What Does Success Look Like?

I'm getting ready to launch the next session of the Get Clients Now program.

If you are struggling to succeed and missing the mark, the answer may lay in your strategic planning. You may not be looking at the big picture enough to understand the small things that go into succeeding on a project. Maybe you don't really understand proper planning and organizing yet.

What Does Success Look Like?
Have you really thought about what success looks like? Take the time right now to write down exactly what success looks like to you. Does it mean more money, more freedom, or something else entirely? There are no wrong answers, but if you don't have an answer and you don't know what constitutes success, it will be hard to feel as if you're successful. If you think about it, this is true for any project you are working on. What should the deliverable look like? Answer that and you have your starting point.

What Are the Steps Needed to Get to Success?
Can you pinpoint exactly the steps needed to reach success? Do you know how long it will take, how many hours each day you will need to focus on the steps needed to reach success? It's important that you can look at what the end result is supposed to be and work your way backward to the beginning to design the steps necessary to reach success. The big vision at the end starts with what you're going to do Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Do the Steps That It Takes to Reach Success
Once you've defined what success is, and designed the steps that will get you to success, now it's time to act on these steps and do them. No one gets to success without taking action. Action is the forward movement that will help you wind up at your destination. If you're spinning your wheels, you may be stuck in one of the planning phases. Move out of that planning phase and start acting.

Are the Steps You're Taking Creating Momentum?
It's also important to build in a few stops along the way toward your goals to evaluate how everything is going. Is what you're doing leading you to success? Are you getting some results that indicate that you're on the right track? If so, keep going. If not, re-evaluate if your plan is sufficient to move you toward the success that you need.

Is something missing that is crucial to getting to success, such as a skill that you need to take time out to learn? If so, you may need to add in time for learning, but don't trick yourself into thinking learning is action. It's not.

Defining success, planning based on the definition, then acting on the plan and putting into motion the steps necessary to achieve success, are all important components of moving behind the struggle to achieve success and finally experiencing success.

Aesop's Wisdom

Finally, Success!

Well, it finally happened. One of my more "needier" clients landed his dream job today. It was a long time coming. I first started working with him last summer, developing the resume in anticipation of a December graduation. The resume itself was stellar. (I can say this with some confidence because it was reviewed favorably by the volunteers working the NRWA Certification session at the National Resume Writer's Association conference in Savannah in September.)

But the client was picky ... and somewhat resistant to my suggestions. The resume would land interviews, but the interviews were ... shall we say, weird. You know how it is -- the client is giving you feedback, and you're not sure if it matched the reality of the situation or not. For example, he'd have a first and second interview ... things would be moving along ... and all of a sudden, they decided he didn't have enough experience. That seemed strange to me, but what could I do? I couldn't send in a hidden camera to see what really happened. (The brief interview coaching I did with him didn't identify any red flags -- other than the typical "new graduate" attitude that expects to be making $50K with a bachelor's degree and a couple summers worth of job experience.)

I used ALL of my skills with this client. Creative ways to follow-up for the 45th time (without looking like a stalker). My best Nick Corcodilas "do the job before you get the job advice" (for one job in marketing for a mall-based retail store chain, I suggested he conduct an analysis of customer demographics by sitting outside the store at the food court and collecting data. Despite calling me every other day to tell me how "bored" he was by not working, I STILL could not convince him that this was a worthwhile use of his time.)

But it all paid off when I got the e-mail from him telling me he'd accepted an offer for his new job. That's what makes it all so worthwhile, right? (Well, that and the couple hundred dollars paid by his mom for my services as a graduation present...)

Now let's hope he KEEPS that job for a very long time...like until he's ready to retire. I can dream, right?