For the past two weeks, I’ve been preparing you for this moment, this final and fleeting last quarter of 2020.
I have asked you questions and I gave you the three most important activities for you to execute on to maximize every part of your final sprint to the end of this unforgettable year.
And I’m not done yet, in fact you aren’t done yet. The reality of it is I have been leading up to and getting you ready for the most pivotal and stacked with opportunity quarter you have ever had in your career.
You have plenty of time left to crush 2020 and surpass anything you’ve ever done before. That’s 25 percent of your entire year, as a matter of fact. So, let’s craft a game plan to make the most of it…
Regardless of whether you are poised to beat 2019 or you are running behind, don’t forget the way you finish will determine the way you start the next set of 12 months.
More than that though, there are two things that should be of greater significance before we start thinking about 2021.
First, is your pride.
I doubt you want to be waking up on January 1st (or technically on whatever day in December you decide to hang up your coat and put your practice year behind you), with anything but a smile on your face, pride in your heart, and peace in your mind because you know you got all you could out of your efforts, sacrifices, and opportunities this year. You know you left nothing on the table.
No one wants to feel like they are settling for less or letting anything get the best of you. Instead, you got the better of it, of this year.
The second one is of course your profitability. Every day and every dollar counts. What Doctor in their right mind accepts less income this year than the year before, regardless of the circumstances.
I don’t know where you are financially this point in the year after everything that has transpired, but I do know that you aren’t getting an extra year added onto the end of your career let alone your life. So, in this final quarter, there’s one priority above all others and that’s making 2020 pay… you.
The real key to all of this is: maximization on every one of the four core pillars…
Your Patients
Your Team
Your Schedule
Yourself
When these are all aligned to deliver your year-end goals, magic happens. But it requires strict discipline and detailed planning. The question that guides all fourth quarter actions is not just what you want but how do you make it happen.
The answer lies with where you put your focus and where your actions fall… either in the 80 percent of the clutter, chaos, busyness, and stress – or – in the top most valuable 20 percent of your actions, patients, and literally everything else.
Show me a Doctor that directs their fourth quarter energy towards the most valuable 20 percent and I will show you one that ends the year profitably and puts up a record year-end finish.
What are your top 20 percent of high-value actions, tasks, responsibilities, and to-do’s that you should be focused on right now?
What is in your way of maximizing each and every one of them?
Eliminate (or at least minimize) the 80, clear out the clutter, and make this quarter the greatest finish ever!
Here’s why I insist on pushing you forward in this way (there are two principles that apply here)…
It’s not because you can’t get the time back, though that ought to be enough.
It’s because deadlines work!
We’ve all got one staring us in the face right now, well maybe a couple. You might have October Tax Return Extensions coming up, you certainly have the Elections, and really when you think about it everything in our life is built around the “have-to” of deadlines (being ready at the office every single day, bills due each month, vacations on the horizon, and that’s just for starters).
With the end of the year comes your greatest deadline motivation of them all. Don’t let it go to waste because without a deadline nothing ever gets done.
That’s principle number one. The next one is what makes the deadline count and that is the principle of forced progress. Which is the only kind of progress there is; not accidental or on its own, there is no such thing. Instead, that which is forced to happen, happens.
So, when you have the end of the year deadline plus the 90-day sprint brought about by the fourth quarter coupled with your desire to force progress to make 2020 the year to remember (instead of the year to forget), you’ve got the absolute perfect formula to not just finish strong but to finish with your best year ever!
It’s possible as long as you believe it to be.
The challenge at hand is to take a very hard look right now with complete clarity to assess your patients, team, schedule, and doctor priorities that must be maximized to do exactly that.
The bottom line is this: the year is going to end one way or another, why not turn that deadline into positive pressure, into productive progress, into the most profitable push you’ve ever had, and into one final shot at culminating the year 2020 in your favor.
Next week, I’ll hit you with one last dental success secret to taking every lesson learned in this year and putting it to work for you as you hone in on and create your future. Then we’ll shift gears where I will personally tell you the one thing that I’m asked more right now by the most ambitious and successful doctors.
Until then, make your maximization list and sort through your top 20 percent for the rest of 2020. Let’s end this year with a full out sprint like you’ve never done before.
