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Mindset
Waste Time To Be More Efficient
Waste Time To Be More Efficient
It seems counterintuitive to state that you could be more efficient by wasting time. But, the truth is, when you allow yourself some flexibility in the process, you have the potential to make efficiency happen.
This is not to say that you can spend six hours out of an eight-hour day wasting your time. You need to keep the ratio skewed to being productive. But, trying to get too much done without having some “you time,” is going to burn you out.
The phrase wasting time is actually a misnomer in this case. What you are doing is setting aside some time to be creative or to get some exercise, etc. It could even be a time that lets you clear your head by taking a walk or sitting in a room by yourself to get away from the grind.
People make proclamations that they are too busy to waste time in the manner specified. But, that could be a huge mistake. When you set aside that time to do something out of the ordinary or spontaneous, you often discover ways to do your main tasks better.
For instance, suppose you went to the gym during your lunch hour, and you took a class. In the class is someone who is involved in the same kind of business you are in but works for a different company.
You both get to talking and become friends. Then, you exchange ideas and in the process discover information that you incorporate into your work.
This exchange may not have happened in your workspace. Sometimes, it takes outside entities to get our creative juices flowing. Therefore it’s always a good idea to look for different ways to accomplish the same tasks or talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to on a routine basis.
You will need to make sure this time-wasting process if it can be called that, is limited to a small percentage of your day or your to-do list. You still need to get your work done.
But, there is a reason why companies don’t harp onto their employees when they take some time to socialize in the coffee room, etc. Even within different departments, you can expand your knowledge base, and that is good for the company as a whole.
Some people will go overboard with this and end up being late on their deadlines. Avoid this at all costs. Set goals for the day that give you a certain amount of time for yourself after completing a large portion of your daily routine.
Can Being More Efficient Lower Stress?
When you learn how to be more efficient, you get more work done, and you tend to do it better, all things being equal. This makes your boss happy which means you won’t get in trouble for not getting your work complete. You may be given more responsibilities as a result, but as long as you maintain your efficiency, you should be able to add those to your workload.
Efficiency also means getting others to help you out. As you prove your effectiveness and your responsibilities increase, you should be able to get support for having others pitch in.
When you get support from your boss, it will be more difficult for your colleagues to resist your authority. Besides, when you show them how to be more efficient, it will get them on board. They will likely ask others for help when that happens.
This increase in efficiency is going to mean more work gets done, but it will take less time. You will constantly look for ways to do things better, whether it be via automation, or use delegation, etc.
Since you are getting more done with less, your stress levels will decrease, and you will be happier at work.
There will be some managers who don’t see the forest for the trees and the more work you get done, the more they see it as an opportunity to increase your workload.
This can get to the point of adding to your stress levels if they don’t support you. For instance, if they discourage you from delegating these new responsibilities, or they don’t give you the tools you need, this will overwhelm you and add to your stress. If talking it out with your manager won’t help, it may be time to look elsewhere.
The good news is your increased skills in being efficient will help you land a new job quicker.
When you learn how to be more efficient, you have greater control of your workload. Most people find they actually free up time when this happens due to economies of scale.
This free time gives you breathing room, and you won’t be so flustered all the time. You won’t be scrambling to get your work done by the deadlines.
Efficient people tend to have more opportunities available to them, in their current employment situations as well as outside the organization. They will always be in more demand. The great part about this is it won’t add to their stress levels.
How To Make Your Workouts More Efficient
One of the reasons people hate going to the gym is because they have to spend hours there to get any benefits. But, there are ways to make your workouts more efficient, which means you won’t have to spend as much time at the gym.
Do some of your exercises at home. If you have some dumbbells lying around, keep them in your family room or whatever room you spend most of your time. While watching television, stand up and use the dumbbells for one set. Do this on commercial breaks.
You can also do a set of sit-ups while watching television or whatever you do in your spare time. If you can get several sets in while you are home, you will have less to do at the gym. By staggering these exercises, you will be more inclined to do them.
