Coaching Business – 5 Tips for Choosing a Challenge, or “Where will Your Business be in 100 days?”

Your coaching business will not be built in a day, but it will be built a little bit every day. Jeff Herring

The purpose of a 100 Day Challenge is to provide a strategy that will help you focus on tasks that will provide steady growth for your coaching business. In a 100 Day Challenge you elevate a particular goal to priority status. The idea is that by focusing on one single challenge or goal you can apply attention and activity to a single goal and see measurable results. If you have not started yet, it’s not too late.

The most important phase of the 100 Day Challenge is choosing the challenge. Here are three tips that I used when I set my challenge for the current challenge.

Tip One – Start at the end

Begin thinking about what you would like to happen in your coaching business. Think about the results that would be the most benficial to you. You might be a new coach that wants to fill your practice; or you might have a full practice, so you might decide that you want to create products that delivery your coaching message that you can sell without having to schedule more appointments in your already full schedule.

Tip Two – Choose a single challenge

The value of a 100 Day Challenge is that a single goal is elevated for your attention and activity. If you choose a goal or challenge that is too big, multifacted, or you might choose several goals, the power of the challenge is diluted because the focus is too broad. We all have things that we know we need to, or should be doing; and some of those things we do everything we can to avoid. I’m not necessarily recommending that you start there. Choose a goal that might be kinda fun as well as challenging. It will be much easier to commit to if it’s something that appeals to you.

Tip Three – Choose a challenge that you can commit to.

What would you do today, tomorrow and the next day, if you knew that in 100 days would bring your more clients, sell more product and allow you to work less and enjoy life more? Start with a challenge you can enjoy and be inspired in the journey to achievement. If the challenge is too big, or to boring you might not stick with it. We all have things we we have to but don’t want to they’re probably going to get done anyway just to avoid the consequences. For this exercise choose a challenge that you can get enthusiastic about.

Tip Four – Stretch yourself just outside your comfort zone.

Choose a goal that will help you to grow in knowledge and in experience. You will be rewarded with greater satisfaction if your challenge stretches you and causes you to push yourself just outside your comfort zone. If it’s too easy or it’s something that you’re already doing you won’t realize the full benefit from the challenge. As you stretch to acheive the goal you will be expanding your capability and reach, there is great satisfaction in this growth. Do not underestimate the power of the energy that comes from elevating a goal and focusing your attention and energy on it’s acheivement.

Tip Five – Must have a “payoff” and measureable results.

There is not much worse that to do something and have no idea when you’ve reached success. So, as you set your challenge you should be able to tract your activity towards your goal. There needs to be a “woo hoo” at the end of the jouney…and along the way. If you don’t plan small benchmarks of success along the way you might get discouraged and quit before you have a chance to experience the power of the 100 Day Challenge.

An example of small bench marks of success and payoff is my challenges to create 100 pieces of content in 100 Days. One of the pieces of content that I am creating is articles. For me the mini payoff is to check my author stats on Ezine Articles. I love to see how many views and click-throughs from my articles. I try to come up with articles that generate more views than the last one. I’ve kinda made a game out of it.

Don’t let fear stop you.
Don’t let the tryanny of the urgent keep you from the important.
Let’s get started!

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3. September 23, 2009 Final 100 Day Challenge 2009 – Will you join me?