Tag Archives: Self-Esteem

Trick Question: Who’s Your Biggest Cheerleader? 6

Personal Development • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Cheerleading Championships - Heidelberg

Who’s your biggest cheerleader? Your mom, dad, significant other? Perhaps it’s someone in your immediate family, a close friend or an acquaintance? However, If you didn’t put yourself at the top of that list – we need to talk because you’ve got a problem. It may be comforting to know that other people want you to be successful – to live up to your full potential – but unless you believe in yourself – what others think means absolutely nothing. They can’t do it for you – others don’t determine your potential – only you can do that.

Are you doing what you really love to do – what truly makes you happy – what you were born to do? Or have you settled for something less? When you get up in the morning do you hit the ground running – full of energy and excitement – ready to take on the day or do you roll over in bed and try to squeeze the last 10 minutes out of your morning before the alarm clock summons you again? If that sounds all too familiar – then it’s time for you to make a change.

In a perfect world – what would you rather be doing? Take a moment and think about that. If you could start over – what would your ideal life look like? I want you to take a blank piece of paper and write it down. If you haven’t figured out yet what you’d rather be doing then start a “Happy Journal”. For the next two weeks – every time you catch yourself smiling – write down what you where doing at that moment. After recording your happy moments over a period of two weeks a pattern should start to emerge. What ever made you smile – is what you are truly meant to be doing.

Are you prepared to do what ever it takes to realize your full potential? Are you prepared to put a plan together and work your plan?  If you believe you are mentally and physically capable of doing what you’d rather be doing – then the only person standing in your way is you. Once you’ve decided what your ideal career looks like – what new skills will you need to learn to accomplish it? Write those down on that piece of paper. What books will you need to start reading? What night courses should you sign up for? What associations or networking groups should you join? You need to surround yourself with “like” people. Think it, act it, and eventually you’ll become it. You aren’t born knowing how – but you are born with the ability to learn. Believe in yourself and never ever give up on becoming what you where truly meant to be.  You’ve got to get out of your own way. You need to be your biggest cheerleader.  🙂

One More Giant Step Towards Success 4

Leadership Development, Personal Development, Planning, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , ,

I know there’s no such thing as a perfect world. But let’s suppose for a moment that there is. What would that world look like to you? What would you rather be doing than what you are doing right now? If you knew you couldn’t or wouldn’t stumble and fall where would you rather be than where you are right now? We truly are masters of our own successes – only we get to decide what path to take and what choices to make. Only we get to decide what success and being successful looks like to us. What’s getting in your way from doing what you’d rather be doing? And what are you prepared to do about it?

I know I make this sound simple – but it really is. Life – your life – my life – everyone’s life – is a planned event. And where we  end up is determined by the choices we’ve made. You may not like some of those choices – but – none the less – you do have a choice. You can either choose to sit back and do nothing or you can choose to do something. Each step we take can either move us closer to where we’d rather be or take us farther away. We truly are masters of our own successes. We have the power within ourselves to do those things that make us happy – satisfied and fulfilled or not.

Anytime is a great time to start a new beginning – so why not now? Wishing a hoping won’t make it so. Your past is not your future if you decide to change the here and now. Go ahead – get out of your comfort zone and take one more giant step towards the life you envisioned for yourself. And if you happen to stumble and fall – that’s ok – just take a moment to collect yourself – and then get back up and press on. We all stumble and fall. That’s part of the learning process. If you aren’t stumbling and falling you aren’t stretching enough – you aren’t trying hard enough. Nothing worthwhile comes by chance. If you are willing to put in the time and effort you will end up right where you should have been all along. 🙂

Without a Plan – Anywhere You End Up Will Do 4

Enduring Principles, Leadership Development, New Year's Resolutions, Personal Development, Personal Values, Planning • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s that time of year again when we sit down and map out where we’ve been – stroke off what we’ve accomplished – and look over our things to-do list and see what still needs to get done. What’s on your list? What are those kinds of things that you’d still like to accomplish over the next 6, 12 or 18 months? It’s time to stop making New Year’s Resolutions and start making plans instead. Wishing and hoping won’t make it so – life is a planned event. Without a plan – anywhere you end up will do.