Consider using the services of a personal trainer. These people go through a certification which means they learn the best exercises to do in the shortest time possible.
They will also show you how to do them right and correct you when you are not. The downside to this is they tend to be expensive and require you to work with them on a weekly basis.
You should also consider working out with a friend. It’s much easier to keep after each other than it is to try to motivate yourself. A friend may also help to motivate you into going to the gym when you start losing that drive.
It’s probably a good idea to keep the number of people you work with small. The larger a group is, the more they become distracted with talking too much, etc. This can still happen when you work with one person. If it does, you can try to choose someone else as your workout partner.
Another way to make your workouts more efficient is to come up with an actual plan for your workout. You could choose to hire a personal trainer just to come up with your plan and then do the workouts on your own.
But, there is also plenty of information on the internet that can help you structure your own plan. Try out different plans you may find and write them down. Make sure you are consistent in working your plan and have a way to measure your success.
Make sure that you factor in your diet when you are working out. Many people believe they can eat whatever they want since they are working out. This is false, and you will not get as much out of your workout when you do this.
Want to learn more about increasing efficiency and productivity? Then check out the featured resource below to grab a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
Are You Drawing A Line Between Work And Home Life?
Are You Drawing A Line Between Work And Home Life?
These days, it’s almost impossible to separate your working life from your personal life and maintain a healthy work life balance. Work consumes so much of our life that many of us don’t even realize how insidious the far-reaching effects of this situation can be.
It’s common to hang out with colleagues at the bar after work. What do we do there? We talk about work. When we get home, we think about what’s left behind at work.
If the spouse asks how the day went, again we regale them with the gossip and unfairness at the workplace. It just never ends.
It’s no wonder so many people are stressed out and can’t find any respite from the daily work concerns. Let’s look at a few ways you can mitigate this problem and bring about work and life balance in your life.
Try Not To Bring Your Work Home
This applies to 2 areas: your workload and your stress.
If you can’t complete your work while you’re at work, there may be productivity issues that you need to address. Or maybe your workload is just too much to handle.
You’re not being paid to work at home. So, it’s best to leave your work at work, and rest when you’re away from work.
If you’re an entrepreneur who works from home, it’s even more important that you set fixed working hours and rest hours or the two will merge and you’ll find that you just can’t switch off.
When it comes to work stresses, try not to bring back work problems and tell your spouse about them. You’ll just be worked up all over again and might even end up having an argument.
Block off all work commitments, stories, stresses, etc. once you leave work.
Don’t Procrastinate
Procrastination will only stress you out later on when the work starts piling up. It’s the enemy of success and you’ll have thoughts at the back of your mind about your workload piling up.
This will mentally fatigue you and your thoughts will still be about your work even when you’re at home. Do whatever needs to be done in a timely fashion and keep your physical and mental inbox as free as possible.
You do not want to be in a situation where you need to bring work home to complete just because you were putting them till a later date.
Absolutely No Work In The Bedroom
The bedroom is only for sleeping and/or sex. That’s it. Doing paperwork, reading statistics, etc. on the bed is poor sleep hygiene.
Your sleep patterns may be interrupted because your mind can’t tell if your bedroom is a place of rest or for work.
It’s these little things that make a world of difference when it comes to drawing a line between your work and home life.
Say No
If you work a day job, learn to say no when colleagues try to pass off some of their workload on to you. If you’re free, you may help out.
But if you’re already tearing your hair out because of your own impending deadlines, now is not the time to do favors.
You’ll have to set boundaries with colleagues too, if you wish to preserve your sanity.
Maintain A Routine
Routines are great whether you have a day job or work at home. Waking up at a fixed time, starting work at the same time and leaving work at the same time will lend structure to your day.
You don’t want to spend late nights at the office catching up, or frittering away hours on your laptop at home with no real purpose.
