We’re close to the end of the first quarter, and I just wrapped up my last class with the Fall Define Your Foundations cohort.
In our final call, we reflected on our progress in the program (measured by our Roots to Fruits)…. because we’ve been tracking our metrics along the way.
In the last 6 months, participants…
- Delivered 5 webinars
- Improved conversion rate from 30% to 50%
- Received invitations to prestigious industry events
- Got a verbal commitment of a $50K contract
- Completed 176 outreaches
- Secured 26 podcasts and guest appearances to promote their work (that last one’s me!)
But this sort of reflection is only possible when we do the unsexy work of tending to our systems — and documenting what actually happened, without judgment.
Our brains are unreliable narrators.
We remember only the most recent events, glossing over the seeds planted months ago.
We forget the realities of time, and assume momentum can happen more quickly than it really does.
We remember what didn’t happen and minimize what did.
Often when I ask clients to reflect on their progress over the past month, the response is something like: “Nothing really happened this month.”
And then I ask: is that really true?
Because I notice the progress. I notice the projects completed, the times you showed up when you didn’t want to, and how you stayed in the arena even when your kids were out of school for a week and then everyone but you in the household got sick and then you got sick.
I also notice what’s being avoided — like that outreach and visibility work that keeps migrating to the bottom of the list.
We can’t trust our brains to tell us the story of our businesses. If we do that, we often end up evaluating our progress based only on the most recent or surface-level outcomes — and sometimes making an entirely new plan.
But what if we don’t need a new plan?
What if we just need tighter execution on the good-enough plan we already had?
What if the results we hoped for didn’t arrive on the timeline we expected, but we’re actually making good progress and just need to make a few tweaks or lengthen our horizons?
When we aren’t operating from grounded reality, we often scuttle our plans when the answer is simply to settle.
The underrated part of the planning cycle is tending.
Tending is the act of logging what actually happened.
- Adding inquiries to your CRM.
- Logging that visibility opportunity into your visibility tracker.
- Updating your books and ensuring you sent (and got paid) for all of your invoices.
- Clearing out old tasks that don’t apply anymore or that you completed.
And, it’s logging without judgment.
We have to resist interpreting the results until the appropriate time horizon — which is not daily or weekly.
You can see patterns in your inputs monthly, and usually see the results in your sprouts and fruits quarterly.
Just like weeding a garden, tending is easier when it happens regularly. Every week or so we tend a little, so we don’t have to tend a lot.
It’s hard to go back and collect all of those inquiries, visibility opportunities, and follow-ups at the end of the year.
It’s hard to go to your task manager when it’s a sea of blinking red “overdue” tasks.
It’s really hard to ask for money for an invoice you forgot to send three months after the fact.
It’s much easier when we’re tending to our businesses monthly.
Without tending, I would completely misrepresent my own reality.
Before I looked at my numbers during our closing call, I thought:
“I haven’t really been doing much book promotion since the new year — I was so busy with the move.”
And sure, there were weeks where my calendar was clear of those activities.
When I checked my numbers, I did a double take.
Wait — 10 podcasts and guest appearances went live this year so far. When did that happen?
Week by week, it doesn’t feel like very much. But over time, it adds up.
That’s exactly why we can’t rely on our brains to tell us what’s true.
I invite you to tend to your business.
Document your Roots to Fruits for the first quarter.
And then, I’d love to know what you’ve observed! I read every response.
What surprised you when you looked back at the quarter? Did you notice more progress than you expected — or less?
Do you have a tending practice? If not, we’d love to have you in the Membership. Each month, we set aside time to collectively tend to our business systems — together.