Priorities really are a priority

I’m sure you are just like me in that you know people whose attitudes vary enormously when it comes to planning, organising, prioritising, scheduling, goal setting and the like. At one end of the scale there are those who plan everything, social life included, to the very n’th degree and for whom to not do so would be unthinkable. The polar opposite position is held by those for who everything is spontaneous, responsive, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants…

I’m sure you get the idea, and you, like me, are probably somewhere in between these two extremes. There is no escaping the fact though that some things ARE more important than others.

Some activities generate you income – others don’t.

Some activities empower, skill and motivate your team – others don’t.

Some activities help foster positive relationships – others don’t.

Success belongs to those who know their priorities, and continually prioritise their priorities, in order to give their best efforts to the most important things. This is massive in business, and perhaps greater still in life generally. Priorities really are a priority.

Yes, but WHY?

Great to get on with things and work hard and persevere…and great when others pull their weight and contribute to the team effort, but without a really strong ‘Why’, that effort and motivation and desire is always likely to wain sooner rather than later, and the job becomes a labour of love and it feels more like an obligation than a passion.

Having said that, it often doesn’t take long just to pause and remember the ‘why’ – the reason that you started out on this journey in the first place, the benefits of hitting that deadline, the impact of making it work – and thus invoke the motivation once again to continue with enthusiasm and energy.

I have small children and they love to ask ‘Why?’ Its easy to become frustrated, but we always get a better result in terms of desired response from them when we take a little time to explain the reason or purpose behind what we’re asking….or even better, to get them to!

Grown ups aren’t a whole lot different. Things can seem very different when we take a few moments to remember the why!

Your time IS your life

We can talk a lot about time management, priorities and productivity – and they are great subjects that certainly need to be looked at – but something more fundamental should be considered before we can really get to grips with these things.

What is the master plan for your life?

Have you identified your purpose, both in your business / work, AND in your life as a whole?

I recall that for me the idea of having a personal mission statement for my life seemed a bit cheesy, something a bit unnecessary and perhaps a little over the top. Now, it’s something I wouldn’t be without!

I realised that unless my purpose is clearly defined, how can I make consistently good decisions about how I spend my time? The way that I use my time is, or at least should be, the best indicator of what’s most important to me…and yet I know that often this would not be the case. There can be massive discrepancies between what I think to be most important to me and how a time analysis of what I actually do bears out!

Quite literally ‘my time is my life’.

With this in mind I want to make two recommendations of things I believe have a huge, positive impact -

1.  Get your own personality profile done (my favourite of these is DISC) – this will give you a better understanding of how you are wired, what kind of things bring out the best in you and also how to understand and get on better with others to achieve success.

2. Take a Personal Leadership course (the LMI ‘Effective Personal Leadership’ program is fabulous) – a practical course that takes you through the process of identifying your dreams, clarifying personal goals and establishing important values, as well as helping to understand the process of developing positive attitude and habits.

With these in place, then the business of time management, priorities and productivity becomes a whole lot more effective because the end in mind is crystal clear!

Like riding a bike

I’ve spent a bit of time at my kids’ school this week as its been ‘Bike Week’. Part of that time I’ve been engaged in the age-old ritual that every parent knows…walking, jogging, then sprinting along behind your child desperately trying to hold on to them as they wobble and zig zag their way along until unceremoniously crashing to the ground, having a little cry, then starting again, and then again, and then ‘just one more time….you can do it’.

It seems like this is going to take months, maybe years, as progress seems so slow. Suddenly though, as if from nowhere, it seems the child has got their balance so you let go, just a little, and they keep going on their own for one, maybe two seconds before wobbling again and you grab hold. But progress – definitely progress.

From those first few seconds of going solo, in no time at all they are speeding around on their own as if its just like…like riding a bike!

New skills, attitudes or daily habits we attempt to develop only become cemented and bear fruit – increased productivity, more sales, happier staff etc – if we adopt the same tenacity as that child who keeps on trying, trying, trying until they get it.

And by the way, its always easier to keep going if you’ve got someone helping, encouraging, coaching to make sure you don’t give up until it works!

Some top tips for a highly ineffective festive season!

Start putting things off now until the new year.

Although its not even the last week of November yet, put your mind into ‘holiday mode’ – start putting off important meetings and serious decisions until after your Christmas holiday, or better still, leave it until mid-January at least.