Watch your time and energy closely. By demarcating your working life and personal life, you’ll be able to get the best of both worlds without being off-balance.
Are You Running Your Day Or Letting It Run You?
Trying to maintain balance in your life can be an arduous task if you’re not employing the right strategies.
It’s almost impossible to find personal satisfaction in life if you’re constantly playing catch-up with never-ending deadlines, chores, etc.
This situation of being behind the 8-ball daily can take an emotional and mental toll on you, if you let it. The good news is that you can run your day effectively by adopting a few tips and applying them daily.
Plan Your Day The Night Before
You absolutely MUST have a plan. It doesn’t matter if you have a day job or you’re working from home. A plan is crucial… and it’s even more important if you’re self-employed.
Not having a plan is akin to sitting down at a restaurant and discovering there’s no menu. What will you do? What will you order? It’s just confusion.
Like Dale Carnegie said, “An hour of planning will save you 10 hours of doing.”
If you have a day job, there’s usually some structure to it. But entrepreneurs or freelancers who call their own shots will need to create their own schedule and structure in their lives.
And it all starts by planning tomorrow today. Decide what tasks need to be done. Usually, it’s best to list 3 tasks that MUST be focused on FIRST. These are usually the most urgent/important tasks and need your full attention.
Get them done ASAP. Everything else can come after that.
Write down your plan on paper or you could have it on your computer… and stick to the plan.
Will You Work Intermittently Or At One Go?
If you have a day job, then it’s understood that you’re stuck at your desk from the time you start work till you clock off. However, if you work from home, you have more freedom to structure your workday.
There’s no right or wrong answer here because we’re all different. What you need to do is decide if you’ll work for 2 hours or so and take a 2-hour break to do your household chores… and return later to work again for another 2-hour stretch.
While the duration you choose to work doesn’t matter, the way you choose to do it matters. If you’re working in intermittent blocks, you’ll need to plan your schedule carefully. When will your working hours be and when will you take breaks?
Write it all down so that you can stick to the plan. Do NOT approach this haphazardly or else time will slip through your fingers and you won’t know where the day went.
Are You Doing Too Much?
When planning your day, try not to take on more than you can handle. List the 3 of the most important tasks, 3 less important tasks and 3 maintenance tasks.
So, you only have about 9 tasks for the day. Once you complete the most important tasks, you can spend the remaining working hours on the less important tasks which could be clearing emails and so on.
The maintenance tasks could be household chores such as cooking or laundry. The truth of the matter is that you’ll never have enough time to do ALL that you want to do.
So, it’s best to focus on what truly matters.
Are You Making Time For Yourself?
Do make time for yourself to relax and have fun. Don’t spend 14 hours a day working just to reach a lofty goal in future. You just may end up sacrificing your happiness, social life, marriage, etc. only to discover that once you reach your goal, all you’ll have is your goal and nothing else.
Life is about balance and living in the now. So, take time to enjoy it and don’t be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.
Apply these tips and take control of your day. It can be done if you plan it well and plan it in advance.
“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
– Alexander Graham Bell
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and maintaining a healthy work life balance is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
The Truth Behind Procrastination
The Truth Behind Procrastination
Every single one of us can waste time either intentionally or not, but when it comes to building a successful business, often it’s far more of a subtle beast that we need to conquer: it’s our own fears.
When you’re dealing with self-doubt, everything feels a lot more difficult than it is. We find a million reasons not to get something done because internally we’re constantly sabotaging ourselves believe it’ll likely fail, so why bother?
Procrastination is a business killer. It’s also a dream killer because if you’re allowing negative thoughts and self-doubt to lead the way, you’ll never have enough faith in your abilities to see things through. You’ll not only take longer to get ahead, but chances are you’ll never reach your desired destination.
Procrastination has been called the closest ally to underachievement, and for good reason.
Many of us are afflicted by negative, self-doubt so if that’s you, know that you’re not alone. Feeling like we’re not good enough, or that any success we’ve experienced was somehow unworthy is a common struggle with entrepreneurs all over the world.
