Action: Meet the WEDGE system-Part 2
If you are the type of person who struggles to move past the planning phase of a project, worry not. Let me introduce you to WEDGE.
WEDGE is a 5 Step System that will help you move from theory into practice.
These five steps might seem simple at first, but a great power lies within.
The WEDGE System ·
What & Why?·
Establish Goals·
Decide What Matters Most·
Go with Milestones·
Engage In Reflection
While these steps may be self-explanatory, we should still break each step down, so there is no confusion. Last week we covered the W and E – today we get to D, G, E.
Decide What Matters Most
The next step is to figure out what the most important things to focus on are. This is also known as prioritization.
Prioritization is an important step when it comes to moving from theory to practice. When you know a goal is vitally important and must be done first, it encourages you to take action.
Ideally, even if you are the type of person to get lost in planning and research when you know a task is not only important – but the most important – you will be encouraged to stop the planning and act.
When you are prioritizing your goals, you should consider the Important-Urgent Matrix. This fancy-sounding concept is just weighing how important a task is versus how urgent it is.
URGENT NOT URGENT IMPORTANT
DO IT!
These tasks often pop up out of nowhere or are due to procrastination.
• Your client has an emergency• You have a last-minute deadline• There’s an emergency at home
SCHEDULE IT
These tasks might not even have a deadline, but they are important to your overall vision or goals
• Planning long or short term goals• Self-Care• Learning or improving skills
NOT IMPORTANT –
DELEGATE
This is busy work. Tasks that need to be done daily but don’t progress you towards your goals.
• Household chores• Responding to emails• Some meetings or calls with colleagues/clients
DELETE
These are the things that you do daily that need to be cut out or down on.
• Certain bad habits• Social media obsessions• Excessive TV watching
You are likely to take more action after you prioritize goals in the faction. By focusing on goals that are important to your overall vision and on urgent timelines, you should be sufficiently motivated to stop the planning and move into action.
Go with Milestones
Setting milestones is a great way to ensure you act. As mentioned earlier, many people who get stuck on the plans and theories do so because of their fear of taking action. Setting small, achievable milestones helps address your fears by making actions much simpler and easier to conceive.
Think of creating milestones as breaking your large goals into more achievable steps.
For example, let’s start with a SMART goal:
Using content marketing, I want to boost my daily website visitors by 10% by the end of the month.
What are some milestones that you could use to propel yourself towards this goal?
• You could set a date to create a content marketing plan• You could set dates to create each piece of content• You might set a micro goal of getting just a 2% increase in website visitors
No matter how you do it, it is important to break your goals into milestones. This will encourage you to stop planning and start acting. Ideally, it will also help remove some of the resistance you have moving from theory to practice.
These milestones will become your action plan.
Engage in Reflection
Reflection is an important step in both goal-setting and taking action.
Reflection ensures you are on the right path for your goals. It also encourages you to act because checking in with your goals keeps you accountable. If you haven’t taken any action on your plans, that will be apparent quickly when you take time to reflect.
Yet another bonus, reflection gives you a chance to reload and refocus. This helps keep you on track by keeping you motivated. You are more likely to be an action taker if you are prepared and focused.
One of the best ways to reflect is to ask yourself probing questions like:
1. How much progress have I made?
2. What’s working for me?
3. What’s not working for me?
4. Do I need to adjust my goals?
5. What do I need to keep progressing on my current goals?
6. Do I have any regrets?
7. What lessons have I learned along the way?
8. My best decision was…
9. My worst decision was…
10. What are my new goals?
This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of things you can reflect on, but it is powerful. Feel free to add your own probing questions, but even just sticking to the above list will make for an effective reflection session.
And one last action – CELEBRATE YOUR WINS!!!
TAKE ACTION:If you need help in your business – take action and