Identify Problems but Dwell On Solutions

Have you ever known someone who spends an inordinate amount of time on the problems, even the minor ones, in their life? Some people seem to want to "wallow" in the pain as if owning the problem brings them a strange kind of comfort. I am not a psychologist but my sense is that these people crave attention, pity, or "there there it will be OK" as their only means of affection. In doing so they completely undermine their own self esteem, their time management, their goals and objectives, their image at work and even their family life and important relationships.

A healthy, efficient and practical approach to problems is to recognize that we are going to experience problems in our daily lives. The key is for us to handle them, by identifying the problem clearly, avoid embracing the problem as part of us and, as quickly as possible, focus on the solutions to the problem.

Lets say you are driving in your car and you have a flat tire. You have lots of choices. You can sit in the car and moan, cry and complain to yourself that you have a flat tire. You can call someone on your cell phone to tell them of your bad luck. You can fix the tire, complaining as you do and asking why these things always happen to you. You can then drive to work, spending the rest of the day telling everyone of your misfortune. When you go home at night you can repeat the story to everyone in the house. Maybe even keep it going by telling others over the next several days. OR you can get out of the car, fix the tire and get on with your life, recognizing that it had nothing to do with you and was a minor, and momentary, inconvenience. With the latter choice you dismiss the problem efficiently and move on to what is important to you.

Make it a point to not "make a mountain out of a mole hill". Put problems in their place by focusing on the solution. In doing so you will become expert and efficient and dispatching problems and issues in your life. People around you will notice your ease of handling problems and you will gain recognition for your composure and ability to manage daily issues. Relationships will improve. You will find your days easier and more pleasant and your self esteem will grow as you manage the "little things" in your life.

A Key Trait Shared By Successful People

Some successful people have vision. Others have strategy. Some have genius level intelligence. Some are just smart. Some success stories include "good luck". Others successful achievers are great strategic planners and goal setters. Some individuals just grind it out and achieve success through hard work. But the single most common factor of successful achievers is that they share the quality of persistence. Persistence has been identified as the single most important factor leading to success and achievement of one's goals. There are countless stories of individuals who have been challenged at every step and every turn, yet succeeded because they didn't give up. It is often true that the difference between achievement and failure is that the achiever took one more step, turned one more corner, or tried one more time. How sad that some people will never know if they were inches or moments away from achieving their goal because they withdrew from the race. It is said that Thomas Edison failed with over 2,000 experiments before finally inventing the incandescent light bulb. During World War II Winston Churchill's commitment to succeed was reflected in his famous and historic statement of persistence: "We will never, never, ever give up!" Whatever your goal, whatever your dream you owe it to yourself to pursue it with a full commitment to persist until your dream is realized. Although we live in a society where it often seems too easy to quit it is essential to our self esteem and to our own individual character that we persist. Persist toward your dream job. Persist toward your dream car. Persist toward your dream relationship or the love of your life. Persist in achieving good health. Persist in your faith and your spirituality. If there is one trait to embrace and build as a character strength within yourself it is PERSISTENCE. Persist and achieve your dreams.

Work From A Task List Of Daily Priorities

One of the simplest and most pragmatic tools to help get things done is the use of a daily Task List. Written in the morning in 10 or 15 minutes before you begin your day you first list all of the things you want to accomplish that day. Then you organize every task by priority. You can arrange your tasks into "peak" and "non-peak" work times. For instance, even though it may be important to complete your expense report it may be best to do that at the end of the day and after the primary hours during which you can reach customers on the phone. It also helpful to get items out of the way that are your least favorite tasks. As you go through the day, working your way through the tasks, you may need to add new tasks and insert them in order of priority. AS each task is completed "check" or cross-off the completed item to create a visible record of your achievements. At the end of the day you may need to "carry over" items into the next day. I find that keeping a "steno" pad with a record of tasks listed and tasks completed helps to give me a sense of accomplishment and also provides a good reminder not only that I am good at "chopping down trees" but that I am chopping in the right "forest", as well.

Relationship Building Begins With Caring and Curiosity

Relationship building is key to any one's success. The ability to connect and leverage relationships with people is at the heart of any idea, initiative, action, or endeavor. Relationship building begins with caring about people and caring about people begins with having a natural curiosity about others, their life, their strategies, and how they might interact and engage with you and your ideas, plans and dreams. By putting the "other person" first you position yourself for success. There is an old adage that goes: " Help other people achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours". This is because in the act of helping others you create a cause effect relationship that is reciprocal and feeds back energy, resources and action to your own endeavors, dreams and ideas.

