Success by Keeping Your Promises

(Editor’s Note: In this, our first article of the new year, we welcome Jason and Craig Womack, co-authors of The Promise Doctrine to help us kick off 2010 with advice on setting goals and keeping promises!)

When you set new goals, you take ownership of making positive changes in your life and you begin a journey to another level. To make the journey, you’ll need 1) a set of clear objectives and 2) a clear path to achieve measurable results.

We suggest that you start with a high-level, four-pronged “roadmapping” process. Your roadmap defines what you should be measuring and your vision for success in each area.

Roadmap Your Goals: 4 Key Areas

When building your roadmap, focus on answering questions in these four areas of your business:

1) Financial Goals – What is your expected revenue this year?

2) Customer/Market – Precisely who is your target market? And what is your plan to reach them?

3) Internal Processes – What are the internal, day-to-day resources and processes you will need to put in place, or commit to habit, to best manage and control your business?

4) People – Who will you need to get to know? Who can your mentors or partners be? Who can help to “coach” you, either personally or via coaching resources?

Measuring and Tracking

With your roadmap in place, what’s needed next is a way to measure and track your progress. Knowing what to focus on and commit time and resources to, is the single biggest challenge that solo professionals, freelancers and consultants have in business (and in life).

Goals are promises, and promises are commitments. They begin the moment you say yes to yourself or to others. But how do you keep track of all these yeses? And, more importantly, how do you ensure that these are the things you really should be spending time on?

First, write them all down! Capture all of your commitments, the ones you may have scribbled down on various lists, on your calendar, and the ones swirling around in your head. If you capture them centrally, you can begin to look at them strategically.

Many of us have a multitude of projects, to-dos and tasks on the go. Some of these commitments may even be prioritized. However, unless there is a strategic vision that overrides all of your commitments, the bigger, long-term promises and commitments may get sabotaged by smaller, less important tasks – tasks which always seems to soak up your valuable time, resources and mind space.

Here’s a simple, but powerful guidance system for measuring and keeping track of all of this:

1) Identify key promises/commitments – Looking at your newly consolidated list of projects, to-dos and tasks, which ones are key (that is to say, critical) to your roadmap? These are your top priority commitments – promises you make to yourself and/or others that will support your vision for success.

2) Develop milestones for achievement – For each of your key promises, develop due dates and milestones to track your progress. Specify target dates and, for those items where you are working with others, specify who will be responsible and what will be done.

3) Have a “check in” and “status update” process – On a regular basis (for example, once every week) take time to check in on how you are progressing with each of these key promises.

As a solo professional, freelancer, or consultant, YOU are your brand. Your personal and professional success is directly proportional to your ability to make promises and follow through on them.

Craig and Jason Womack are co-authors of The Promise Doctrine, a guidebook and system for consistently delivering on your promises. As a father and son team, they bring a unique blend of business and teaching backgrounds to seminars and workshops with companies large and small. Learn more at www.thepromisedoctrine.com