Ready, Fire, Aim!

Ready fire aim. Oh, wait a second. Hey, cut that backwards. You’re supposed to aim before you fire. Ugh. 

So today we are talking about that tendency that some of our neuro quirky ADHD type of folks might have, which is an issue around impulsivity. When we ready, fire, aim, and we forget, maybe we were supposed to aim over here, but we just fired over here. 

There are three big mistakes, that is three big things, that it’s costing you in your business to have that impulsivity run the show, or even just having it there. Now don’t get me wrong. I know that if you’re a highly creative neurodiverse kind of folk. That you need freedom, freedom to choose and let that impulsivity take you where it wants to go throughout the course of your day or your week in your business.

Because don’t get me wrong. I love freedom too, but we want to make sure that when we’re letting those impulsive tendencies run, that they are at least running in the right general direction. Because here’s one of the biggest mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes when you shoot first and then aim is that your energy, your output in the momentum that you’re creating in your business, may not be heading towards the thing that’s gonna create.

The Biggest Impact

The biggest impact. One of the things I find my folks often do is they’re like, great. I’m gonna launch my course. I’m gonna do a webinar next week. Great. I get that. You have the energy and you know what you should be doing. But letting that impulsivity take over to try to schedule a webinar when you haven’t given it its own little runway or build up and then you get sad because your results don’t show up. 

You’re like, ah, didn’t make a single sale. I only had four people sign up and only one person showed up. Hmm Hmm. 

That often happens. And so this mistake is that the energy and the excitement that you have, isn’t being focused in the right direction. Because you have just started going, let the impulsivity of saying, oh, I’m gonna do this right now. I’m gonna do this this week. What do you think? It’s a great idea. Let’s do it now. Hmm. 

And sometimes that impulsivity has us doing things that aren’t in alignment with the focus on our big picture goals, those dreams of having a business that supports our lifestyle. The dream of having a business that incorporates a lot of freedom and impulsivity. You wanna be impulsive and you can say, you know what? I have the weekend free. I’m gonna go off to the beach for the weekend and shut down. That’s fabulous. But you wanna make sure that you have enough structure just enough, like the railways or the scaffolding on your focus for your business so that you can have the freedom to move inside of it.

And that the structure and that scaffolding keeps you moving in the general right direction. Because the other big cost is that. Now you’ve got your momentum. When you keep focusing, even if it’s like this inside of a path, you are at least moving in the right direction. And if your impulsivity has you going this way and this way and this way and this way, not towards a big picture goal, a big project or something, then you are wasting.Wasting that momentum. Because if you keep firing in the same direction and firing in the same direction, then you have a better chance of hitting that target. Hitting that target of a hundred opt-ins for that masterclass. 

And if you have that scaffolding, helping you keep that broad focus, then you can have the impulse to say, oh, today I’m feeling very creative. I’m gonna work on the copy and the post to invite people to the masterclass today, I’m feeling like I just wanna do something that’s monotonous. I’m gonna work on the backend tech, but at least, you know, you’re headed towards the end target. 

So I have a better chance of converting them into my course. That process can help give you so much more so that your momentum is giving you that snowball, but that impulsivity can often have you leading in so many different directions. So you’re diffusing your power because I have to tell you, your brilliant ideas are amazing. Your power is phenomenal.

And imagine the power of that speeding bullet when it’s aimed at exactly what you want, when it’s aimed at the goal that you wanna achieve, that can help you focus, focus, focus, focus. So one of the things that I recommend because I am ADHD. I’m neurodiverse in every way, shape or form I’m dyslexic. I’m dysgraphic. You name it. I have it. And this is where we want to make sure that we are not letting our impulsivity run the show and to figure out where do we give it. Where do we have it so that we can have spontaneity and impulsivity in our business, but not doing something that’s costing us something.

We don’t wanna lose focus. We don’t wanna cost the momentum and the power because what we want our businesses to be doing is to be snowballing. You wanted the reach on social media to start building and building and building and building and building. But if you’re randomly doing posts that don’t have focus, that don’t have a point you’re going to lose that momentum.

I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s a neuro quirky planning season with pumpkins, cuz I absolutely love pumpkins. I get to have the freedom inside of my conversation today to let my impulsivity take me. I get to sing in the middle of a conversation when that impulse strikes, but it’s based on and inside of the scaffolding of this conversation.

It’s inside of my overarching plan for neuro quirky planning in pumpkins, because October’s all about magic in Halloween, but it’s still in the lens of what we’re going to do because we’re in time to get ready for our big goals. That’s the thing that we are trying to fire. We’re trying to hit our big goals, the bigger they are. Even if our aim isn’t super great.

We could more likely hit them, but you have to have that aim before you fire. Otherwise you’re firing over here for a big goal. That’s right in front of you. 

So just to kind of give you some recap. 

Mistake, number one is that your energy is not necessarily heading in the direction and it may be diffused in so many places. So it’s pulling back your power. 

Number two is without aim. You’re  killing your momentum because if you’re shooting here, here, and here, you’re not getting the opportunity to snowball into something bigger. Whether it’s your reach on social media, building your audience, building your email list. Any of those things will get shot in the foot.

