Get organized. Use an accordion style file folder with 30 or so pockets — one to represent each day of the month. You can plan for the weeks to come by placing projects or materials that need to be reviewed in the pocket that corresponds with the day you need to begin looking at them. Every day look in the folder to see what needs to be done.
Not only will you be better organized, but you’ll no longer lose important papers or documents.
Give any child a smaller piece of cake than you give his sister and you're sure to hear something like, "That's not fair!" We've all been there. Fairness is an experience based on perspective. Often we realize after the fact that the experience was fairer than we originally thought.
Life is not 100 percent fair because "fairness" is a relative term. What's fair to me may not be fair to you, and vice versa. One of the biggest lessons you can learn (a lesson that has saved me a lot of frustration over the years) is to go into every situation with no expectation that you'll be treated "fairly." Sometimes you will feel good about how the situation turned out – sometimes you won't. But if you approach it with an open mind, you won't be disappointed or upset when it doesn't seem "fair."
But even more important than this lesson is that you always be fair in your own dealings with other people. By this I mean make sure YOU provide a fair exchange of value (whether physically, emotionally, or financially) to any of your business deals and personal commitments.
If you bend over backward to make every deal good for your partners – and not just for you – you'll find that people will want to do even more deals with you. And when everyone wants to work with you, it is much easier to grow a profitable business.
Of course, this doesn't always mean doing exactly what the other person wants or expects. Trying to do what's good and fair and best for others is something you can apply to your everyday life – not just your business dealings. In fact, learning how to be fair to others can have a big impact on how you accomplish your goals.
The sad fact is that, no matter how hard you strive to be fair in your dealings with others, some people just don't play fair. Yes. But instead of sulking and thinking about how unfair it is, realize that YOU can't change anyone else's behavior. It’s much more productive to focus on whether there will be a fair exchange of value instead of how fair the experience will be for me personally. After all, my goals may be different from those of whomever I'm doing business or with whom I have a relationship.
The next time you have an experience that is unfair to you, take the following steps:
Winners have options! If your situation in life doesn't seem "fair," don't worry too hard or long about it. WRITE DOWN your options because you DO have options and choices. Then, TAKE ACTION!
If you’re having a hard time leaving the office on time try these following three (3) suggestions:
1. On your calendar each day, make an appointment with yourself to “close up shop”( i.e. stop working) 30 minutes before you want to leave. When that time comes – i.e. 30 minutes before you are to leave work – stop doing whatever you are doing and begin clearing your desk, packing your bag, and checking off your daily task list.
2. Fifteen minutes before you leave, stop taking phone calls and close down your computer. Start making the next day’s task list.
3. Five minutes before leaving, get up from your chair and look around the office. Did you forget anything? Do you have everything you need?
If all is well, leave a few minutes early.
The above three suggestions were adapted from a book by Paula Peisner-Coxe titled “Finding Time: Breathing Space for Women Who Do Too Much.”
Many small business owners are run by their businesses instead of running their businesses. Because they are working for themselves, they burn their proverbial candles at both ends; working from dawn to dusk. Unfortunately, they fail to realise that this kind of behaviour reduces productivity.
Also, due to failing economy all over the world, a lot of organisations are operating with less than adequate number of staff. The few staff ‘running the show’ are always over-worked and don’t usually have enough time for themselves, let alone for family.
I recall the story of a lady employee of my bank. The woman is (or was?) very beautiful, warm, friendly and quite efficient. I had been customer with the bank for a few years before she joined the bank; I therefore saw her at her fresh-self. She used to be very well groomed and a joy to behold. Fast forward 2 years later, she has become a shadow of herself; she has aged considerably and not always as impeccably dressed as before.
If you want to get more bang out of less time, try these steps and share with friends. To Your Outstanding Success!
In a recent email message, one of my respected mentors shared his mind as I am quoting unedited below. He then ended his reminiscence with the above quote from Epictetus.
“Growing up I often wished that my family had more money. In truth, we had more than enough to get by, but never enough to have a brand new car or a pool in the backyard. In hindsight however, it was almost certainly for the better. Otherwise, how would it have turned out for me if I didn't have to scratch and claw for everything I've achieved? Would I have squandered the family fortune had there been one? I hope not, even the world's richest family can go broke.”
As I said, he is someone I quite respect; but I need to shift slightly from his views as expressed above. How do I mean? I definitely do not believe that you have to come from poor background where you have to ‘scratch and claw’ before you can achieve everything. Also, it is not automatic that you will squander the family fortune if you had one.
It is not the family background that determines how successful or unsuccessful one becomes in life but rather what you make of your life. How you react to opportunities and challenges. It is the kind of values or negativities your parents feed you with. It is the ‘can do’ or ‘failure’ that parents speak into the lives of their children/offspring.
One is familiar with the story of the Rockefeller family – how the founder John D. Rockefeller taught his children the dignity of labour; taught them how to earn, spend and give money. The Rockefeller wealth has been passed down from generation to generation and their lineage still remains wealthy.
