Stay neutral.

The wise words of a close friend of mine came as a much-welcomed reminder.

No matter what's going on in your life, zoom out and create a level of detachment, so you don't get whisked away by the emotions of stress or hard times.

Zoom out on the longer time horizon, you’ll see it’s always “up n’ to the right”.

Zoom in and it’s more like “Omfg, this wild horse is impossible to hang onto!!”

Focus on what you control: effort in.

Actions taken. Bats swung.

Don't get bogged down in the minutiae of day to day tasks - simply outline a plan and execute as hard as you know how.

I find one of the most helpful processes is mapping out your entire year, quarter by quarter, and assigning a "theme" for each quarter to tackle.

Maybe in Q1 you go hard creating lead generation systems and KPIs, or repeatable actions you can track. You test 3 different approaches - one per month - and analyze the results to scale the winner in Q2.

The end of each quarter is a great time to reflect on those results and KPIs you're tracking, to see what's working.

It's also a perfect time I like to use to review all the highlights and notes I've made, from all the books I read in that quarter.

This way, you stay on track throughout the year, and match up your mapped goals to your actual, tangible progress.

And at the end of the year, I really like to look back on the whole year and analyze which targets got hit, which ones I totally missed, which are less important going forward, and which are non-negotiable.

What's your process for staying neutral during the hard times, and attaining a level of emotional detachment through the ups and downs?