What if there were 2 questions that would really help you achieve your business goals this year and every year?

There are and I’m going to share them with you below.

Questions are an important part of life and business. Ask the right questions and it can mean the difference between success and failure.

Question 1: What can I do today to move me closer to achieving my business goal of…?

This is a crucial question if you really want to keep moving forward and actually achieve your goals.

Ask the question and then write down your answers for the day.  These answers, in turn, become your goals for the day.

Here’s an example:

What can I do today to move me closer to my goal of getting an extra 100 people on my mailing list by the end of the month?

I can:

Write a new blog post which creates more traffic coming to my blog.  These people will be invited to join my mailing list and get my free Ideal Business Workbook

Promote my free gifts on all social media channels I regularly use and make the message specific to the audience.

That’s 2 things I can do in one day to move me closer to my goal.  All I need to do now is actually get on and do these things.

Another example.

What can I do to get more people visiting my blog?

I can:

Write a new blog post

Promote my new blog post on various platforms

Create interesting images to share on Pinterest

Share the blog post with my mailing list

Connect with other bloggers

Reply to all comments so that my readers feel valued and are more likely to return

Ask people to subscribe to my blog

This exercise will help you achieve your business goals

1. Take out a sheet of paper and write down your goal.
2. Now ask yourself the question: What can I do today to move me closer to achieving my goal of…?
3. Write your answers down.

Tip: Whilst I encourage you to have lots of goals, I also want you moving forward on your goals at a good speed. Therefore, I recommend you focus on no more than 10 big business goals at a time.

For example, the goals I’m working on today as I write this post are:

1. Increasing my blog income (through affiliate programs, my courses, books, advertising…)
2. Increasing blog traffic
3. Increasing my mailing list subscribers
4. Building my YouTube channel
5. Building my audience on my Morning Business Chat show
6. Increasing my followings on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest
7. Creating new courses

I have other business goals but these are what I’m working on most of the time.

At the weekend and in the evenings my goals tend to shift more to family and home goals. During the week my goals tend to be very business related.  I recommend you TIME SLOT your own goals so that you have a nice balance of achieving business/career/education type goals as well as your personal goals. 

Question 2 – What can I do right now to achieve my business goal of…? 

or “What can I do next to achieve my goal of…?

This is your RIGHT NOW action step.  You can even ask, what can I do in the next 5, 10 minutes or the next hour… that will move me closer to achieving my goal of…?

Okay here are some examples:

Goal: Increase my blog traffic

Question: What can I do right now to achieve my goal of increasing my blog traffic?

Answer: I can promote an older blog post in a new way.  I can check an old blog post to check if it can be improved in any way.  I can read and comment on someone else’s blog post.

Goal: Get an extra 100 people on my mailing list before the end of the month

Question: What can I do in the next 5 minutes to move me closer to my goal of increasing my mailing list?

Answer: Post a link on Facebook inviting people to get their free gifts and join my mailing list

I often ask people what they have done in the last 24 hours to move them closer to achieving their business goals and I often get replies like this:

• Well, I’ve been so busy this week, I haven’t had time…
• I’m waiting until…
• I’m going to start working on my goals when…

This way of thinking is never going to help you move closer to achieving your goals.

The only way you’re going to achieve your goals, any goals is to take consistent action.

If you have a burning desire to write a novel of 10,000 words and you write just 100 words a day then you’ll have a 10,000 draft written up within 100 days.

If you have a goal to create an online video course.  If you record one 2-8 minute video a day you’ll soon have a full course.

If you’re a network marketer and your goal is to build your team by 20 new people in the next 12 months, you can make a list of 10 people you can contact in the next 24 hours.  You can make one phone call.

Whatever your goal is and no matter how little time you have to dedicate to that goal, you can always find something that will move you closer to that goal.

Brian Tracy, author of Eat that Frog and many other books aimed at helping you achieve your goals says, Successful people are simply those with successful habits.

In his book Eat that frog Brian Tracy recommends that you PLAN EVERY DAY IN ADVANCE.  He goes on to say “Your ability to set goals, make plans and take action on them determines the course of your life.”

If you haven’t read Eat that frog I highly recommend you do, especially if you have business goals.  I re-read this book several times each year to ensure I stay on track.

Asking these questions daily and throughout the day is a SUCCESSFUL habit, start building that habit today.

Another book I read recently on the subject of asking the right question is QBQ ~ The question behind the question by John G. Miller.  I found this a fascinating book as I’m a huge believer in personal accountability. The idea is that when we ask the right questions and ask those questions of ourselves rather than of others we get great results.

When to ask these question?

Ask “What can I do today..? at the start of your day, or once you’ve got the kids off to school…  You can even ask it the night before?  What can I do tomorrow to move me closer to achieving my business goals of…?  This is actually quite powerful as this will give your subconscious mind time to bring new ideas into your conscious mind as you sleep.  Even if you ask the question the night before, still ask again in the morning.

Asking your right now questions can be done any time, but here are some key times.

• As soon as you’ve answered the “What can I do today?” question.
• After you’ve finished a task/activity
• When you’ve got a spare 2 minutes, 5 minutes, half an hour…

Okay, so I really hope you’ve found this post useful.  If you have please share it.