The Rockefellers are not isolated. We have the Du Ponts, Rotschilds and Astors of this world. On the home front, we have the Dantatas, the Alabis (Lord Rumens), theBakares and other silent generational wealth-retaining families. If you read the histories of these wealthy families, one trait has been common – that the wealth founders and ancestors have taken their offspring through the processes which they themselves used in creating the wealth originally.
The same holds true for families that have retained poverty in their generations. They have carefully taken their time to tutor their offspring in the belief of impossibilities; entitlement mentality, and negative mind-set.
A good example is the Vanderbilt family patriarch, Cornelius, who “felt that his sons were not up to his standards. He didn't think they had what it took to grow the family wealth”. He was reputed to have been “bad-tempered and foulmouthed”. One can safely conclude that he repeatedly spoke failure into the lives of his children and, by default, his offspring. However, very few of the offspring of such families who had opened themselves to positive mentoring are changing their family historic calamities to fortunes.
What are we saying here, it is not the backgrounds but the people that determine the lifespan of family wealth – because the people are the common denominator. What do you think? Please leave your comments. 🙂
Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
There is a component inherent in the goal decision-making process which involves your capacity for making good decisions. Without understanding your own limits, you run the risk of making poor decisions, which can lead to failure instead of success. In order to perform at peak and achieve the utmost in your goals, you need to be aware of your capacity for making the best decisions.
You are only one person, with a limited amount of time, energy, and mental sharpness at your disposal. So you need to make sure you're not taking on too many goals. This may mean limiting the number of goals you’ll work on this year. After speaking with hundreds of people over the past three years, I've discovered many are overachievers (sound familiar?). They all have big ideas and more goals than can realistically be completed in one year.
Having too many goals means that you are trying to divide your time, energy, and resources into too many pieces. If you only have five hours a day to devote to your goals, and you have 10 different goals to accomplish, you run the risk of making little progress or not accomplishing your goals at all. I advise that you limit yourself to one goal in every major category: health, wealth, personal relationships, and personal growth/development.
Everyone, including you, has a set of "peak hours" during the day where they feel fresh, alert, and mentally sharp. You should try to do the most important and most difficult work during these peak hours. That's because your energy, alertness, and mental acuity fade as time goes on.
You wouldn't want to make crucial decisions when you're feeling tired or when your brain is sluggish. Figure out when you are at your best and reserve that time for your toughest and most essential goal-setting work. Listen to the following comment from one of my mentors about peak hours:
Using peak hours is something I learned the hard way. All my life I have been an early riser. I get up at about 4:30 or 5 a.m. each morning and work until 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. at night. Over the years, I discovered that decisions I made after 3 p.m. were not productive. When I talked to people on the phone, I would hang up feeling that I hadn't expressed myself clearly. When I met with clients, I would leave the meeting feeling like it hadn't gone as well as I had envisioned. Eventually, I realized that my peak hours are between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Once I discovered this time period is when I am at my best, I stopped making important decisions outside of that time period. (Of course, sometimes situations force me to make decisions after 3 p.m. in the afternoon, but I avoid this if at all possible.) I reserve the time between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. for talking with clients, meeting with colleagues, and speaking on the phone. After 3 p.m., I stay away from interacting with people and I focus on paperwork. This way, I don't end up making decisions that could have a major impact on others when I'm tired or lacking mental clarity – like signing contracts or interviewing a potential employee.”
All the wealthy people I know have put the ‘peak hour’ strategy to use for decades. They learned when they are most mentally sharp and always scheduled their most important activities during that time.
Three Keys to Maximizing Your Goal Performance
There are three important success techniques you can learn to use that will ensure you always work at your level best and avoid taking on too much at once.
1. Be realistic in setting target dates for accomplishing your goals.
You may be setting yourself up for disappointment if you schedule exactly when your goals are to be completed. It is advisable that you set target dates; this will relax your anxiety while increasing your enthusiasm. Your plan must be realistic, manageable, and break down beautifully and simply. This will enable you maximize your goal performance for success. The key here is your goal for the year has to be realistic and you have to monitor the results each month.
2. Keep a flexible mindset.
There will be many steps you take towards your goals. And at times, you might feel like you're taking two steps forward and one step back. But no matter how the process is going, keep a flexible mindset! You may find it isn't possible to meet some targets; this by no means makes you a failure. It is part of the learning process that will help you achieve present and future goals the best way you can.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for ideas and help.
Surely, you’ll have to learn how to trust yourself to find solutions to obstacles along your path to achievement. But you should never feel like you're alone in this process. You can always ask friends, family members, coworkers, and assorted experts (like me) to give you advice, suggestions, and support. Other people are a great resource for compassion, support, guidance, and applause.
Whenever I find myself in a circumstance in which my goals are stalled, I always pause and ask myself, “Who can I ask for assistance?” The opening question is always the same – I explain what I am trying to accomplish in reference to my goals and ask the person, “What are your thoughts?”
You will be surprised how helpful and creative other people can be! Put your ego and shyness aside and begin ASKING FOR IDEAS. This will work with any of your goals; personal or professional. You will find that your colleagues and friends will be willing and able to make suggestions that will make all the difference in completing your goal. My point in this post is for you to be careful to avoid the tendency towards piling too much on your plate. Know your capacity limits and you can fly safe and achieve your goals!