The “I’m not good enough” monster is only amplified when you see others in your industry succeed. You might wonder whether you know enough, are informed, skilled or equipped enough to be in a position of authority.
If you’re a coach or course instructor, it’s easy to feel as though you’re simply not knowledgeable or experienced enough to be charging people for your information.
Deep down, you know it’s not true. You’ve likely worked hard to get to where you are and deserve every bit of success you achieve. Overcoming those feels will take personal will and determination, but if you make the commitment to yourself and your business, and you persevere, nothing will stop you from reaching those goals.
Don’t be your own worst enemy in business. Be careful not to sabotage your own efforts. Identify your weaknesses and move on to focus on your strengths.
Take action every single day so that you’re too busy killing it in your industry to let that negative voice cost you those aspirations. Dig deep and diligently work towards improving your work flow while letting go of those negative assumptions.
No, it won’t always be easy and it’ll take a determined effort on your part, but if you work towards reprogramming your way of thinking, you’ll vanquish those success-constricting messages and reinvigorate that desire that made you take the leap from employee to self-employed in the first place.
You got this!
Eliminating Distractions
You now understand the effectiveness of chunking (read the article here) and that by implementing this into your workweek you’ll get more done in less time, but we need to dig a little deeper.
Your work environment is just as important as your workflow. You should do everything possible to separate your personal life from your work life, which means talking with friends and family who may feel that just because you now work from home, you’re free for conversations throughout the day.
Create a routine for yourself and try to stick with it. If you can create a realistic work schedule that everyone in your life understands, you’ll be able to minimize distractions while making each hour count.
Doing this will also help you avoid burn out. You can only go full-speed ahead for so long before you’ll suffer the consequences including a dried up creative well.
Pushing forward without breaks or any sort of normal schedule will also leave you scrambling to fix errors, revise projects and will cause you to overlook important tasks.
You’ve likely been through this already. You gun so hard on a project for so long that you end up forgetting important information or overlook something that causes your project to fail. Allow yourself time to reset.
As for your office environment itself, it all depends on what helps you to stay focused. For some, they find that music helps them focus while others need it to be completely silent.
Do your best to figure out what kind of routine will get you into a working mindset.
Does working out in the morning help?
Do you have to shut off your phone, close your email, or fire up a playlist in order to spring into action?
Find your groove and stick with it.
Your family, your mental health, and your career will thank you for it.
Holding Yourself Accountable
Hopefully you already have ideas as to how to create an organized system that will boost productivity and help you place a value on your time. If not, make that your top priority.
And your second?
Hold yourself accountable when you mess up.
If you’re struggling to get things done, it’s easy to switch up your routine believing that will help you get back on track.
However, if you take the time to analyze why you really fell behind in the first place, chances are you’ll be able to identify where things went wrong and it’s not always deserving of a new routine.
Take a step back and think about where and when your efforts were derailed.
Were you spending too much time in email or on social media?
Did you fail at prioritizing your goals and ended up spending too much time on things that don’t matter as much?
Self-correcting and holding yourself accountable are two very important lessons when it comes to being successful in your business.
The key is to develop habits that help you to work and to play. Sound strange? It’s not really. Just like you need to figure out a way to get into work mode, you also have to develop habits that help you shut it down when your creativity or quality begins to decline.
It’s way too easy to say, “just one more hour”, or to push through and get that “one more thing done”, but it does you no good if you end up having to revise that work because you were so burned out that you didn’t give your very best. Your business deserves the best of you and so do your clients or customers.
Holding yourself accountable isn’t always easy, but it’s the enemy of procrastination. If you take the time to identify where you went wrong, you’ll stay clear of self-doubt by immediately correcting the issue and moving on.
And remember, one way to stay productive is to be focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
2 Powerful Leadership Strategies
2 Powerful Leadership Strategies
In a previous article we looked at communication, adaptability, strategic thinking as ways to become an effective leader.
