can subscribe at mydailybusinesscoach.com, check out our freebies, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com/freestuff.
You can also email us your particular question and if we think it is a good fit and we've got time in the calendar, we may well then create a podcast out of it like we are doing today. Before I get stuck into today's podcast, I wanted to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land in which I get to live. I live in North Warrandyte, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
Today our question comes from Anna Brash. Now, I don't want to go into the very specifics of the email that we received because that's her personal stuff, but I wanted to give a broad overview of the question that she emailed in with, which was really a little bit like where to start, Where do I start in terms of she's in a particular stage in her business, and what do I do first? I think that that is a common question I hear whether people are 25 years into business or whether they are just getting started with an idea, is this idea of like, there's so much I could do, there are so many different avenues I could go and nut out and what's most important and how can I prioritize and what should I start on right now?
I know even with my own business and I help people with this all day long, that even in our own business there are lots of loose ends and I'm thinking, “If we get time, we should do that.” Or what will we do before the end of the year? Today I thought I'd go through five things or five steps to consider or ask yourself when you are faced with that idea of where do I start, what do I do first? What's the most important thing? Because I think it is such a common situation to be in. I really hope that these five steps, even if it's the first one or maybe it's the fifth one, are going to help you figure it out. Before I get started, I will be going through a few ideas today.
If you are somebody who learns better through text format, you can find the show notes for this over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/248. And just a reminder, if you're listening to any other episodes, you can find the written format over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. Today, as I said, it is looking at five areas or five steps to take when you are feeling whether it's overwhelmed or challenged or not even either of those. Maybe you're just kind of curious as to like, which one do I wanna go through first? I'm gonna go through there with no particular order, but I think they're equally important. As I said, some people learn in different ways, ways some people want to take action in different ways. We're all quite different as people, maybe there's something in here that will resonate with you.
In no particular order, I think the first thing that I would sit down if I was in a position of thinking, there are so many things I could be doing, or this is exciting, but this is also exciting. I would go back to my goals and I know that might sound really simple, like, I wouldn't, I'm not going to swear on this. Because of course, you should go back to your goals. But if you have created goals that are really specific, it's not that difficult to figure out, this task is actually a sub-goal of that bigger goal that I'm trying to achieve. If I tick this one off, I can potentially achieve that bigger goal. The way I always ask people to create their goals, I only ask them to create three for a year.
I think any more than that, I mean three to five if you really want to push it. Three, because too often what I see is that people set so many different goals and then they don't achieve any at the end of the year or the end of the financial year or calendar year, and they feel disheartened and they feel all the kind of shame and these other negative feelings come onto them. If you can just stick to three, it not only is gonna help you in the future, but it's also allowing you to focus on, what are the sub-goals underneath each of those. The framework that I like to ask people to use is actually from a book, it's called The Four Disciplines of Execution. We will link to that in the show notes.
But the concept is taken from that book, but I also think it's a very common way of creating a goal, but it's to use the framework from X, like from our current state to Y, what's the future state, what's the end return, what's the ideal goal realized by when? Setting a very clear deadline. That is so important, “the so that” that is actually going to incentivize you greater than anything else in a goal. For example, if you had a goal of I want to make more money this year, and you have the exact number that you want to make, that's still not telling you how much you're actually growing to do that, it's also telling you why is that important?
For example, you might say, I want to move from making $50,000 at the end of this financial year to making $108,000 by the end of whatever month is coming up so that I can hire another staff member or even go even further than that, I can hire a staff member and not have to work weekends or not have to work evenings or whatever it is that's going to really incentivize you. That idea of not having to work weekends if you are somebody who's had to do that is going to be more of a driving factor than getting to a particular number. Even if you think, I know that might mean then I can hire a staff member really laying it out, like writing it out somewhere and saying, I'm gonna move from this in this state to this future state, so I'm going to move from X, what is X?
What is the benchmark to Y by when? And that is just understanding firstly that your goals in that format can really be powerful. It's important. But then going back to those when it comes to, “I'm stuck, I don’t know what to do. And going back to those three things that you set a year ago, or maybe if you worked to the financial year and you are like me in Australia, you may have just set those on the 1st of July. I know people all around the world have different times of the year when their financial year kicks in whatever it is you may have set. For me, I always set calendar goals. I know that kind of goes against a lot of things with accounting and everything else, but I like to look at a year in a calendar year from January to December.
