Shortcuts to Common New Years Resolutions

Shortcuts to Common New Years Resolutions One reason I have achieved so much in my own career is that Ive taken shortcuts. For example, I played professional beach volleyball without learning how to play indoor sixes very wellI can really only play doubles, which is what people play on the sand. But it allowed me to skip a lot of years of indoor volleyball training and still play pro. Im always fascinated by people who find shortcuts. Tim Ferriss is a shortcut taker, but he totally annoys me because he pretends his shortcuts dont mean he still had to do hard work. One of the reasons I was initially attracted to the Farmer is that he is good at knowing what shortcuts to take and he values hard work. Just last week, in fact, he moved his pigs to a new barn, where they will be able to mix with the cattle herd. Its not something anyone in our area does, but he had a hunch it would work, and now he manages one herd instead of two. I love that Im learning the rules of farming by watching the Farmer cut corners. In lists of the most common New Years resolutions, most are career-related. So I thought Id take a look at the most common things people tell me they want to do, and Id tell you shortcuts to getting to that goal. Because Im pretty good at learning the rules and then figuring out how to work around them. This still means you have to do some hard work, of course, but its a smarter way to spend your energy and still get to what you want. Goal: Get a book deal First of all, Im not convinced that people need to get a book deal. That said, if you want to get a book published, dont write the book until you write the proposal. Thats how you get a book deal â€" from a ten-page proposal, not an actual book. So heres what you should do: Write a proposal and if you dont get a book deal from it, write another. Its a lot easier to write ten proposals to get one book deal than to write a book that no one bids on. And, if you dont invest tons of time in one, single proposal then you wont feel bad if you find out the proposal sucks. Because youve got another in the hopper. Here are tips from my agent on how to get a six-figure book deal. Goal: Sell your company You dont actually need to have a big exit. You just need to build something and then, well, sort of give it away. Because the idea of selling a company is actually just the idea that you build something that someone else wanted. Sure, $10 million would be great. But so few people get that much money for their company. Its much more common to get somewhere around $100,000 when all is said and done. And yes, thats a lot of money, but youd probably still work after that size exit, and youd probably change very little in your life. The value would be that you built something that someone wanted. So sell your company by finding someone who can use what youve built and will give you a small, token fee ($10) but a good job at the company. You can use that staff position as a break while you figure out what company to do next. And maybe youll start a company and sell it all over again. Goal: Change careers Youre going to need to show youve done the new job before you can get the new job. Its not fair, I know. But its how the world works. So just make up a job, do it, and then put it on your resume. You dont need pay or permission to do the job you want. Just start doing it. And if you already have the job you want on your resume, youre much more likely to get hired for the job you want. Are you worried about being exposed as a fake in an interview? First of all, theres not a law that says you cant have unpaid jobs on your resume. And you can have freelance jobs. So thats what a made-up job is: freelance, for free. And then keep at it so that when an interviewer wants to talk about this job and what you gained from doing it, you will look great. Because youll say you made the job up, to get yourself experience, and heres what you did, and heres what you learned, and youll look like a self-starter and a results-oriented super-performer. Because only that sort of someone would make up a job and then do it to gain experience. Goal: Skip entry-level drudgery Start a blog. Think of a blog like a high-end resume. Most peoples resumes are a list of the jobs theyve done that never show how you bring great ideas wherever you go. A blog, on the other hand, is a list of your ideas. You tell the world your opinions regarding your industry or interest. If you have good ideas, people will start listening. But you have to keep writing, to keep trying to find your niche and the audience for your niche. When you get the influencers in your industry to read you, then you become a respected voice in the arena. And thats your ticket to a beyond-entry-level job because people who listen to you will also be willing to help you get a job. (Want to get a jump-start on your blog? Try Blogging Bootcamp.) Goal: Launch a consumer product Dont sell the product direct to consumers. Thats the hard route because you have to build your own sales channel. Instead just make a prototype and sell it to retail buyers. Those buyers have a lot more power than a single consumer. And if your core-competency is product design, then you dont want to spend all your time marketing to consumers. So get the prototype done and if you have no bites, then make another prototype and try again. This will make your failure cycle go fast, which is one of the key factors in finding huge success. Its rare to have a big win on your first try. But its universal that the way to get through failure is to keep trying when other people would stop. Goal: Become a writer People ask me about this goal more than any other. And heres my advice: Just write. No one can write more than three hours a day. And most of us can find an extra three hours to do what we love. You are already a writer. No one has to give you permission to do what you love. Of course, this is the problem with most New Years resolutions that the only thing between us and our goals is self-discipline.