Now we’re going to add a couple more powerful leadership strategies, namely team building and delegation.
The good thing about leadership is that you can learn the skills to become a great leader.
The thought of leading may make people shudder with fear but learning these skills will give you the confidence to be bold and take the reins and become the leader that you were born to be.
Team Building
We’ll always reach a higher level of success with a team. Even the self-made millionaires and billionaires out there didn’t do it entirely on their own. Bill Gates is a great example. Yes, he had a great idea when he created Windows – but he had a talented team of programmers, designers, writers, marketers, and administrators to help him launch it.
In this chapter, we’ll talk about why team-building is an essential leadership skill, and how you can recognize the areas where you need help so you can build a powerhouse team of your own.
The Benefits of Building a Strong Team
As hard as you may work and as determined as you may be, you can’t do everything on your own, nor should you. It’s not practical, and it’s not working smarter – it’s working harder.
Consider the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” You might be great at some things, but chances are there are areas in your business that would benefit from outside support.
You might be tempted to try to do everything yourself, telling yourself that you’ll save money. A lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake and it leads to failure. They undervalue their time and energy and underestimate how hard it will be to wear every hat, every day.
Choosing a team means that you’ll have ongoing support within your own customized network. You can delegate tasks – something we’ll talk about later – and have time to do the things you do best. You’ll also be able to enjoy other aspects of life because, let’s face it, you’ll work better if you make time to play, too.
The trick, of course, is building the right team.
Tips for Attracting Team Members and Knowing When You Need Help
You need a team, but where you do you start?
The first step is identifying the key areas where you need help. If you’re building a business, you’ll need to build a brand, create products, design your website, structure mailing lists, attract new clients, service those clients, and so on.
Start by looking at the things you do very well. Maybe you’re a killer salesperson or a master communicator. Those may be things you can do on your own.
Next, look at the things that aren’t in your wheelhouse. Maybe you have very little marketing experience or you’re not great at organization.
The first team members you hire should be the people who can help you with your weaknesses. You’ll have the best chance of success if you use this method.
The next thing you need to do is attract the right team members.
To do that, you’ll need to:
- Write accurate and attractive job descriptions.
- Offer fair payment.
- Place ads to help team members find you or look for them on sites like LinkedIn.
- Interview people.
Make sure that you ask for samples of their work where it’s appropriate and check their references. These days, it’s easy to hire people to work remotely without ever meeting them. You should set up Skype interviews with anyone you don’t plan to meet in person.
It’s also a good idea to impose a probation period on any new hires. That way, you’ll be able to make changes easily if you need to. Just make sure to put everything in writing.
Next, we’ll talk about delegation.
Delegation
In some ways, delegation is the most important skill of them all. I’ve already touched on some reasons why it’s important not to try to do everything yourself. The key to making that happen is to learn how to delegate effectively.
In this chapter, we’ll talk about why delegation is important and provide some tips to help you delegate the right tasks to the right people.
Why You Shouldn’t Try to Do Everything Yourself
If you want to be a great leader, you need to know how to delegate tasks and – just as importantly – who to delegate them to.
You might have a ton of energy and the will to do everything yourself, but as I said before, it’s not always an effective strategy. Not only will you be shouldering the responsibility for tasks that aren’t in your wheelhouse, but you also run the risk of burning out.
We all need down time – and we all do our best work when we’re focused on what we’re good at and love to do. Delegation allows you to focus your time and energy on the things you’re best it and the things that only you can do.
That means you’ll have more time to lead because you won’t be burned out from trying to do everything.
Tips to Help You Decide What to Delegate to Others
The trick to great delegation is knowing two things:
- Which tasks and jobs can be delegated; and
- Who should handle those tasks.
So, let’s take each of these things in turn, starting with knowing which tasks to delegate. You should delegate:
- Things that your team members excel at
- Things they can be taught to do
- Things that don’t require your personal input
It might be useful to start by identifying the things that only you can do. These may include making strategic decisions about your team or meeting with investors.