I look at that and I think, “Okay, this year I was really going to do this and those three big goals, and underneath those are sub-goals.” If I'm sitting here, like for example, I'm just going to be laying it all out there and let me hit this goal, otherwise, this will be very embarrassing. We want to get a new website up and running and we have been working on it all year actually earlier than all year. We've been working on it since last year. Last November or maybe October even, I started working with a graphic designer on all these things. That process took about seven months. It should not have taken that long on both of our ends. Anyway, it did then decided, actually didn't love it. I worked with another graphic designer, Ashley Simonetto, shout out to New Opening Studio who are incredible.
Quick, creative, and just awesome, I love it. I love what they have created. Now that is the design done. What we need to do is then look at our website we have not updated in ages and there are just so many things that need to be changed. Also, we work with Squarespace. The Squarespace has gone from 7.0 to 7.1. They have just recently announced 100 new features, which will be game-changing for our business in terms of not having to pay a huge amount of subscriptions for course companies and scheduling tools, and all sorts of other things. I'm so excited, I swear if anyone from Squarespace is listening to this and wants to sponsor a podcast or work in any way together, please get in touch. But I'm so excited about this. One of our biggest goals this year was to update the website.
That has to be done, that has to be done by December 31st. Even though it is a huge amount of work, if I'm sitting there thinking, I could work on this, or I could work on this, it's like, let's go back to your goals. One of your biggest goals was the website which is a sub-goal of a bigger goal. But that is super important and I will feel crap if we don't finish that by the end of the year. It's out there publicly, let's see if we can do it. We are working with a company in the US to create the website and that is just only slowed by our end. But anyway, going back to your goals can be a really important step in figuring out what I need to work on because there are so many other things I could be working on.
There's stuff that's more fun. I mean the creative in a website is super fun and if you just listen to the recent interview that we did with Boris from Metcon Creative, he was talking about this stuff should be fun and it is, but anyone who's created a website with a lot of pages and a lot of stuff, as we have 300 blog articles, well we're up to episode 248. As this gets published, we'll have 248 pages dedicated to each episode of the podcast. I mean there's a lot of content and having to repurpose a lot of that rejig things, just so many links, so many images, so much stuff, it's a big job. We are kind of in that tedious part. Even though working on the website is super important, sometimes it can be like, but this other thing over there is more fun, but I have to come back to those goals.
How will I feel at the end of the year if I have worked on all these fun things and didn't actually get the thing that I really wanted to be done? That's the first of the five steps or ideas or questions to ask yourself if you are stuck in how do I get started? Let's say you are just starting a business and you're like, I could do this, I could do that, I could meet with these people, I could get out, I would come back to your goals. If one of your goals is, I want to build authority in a particular space, then you may be like, you know what? My time is going to be really well spent looking at panels, looking at conferences, looking at podcasts, looking at places I can go to promote my credibility and to promote my authority and not just promote it but actually be the authority.
I had somebody actually who just booked in for coaching really recently in like last week and actually I don't know if they've completely signed the contract, but hopefully, they do. But they actually contacted me and they had seen me speak at an event I think in 2018, if not 2017, I think it was 2018. We are now in 2022 which has taken, they've moved and adapted and had different businesses, but that's four years later. That authority building could happen and you can have a long-tail effect on your business. If that is something that you're trying to do when you're starting your business, it's to build authority. Maybe you're in a service-based business, and you may be like, I know it's daunting to put myself out there and contact people and get onto panels and get onto podcasts and other such things, but by doing it, I'm actually showing up to that goal that I set instead of maybe playing around in Canberra or doing something else that is more fun and less daunting.
I hope that makes sense. The first thing is to look at your goals and review what you wanted to do in any particular period. For me, it's always a calendar year, and then if I've got 20 things staring at me, which ones actually will help me achieve those goals? That's number one. Number two, and like I said, these are all equally important. Number two is the sleep test. I live in Australia and I live in North Warrandyte. It is a very bushy area. I am literally looking out into bushland with beautiful trees everywhere and bunnies, parrots, lizards, and all sorts of things. I actually had to stop recording on this and rerecord because I got sidetracked looking at a lizard outside my window. But within that, which is all very beautiful and lovely, we also get so many mosquitoes and there is this one area outside my house where the water or whatever, we've had lots of kind of floods and all sorts of things happening.
