It’s an important thing to do. Keep your word to others and to yourself. If others won’t believe what you say, it can be hard on your brand and your income. If you don’t believe what you say, it undermines your confidence and ability to achieve anything.
Category: Action
Track Your Progress
This one habit will help you achieve a lot more than you can imagine. If you are trying to make progress hourly, then track this on an hourly basis. When you are trying to make weekly progress, track weekly.
Decide on your specific metrics, write them down and then write down each tracking data point. Yes, it’s easy to do in your head. But it’s not nearly as effective.
If you are serious about winning and achieving, write down your precise metrics and time intervals. Then track the metrics precisely and consistently. Writing it down may seem like a bother, but it is this little tiny sacrifice in your day that will make all the difference.
Meet People
Get out there and meet people: Old friends, new connections, acquaintances, contacts, and friends you made a week ago. You never know what may come of it.
Keep Your Mind Active
If you have to ask why, it’s already too late.
Push Yourself Harder
You know when you’re coasting, drifting, or giving it your all. And unless you’re very disciplined, you probably only give 40% each day. It might be more if you have a coach and are serious about success. That might get you to 80%-90%.
You have to want that last 10%. You have to push yourself beyond your own limiting beliefs. You can do it. But will you?
Follow Up Is Key
Starting can be hard. But if you start something, be committed to completing it too. Like buying something on credit, you have to eventually pay the price. If you do a job, follow up until it is finished correctly.
Yes, it can be mundane doing admin, invoicing, paperwork, forms etc but they need to get done. So do them.
Follow up in sales is often how you win the deal. People remember great follow up. They remember poor performance and neglect too.
Rest
Sometimes you simply need a little rest. You may not always know why, but your mind and body will know.
Some of the more common reasons you’ll need a rest are: reduced sleep over the last 1-5 days, recent physical exertion, minor cold or flu coming on, minor infection somewhere, exhaustion (from long hours working (mental or physical), relief (from stress or after pushing your limits for awhile), ageing and occasionally it comes down to simple dehydration.
Whatever the reason, listen to your body. Have a rest. If the need for rest persists for several days and you can’t attribute it to anything specific, check in with your doctor. You could be low in iron or have something more challenging that needs medical attention.
Who Is Influencing You?
In an average day, who are the top five influencing voices in your day? Who are you hearing, reading, watching, seeing the most (time spent) or is most influential (short time but with major impact)?
On Sunday, one might be the leader of your religion, one of the Sunday newspapers, your spouse, your kids and/or your parents. On Monday it might be your spouse, your boss, your team at work, the nightly news and your favourite podcast.
On Thursday it might be your boss, your colleagues, your favourite author and people at your monthly meet-up.
Do you listen to them all equally or critically? Do you question their motives and bias or just some of them? Why do you allow them to influence you and not others?
Whoever you are letting influence you, you will become more like. If your boss is kind, or kind of a jerk, that will influence how you are with others. If they complain a lot, you will too. You better hope some of them are financially free or financially disciplined. If not, you might end up the same way.
Be very mindful of who is influencing you and why you let them. Sometimes it’s peer pressure, to belong, because of some of your values or fear of change and exploration. It’s time to deeply consider this and see if you can find influencers that are more positive or that will take you in the direction you would actually like to go. Don’t just drift along. Be intentional. Go!
Constraints
You can be paid more per hour but you’ll work fewer hours. Or the company will need to reduce staff altogether and you may be one of those affected.
Employees will make more if wages go up, so margins will reduce and shareholders will be affected by reductions in dividends and/or share prices.
There always seems to be easy answers. However, that is rarely the case. Tough decisions need to be made after careful assessment and an understanding of how best to balance the various constraints and options.
Decide And Do
Decide that this is a “Heck Yes!” item and then set about doing it. Do that as much as you can in one day. Don’t wait until you feel like it. And don’t wait for someone else to come do it for you or help.
Focus on it. Get it started. Work hard at it. Learn. Do. Be uncomfortable and get through it. Finish the job. Sure you can have someone look over it at the end. But sort it out and get to the end on your own first. It can feel daunting or hard but you’ll feel so much better about yourself once you’ve done it.