Today, too many people believe that an email or Instant Message constitutes relationship building or relationship maintenance. This form of communication is efficient and in many ways it helps us to quickly communicate and contact our Friends, families associates, and customers. However don't fall into the trap of defaulting to email and IM alone. Regularly reach out to your contacts with a phone call and whenever possible a personal visit. For many of us our best talents are engaged when we are in front of people, when they have the opportunity to feel our sincerity, first hand, and when we can explain our ideas and offerings with more clarity and in more detail.

Relationship building is an opportunity to harness the power of many people who can support your ideas and help multiply the number of "impression points" on a real life basis. Just as you need impression points on your website, or on your idea, you need real, live, devoted, passionate, believing people to carry and sustain your message. Don't default only to technology as a "short cut" when you know that people and good relationships with people is the power behind you.

Designing SMART goals

It is common knowledge that having a crystal clear objective is the foundation to achieving ones purpose. The problem for most people is that they don't really know what they want. Or their idea of what they want is vague and poorly defined. Sometimes we have too many "wants" and our goals are in conflict with each other. Other times we choose objectives that are not in balance with our family, beliefs, or spirituality. A man who wants to "spend more time with his family" yet has a goal to sail around the world has competing goals, unless of course the family goes along!

In tonight's presentation I would like to talk a bit about Goal selection. We all have dreams, desires and ambitions. From early on we think about things that might "make us happy". We dream of having a pony or a bike or tickets to see Hanna Montana. For those less fortunate maybe we dream about more simple things, a roof over our head, a jacket for winter, food for our brothers and sisters. In the book, and subsequent movie "The Pursuit of Happiness" the true story tells of a man who is desperate to take care of his young son. He also wants to show his young son how to live, to dream big dreams and to "not let anyone take them away". The key point here is that the hero of this true life Horatio Alger story focused on one clear goal, to get out of poverty and to make a life for he and his son.

Choosing a big goal, an important goal and a goal that has depth and meaning in ones life is an important act that prioritizes all of your energies, actions and initiatives. Choosing an important personal goal transcends everything else for you. You may have other goals too: a car, a house, pay your bills, take a vacation, save $100,000, or retire by 55, but your primary goal ill be bigger than any of those. Once you determine your primary goal everything else falls into place.

Many times I work with business executives or owners who have started a business and reached some level of success yet don't have an "exit strategy". They don't know where to go "from here"......Their goal was to build the business, but along they way they lost their way because their goal was limited.

In developing your primary goal or goals make them something that transcends your smaller objectives. Have your primary goal intersect your values, your spirituality and the meaning of your life.

SMART goal setting is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Reasonable and Timeline (having a timetable). Unless your personal goals are guided by these strategic markers your goals may be too vague. Using the SMART steps you create an action oriented goal with a specific outcome by someone with responsibility for completion on a set timetable by a specific person. Use SMART planning and goal setting and remember that you must frequently update, change and modify your goals and planning to reflect the continual sea change in your environment.

How do I stay steady and "on course"?

For all of us the "road less traveled" is pocked with potholes and detours. There are a myriad of distractions, disappointments, and dis satisfactions along the way. Sometimes we feel like we are alone, or burned out, or even on the wrong path. We have those two inner voices always competing ("yes you can" vs. why not give up") But, staying steady and true toward your objective is a hallmark of success. (remember that my definition of success is "success is the progressive realization of a goal or dream"). A big part of staying on course is feeding yourself the "right" thoughts. Having a positive perspective is important but so is your circle of support, your sources of inspiration and your maintenance of energy inducing moments. Such moments might come when you are with a loved one who believes in you, a friend who sees your potential, a biographical book where you learn how someone else overcame obstacles to achieve their goals. Course correction and stability often comes through the gained serenity of prayer or meditation. Sometimes a quiet walk in the awe inspiring beauty of nature can help us get back on track. For others a physical work out at the gym, on a jog or a swim clears our mind and helps us focus. Being able to "compartmentalize" issues, distractions and problems (such as bills, or an injury or an argument) often helps us reduce those obstacles to their actual size and not let them become "a mountain out of a molehill. In summary, staying on course is the business of managing all the things that interfere with your progress toward your goal. As a popular book says "Don't sweat the small stuff" and most of what gets in our way is more disstraction and disruption than destruction. ( as long as we don't allow it).

