And…here we are. It’s Labor Day which is often known as the second new year. What are your goals for the end of the year? What routines do you want to establish, or re-establish, even if they look a little different this year?

Earlier today I held a 25 minute reflective pause call - you can find it here. Be sure to download the associated worksheet as well over at PlanDoTrack.com

We have over 120 days left of the year, and there’s still a significant amount of time to revisit your annual goals, tweak them, and/or play full out in achieving them.

As you step into this week consider these questions:

Around Annual Goals:

• When did I last review my annual goals?
• Which goals have I already achieved?
• Which ones are still outstanding?
• What’s it going to take to achieve these (think people, resources, information, connection, etc)?
• Who do I need support from?
• What’s going to help me 10 X these results (10 X means magnify the results 10 X)?
• What goals need to be crossed off the list or modified?
• What else is important to note about annual goals….?
• What metrics or numbers do I have around these?

As it relates to Fall Routines consider these questions:
What are the routines which help you:

• Excel physically
• Focus mentally
• Build Relationships
• Expand your thinking
• Move projects to completion
• Think ahead of the curve
  
• Serve your clients
• Be grounded
• Stay connected
• Share what you are working on with others?

Enjoy your focus and I hope to see you in a few weeks at the Stand Out Virtually Masterclass! You can find out more about this one day program here.

With best wishes,
​Jennifer

One of the emerging themes I identified back in my book, From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching, was Design Thinking. While this was several years ago, Design Thinking has now exploded into business practices everywhere. As a longstanding program designer, myself, it’s been natural to be integrating many of the principles and practices of Design Thinking into my own way of doing things.

In this week’s blog post, I wanted to share a little more about design thinking to get you thinking about how you might incorporate it into your program design, or conversations with clients.

“Design is the action of bringing something new and desired into existence—a proactive stance that resolves or dissolves problematic situations by design. It is a compound of routine, adaptive and design expertise brought to bear on complex dynamic situations.” —Harold Nelson

As we step into a new year, and new decade, what is it that you want to create? My guess is that there are probably many design opportunities for you on the horizon.
Design Thinking has emerged from many areas, and is a human-centered approach to any program design. If you’ve worked with me before, you’d know my affinity to the Group Coaching Design Matrix and how it gets us thinking through WHO our client really is.

CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown defines Design Thinking as:
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” — Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Design thinking is grounded in several principles:

• It needs to be human-centered
• It should be fun and creative
• It is a mixture of analytics and intuition

IBM has created what they call the Design Thinking Loop – Observing, Reflecting and Making.

Design Thinking usually consists of five or six steps including:

1. ​Empathize – who is your client and what do they want. Next call we will explore one of Design Thinking’s most popular tools – The Empathy Map
2. Define – What do they want, what do they need
3. Ideate – what’s possible
4. Prototype – build a prototype and test it out. Program design may be
5. Test – Test it out – what works, what doesn’t. Iterate again!

 
And the cycle continues….
 
What’s important about thinking about your program design in this fashion?
 
For more on this topic, check out https://designthinking.ideo.com/

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Welcome to 2020. It’s not only a new year, but a new decade. It’s a great opportunity to crack that spine on your new planner and dive in. Ready to get started?

What are your goals this year?
Take a few minutes to write them out.
As you write things down, also consider these questions:

• What do you need, and who do you need, in order to be successful?
• What’s going to help you attain that goal?
• How can you lean into your strengths?
• What might get in the way?

What’s going to make these goals visible? One of the success factors I heard at the end of the 2020 was that having a one-page copy of their annual vision on the wall was a critical success factor. It helped when making decisions, prioritizing, and making adjustments.
What would magnify them? Are these goals really a stretch? What would double them? 10X them? 100X them? While stretch goals can be an encouragement to some, note that they may be a discourager to others.
Who are you going to share your goals with? We know that the act of public accountability often ups the ante around what we are committed to doing. It can sometimes light a spark, or add oxygen to a smaller ember.
Finally – TRACK. Where are you starting your year? What are your metrics – revenue, inventory, followers, subscriptions, etc.

Take a few minutes today to note your starting point and be sure to leverage the power of the Monthly Daily Trackers if you have a copy of PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder.

I’m looking forward to bringing you another year of weekly blog posts related to business development and growing your coaching business.

