As a coach, it can be difficult to watch the lack of progress of so many promising entrepreneurs and coaches. They’ve dreamed for so long about creating a solid, sustainable business, and yet, all they do is dream.

You know the people I’m talking about. They attend conferences, sign up for free webinars, buy paid training, and sometimes even work with a coach or two. And yet week after week, month after month, year after year, they fail to make any progress toward their dreams.

Are they just lazy? No. It’s something worse. They don’t know how to move from a dream to a plan, and they’re stuck.

Start With the Long-Term

If you’ve ever been on a job interview and were asked, “Where do you want to be five years from now,” you might have thought it an odd question. But as a business owner, that might just be the most important consideration you can have.

Without knowing where you’re headed in the long term, it’s impossible to...

It’s not enough to dream of success. It’s not even enough to set goals.

The only way to truly achieve your dreams and build the business you’re meant to build is to sit down and just do it.

And that’s where many of us…well, fail is a strong word. But it’s the doing that trips us up more times than not.

We overbook our calendars until today’s to-dos become next week’s past dues. We procrastinate on the things that are important while attending to things that are merely “nice to do.” And sometimes we simply take on too much—even when we know better.

The answer? Embrace these five productivity hacks that top coaches use to get more done in less time.

1. Rituals and Habits: Simply put, a ritual or habit is a consistent way of doing something. You have a morning ritual (wake up, brush your teeth, work out, shower, and head to your office), evening ritual (check homework, tuck the kids in, watch the evening news, and hit the...

Imagine you had a coaching client who consistently failed to complete her tasks for the week.

She couldn’t find the time to get her email opt-in page completed.

She was too busy to write the next chapter of her book.

She was working too hard and completely forgot to put together her webinar presentation.

It wouldn’t take long before you sat her down for a serious talk about the future of your coaching relationship—and her business. A coaching client such as that is a frustrating waste of time.

Why, then, do you continue to accept these and other excuses from yourself? Why is your lack of business development allowed to continue, even when you know how important those tasks are to your future growth?

Now, before you go thinking I’m being way too hard on you, know this: we all struggle with this very issue. We all put our clients, our family, our friends, and even the neighbor we barely know before ourselves.

But I’m giving you permission right now to...

What do super-successful coaches and small business owners all have in common?

It’s not experience.

It’s not extraordinary skills.

It’s not even a powerful drive.

Although all of these things can definitely help your business grow, they’re not a prerequisite for success. After all, no one is born with experience or skills, and plenty of successful people lack drive.

The one thing that does make a difference, though, is your “why.”

Why did you decide to become a coach?

Why do you spend too many hours in front of your computer every week?

Why do you stay up too late and get up too early, just so you can work on growing your business?

The “why” is what ultimately drives us to success, but here’s the thing: it’s different for everyone. Your why is not my why, and my why is not her why. It’s a deeply personal choice that can have great meaning…or not.

For example, a survivor of domestic abuse might happily spend 60...

If there’s one thing we know about goals, they have to be SMART, right?

After all, that’s what we’ve been told for years. The only thing that matters is that your goals are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and timely.

While that looks great on paper—and clearly it’s easy to remember—it doesn’t go far enough for those who want to achieve big things.

Think about it. Do you want to be stuck with “attainable” and “realistic” goals when what you really dream about is a 3-day workweek, frequent international travel, and enough money to fund a mission trip (or three). Seems pretty clear that those safe, smart goals aren’t going to get you there.

In fact, they might even do worse than simply “not get you there.” They may actively hold you back.

Consider what happens when you set an “attainable” goal of earning 10% more than you did last year. You might work 10% more. You might spend...