Not necessarily in North Warrandyte, in Victoria. And shout out to anyone who is facing that at the moment. One of the things that happen near me is that we get lots of mosquitoes in this one kind of area, not in the house, but outside in the garden. This sort of water collects in one area and if you are there at dusk, you will get bitten. Mosquitoes suck. I mean look at the horrific damage that they do around the world. Goals, you're probably like, where is this going? What do you want to work on? What are your goals or what you should do first? Often I attribute that kind of loss of sleep, to thinking about something as akin to a mosquito being in your room at night. You just hear that and it's just the most irritating thing and you cannot sleep.
I can't stand if there's a mosquito in our house because I know that I'll get bitten. I have that kind of blood as do my two boys. If you have things on the list that are mosquitoes for you that are the things that are keeping you awake every night or that you're waking up early thinking about or that are coming into your mind when you're out having coffee with a friend and you should really be focused, but instead you're like thinking about this thing or you've got your kids and you can't really be completely present with them because you just keep thinking about this thing that needs to get done. I would then look at how you can either outsource that for somebody else to do how you can set aside time for yourself to do it or if you can just remove it altogether.
Because sometimes just because it's irritating us doesn't mean that it's important, but sometimes it really is important and we need to get through it. If you have something that is on that list of like, where do I start? And it is a mosquito in a quiet, dark room when you're about to go to sleep or like I said if you're outside having a lovely dusk conversation with your neighbor and then a mosquito just ruins everything. If you have things on your list that are like the mosquito, work out how you are going to get them off that list. I have had these things and sometimes it's a matter of actually just sitting down and doing it and often the thing that was sort of irritating me for like weeks might take an hour of my time and then it's done.
The mosquito has been like slapped and gotten rid of. If you have things on that list that are just eating away at your energy, then I would also prioritize them if you can and if they are important. I know that that might be a bit confusing. How do you figure out what's important? Well go back to your goals or likewise go back to, I want to have a full night's sleep. I don't want to be up thinking about this and so I'm just going to get it off my list. It might be that there's an important conversation you've got to have with one of your staff members. It could be that you really need to hire a bookkeeper or that you need to talk to your accountant about your tax bill because you're really freaking out about it. Those things often can be bothering us for weeks and weeks and actually when we take action on them we get our power back.
That would be my second thing. If I was sitting there thinking, I've got so many things, what are the mosquito tasks? I've just like coined that. Obviously, it may not make sense if you're literally just jumping into this episode now but rewind and listen. What are the mosquito tasks? What are the things that are keeping you up at night and how can you remove them or take action on them or delegate them as soon as you can? Number one, goal. Number two is the sleep test. What are your mosquito tasks? Number three, and this is so important, I did a whole episode on it and that is will it matter five years from now? For me, someone could look at our business and if they had a full overview of our business and go updating your website is not actually potentially going to add much, in terms of finance, like your business is doing fine as it is, and that's not to boast or anything, and this is the thing, sometimes you can leave things because you're like, it's not impacting the bottom line, but it's impacting, it's a mosquito task for me for sure.
The website is a mosquito task and I help people with their websites all the time. I think I've got a pretty decent understanding of websites and I've helped huge corporations with the website development and all sorts of things. For me to then have a website that I'm not super proud of, it's not great. It's like my friend Marre who is just an incredible website designer at Smit Club in the Netherlands. She lives in Amsterdam. She always talks about her why being that she wants her clients who are business owners who want to like transition to the next level. She wants them to feel confident and they can feel confident if they have like a kickass website that they love. I remember when she first told me that and I was like, “That is exactly not how I'm feeling.”
Other people will go to our website and be like, “It's so lovely” and I built the website myself, but, it's got lots of things that need to be changed, updated, and modernized. For me, that is definitely a mosquito task, and coming back to will it matter in five years? Maybe it won't matter if the website's done, but I know that we are not taking action on certain things in the business because of the website. It's kind of like a little clunky, it's a little old, and we can't do certain things on it. And there are lots of integrations and other such things. For us, I feel that I'm going to be waiting another year and another year if I don't fix that. For us, it will matter because there are lots of things that we are trying to do.
Both me and Yricka in the business, but also in my own personal life we're getting a renovation. There are lots of things that I would be trying to do and I am trying to do to help ease the pressure of getting a big renovation in your house. That is an example of things for us, maybe even though somebody else listening, they might be like, it's not that important. It won't matter in five years for you, you might be thinking about, okay, I'd really like to write a book, for example, so I wrote my first book, Passion Purpose Profit, I wrote it in 2019, and it got published in 2020. If you haven't got a copy, go out and check it out. It's available everywhere and please support a small business gift shop or bookshop if you can by buying it.
