Get Results Playing the Daily Breakthrough Game

Don’t be intimidated by the term ‘breakthrough’; in our use the definition of breakthrough doesn’t depend on their size.

EVERY DAY, Monday through Friday of this week I want you to check in with a personal ‘referee’ at 5PM.

Time can be adjusted if needed, just so long as its end of day, every day and it’s consistent. A referee can be a friend who is in the challenge with you or someone you’ve asked to be your witness.  They don’t even have to answer the call, just leave a voicemail, it’s just good to have someone else at stake with you.

• In the call you will tell them a breakthrough you had that day.
• A breakthrough is big or small but it is definite and action/result oriented.
• A breakthrough is a breakthrough. Don’t leave a whiny voice mail or discount yourself or use any other means to sell yourself short; but don’t take the easy way out either.
• A breakthrough is directly proportionate to your frame of mind and overall health. A person who is sad or depressed might call making their bed and going for a walk a breakthrough, whereas a person who is committing to building a business might consider calling the owner of a large potential account and inviting them to have a lunch meeting to discuss possible collaborations a breakthrough.

Example:

Breakthrough for today is that I finally finished that draft of our client agreement to send to our attorney and mailed it out to him.

Followed up with and got a ‘next step’ appointment with a potential client.

Breakthroughs are NOT ‘not’s.

For example, NOT going ballistic or silently ‘knuckling under’ when your boss gives you a stack of papers to finish before quitting time at five minutes till quitting time is not a breakthrough. Negotiating another option with your boss, or even inviting the discussion for another way to handle the situation instead of silent resentment is a breakthrough.

EVERY day you must call with a breakthrough and that means that every morning you should review what breakthroughs you might achieve that day. If in doubt, look for things you’ve avoided making decisions on, calls you haven’t made, commitments you haven’t lived up to, or messes you haven’t cleaned up (metaphorically or physically). It could be a breakthrough just to complete EVERY item on your daily task list in the face of procrastination and energy drain.

AND, when in doubt, go bigger! GO BIGGER!

Cautions and considerations:

• Do not use this to beat yourself up, run yourself down, add more ‘evidence’ to any negative thoughts you may be experiencing.
• Your referee doesn’t have to answer when you call; it is the discipline of making the call that matters more. You can leave your breakthrough report by voice mail.
• Keep the time consistent and be on time like you would for any appointment.
• By the way, I always play the same game myself as I assign to others but being the coach I need to play for high stakes so I’ll be VERY busy this week creating breakthroughs too!