Whether you’re talking football or business, the 4th Quarter is crunch time. It’s the time to pull out all the stops so that you can win. How are you set up to finish your year? Will you hit your goals and feel great? Or will you resign yourself to falling short and hope for better results next year?
Regardless of where you are, how you handle the last quarter of the year will not only impact your results now but will also set the stage for next year. Here are four steps that you can take to set yourself up for a happy dance at year-end.
- Assess & Adjust – Before you can run full speed ahead, you have to step back and make sure your path is clear. Based on your performance for the first three quarters, are you where you need to be or do you need to shift? Will doing what you’ve been doing get you where you want to go? If so, you’re in good shape. If doing the same thing is not going to hack it, what changes do you need to make. Do you need to do more of something and less of something else? Do you need different strategies or more focus? Take the time to honestly assess what will get you where you need to be so your marching orders moving forward are clear and unambiguous.
- Commit – You’ve got 90 days. Are you willing to commit 100% to achieving your goal? Commitment, on the surface, sounds easy. In practice, it’s where many of us fall short. That’s why I ask if you are 100% committed and not 90%. In the 4th Quarter, we have lots of built-in distractions with holidays and related festivities. It’s easy to go into “coast mode.” This is not the time to relax and take your foot off the accelerator. It’s time to rev that engine and give it all you’ve got. But you have to be 100% committed!
- Execute – If you do #1 and #2 above, you’re setting yourself up for success. But nothing will change if you don’t execute. You should know what you need to do each day and every week to stay on target. What are your benchmarks? What activities do you need to execute to hit your goals? Be relentless with your execution. Go into your day with a plan and keep at it until it’s done. If you have an off day, don’t throw in the towel, just stay focused and get done everything you can. If you’re in the flow and really being productive, take advantage and surge ahead. The good days and the bad days will wash out in the end.
- Be Your Own Coach – It’s great if you have a coach, but if you don’t it’s ok. You can coach yourself by doing what a good coach would do. Imagine that you have a daily check-in call with a coach. He would know what you planned to do and would want to know what you actually accomplished that day. Bottom-line there would be some accountability. If you fell short, he would want to know why and what you were going to do about it moving forward. If you hit your goals, your coach would give you a pat on the back and ask is there anything else that you should be doing. And he would also ask if you felt prepared for the next day and if you had tomorrow’s action plan ready to execute. If he sensed enthusiasm, he would encourage you and reinforce your efforts. Similarly, if he felt you were feeling defeated or burnt out, he would dig deeper in an effort to get you back on track. In a few minutes, at the end of each day, you can coach yourself by assessing where you are, what you’ve accomplished and where you need to make changes for the next day.
Do this for 90 days and you’re a winner!
