It’s hard to believe that a quarter of 2018 is almost over already! Hopefully you went into the year with a strong plan and are well on your way to achieving your goals. For many people if they do sit down and make yearly goals its something that happens in January, and then by February they have forgotten about them. I remember the gym I went to when I lived in Florida. Every January it would be jam packed, it was difficult to get on equipment or take a shower. But I knew that by February the place would be empty again, and sure enough that would happen every single year. These days i work out at a small gym where the crowd is a lot more dedicated ,so you don’t see as many of those New Year’s resolutions that are quickly abandoned. Goal setting and planning is not a once a year event, its something that should be done and updated on a continual basis.
I went into 2018 with big plans for my notes business, and so far I am on track. I bought 3 notes, although buying notes wasn’t my main objective for the quarter. I’ve been focused primarily on building the foundation for a scalable operation, and been have working hard to create the systems and processes needed to be successful. The highlight of my quarter was attending Scott Carson’s Fast Track training in Austin. I came away from that with a huge list of things to do to put together that strong foundation for my business. After a lot of categorizing and prioritizing I have a backlog that will take months to work off. I was also able to get my YouTube channel up and running and create some videos on using Excel for notes.
Its amazing how well everything worked out because life threw a lot at me over the last few months. I took on a lot of new responsibility in my day job that I did not expect. A close family member was diagnosed with a serious illness. Overall there was a lot of stress. I also developed some back problems, which probably wasn’t helped by all of the stress. With everything going on I felt like I wasn’t going as fast as I should be with my notes business. But when I looked back and reviewed my plans versus what I accomplished, I was actually slightly ahead where I wanted to be by this time. Its amazing what you can accomplish when you just show up every day and just do the work. It makes me think of hiking. When I’m tired while hiking I have a tendency to just look a couple feet in front of me with my head down and it feels like I’m not making any progress. Then when I stop and look back I’m like, whoa…. I’m really high up here now.
Thankfully most of my sources of stress are cleared up now, my back is feeling better, and I’m very excited for what lays ahead for the rest of the year. Looking ahead to Q2 I plan to do more of the same. I don’t plan to do anything fancy or exciting, but it will be a steady. disciplined and well thought out grind that will leave me in position to really crank things up in the second half of the year. I’ll be doing things like improving my ROI calculator, building case studies, creating more videos, making a presentation for a lunchtime meetup group and calling banks and asset managers. The highlight will be attending the Mastermind at Cape Coral in April. Hopefully I can pick up a few more notes before the end of the first half as well. But my main focus is going to be on developing “off the grid” sources of notes. Going beyond 2018 I really believe developing those sources will be the key to success.
We still have a week left in the quarter. So if you aren’t on track you still have time to get it in gear and make some significant progress. If you didn’t make a plan for 2018, sit down and do it now. If you have a solid plan for 2018, zero in on what you need to accomplish in Q2. If your list is too large and you are feeling overwhelmed, figure out what the 1 or 2 most critical things are and get rid of the rest. The key is not to stay busy, its to identify what matters for you and get that done without becoming distracted. This doesn’t take a lot of time, and it will pay huge dividends both personally and for your business.