Instead of taking that ball of snow and using it to ball up momentum or as Jim Collins likes to call the flywheel. Once it gets flying, that’s what you need to start building that O in your business.  

Third Biggest Mistake

And last but not least the third biggest mistake that it’s costing you is emotional. There’s an emotional toll. When you set off to do something, you start taking action. You’re like impulsively going. I got my webinar out there, but then when there are no results because it’s not inside of that scaffolding, we talked about there’s an emotional toll for that disappointment. 

Oftentimes the emotional impact for having crappy results can shut you down. And it’s because you are just letting yourself get diffused results, lack of momentum. And you’re like, I’ve been working on this business forever and I’m not having any results or I’m not making enough money. 

Could the impulsivity be costing you this and creating that emotional baggage, creating that emotion of I’m not good enough. I can’t succeed. I can’t do this because those emotional tools are huge. 

We wanna experience being able to ready, aim and fire and hit our goals. 

When we don’t hit our goals, oh heartbreak. And nobody wants to do that. And you don’t want to have that heartbreak time and time again. So this is my invitation. 

If you’re ADHD and you have that impulsivity issue or any type of neuro diverseness where impulsivity shows up, see if you can check yourself before you wreck your business, especially for your heart’s sake. 

Make sure that as you’re creating your business, that you’ve at least defined the scaffolding at least to find that support and structure in which you can have your creativity in which you can have that impulsivity and where it can all lie. But at least you’ve got big general goals, big general aims.

Is it list building? Is it increasing revenue? Is it increasing conversions, which is part of increasing revenue? You know what I mean? Is it having more focus and actually getting my goals? People, I feel you. I get you.

I have goal resistance. I’m still working on these things, but I am so much better.

I give myself a nice long runway for things because I gotta tell you, and we’ll talk about this a little later, those of us with ADD and some of these other things, we have time blindness. And that can cause a lot of issues between time blindness and not knowing how long something takes and our impulsivity. Wait, no wonder. We have disappointments in trying to build a business and those disappointments can have us stop.

When there is a way for you to build your business based on you and give you the freedom, the creativity that you’re looking for. So that when you have a great idea, you can go, Hey, I’m gonna come up with. That happened to me last year. And I knew that I might not get the best of results and I still got results.

But it was a last minute thing. 

Now it’s on the schedule for this year, because I had so much fun. So we’ll talk about that. When December comes around right now, this neuro quirky planning season. So hopefully you’re clear. So again, just to recap, ready, fire, aim. Doesn’t work in our businesses. We don’t really want to be on the plane while building it.

And sometimes that’s just how we operate. So at least if we’re on the plane while building it, we’ve set the GPS for where the plane is going. And if we go like this and take some detours, that’s fine. As long as the plane has a general focus on where it’s heading. So that once it has the takeoff. Once it has the gas, the fuel and the power, it can cruise and the momentum keeps building to get us where we’re going. 

Recap of These Three Steps

So again, the three biggest costs and mistakes impulsivity is making is having you be scattered and stopping the power of you. Being able to accomplish your goals. Two it’s cutting off any momentum. Your business might be creating because if you start rolling this way and start rolling this way and start rolling this way, you got three little things going instead of one big gigantic snowball. And we want the big gigantic snowball. 

Then last but not least the emotional cost of you not hitting your goals. It takes a toll. You are more likely to quit your business. You are more likely to think you can’t do it. You’re gonna build and kill your confidence and how freaking awesome you are.

And I’m not gonna let you do that. So don’t find other places to let that impulsivity out. And it might be in buying courses that aren’t necessarily in line with your focus, make sure that you give yourself time. Instead of getting all caught up in, I want all of these outcomes and this is the great thing. And you buy a course on podcasting and you have no interest in podcasting.

You’re a writer. Don’t let impulsivity take hold of you. Start trying to at least give yourself, take some time to give yourself those constraints so that when you have the urge to say, can I buy something? Oh, this is in line with my thing. Great. I’ll take it. All right. I’m gonna leave you with those.

So make sure that you can start creating those things, the scaffolding, the outside edges, to make sure that you have broad focus towards your goals. And if impulsivity and other issues in ADHD might be getting in your way in creating that momentum in building a business in a way that works for your neuro quirky brain. I have an offer for you. It’s free and doesn’t cost you anything.

But your time I am running a neuro quirky planning masterclass, October 6th, if you would like to join me, the link is above in the description and it is right here. Meredithcanaan.com/planning

Let’s create, let’s create a system and work with your neuro quirky brain. Let’s give you the permission to have impulsivity be okay inside of some basic structure.

So that’s my invitation. Come join me. It’s October 6th at 3:00 PM Pacific and all of the different time zones. It works pretty well. Internationally time wise, come join me.

I’m gonna be talking about neuro planning and talking about the different areas of our executive function and what those challenges may be costing you in your business and or how to work with them.

Because we want a business that’s designed for us, designed with our strengths in mind, not working against our challenges.

If this resonates and zings with you, come join me in my neuro quirky planning. This is because you may think and plan differently. And if you think and plan differently, this is for you. Especially if other systems haven’t been working.

Come check it out.