But I wrote that and that is always on my list. I have ghostwritten a lot of books for people, but I wanted to have my own book. I wanted to have a book that had Fiona Killackey on the front cover rather than somebody else's name. That was a huge goal for me, a huge life goal that I know that if I had not achieved at the end of my life, I might be a little bit like, “I really wish I'd done that” and I have other goals in my life that I'd love to achieve. Having children was a huge goal for me and it took a long time to get to that, but it happened and everyone has those things. Everyone has things that are deep within them that they really want to achieve in life.
There will definitely be personal goals and then there will be professional goals. If you, let's say in this example, you've really wanted to create a book and you have thought about it and thought about it. And you are in a position where maybe somebody in your life has been like, “Yeah, send me, send me your ideas and let's nut it out or send me a proposal” or as this was exactly what happened to me. And if you're interested in that, we will link to the episodes in the podcast that it purely about book publishing and we have a big one coming out next week as well. But that was really important for me. And somebody said, “Have you got a book proposal?” They actually said I'm assuming you have a book proposal, can you send it to me today?
I was like “Sure.” I had to put aside everything else to get that thing done that day. But the point is, if you are given an opportunity or if you have sought out an opportunity, maybe you've emailed somebody and they've replied and you're like, “Okay”, and that is one of the goals that if you haven't work on it in five years time, you'll be a bit annoyed at yourself then that is where your focus should be going. That is number three, five years from now, is this going to be important? Definitely, if you look at some of the things on your list, your tasks, or whatever list you've pulled together, you will know that in five years they're not that important. You might be like, these ones are really big, these are really important for me to do right now.
That's important. That is the third step in these five steps or not even steps because steps, I kind of have the idea that you follow one after the other more just ideas and questions to ask yourself. That is number three. It's number one, go back to your goals. Number two, do the sleep test. Is this a mosquito task? Is it taking up my energy? Do I need to just get it off the list? And number three, five years from now, is this going to matter? Will you know if this task help me where I want to be in five years from now? The next thing, number four, and again, these aren't in any particular order, they aren't just as important as each other. Number four, and this may not necessarily make sense for people who are just getting started in a business, but for pretty much everyone else it will.
That is to think about what were you doing 12 months ago. Were there things that really helped you 12 months ago that are on your task for this year? Let's say for example that you have a retail shop. You have an online site, an e-commerce part of your business, and you have a physical part of your business and you sell, books or gifts things or fashion, whatever it is that you sell. That you are coming up to the busiest period for pretty much most retailers no matter where you are into the end of the year and the sales and all sorts of things, gifting, Hanukkah, Christmas, and De Balie. You might think last year we put in place that, maybe you got more casual people to come in and do pick and pack, or maybe last year you sat down and really systematized your process for Christmas orders with stockers or stock, suppliers.
Maybe last year things were a scramble and you were like, “Okay, next year we are not working like this” and now you're at next year. You're thinking, “Okay, what did I do 12 months ago?” Maybe it was negative or no, not negative, but maybe it didn't help the business or maybe it did. If you have things on your tasks that you're like, this time we did say that we're actually going to reach out to our third-party logistics provider and talk them through how we really want things to happen this year and if there's anything they need from us and that's on my task list, but it's not that exciting. You might be like, “I want to do this other fun thing.” And it's like, “No, this was me last year saying, we need to have that meeting with them, and here we are and I don't want to be in the same position that I was last year.”
If that is something that's on your list, then you want to prioritize it. Or like I said, you might have had something really positive that you did last year. Maybe last year, let's talk about this same example maybe last year you did a lot of local area marketing. In marketing departments, this is known as LAM, Local Area Marketing. Local area marketing might be that, let's say you have a store on a high street somewhere and last year you were like, you know what, I'm actually going to have a get-together and I'm going to make a little WhatsApp group for the other retailers on this little strip and we are going to come up with a really awesome night shopping entertainment idea to drive sales for all of us. Or maybe you came up with this incredible competition that leverages all of your audiences right in the gifting period of the year or whatever it is.
Maybe you did some collaborations or partnerships or maybe you even came up with a product. Maybe there's a bakery near you that just does like the best cupcakes and maybe you sell, sweaters in like yellow and blue. They did yellow and blue cupcakes. I'm just making this up so just go with me here. And they sold out and then that somehow had a flow and effect on your yellow and blue sweaters and you knew that did really well. But everyone's been like super quiet this year and we haven't had much chatter on the WhatsApp group. I'm going to get that back up and running or remind everyone, hey, remember what we did last year and how it really benefited all of us. I'm going to get my local area marketing game back on and make that happen.