Then, make a list of the things you can delegate. Once you’ve got the list, it’s time to think about who the best people are for those jobs. Here are some questions to ask:
- Which team members already have skills that make them suitable for the task?
- Which team members have shown aptitude for core skills, like communication, teamwork, or logic?
- Which team members are eager to learn and willing to take on something new?
Any of these questions can help you identify people who are ready to handle the tasks and responsibilities you’ve identified.
Once you’ve identified the people you need, you should spend some time thinking about the training and support they’ll need to succeed with their delegated tasks. You may need to spend some one-on-one time with them or pay someone else to train them. They may need an outside class or seminar.
Delegate the tasks, and make sure that you communicate clearly and in detail about what you expect from each team member.
Make yourself available to answer questions, and most importantly, keep in mind that they may not get it right on the first try.
There’s a chance that you may need to adapt along the way. You might not pick the best team member for every task on your first try. The key is to keep an open mind, listen, and be patient.
You’ll need all your leadership skills to decide what to delegate, choose the best people for each job, and guide them along the way to success. That’s why I saved delegation for last – because it’s a skill that necessarily incorporates all the others we’ve discussed.
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and becoming a successful leader is a small part of this. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
How To Become An Effective Leader
How To Become An Effective Leader
Everyone has had the experience of working for a not-so-great boss. While it’s common for people to be promoted into management when they excel in non-leadership positions, the truth is that a lot of the people who get those promotions don’t have the skills they need to effectively manage their team.
In other words, they lack the must-have leadership skills that all great bosses have in common.
The good news is that they’re skills you can easily learn. In this article, we’ll look at three essential leadership skills you need to successfully manage a team, and how to set yourself up for long-term success.
These critical steps include: communication, adaptability, strategic thinking, team building and delegation and we’ll look at the first three in this article.
Are you ready to learn what it takes to become an effective leader and put these leadership strategies into practice? Let’s get started!
Skill 1: Communication
Without proper, clear and concise communication, you can’t hope to become an effective leader.
Communication is your best tool for explaining your ideas, setting expectations, and building your team. In this chapter, we’ll talk about why strong communication skills are essential for leaders and share some tips about how to communicate effectively both in writing and in person.
The Importance of Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal communication is what builds relationships. If you listen to employees complain about their bosses and employers, one of the top issues they’re dealing with is usually lack of a direct and clear channel of communication.
Of course, communication goes both ways. But, as a leader, it’s your job to set the tone for interaction within your organization or team.
Effective communication:
- Minimizes misunderstandings and confusion
- Ensures that team members know what you expect
- Encourages communication among team members
- Increases the chances that you’ll reach your goals
Any time you touch base with your team or with a client, you’re using communication skills. That means every phone call, every meeting, every chat, and every email reflects your ability to communicate and keep a pulse on how projects are going.
Tips for Effective Communication in Writing and Off the Cuff
What makes for effective communication? The hallmarks of a good communication are clarity, detail, and honesty.
Clarity means that you must be able to articulate what you want in a way that the person you’re talking to can understand. You’re not communicating effectively if the listener or reader can’t understand what you need or expect from them.
Detail means that you are specific about what you want, expect, or need to know. If you delegate a task and the team member still has questions about what to do or how to do the job, your communication skills have fallen short.
Honesty means that you must be truthful when communicating with your team. That doesn’t mean you need to tell them everything you’re thinking all the time, but it does mean that you cannot mislead them or deliberately omit information that might help them achieve the goals you’ve laid out for the team.
Here are a few tips for communicating effectively:
- In writing, keep your sentences and paragraphs short
- Think about what you say before you say it
- Always keep your audience in mind. Don’t use jargon unless you’re sure they’ll understand it
- Pay attention to how the listener reacts to what you say
- Be available to answer questions and patient while you do it
These tips will help you be an effective communicator and enhance your ability to lead.
