Effectively Utilize your Prioritized Action List Every Day
Live each day by your Master Task List / Prioritized Action List – and schedule everything by 15-minute marks. You’ll want to list everything, including morning coffee, shower and drive-time. To avoid being rushed or feeling overwhelmed, give yourself 15-minute buffers between each item. That way, if you’re running a few minutes behind schedule, you can still remain calm. If you don’t have time to get to something, transfer it to your next day’s list.
How to Produce Big Results
If you’ve failed at producing big results in your business, it’s time to let the failures go and move on. As an entrepreneur, you do not have time to sit around with regret; you’ve got to get moving!
If you want to produce big results, you first need to understand how to get big results. Big results are brought upon by the confidence to take action – again and again. When it comes down to it, who’s going to believe in your business when you don’t seem to believe in it yourself? If you have at any time questioned your ability to create the kind of life you have always wanted, a change in mindset would work wonders for your personal and professional life.
How to Get Things Done with a Master Task List / Prioritized Action List
Focusing on many responsibilities is a vital part of successfully running your business successfully. But how do you know which tasks need to be completed immediately and which tasks can wait? You have so many things you need to do that it can be very overwhelming. If you focus on the less important tasks, while the most important go unnoticed or forgotten about, you could be sabotaging your overall success. Fortunately, you can get a grip on your essential tasks by learning how to get things done with a master task list. Use prioritized action list to increase your success.
What is a Master Task List / Prioritized Action List?
A master task is a strategically composed list that will help you meet the needs of your business. When you understand how to use a master task list, you’ll be able to produce results far superior than those resulting from trying to remember everything and posting sticky notes everywhere, with efficiency being the key benefit of getting things done.
While there are many benefits to using a master task list, they serve as great distraction busters and procrastination killers. By simply streamlining the way you get things done, you can get the important things done first, making the biggest impact.
6 Tips for Gaining Confidence (Part 6)
6. Success breeds confidence
When you are facing a situation that takes you outside your comfort zone, keep taking steps forward. Even if you have to take baby steps, at least they are steps in the right direction. Trying something new isn’t always easy, but take action before the nerves have time to settle in. The longer you wait, the more your confidence wavers, and the likelihood you will talk yourself out of taking action increases. Remember, success breeds confidence, so if you have to take baby steps to make it to the finish line – that’s okay – just keep moving forward.
Being an entrepreneur is not about being the expert, although you may one day reach that status. For the time being, focus on what you know and become the best at it that you can. Commit to learning more, so you can deliver more to your clients; and your business is bound to grow with you. Continue taking steps forward, even if you stumble the first time. Don’t worry, you’ll get better with time; every entrepreneur has to find his or her way, and believe me, there is not one entrepreneur out there that hasn’t stumbled along the way. The good news is that your clients don’t have to know when you stumble.
Continue to accomplish little successes along the way and know that your confidence grows with each step forward. It may help you to keep a log of what works and doesn’t work, so you can go back and review it before taking future steps. If something didn’t work, tweak it with a set of creative eyes and try it again. Eventually the pieces will fall into place and you’ll become better at succeeding on the first attempt. Before you know it, you’ll be beaming confidence and that will come across in everything you do – especially your business.
“She’s the Real Deal” – Natalie Randolph
In a recent Parade issue, there was a story on one of the few women who coach boys’ high school football in the US – Natalie Randolph. It tells her story and how she is committed to helping her players score on the field and in life. She shared her Coach’s Advice for Kids; however, I think these 4 points are good for us all to consider applying in our lives.
- Have No Fear
People concentrate too much on what others will say about them. If you know you can do something, just do it.
- Show Up Every Day
No matter how hard the previous day was, never give up.
- It’s Okay to Be Afraid
But it’s not okay to run away from what you’re afraid of.
- Make Good Decisions
To do that, you must trust your instincts – and listen to the people around you.
Apply these concepts in your life, if you don’t already. I think this is good advice.