We take a look at many of these topics in greater depth at the Coaching Biz Growth Lab – a group that meets annually on Fridays from 3 – 4 pm ET (usually the 1st and 3rd weeks of the month). 1st call for 2020 will occur on Friday January 10th. Hope you'll join us this year!

Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

This week marks what is often known as the Second New Year. It’s back to work and back to school for many of us.
​
With a new year mindset, it’s a great time to pause and take stock of where you are at, what’s working, and what’s not.

Here are a few ideas of things you might want to do this week (or today if you are enjoying the holiday):
1. Set or review your goals for the next 4 months to the end of the year.

2. Make your goals visible – where can you view or review these?

3. Spend a few minutes going through a guided session -you can use the quarterly prompts I included in the Q1 reflection session. Grab a pen and your journal and earmark 30 minutes to go thorough this 30 minute quarterly planning session.

4. If you do consider September to be the start of your new year, check out the post on Creating an Annual To Do List .

5. Review your schedule for the fall. Have you included:

• Time to focus on the high impact, high importance projects?
• Time for renewal?
• Time for action/execution?
• Time for learning?
• Time for relationships?
• Time to TRACK your results? Consider joining me for the Month End Reflection Sessions.

6. Consider what habits are going to help you do the things you want. Habits allow us to do things consistently and efficiently, often without as much thought.

7. Consider what you want to say YES to this fall AND consider what you want to let go of and NOT do.  
​
What are your goals this fall? What do you want to focus on?

Enjoy your first Monday of September AND some Labor Day magic!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.

The tagline for the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack is “Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum. In other words, it’s the small daily, consistent actions that add up over time to create movement and/or momentum in our business.
​
For many years throughout the 90 Days Success Program (2005 onwards), and more recently the Coaching Business Growth Lab, I have shared the One Percent Business Rule. This framework is grounded in the notion of taking daily steps towards your most important goals.

In business today it is likely that we are working on important projects around the margins of our work and life. This is how each of my book publications has been birthed, and it’s how most of my presentations and program designs get built.
 
As you engage with the notion of Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum, consider these questions:

• What is the most important goal to be working on right now?
• As you chunk it down, what are the smaller packets of work that make this up?
• What are the tasks and activities which need to get done?
• What are the consistent actions you want to undertake?
• What can daily steps look like to these blocks of work – this week? This month?
• What momentum will that create?
• What will that momentum feel like?

 
Check out other business philosophies grounded in the Coaching Business Builder here:

• Focus
• Experimentation
• Momentum
• Reflective Pause

 
Enjoy your week,
Jennifer

One of my favorite activities over the last few years has been to create a summer project list of small, and larger tasks, to complete in what some find to be a quieter time. There always are lots of project possibilities in the summer months. Have you considered:

• Updating your website
• Incorporating a new system
• Catching up on the reading you have piled around your office (or bed)
• Taking time to plan for a new program
• Writing some blog posts (and getting ahead of the curve)
• Creating a content calendar for your business
• Writing your newsletters for the next few months
• Starting a new series on Instagram

Some useful questions to consider as you go to decide what projects you want to put attention around:

• What have your clients been asking for?
• What are your key goals this year?
• What new activities would support your action and achievement of these?
• What projects would you like to move off of your “TO DO” List?
• What milestones would you create for yourself so that this is completed before the end of the month, or the end of the summer?
• What resources do you need in order to be successful with this?

For some more inspiration around this topic, listen into this 20 minute video I did last year on 2018 project ideas – check it out on my YouTube channel.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Building in regular pause points is invaluable in supporting focus, action and reflection. Kolb’s cycle of learning is commonly referred to as a four-step process known as ERGA – Experience, Reflection, Generalization and Application.
​
Key to learning, according to this model, is that we take a “pause” to build in reflection after having an experience. It is this pause that allows us to cull learning and insights which we can then apply to other areas of our life and work.
There are many different ways to reflect including:

• Retreat programs
• Short writing activities – 2-5 minutes where people MindMap or note their learning
• Mid-point evaluations with clients
• Quarterly Reviews (see the article below)

 
Last month at the Learning Lab and Design Studio I was reminded of a great book called the Women’s Retreat Book by Jennifer Louden which is chock-full of great resources for creating and leading your own retreats. You’ll want to check it out.

