Well it’s that time of the year again, where we get bombarded with messages promising us the sun moon and stars. Instant profits, instant sales, instant leads, instant success, the list is endless. There will be testimonials about the instant millionaires, the instant internet sensations.
I don’t buy in to this hyperbole. Success just isn’t instant for mere mortals. Success is rarely achieved in the short term, success is genuinely a journey. Success is mostly achieved through consistency, persistency and clarity of thinking. You don’t achieve all this in 90 days.
We definitely live in a world of immediacy, a world of now, and it’s often hard to think strategically.
When I say strategically I mean medium and long term thinking.

Working as a Business Coach I have learned that there are levels of expectations of what can be achieved quickly, that are just too high to be credible.
I’m not talking myself out of a job here. Yes you can achieve results in 90 days but long term sustainable change and business success takes at least 12 months of hard work and commitment before it really yields significant benefit and genuine return on investment. I believe in the principle of longterm sustainable growth and this is not achieved with short term miracle fixes.
You can definitely take short term actions. You can definitely implement changes quickly. But very often the commitment to see things through is the key determinant in real success. Unfortunately most give up, when they don’t see instant success. Giving up because of unrealistic expectations in the first place is endemic and is such a shame.
Remember that ALL goals should first and foremost be realistic. In order for goals to be realistic, expectations need to be realistic.

I frequently come across the “I want to double my sales in the next 6 months” requests. I’ll always then ask the question “how much did you increase your sales last year, and the previous year”? In today’s environment it’s not unusual to get a response such as “well actually our sales have fallen consistently for the last 2 years”.
OK so how realistic now is the goal. Really?

I’m all for thinking big. Those of you who know me know this to be true, but setting expectations at levels that make it hard for people to really believe they can succeed, is just counterproductive. So DON’T!!!

Actions,
Here’s what I suggest. Firstly stop the search for “instant success” formula. There are none. Can you achieve great success? of course. Can you grow quickly? of course. But think more strategically. Think consistency. Think persistence. Think continuity. Think longterm. Think clearly.
You will achieve more in less time with this attitude, I guarantee it. What I won’t guarantee is that it will be instant!!

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 11:12 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.