Being organized is critical to success

Being organized and the efficient use of time is a critical element to success. Just being brilliant, having incredible ideas, being "driven", working hard, having amazing energy...all those things are like unharnessed energy unless that power is directed. And the channeling of power comes from being organized and consistently, I mean consistently, making efficient use of a limited supply of TIME. In his book "The Seven Habits Of Highly Successful People", Stephen Covey divides how we spend our time on work into four quadrants: 1) Work that is imporant and urgent, 2) Work that is Urgent but not important, 3) Work that is Important but not Urgent and 4) Work that is not urgent and not important. Mr. Covey makes the point that we are under such stress to perform by attacking the work that is urgent and important, that we default to handling all work that is urgent but not important and that as a relief we default to things that are not urgent and not important and the things that are often the Most Important get shuffled to the bottom of the pile on our desk.......day after day after day. Its important that we make a priority of the things that are Important, but not as urgent as some other things.

Being organized and time management is a critical learned skill. Learning to organize ones day, even if the office is hectic and the phones are ringing is essential. Taking time to pre-think and plan ones day the night before or the morning of, may only take a few minutes yet will reap big rewards. Using reminder lists, to do lists, task lists and the ranking of tasks from highest to lowest priority can give us a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction as we work through the issues and opportunities of the day. There is work that needs to be scheduled for "peak time" and work that can be scheduled for "non-peak" time. For instance an expense report done at 10 AM takes up selling time that might be more productive. Better to do that at the end of the day, at night or during the lunch hour when calling customers may not be as rewarding. Also research may be best left for non-peak hours, unless your sole task is research.

For sales people I recommend a very simple mantra as the key to sales success. Broken down to it simplest most sales success is the result of making calls and seeing people. The personal interaction is key and is what differentiates most great sales people. I make it even simpler "Make calls - see people"......When I ask myself what the most important thing I can do each day it is "Make calls - see people";.. Every transaction, relationship, opportunity begins with a people to people interaction and I am the beginning and the end of those initatives.

In summary......get organized, get prioritized, schedule your time with actions that are slotted to be a high impact "peak time" activity or a less critical "non-peak time" action.

Making Progress

A definition of success that I have held for many years is: "success is the progressive realization of a lifetime goal or dream". Sometimes I substitute the word "worthy" for "lifetime" but the emphasis here is that success is more defined by "progressive" than anything....Success is the act of moving toward your goal. When I reflect that any goal is achieve one step at a time I take inspiration in the fact that a step forward is achievement and many small achievements lead to the ultimate success. Today it seems the idea of success is defined by media "glitz" and visability. Being center stage and the messiah of the next pop culture idiom is actually a false idol and a trap that, unfortunately, many kids fall into. Our current state of idol worship is a reflection of our seach for ourselves and our desire to be thought of as worthy or worthwhile. And yet, it is the very people who shun the media spotlight who are the most worthy. Think of some of the examples of the people you hold in highest esteem and they will not be those in the spotlight, onthe center stage, in front of the cameras or followed by the papparatzi. They will be those quiet souls toiling in some giving profession.....in the name of love or like or kindness. Think about success, about making progress but don't fall victim to the false promise of celebrity or idolatry.

Persistence

Persistence is a key attribute of success. Persistence often can help over come disadvantage, lack of education, lack of knowledge, lack of skill, and many other apparent ingredients that foretel success. Persistence wins because it is steady, unrelenting and won't give up. Those who are persistent eventually win because they defeat or overcome all obstacles and usually do so as those less than persistent souls fade and fall from the race. The fable of the Tortoise and the Haare is a common picture of how slow but steady persistence can win over flash and flame. But other things happen when one is proceeding persistently toward his goal............connections are made, knowledge is built, the persistent competitor learns and understands his competition. He learns and understands his customer better. He gains confidence in his ability to endure. Cal Ripkin Jr. is an example of a baseball player who achieved many records and was voted into the baseball Hall of Fame because of his edurance and persistence. A famous quote by Winston Churchill during World War II in which he expressed his ferocious drive to beat back the Germans was "Never, Never, Never, ever Give Up!". Those who persist less or who give up never know if success was just around the corner. There are countless stories of men who achieve success at the tail end of countless tries. It is reported that Thomas Edison counted 2,000 failures before reaching the moment when his incandecent light bulb came to life. No matter what your strength or weakness, your skill level or knowledge, aim for your goals and persist, persist, persist and you will achieve.