Today everybody seems to be in a hurry. We live in a world that craves instant success, gratification or results in all aspects of our lives.
When and how did the world become like that? What happened to expressions like ‘a job worth doing, is worth doing well’? Or success is about one percent inspiration 99 percent perspiration?
As 2012 is coming to close I have been thinking about what is important for me in 2013. If I want to make 2013 count and be my best year ever how do I go about that? My business coach Siimon Reynolds has had me focus on the one percent factor. Once you have set your goals try and focus on how you achieve them by doing things better by one percent every day. By the end of the end if you do this you would have in fact improved your chances of success by more than 365 percent because of the multiplier effect.
Dan Sullivan has an exercise in his Strategic Coach Program, called ‘The Experience Transformer’. Sullivan talks about three questions you should ask yourself in business if you want to achieve the multiplier effect and they are:
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- If we could do this over from scratch, how could we do it better?
Using these three questions in any area of your business will help you to move forward and make progress. This is not about a blame game, but rather a way to critically analyse what is working and what is not and what you need to do about it to get a different result in the future. Sullivan also suggests that doing this exercise in your business helps to engender enthusiasm and boost morale throughout the organisation. People will start to see, feel and talk about the difference. It can become almost contagious if you harness it, because that is how you create the multiplier effect in your organisation – people are the culture and make the difference, which could be your competitive advantage in the market.
It is amazing how people can rise to the occasion and start to perform at a different level, constantly doing things better, faster and cheaper because of the multiplier mindset. Before you realise you will have created a new cultural norm within your organisation.
Remember to acknowledge the milestones to success and celebrate them along the way if you want to sustain the multiplier mindset norm. Just think how amazing your organisation could be if everyone came to work searching for better ways to do things and were rewarded for their efforts.
At times I wonder whether people are scared to succeed or simply don’t have the courage to want to make a difference. We allow bureaucracy and politics to drive meritocracy in our thinking and action. We have no sense of urgency, so everything takes a long time to do. We become cynical so no wonder our transformational agendas fail before we even begin to try.
Mahatma Ghandi once said… “Be the change that you want to see in the world.’
Whilst we can influence our business world, I am not naive to suggest that we alone can change it. However, what we can change is the impact that it can have on our personal life and our ability to be ‘Teflon-coated’ to protect our own discipline, drive and determination to succeed.
We need to develop an unbeatable mind. Remember Yoda’s words to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars… “Do or do not, there is no try”. We either do and win or do not. We have to re-programme ourselves with new beliefs and master the skills in order to drive out new habits. Sun Tzu said we must train our mind to succeed first – ‘win in the mind’ before the battle. Having a winning mindset is about focusing your mind and your attention on what you need to achieve and be disciplined about it. Make sure you know your Why! Your life needs to be orientated towards your goals in every aspect. If you aren’t clear on your Why, as soon as you face adversity your body and mind will scream flight rather than stand up and fight.
Three helpful tips to keep in mind so you don’t become easily distracted by the stimuli around you are:
- Get focused and stay focused
- De-clutter your life wherever possible – your home and workspace
- Remove negative influences – people, habits, short-term thinking
Remember, you can’t get lost in life unless you know where you are going. Set your business and personal goals for 2013 and be clear about what you are going to achieve. Life is not a dress rehearsal so make each day count towards achieving them. Become relentless in your quest for success. Don’t allow your goals to become too hard to achieve because of negative thoughts, other people’s influence, or worse still, become too busy with other agendas rather than your own goals.
It is as easy as making things one percent better each day. So make 2013 your year to shine and remember to celebrate along your journey to success.