That is also something that if it's in your mind and that I could imagine would be like a mosquito task that is like you're thinking about it a lot, you want to go back and think, that needs to be prioritized. That is something that I need to work on now. That is another example of like really thinking back to 12 months ago, what were you doing? Was it hindering the business? Was it helping the business? And then are there things that you are working on now or thinking about working on that will really help this year? You're helping your past self and you're also helping potentially your future self as well. That is 12 months' time from now, when we are talking on the, what date is this podcast coming out the 20th of October, 2023, you'll be like, “I am so glad I listened to that podcast and I'm so glad that I worked on that thing and I'm going to do it again this year.”
That is another thing to really think about. Where were you 12 months ago and were there things that you really wanted to work on? Again, an example in my own life is probably 12 months ago, what will be 2021? I was a year out from having published my first book and I was dreaming of having a second book. Imagine if I had like four or five books, imagine I could be like Dr. Rebecca Ray who has like six books, but just two would be amazing. I was thinking then, I need to like talk to Hardie Grant and I need to like come up with another book proposal and have a chat with them and really talk to them. I did not get moving on that for ages.
I have to say, pulling together your first book proposal is so exciting because it's all new and you have no idea if it's going to get accepted the second time. I feel like there is so much pressure because you really want them to say yes, and they may well say no. In the first instance, you're like, you know that. In the second one, you're like, What could happen if they say yes?” That could be incredible. You've got more pressure put on. I think for that reason I delayed pulling together the proposal for the second book for ages, for months. I was saying to the publisher, I'm so sorry, this has come up or this sort of thing. Let's see, fingers crossed everybody that we have good news on that.
That's something that I can look back and go, was really important to me. If that was still on my list now a year later, it is not. I've sent the proposal off, fingers crossed as I said, but if that was still on my list for sure, that would be something that I'd think, wow, that's been a whole year but that has been sitting there and I do not want it to be another year where I'm not pitching that second thing, second book. That's number four, thinking about where you were last year and thinking, are there things that really helped and you need to get those things happening this year at this time, or are there things that really derailed stuff and you do not want to have that same experience this year? That's number four.
Number five. And like I said, these are just as important as each other, what does your gut say? Now, I know some people will switch off and some people will be like, “Yeah,” but your gut is so important. I mean, they call it your second brain, don't they? But I always say when it comes to making business decisions, it's data and gut. Sometimes you can have the best data in the world, but there's something that just tells you this is not the right move. And then you make it and you realize my gut was correct. Other times, you may have just a gut feeling and you wanna have some data to support it. I always say data and gut, but in this instance, I'm talking about what does your gut tell you? If you are thinking, I don’t know if I want to go in this direction or that direction, you want to think about what does my gut tell me?
When I started my business, I really thought that I would be working with corporates all day long. I knew that I really wanted to work with creative small business owners, but I thought, “No, I've got to be like I've taken a big leap of faith here.” I've left a really good salary, I need to kind of make the same salary and I can only do that incorporate. This is sort of the myth that I told myself. if I had listened to my gut, then I would've gone after more creative stuff, but I didn't. If you are looking at a kind of task or if you are thinking, “Okay, I'm in my business, which direction do I go with this new business?/” I would be thinking, what does your gut tell you?
Does your gut tell you to keep going, keep persisting with this particular segment because that is where you want to end up? Or is it telling you something else? And likewise, if you are sitting with lots of different priorities in your business, I would be looking at all these things that I've mentioned before, but also, how does it feel? What is my gut feeling? And sometimes we don't know the difference between being anxious and nervous versus being excited. You might need to really think about something and maybe put a pros and cons list together, maybe sleep on things. Sometimes you sleep on stuff and you just know in the next morning you're just like, “Yes, this is the answer.” Other things you might need a few weeks, maybe you need a coaching session, maybe you need a chat with some friends.
Maybe you need to talk to your accountant or your bookkeeper or, get some other input for a business decision. But a lot of the time we know in our guts what is the right direction to go and we just know that something's going to work out. And it's like, let's go for that. Let's go for that avenue in the business right now, even though it might be a bit scary, it's also super exciting. That term gut, I know can sometimes turn people off when it comes to like, it's so wishy-washy and fluffy. But I really genuinely believe it. I know it to be true in my own business. I've had maybe two or three, I would say three. I would have three people in my business throughout the seven years that I've been running it.
