Clarity comes before confidence is a simple concept.  Try putting it into practise and you will find that it's not as easy as it first sounds.  Master the simplicity of it and you will be well on your way to building success in both your work and personal lives. Clarity is all about being coherent, understanding and planning what you want to say before you say it. Knowing what your vision is and then taking the steps to get there.  Being clear about who you are and what is important to you, your team, your business, your project etc, means that you will be able to say no to opportunities that present but don't fit with your direction.  This is a deal maker as so many people talk with me about being over loaded and not even having enough time for themselves.  If you are clear about your focus, vision or future then you will have the confidence to say no and to put in place the actions and steps that really matter. Here are 9 tips to help....

I want to share a key activity we do here at RuralScope each and every January.  It's a simple one and is great for team building as all staff can participate.  But the best part of all is that it cleans the slate ready to bring in new things for the year ahead. We call it CLEANSWEEP.  We grab our diaries and go through each month identifying key things we did / achieved / mucked up etc etc for each month.  And through this process we jot down the highlights as we go.  And we also acknowledge things that didn't go to plan and let them go.  It is a fabulous time for each of us to reflect, review, acknowledge, let go and celebrate.  One thing I know for sure is that it creates pride and allows each of us the time to re-calibrate for the year ahead.  We have just completed our CLEANSWEEP, here's what we found.....                         

For almost a year now, I have been involved in a monthly business peer mentoring mastermind program.  It's only 2 hours a month but it has really rocked the 'soul of my business' and led me to question its why and how!  You see, there are times (perhaps even many) when I can find myself and my business lacking in focus, feeling overwhelmed and not sure of direction. This year I am keen to establish a vision framework for my business RuralScope, a process that I can follow to achieve a vision that is clear, ALIVE and compelling!  

There's always lots of talk about goals as each new year comes around.  Goals can really help you to focus on what's important and set up a plan for you to work towards.  But you can benefit from setting goals anytime.  They could be New Year goals for you, but equally they can be goals about you family, a project, your work, your job, your business and you can set them anytime.  So here's your very own 12 Point Goal Setting Checklist.  Good Luck.          

With all the hype around New Year resolutions, goals, visions and downloadable templates and so on.... it really is easy to get confused about setting up your year to be the best one yet.  How do you do it???? I am a big believer that the start of a year gives us a rare opportunity to stop, breathe, think, reset our plans and to set our own pathways forward. I often refer to this as setting our human GPS.  And today, here's my tip to keep it simple and clear.