We know there's a lot of controversy around the word ‘Hustle” right now. You don't want to be chronically busy, and celebrating the fact that all you do is work, but you also do need to buckle down and do some work! Jon Acuff, the author of ‘Finish' helps you to weed through the busy work, so you can get to the heart of the real work that you need to do. And also do the work that you are avoiding.

Right off the bat, he talks about the goals we set for ourselves, and how absurd they are:

You want to lose weight? You don't make ‘normal' or attainable goals. No. You're a go getter. You are going to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks.

You want to revamp your business? If you don't have 10 clients booked at your highest price point by next month, you've told yourself you have failed.

You want to launch a new website in 14 days? Oh wait. You can do that. And we can help. Go to Showit.co.

But, back to the ridiculous goals. We do not set ourselves up for success! We make goals that are impossible to achieve. And Acuff has seen this time and time and time again. So he has some simple, yet profound (and sometimes hilarious) tips for us to set ourselves up for actual success. This is an easy one to start with:

Tip #1: Cut your goal in half!

Cut it in half again if you really bit off more than you can chew. Small wins, make you happy, more wins motivate you, and more wins add up to a finished product!

So, let's say you are working on your website. You want to finish the whole dang thing in 3 days. So, why don't you set the goal to be to finish your galleries in 3 days. It's an important section of your photography website. And in those three days you can make smaller bite-size goals like:

• Day 1 – Curate the pics you want to add to your website and upload them
• Day 2 – Set up the galleries you want (engagements, weddings, etc)
• Day 3 – Tweak the images you added. Did you add too many? (usually the case) Not enough? Sit back and be in awe of how good your images are on your website. And then make a new goal. Time for the About Section?

When you can cross this off of your To-Do list, it makes you feel SO GOOD, and motivated to attack the next thing.

Tip #2: Destroy perfectionism

“It's the Very Good Reason you cannot pursue your goal. Perfectionism will tell you, “If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right.” And when we leave the idea of “right” undefined, it tends to get complicated, usually in one of two ways. In the first kind of noble obstacle, perfectionism sneakily tells you that you cannot move toward your goal until you do something else: “I can't do X until Y.” In the second kind, perfectionism tells you that reaching your goal could actually produce bad results or make you a bad person. Would-be entrepreneurs often express fear that they'll become workaholics.”

Read that again if you need to really let that sink in.

Some people don't work hard to achieve their goals because they think rich people are bad people, and they don't want to be ‘bad people', so they stay in the job/situation they are in, while not putting forth the real heart and effort to be as successful as they could be. Is this you?

Perfection is sneaky! It has so very many layers, and Acuff really tries to help us to identify the layers, and remove them. So define what your “do it right” looks like. And take it away.

Tip #3: Hiding places

Hiding places is an interesting idea, and it's tied into perfection: “…perfectionism offers us two distinct distractions: Hiding places and Noble obstacles. A hiding place is an activity you focus on instead of your goal. A noble obstacle is a virtuous-sounding reason for not working toward a finish. Both are toxic to your ability to finish.”

 

So a hiding place can be tidying your desk before you get started on your work. But inevitably, tidying your desk leads to doing the dished, and then starting a load of laundry, and then starting on dinner, and then, the day is over and you have done NO WORK! But you have done a ton of activities. Do you think your business will thrive because of the activities you do, or from the work you put in? Exactly. Get to work!

 

One more golden nugget about this: “A hiding place is the safe place you go to hide from your fear of messing up. It's the task that lets you get your perfectionism fix by making you feel successful even as you avoid your goal.” Expose your hiding place and eliminate it.

 

Tip #4: Secret rules

“To deal with our secret rules, we have to do three things: Identify them. Destroy them. Replace them.”

So this was also an interesting one. We all make up these silly rules, and then we live by them. But why? It's like the example above about not wanting to be a ‘bad rich person', because you have this secret rule in your head that rich people are bad. Another secret rule might be that reading audio books is not actually reading! So instead of ever reading audio books (which is easy and fun and allows for incredible multi-tasking, just ask Todd Watson and how he was able to read 70 books last year! Or you can just read this blog post about it) you read NO books because you don't have time to sit and read a physical book!

So what are some of your secret rules? This is yet another thing that you need to identify, destroy, and replace. So instead of thinking that audio books aren't real books, you identify that it's a lie, you destroy that lie, you replace it with the knowledge that audio books are books and you start reading them to better yourself and your business! Finished!

Did you read Finish?

Have you read ‘Finish'? What did you think? We loved reading Finish. And here's something hilarious: we had a hard time finishing this blogpost about this great book. Because all the secret rules, and the perfectionism, and secret hiding places kept rearing their ugly heads. And they will do this to you too – no matter how big, or small your goals are. So we all have to stay vigilant to do the work, stay the course, and finish well.

If you are interested in reading this wonderful book, you can find it on Amazon, along with other great books by Mr. Acuff.

And as a website company, we have heard time and time again, that people have dreams of an amazing website, but can't commit to launching one. Maybe one of the above mind blocks are keeping you from creating and releasing a beautiful website into the world. Change your mindset. Get help if you need it. Dream it. Create it. Show it. We are here to help!

Cassandra Campbell

Casandra is a born and bred East Coaster who finds herself braving the heat of the Valley of the Sun with her husband and three cute kids all for the love of Showit.