Remind yourself how hard you’ve been working

You can get all focussed on worthwhile goals that you’ve set yourself and engage your efforts with enthusiasm and vigour towards achieving those goals. This has to stop! Remind yourself how hard you’ve been working since your summer break; rehearse again and again that great thing you did back in September, that breakthrough you had in October and the really great week you had at the start of November. Don’t allow these positive memories to inspire you to press on energetically, rather sit back and reflect. Tell yourself you’ve done enough and that you’re getting tired and need a break.

Schedule some of your best time for web browsing

We all have times of the day when we are more productive than at other times. The trick is, especially at this time of year, to block out some of your best time to get on the internet and start looking into where the best offers are, compiling that Amazon wish list and ‘monitoring’ on ebay the prices of that gadget you want. Then there’s the gifts for the rellies, the long-lost friends and, of course, the office ‘Secret Santa’! You don’t want to fall into the trap of working hard during the day and doing all this in the evenings – just in case you miss an all-important detail about that night’s Bushtucker Trial. Punctuate your days with web window shopping and you’ll hit new heights of festive faffing!

Season’s procrastinations to you all!

to be continued…

Crystal Clear

“If you are not making the progress you want to make, it is simply because your goals aren’t clearly defined.” (Paul J Meyer)

We are all full of ideas, aspirations and intentions – things we’d live to have, become and achieve.

How many of these actually become reality, and how many remain merely as whims; noble thoughts that evaporate as quickly as they arrive?

This is why we believe so passionately in clearly defined written goals. Writing something down clarifies your thinking, engages your emotion and stimulates desire as you begin to picture in your mind what it would feel like to accomplish that goal.

What aim or desire do you have right now that would benefit from being planted and watered in the fertile soil that is a clearly defined written goal?

The 10 minute, 1% revolution!

One of the ways to get that 1% improvement is to take 1% of your waking day…

if you sleep for 7 hours and 20 minutes then you are awake for 1000 minutes – 1% of that is 10 minutes

…and spend those 10 minutes thinking, planning, prioritising, setting goals and scheduling time to work on them – TODAY.

Experts (whoever they are?!) suggest that every minute spent planning pays back between 4 and 10 times that amount of time in improved time effectiveness.

You’ll be amazed at the difference it can make if you do this every day!

1% makes all the difference

Team GB cycling hadn’t won any medals for years, and now they are dominating world cycling. Performance director Dave Brailsford puts success down to:

‘performance by the aggregation of marginal gains. It means taking the 1 per cent from everything you do; finding a 1 per cent margin for improvement in everything you do’.

After England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003, coach Clive Woodward famously said:

‘We didn’t change one thing by 100%; we changed 100 things by 1%.’

There are numerous 1% improvements we can all make, not only to our professional performance, but our lives as a whole. This is what LMI development programs are all about – finding those 1 per cents that make life work better!

‘ON TARGET’ 7/10/10 7.30-9.30pm

Effective goal setting for personal & professional success

If you ever find it a challenge to consistently accomplish those things that are most important to you, whether in work, family, health or any other area of your life, then THIS IS FOR YOU!

‘On Target‘ is a 2 hour active workshop designed to introduce you to the skills and processes necessary to prioritise what is of highest value to you, set clear goals, and ALWAYS follow through to experience the success of achieving what you set out to do.

Whatever success looks like to you, an effective goal setting process will help you to hit your targets every time.

This workshop will take place at Nettle Hill on the NE edge of Coventry and will cost just £15 per person (book 4 places, get 1 FREE!)

To book your place, contact Nick Howes on n.howes@lmi-uk.com / 07941 724786.

What if you never lacked motivation?

What would you accomplish if you never, ever lacked the motivation to enthusiastically set about doing whatever it is that you feel that you ought to / should do / could do?

It would be a very foolish thing to say, “do this” or “do that” and you’ll never experience motivation challenges ever again. However, it is very possible in a very short space of time to make a huge difference to your levels of motivation in the areas of life that are most important to you. How?

The goal setting process.

“O come on. We’ve tried that. We’ve had goals. Give us something new.”

You may have thought some of these things. But there is an ocean of difference between ‘having a goal’ that sits on your shelf somewhere and in the back of your mind, and using a goal setting process that identifies an important goal, considers the benefits of achieving it, the losses to be avoided if its not achieved, and then sets out detailed steps towards getting there!

This is the beginning of your motivation levels sky-rocketing as you experience continual success through accomplishing important goals on a daily basis…and this is one of the foundation principles of LMI.