Trust your own intuition and persist
When your passion for your goals doesn’t seem to be enough, here are some things to consider:
Old goals don’t match new priorities and/or values
We all know that people change. Where you are in life determines what’s important to you. It’s okay that you refocus your persistence on a new goal that is alignment with your new priorities or values. Don’t be afraid to let go of old goals that don’t resonate with your new evolution, just be sure you’re letting go of them for the right reason. In other words, be sure you’re not letting go of something you really love just because you’re fearful it will never happen.
When your persistence is really stubbornness
Be clear, persistence is not the same thing as stubbornness. Are you being persistent because you really want it or are you refusing to let it go because you are somehow mistaking it for failure? If you don’t want it, let it go – that’s not failure.
Making room for new goals
You may have several goals in life, and that’s the way it should be, but which ones are the most important to you? It’s a good idea to first focus your persistence on the goals that carry the highest level of desire. As you achieve your most desired goals, you can reprioritize the remaining goals, delete them, or add new goals as it suits you. Scattering your focus among several goals will not allow you to apply persistence effectively. Periodically evaluate your goals list and reprioritize or delete old goals to make way for the new ones.
The most important thing to remember about persistence is to trust your own intuition. Don’t listen to the critics and silence the self-doubt. If you have a feeling that something is going to work, even if everyone says it won’t, persist in your goal until you achieve it. There is core genius in you – and that is the stuff that champions are born from.
“So if you’re tired of the same old story… oh, turn some pages.”
– Roll with the Changes, REO Speedwagon (1978)
Never give up!
Here are some quick facts about persistence.
P It took approximately 10,000 experiments before Thomas Edison successfully invented the light bulb. What does he have to say about persistence? “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
P Long before becoming the lead singer of REO Speedwagon, Kevin Cronin, was determined to make it big. At a young age, he went to go see an influential music producer, only to get turned away. Kevin was so confident in his talent that he didn’t let that producer’s rejection get to him for one second. In fact, he was convinced that the producer’s tape player must not have been working properly, because if it had, the producer would have recognized Kevin’s talents immediately. He kept pursuing his passion and eventually landed with REO Speedwagon, bringing the band into the mainstream music scene. Over the years, they’ve sold more than 40 million records and charted 13 Top 40 hits.
P When 19-year-old Rick Little wanted to start a program in high schools that would teach kids how to deal with their feelings, handle conflict, clarify life goals, and communicate effectively, he was turned down by more than 155 organizations. Finally, the Kellogg Foundation gave him $130,000, but that wasn’t enough. He was persistent and eventually received $65,000,000 in funding – the second largest funding in U.S. History – to create the International Youth Foundation. How’s that for persistence?
P In 1998, Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page approached Yahoo! and suggested a merger. Yahoo! executives politely declined and suggested they continue working on their “little school project” and come back when they were all grown up. Ten years later, Google is worth an estimated $140 billion! That surpasses Intel, Coke, McDonald’s, as well as other corporate moguls, including Yahoo!. Just for moment, think about how their persistence impacted the world of search engines as we know it.
What’s the lesson here? You should never, never give up. However, there are times when it may be appropriate to refocus your persistence in a new direction. How do you know when it’s the right time to change course?
If you absolutely cannot live without what passionately consumes you, then do not give it up. The problem is never your passion, it only the manner in which you are trying to make it happen. Try a different approach – think of a creative solution. However, if you can live without it, then passion is not is what is driving you. When passion is not driving you – it’s not something you really want. Perhaps you have trained yourself to want what someone else wants for you. Go back to your list of goals and reconnect with the goals and values that really drive you.
Great Story about the Power of FOCUS
Les Lyons shares a great story about FOCUS and the impact it had for him.
“Before I won the World Skeet Shooting Championships in my Class in 2004, I was struggling to break all 100 out of 100 clay targets. I could easily get in the 90s, and usually around 97 or 98, but those last one or two just eluded me.
I worked with an instructor who told me I had to have the proper focus in several areas, starting with my stance. Were my feet correctly positioned? Was my body correctly positioned and weighted properly between my two feet? Was my upper body turned properly? Was I holding the gun properly?
