After three largely unproductive days…

(Goal for Monday: write a blog post. End of day Monday: not done. Goal for Tuesday: write a blog post. End of day Tuesday: not done. Goal for Wednesday: um, yeah…)

… I started out this morning by deciding that I would at least do some of my goal settings certification class before I got too busy with my day. Within the first five minutes, the instructor said the above line: “Indecision kills dreams.”

I immediately stopped the video and moved into my word processing program, because it felt quite directed at me.

Yes, my indecisiveness is absolutely getting in my way. I’ve been learning a lot, no question about that, but I’m not sure I’m actually making any progress toward my goals, because I’m not actually creating anything. Learning without creation feels like stagnation.

On the other hand, thinking takes time. My three days of complete unproductive-ness were precipitated by this goal-setting course. The exercises in the course are actually taking me a lot of time to go through. The current one I’m working on is called 30-60-365. You start by setting your long-term goal — 365 — which is where you want to be a year from now. Then you work backwards to create a 30 day goal, ie where you want to be at the end of the month, and a 60 day goal, ie where you want to be at the end of the month after that. At 60 days, you reassess. You figure out where you’re at, what still needs to be done, what more needs to be done, and what your next steps are, and you set a new 30-60-365.

As soon as I started trying to set my 30 day goals, I felt totally over my head. So much to do. And sensible starting places – website, coaching documents, contracts, coaching plan, marketing materials, all the obvious things – require me to make some decisions.

The branding class I’ve been doing talks about creating your brand as an experience, deciding what experience your ideal customers or clients are looking for, and then thinking about how to give it to them. But it’s not your own ideal experience — it’s the experience you think your ideal client wants to have. So obviously, before you can do that you have to figure out who your ideal client is and what they’re looking for.

But also, of course, what they’re looking for has to fit in with what I can, or am willing, to give said ideal client. I’ve been watching a ton of life-coaching stuff and you know, I am just not going to become the person with perfect make-up and high heels anytime soon. Not that I think a life-coach needs to have that sort of style, but there’s a lot of very polished, very pink products in the life-coaching marketplace, and that is just not me.

Sigh.

Indecision kills dreams, I remind myself.

Tomorrow I am going to Epcot for the Arts Festival, and on Friday, I am going to make some decisions.

A business name, definitely, and a sense of the style of my brand experience.

The most successful people are the ones who make the most mistakes. That’s a line from my goal setting course, too. 

(For some reason, this blog post didn’t post last Wednesday and I didn’t notice until today. Oops. I don’t think that says bad things about my productivity — I was just doing things other than looking at my blog — but it doesn’t say great things about my efficiency!)