🔊 Foundations must be set to achieve your strategy and this starts with your values & principles. Not just yours Your Teams & Your Business
There are a number of foundational activities I like to do
✅ Building Values & Principles
✅ Risk & Variable mitigation
✅ Absorbing my Moonshot
✅ Develop & evolve the plan
Today I want to discuss Values & Principles
This is an exercise I do at the beginning of every year and keep iterating them until I’m happy and confident I’ve nailed it
The initial focus is personal principles and then moving on to business. They set the foundation for WHY and HOW I’m going to achieve my goals
Do they change much from year to year?
A core of them will always be consistent. They are who I am. But there are always ones I want to develop
Principles of my personality I want to improve upon. New principles I need to embody to achieve my goals
This exercise doesn’t happen overnight and I’ve spent the last 4 weeks working on them
👊🏻I do this to ensure
👊🏻I can live them
👊🏻They sit well with me
I’ve also learnt to put boundaries on them
This is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most powerful exercises I do and I’ve learnt the hard way, for good and bad
MARATHONING
I always had a mental block about doing a marathon
I always loved fast, quick and precise sports – soccer/table tennis/boxing/golf
The thought of running at 1 pace for 3½ hours was my idea of hell. That’s why I decided to make it a challenge, more mental than anything else. There was a lot of mental work involved, I had to break down barriers and set myself a principle of pushing boundaries, boundaries I didn’t fully understand
The week before the marathon, I ended up with the flu. On the Morning of the marathon, still with the flu, I decided to run and not only run, but also make sure I finish. And that I did, after going through so many levels of mental pain
Was this smart?
Absolutely not, but the point of telling you this, is that you can go too far. I now put controls around my principles so I don’t overreach
The NON-Negotiables
When you have completed your principles, how do you translate them into actionable takeaways?
One of the most effective ways is to develop non-negotiables around them. So each principle comes with controls/boundaries
So for example, the principle I’m talking about here is to achieve anything I set my mind to. That has worked well over the years for me. For this year, the control / non-negotiable I’m putting around it is to achieve without destruction – ie’ protect my health.
During the course of the year, there will be many good times and also many curveballs are thrown at you. This is where these principles and non-negotiables will keep you on track.
🔥This process is ABSOLUTELY a non-negotiable for me to ensure I deliver on my commitments and I recommend it should be a non-negotiable for you too.
I hope this helps, If you have any questions, please get in touch