Next, he had me focus on my breathing. Could I feel my breath going in and out? Was it steady? Was it natural? Was it deep, or shallow? Was I holding my breath unconsciously?
Then, he had me focus on my vision. Was I looking at the background, to distinguish my proper hold point? Did I know the background well, so I wouldn’t be distracted by anything when I called for the target?
Then he told me to focus my mind. Only focus on the present and what is happening right now. Not what just happened a few minutes ago on the last target, or the results from the day before, or what MIGHT happen in a minute when I called for the target, or what might happen in the future, if I succeeded or failed. ONLY focus on RIGHT NOW! Be “in the moment,” he said.
Finally, he told me to focus on the target, or “bird” as we call it. And he said, “I mean REALLY focus! See the target clearly.” I told him I did. He then asked, “Can you see the rings on the different levels of the round target spinning as the bird comes out of the house?” I looked at him like he was crazy! I said, “HUH?” He said, “Yep. THAT’s the kind of focus you have to have. When you can clearly distinguish the rings on the spinning target, THEN you know you are focused!”
Guess what? I put into practice everything he said, and then broke 249 out of the 250 target competition and won the World Championship. (Yes, I let my guard down for a brief instant and it cost me a target. But my competitors did it more than that one time!)
So what I learned is there is focus, and then there’s FOCUS!!! And focus has to be – in most cases – in more than one area at a time, to ensure that everything is “in sync.””
What Are You Committed To? The 4 Factors For Effective Commitment (Part 4)
This is Part 4. If you missed Part 1, 2, and 3, be sure to go back and read them.
4. Commitment to Relationships
You would swear from the number of books, seminars and workshops on the subject of “commitment phobia” that the phrase only belonged to the relationship game.
In fact, “commitment phobes” occur in all walks of life and are generally loathe to commit to anything.
Fulfilled and satisfying relationships form the backbone of our relationship with ourselves and the world around us.
Commitment to a relationship operates in the same way commitment to anything does.
Whether your relationship is personal, business, professional or sexual, committing to another individual is much the same as committing to an ideal or goal. You make a promise to that person and then you action your promise.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? So why then do the statistics tell us that over 50% of marriages now end in divorce?
It would take much more than this brief article would allow to explain in any detail why so many committed relationships eventually fail.
Human beings are amazingly complex creatures, so the coming together of two complex creatures in an equally complex relationship can be fraught with mishaps, misunderstandings, doubt, deceit, despair…the list goes on and on.
In its most simplistic terms, committing to a relationship is no different from committing to a long term goal. To stay committed, you need to keep your focus on the vision and understand that the path to attain that vision may meander, twist, turn, convolute and lead you down a number of dead ends.
What it takes is a shared desire to achieve the same vision and determination to succeed no matter what obstacles are placed in your path.
What will you do next to increase your commitments? Make a list and begin implementing them in your life.
What Are You Committed To? The 4 Factors For Effective Commitment (Part 2)
This is Part 2. If you missed Part 1, be sure to go back and read it.
Commitment means being bound by a course of action to bring about the desired results. It is one of the most powerful personal traits we can aim to achieve.
Our greatest leaders and the most successful business people all share common belief systems – determination, strength of purpose, and commitment.
Being committed to yourself, your goals, your business and your relationships is what raises you above the mediocre, because people who honor their commitments stand out in the crowd.
By honoring your commitments, you keep your promises and stay true to your word. Honoring your commitments also means that you promise to see them through to the very end, come what may.
Not honoring your commitment destroys your credibility, dependability, and trustworthiness.
2. Commitment to Business
It would be impossible to imagine a business leader who doesn’t value commitment as one of their greatest strengths.
Commitment requires courage, strength and perseverance; personal traits you will find in any leadership manual.
Great business leaders not only practice commitment in their own lives, they encourage, promote and reward commitment in their employees.
Committed employees are competent and effective in the workplace as well as being committed to the overall success and vision of the company.
Companies who engender commitment in every facet of their organization raise themselves above the level of their competition by honoring their promises and fulfilling the needs of their customers.
Be sure to read part three in my next post.
