“What gets measured gets done,” wrote management guru Tom Peters. His point was that everyone has great ideas but they’re most often buried in the drudgery of laundry, getting to work, dealing with clients, lunch, cleaning and staying on top of everything. But reaching higher is still important. Peters’ company aims for 10 improvements in each product or service every 90 days!

How could a therapist’s shop or workplace be improved in ten ways over the next three months?

Peters looks at the areas of customers, suppliers, employees and leadership as places of change. A therapist might choose differently. Perhaps learning one new massage skill or technique, increasing repeat customers by ten percent, and improving advertising effectiveness (possibly by exploring other advertising venues, such as the Internet) would be more reasonable choices.

Motivational experts say that writing these goals down and looking at the paper frequently helps achieve the goals. It is generally believed that few people have definite, written goals.

But having set goals, how are they achieved? Sure, a ten percent improvement in regular clients coming in would be great but how is it done?

W. Clement Stone was born in poverty. He began his business career selling newspaper and ended up, very wealthy, with his own insurance empire. One of the techniques he credits for his success is “creative thinking time,” where he simply sat down and thought about his goals. This may be revolutionary; it is estimated that less than 15% of people engage in any original thinking.

Earl Nightingale details the process. He suggests taking a legal yellow pad, writing the goal at the top of the page and sitting for an hour a day each week day, thinking of ways in which one can improve service in one’s job. He suggests trying for twenty ideas a day. Even if one came up with 5 ideas a day and took two weeks completely off for vacation, that would be 1,250 new ideas a year. That’s 312 new ideas every 90 days—and Peters only wants 10 improvements for each of his products or services every three months.

Of course, most of the ideas will not work. They will be something for the future or impractical. But 96% of them can be discarded and there will still be 10 improvements every 90 days.

Set up checkpoints—how are the goals coming? Were they achieved? Peters suggests at least 10 celebratory events a month to recognize any success—no matter how small.