Other resources you might want to explore:
Create a Pause Via Quarterly Retreats Using these questions (Coaching Tools Company Article)

Undertake a quarterly review process with me (30 minutes - VIDEO). Be sure to grab your pen and journal for this one!

Wishing you all the best,
​Jennifer

PS - For those of you who want to bring some of this into your work, consider joining me on July 9th for the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training. I'll be leading a group of professionals through 6 x 3 hour facilitator virtual training sessions in July so you can lead this work with your own clients. More here.

​Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.

The tagline at the PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder is that Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum. In other words, action creates action. This is key for business success today. What does momentum mean in your business? Like the metaphor of a rolling stone, more energy is required to get the stone rolling, and then it takes a life of its own.

Practically:
Make a list. Do things consistently. Figure out what the best rhythm for the project or task is going to be.

In many creative projects it is easy to think that we don’t know where to go, when often it is more important to just get started and see where the creative process ensues.

While starting new tasks may take a lot of effort, over time these actions become habits and “how we do things”.

Resources:
Momentum: How to Build It, Keep It or Get it Back – Michael McQueen

Best,
Jennifer

In today’s VUCA world, disruption is more the norm that the exception.  This often means that what worked last time, will not work this time. Experimentation can therefore become a useful philosophy and habit. With the rapid pace of change, new industries, new jobs and new approaches are springing up on a regular basis. What have you tried lately? Are all your old approaches working as they used to?

How to practice it:
On a regular basis (i.e. each quarter), consider what would be useful to learn and/or experiment with (tools, processes, practices, skills etc).

An experiment could involve trying something new out, tweaking an approach you have been using for a while (i.e. instead of doing a Facebook Live in the morning, what about trying it in the evening?).

Why it can be valuable:
There are many applications for experimentation in business. It can help us get into a pattern of trial and error, helping with diversification. Given that things are changing so quickly it may mean that we are better positioned for new, and unseen, options.
​
A and B testing, where you pilot two approaches at once, has become a popular approach for many marketing initiatives, to see which one gets more engagement and traction.

Questions to consider:

• What do you want to experiment with?
• What is needed?
• Where could experimentation benefit your work?

Resources:
Carol Dweck: Growth Mindset (check out her concept of Not Yet)

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

In both the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I include four business philosophies which are critical to all types of virtual and remote professionals, and business owners today – Focus, Experimentation, Momentum and Reflective Pause.

In my work with teams, and individuals, over the last fifteen years in my business I’ve seen that these make the difference between good and exceptional.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks I’ll be taking a deeper dive into the realm of these four areas looking at:

• What it means in today’s business context
• Why it’s important
• Ideas for putting it into practice
• And resources you may want to follow up around

​A reminder that if you like these topics you may want to check out my weekly Facebook Live, where I put into voice quick planning ideas and activities. You will find it over at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page.

Let’s turn our attention to the first topic of FOCUS.

We live and operate today in what is often considered an era of distraction. Our ability to focus and keep our eye on what is important to us, and to our work, is key.
Did you know that:

• The average worker receives 90 emails in the span of a day?
• It takes 22 minutes to get back on track after an interruption?

It’s not uncommon for workers (not just managers) to be spending 5-10 hours a week in meetings? I’ve met managers who wear the badge of
Focused work and attention are critical, and essential in order to create foundations, and grow a business.

How To- Creating Focus:

• Consider building in focused blocks of work – turn off email, move into a conference room, or take your work mobile. What will give you the space and time to do the focused work you need in your job/business?
• Leverage the circadian rhythm. Science continues to show that we have different times of day when we are at our best. What are those times for you? What can you do to ensure you have focused work times within those blocks.
• Create your to-do list of Top 5. With change being the norm for many workplaces, having a top five list each day is important. It’s interesting as the writing of James Clear has pointed to the early 1900s productivity hack from Ivy who asserted that a focus on a top 6 list every day would lead to productivity advances. Whether it’s five or six, being able to check core items off the list can help with efficiency and also motivation.
• Know your priorities – and your teams. Priorities also keep us grounded. They will help us shape our top five as well as discern where our time needs to go. What are your priorities for the week? The month? The quarter?

 
Refer To - Focus
When: The Science of Perfect Timing – Daniel Pink
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Outer Order and Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin
Deep Work and Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport

Check out my April 3, 2019 Facebook Live 

Wishing you all the best,
Jennifer