Coming up next, we’ll talk about why you must be adaptable if you want to become a great leader.
Skill 2: Adaptability
You’ve heard about survival of the fittest. It’s the principle that tells us that only those who can handle change and cope with adversity survive. In other words, adaptability is necessary – and it can mean the difference between success and failure in your business.
In this section, we’ll talk about why great leaders must be adaptable, and provide some tips about how you can increase your adaptability and learn to go with the flow.
How Adaptability Can Help You Succeed
In our professional lives, things seldom go the way we want them to. There are too many variables for that to always be the case and often, the things that derail our career or our personal lives feels as though it’s out of our control.
There have been many times in my life when I’ve had an expectation that hasn’t been met – and I’m willing to bet that’s true for you, too.
The bottom line is that what you do in the face of adversity is what’ll determine whether you’re able to quickly recover, reset and get back on the path to success.
If you have a setback, do you get up and keep going – or do you give up and move onto something else?
Great leaders learn to go with the flow. They understand that success doesn’t happen overnight. Their adaptability helps them get through failure and come out the other side a winner.
Tips for Increasing Adaptability and Going with the Flow
Some people have a high level of adaptability naturally. If that’s you, then you’re probably in good shape.
But what if it’s not? What if you’re easily discouraged or daunted by setbacks? Is there anything you can do to increase your adaptability?
Yes!
Here are some tips to help you increase your adaptability and go with the flow.
- Make contingency plans. You should always have a Plan B. It doesn’t mean you’re planning for failure. Instead, it means that you’ve given thought to what you’ll do if Plan A doesn’t go as planned.
- Practice resilience. If you’re like most people, you probably experience tons of small setbacks. When one happens, pay attention to how you react and think about how you can switch up your internal monologue to be more positive.
- Come up with a daily affirmation to remind yourself that you can deal with disappointment. You might try something like, “Even if things don’t go my way today, I’m going to keep going and not get bogged down by it.”
- When something goes wrong, don’t react immediately. Take a few deep breaths and let yourself feel the disappointment. A lot of times, we get wrapped up in disappointment because we’re trying to hard to overcome it. It’s okay to feel disappointed – but it’s not okay to let it get the best of you.
These tips can help you learn to be more resilient. Even a big disappointment or a disappointing failure doesn’t have to mean that your goals are out of reach.
Coming up next, we’ll talk about how to build a team – something that’s very important for every leader. Keep reading to learn more!
Skill 3: Strategic Thinking
Strategy thinking is an essential element of leadership. In this chapter, I’ll explain why and give you some tips for improving your strategic thinking and planning skills.
The Role of Strategy in Success
Strategy is simply long-term planning with a fancy name. You have a goal in mind and then you map out a step-by-step plan to achieve it. If you want it to work, your strategy must be logical and practical. Each step you take should build to the next step.
Without strategy, it’s very difficult – maybe even impossible – to achieve your biggest goals. You might have the goal to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Your strategy might include getting an MBA and a host of other steps that will put you in a position to achieve that goal.
The thing about strategy is that it’s not just for you. Having a strategy in place can help you get investors to fund your company, and it can also help you inspire your team.
Tips for Improving Your Strategic Thinking and Planning Ahead
Some people have a natural gift for strategic thinking. They’re the people who are great chess players and who naturally seem to see everything 10 steps ahead.
If you’re not one of them, don’t worry. Here are some tips to help you improve your strategic thinking.
- Before you make any decision, think about some possible outcomes and brainstorm what you’ll do next with each one. This is the kind of practical thinking that can help you become a better strategist.
- Think about your goals and work backwards to figure out what actions will help you achieve them. Think of this as reverse-engineering a strategy.
- Ask team members and trusted friends for suggestions to help you plan strategically.
- Try creating a timeline to plan each step on the way to your goal.
The more you practice strategic thinking, the easier it will be.
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and becoming a successful leader is a small part of this. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
