Just how a farmer plans their crops from the seed to store, success must be planned from day one until harvested. The farming life takes hard work, intelligence, strategy, and faith. Below you will find the steps to farm success.
Step 1 Select your field: If you don’t know what you want to do with your life, always look at your hobbies and God given talents. Are you great with people, a go getter, and competitive? You would likely make a great sales person or hold a role in the customer service industry. If you love fashion, an e-commerce fashion business or Blog may get you out of your warm, comfortable bed, that you swear you just laid down in. You get the point. Go with your core passion. When I was a kid, I loved puzzles, art, being outside, building forts and leggo sets. Throughout my school years, math and art were my favorite subjects. Now I own an amazing landscape business. I have told many that landscape is the perfect combination of art and engineering. So I fell into my passion before I had any idea that I would end up loving the landscape profession like I do. This would not have happened had I not taken action towards selecting the right field. But don’t get discouraged, selecting the right field for you may take a few growing seasons.
Step 2 Choose your crops: I would compare choosing the right crops to choosing life investments. Your most important resource is time. You must be investing your time into the right areas to get the desired results. If you’re wanting to make more money, you need to focus on income producing activities. If you’re wanting to stay fit, you need to ensure your spending time training your body and eating nutritious food. If you’re wanting to grow spiritually, you must give God your time by reading his word and building a relationship with him. Write out your goals and create a list of areas that will get you closer to your goals and any obstacles holding you back. Then strike through the obstacles and replace with a new activity. Example: If you are wanting to read a leadership book and don’t feel like you have time, turn off the sporstalk radio and download audible or quit watching mindless TV and switch to reading a book that will help you GROW.
Step 3 Tend to the soil: Amending the soil is comparing your environment, the growing conditions. Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. My mom used to annoy me so badly when she would tell me that birds of a feather flock together. Look around and ask yourself if are you making the people around you better? Are they making you better? If neither question is a hard yes, you need to change the crowd you run with and tend to your soil. You’re obviously going to give your family a longer chance. 😃
Step 4 Tend to your crops: Tending your crops is all about making adjustments based on the results you’re getting. Once you fall in love with an area or “crop”, you will put more energy there. This is going to strengthen what you are good at and begin to phase out the things you don’t enjoy as much. If some of your “crops” are necessary, ask yourself how well they have to be done and adjust accordingly: hire an assistant, delegate or suck it up until the circumstances change. Stay hungry and in constant growth mode. You are never done growing so you will continue tend the crops so that they are always better tomorrow than they were today. Remember, “Where focus goes, energy flows.” Tony Robbins. One more word of caution, you will not find a perfect work life balance. It does not exist. What can exist is a work life blend where you set goals around spending time with your kids, friends, family, etc. During our really busy season, I will put in 70-80 hours per week. It becomes very difficult to spend time with my kids, help clean, date my wife, participate in church, and take care of myself. So I don’t try. Not what you were thinking I’d say? I know that if I run a few sprints here and there, I can get ahead, so that’s what I do. During these sprints, I work hard and maximize my hours.
Step 5 Harvest your crop: It is time to receive the return. As we wrap up little sprint goals and when we reach big milestones you must harvest your crop properly. Celebrate your wins! Then debrief on the journey and see what you can improve upon and set new goals. This is called creating momentum and enertia. The faster you go, the more force you have and the harder it will become to stop. Don’t you agree the hardest part is creating the habit.
Farm your success! Don’t wait, do it now and you will get to the known or unknown destination faster.