This is my seventh year that has not been a great fit. And every single time I should have gone with my gut because every single time when I first met them, when I had a consult call, I knew in my gut this is not going to work out right, but I let the security or the payment or, they were really nice people and they are all of them are lovely people, but it just didn't work out. I knew in my gut that it wasn't going to work out and I wish I had followed that. If you're looking at a task list, even there are things that it's almost like sometimes you look at your task list and it's like your parent comes into your head going, “Fiona, just get that bit done.” I know it's really tedious and annoying, but that's something you need to just get done today.
I know it's almost like you've got that inspiration going, just get it done. Just get that thing done because then you'll be fine. You won't be worrying about it and you just need to get that stuff done. It's not necessarily the gut that's just driving bigger actions, it's the gut that can also drive just day-to-day tasks that you're like, I know I'll feel better if I get that done. Let's just get it done. I hope that that makes sense, but I also hope that these five stages, steps, questions, ideas, whatever you want to call it, have really given you fuel for thought. I know that this question originally, I mean this whole podcast came as a result to a question that Anna brash sent in. I really hope that Anna, if you are listening, this somehow answers part of your question.
Just to recap for everyone, including Anna or anyone else that's listening, number one, if you don't know where to start if you are starting a new business and you've got all these ideas and it's like where to start, or if you are years into your business and you've just got so many different prioritizing tasks and you're like, “What do I do first?” Go back to your goals. What were you trying to do? What are you trying to do by setting up this business? What did you say that you would do this year? If you're numerous years into the business, what were the three biggest goals that you wanted to achieve? And then how is whichever direction you're about to go going to impact any of those goals? Is it a sub-goal of one of them? Is it completely outside the box and actually maybe doesn't need your attention right now?
Is it maybe something exciting and fun but you could park it for 12 months or six months or three months? Or is it definitely going to really help you feel amazing in the future? That's number one. Go back to your goals and assess how whatever you're grappling with right now fits into these goals, these three goals, and remove that format from X to Y by when, to that. Number two, do you have things on your mind that are like mosquitoes in a room when you're about to fall asleep or you're trying to fall asleep and they just come along and just eat your energy, eat your sleep time, and you just, you just like, they're not always negative, it could just be something that just keeps coming up. If they are the types of things that you have on your tasks, I call them mosquito tasks, I don't call them that.
I have literally coined that during this podcast, but you can bet that I'm going to be calling them that from now on in my coaching sessions and in talks that I do. Mosquito tasks, don't you know that term? If you have mosquito tasks, then you want to get those things off your plate, whether it is delegating it, whether it is doing it yourself, or whether it is actually removing it and realizing that you are taking your power back. Number two is do these things pass the sleep test, Are they mosquito tasks? Number three, will whatever it is that you're about to do, make a difference in where you want to be in five years? If you are starting a business and you are really trying to put yourself out there and you know that in five years you want to be, let's say, one of my clients, actually this is true, one of my clients wants to be really recognized in a particular field.
Putting themselves out there, again and again, is really going to help that happen. I mean, they're going to have more chance of that happening than not putting themselves out at all. Where do you sort of see yourself in five years? And does this matter? Is this going to be important for that? Number four, thinking back to where you were 12 months ago, did you do things last year that you wanna repeat this year? Do they have to be prioritized? Or did you do things last year that were just not great? And you do not want to run through that same situation this year, so things have to be prioritized. That is a really important one. Where were you 12 months ago and how can past you help future you? And then number five, what does your gut tell you? Those are the five.
Of course, there are so many other ways to figure out what you should work on first or which direction you should go in. But I really hope that they have helped, helped you Anna, and also helped everyone else. And again, as I said, this has come in as a result of a question that was asked by email. Feel free to email us at hello@tmydailybusinesscoach.com with any questions that you have or suggestions for a podcast episode and we will record that for you. And we'll also be in touch with Anna to send her this when it comes out. As I said, we do show notes and you can find those if you prefer to read the text over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/248. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful, I would love it so much. If you could leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you usually listen to your podcast, it just really helps other small business owners across the globe find this podcast and maybe there's something in today's episode that they really need to hear. So thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at my daily business coach.com or hit me up on Instagram at my daily business coach.