Worth Remembering … “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists of eliminating the non-essentials” – Chinese Proverb 

Goal Setting: Take a look at your list of things that you’d like to accomplish. Think carefully about what items on your list are most important to you. Which one – when accomplished – will bring you closer to where you’d like to end up? Which one would give you the best return on your time investment? Which one would bring you the most joy? Write it down on a piece of paper. Don’t generalize. Be specific. If you want to lose some weight – write down how much weight? If you want to save money – how much money do you want to save? If you want to switch careers – what would you rather be doing? A good goal starts with the end in mind and walks back to the here and now. When you write your goal down also write down a realistic timeline. Don’t set yourself up for failure. If you want to lose 40 pounds by June 1st. Mark June 1st. on your calendar. How many weeks are there between now and then? How many pounds do you need to lose per month? per week? per day? (Anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time)

Worth Remembering … “Once the what has been decided the how will surely follow” – Author Unknown 

Planning: You’ve most likely heard it a thousand times or more before – “Fail to plan – plan to fail”. But it’s absolutely true! Committing yourself to a goal and then writing a plan to accomplish that goal – is the only way to demonstrate to yourself and others that you are serious about accomplishing what you’ve set out to do. Goals and planning go hand-in-hand. Once you have decided what it is you want to accomplish – all you have to do is write down all those things that need to fall into place to make it happen. If your goal is to lose 40 pounds – what steps do you need to take in order to accomplish that? You’ll need a meal plan, an exercise plan, perhaps you’ll need to join a support group or club. You’ll need to empty out your fridge and cupboards – throwing out all those things that will get in the way of you accomplishing what you’ve set out to do and replacing them with the kinds of foods and snacks that will help you lose the weight.  You need to change the habit to change the result.

Worth Remembering … “Our habits may control our destiny, but we can control our habits. Before we change our habits we must change our thinking” – Author Unknown 

If you aren’t willing to put in the time and effort to accomplish your goal – then just keep doing what you’ve been doing and you’ll continue getting what you’ve got. Motivation is inside out – never outside in. You are the boss of you. You may be a victim of circumstance but where you end up is a choice that only you get to make. Your future is not in your past so stop living there. If you aren’t satisfied with the cards you’ve been dealt – then it’s time to fold your hand and get into a new game. Dreams are merely goals with deadlines. What would you rather be doing then what you are currently doing? What changes will you have to make in order to bring more joy into your life? Decide what it is you want to accomplish and put a plan together to get there. Wishing and hoping won’t make it so – life is a planned event. 🙂

Copyright (c) 2012. Brian Smith. Not to be reproduced or printed in any form without written permission. Excerpts of this article  were taken from Brian’s soon to be published book – “Get-A-Grip – Wishing and Hoping Won’t Make it Happen”

If You Think They’re Listening – Best Think Again

Dealing with Difficult People, Leadership Development, Personal Development, Personal Values, Personality Types, Soft-Skills Training, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you feel at times that your staff are turned off and have tuned out? Are you finding it difficult to motivate others? How challenging is it for you to attract or retain talent? Well you are not alone. Results of a semi-annual employment engagement index published by the Gallup Management Journal suggested that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed admitted that they where not engaged – while 17% said that they where actively disengaged. These disengaged employees where busy acting out their unhappiness, undermining what their engaged co-workers where trying to accomplish.

In his book , “Getting Engaged: The New Workplace Loyalty” author Tim Rutledge explains that an engaged employee is an employee who is willing to invest their time and energy to insure that the organization succeeds. He surmised that truly engaged employees are attracted to, and inspired by, their work. They are loyal to each other – committed to doing what ever it takes to accomplish individual and team goals. Engaged employees understand that if the company wins – they all win.

Worth Remembering … “Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the World on your shoulders. The World would go on even without you. Don’t take yourself too seriously” – Norman Vincent Peale

Meaningful change is top down never bottom up. If you want to engage your employee’s heads, hearts and hands it must start with you. You need to invert the triangle and put your people at the top. The phrase “Our employees are our most important asset” must mean something. People hear what they see – not what  you say. You can start the process by applying the three “C’s”

Connect: Managers must show they value their employees. Trust and respect don’t come automatically just because you’ve been given the title of manager. You need to earn both – one employee at a time. Get to know your people for more than the work that they do. You need to establish rapport – in order to build a relationship – that eventually leads to mutual respect. People like to work with people they like. How much fun are you to be around? Would you work for you?

Contribute: Employees want to know that their input matters. That what they are doing is contributing to the organizations success in a meaningful way. You and I both know that there is a number of ways to accomplish the same thing. Solicit their input. People like to put their own personal stamp on things. It doesn’t have to be just your way to get the same result. Resist the urge to micro-manage. Delegate, delegate, delegate. You must give up control to get control.

Collaborate: Great managers and leaders are team builders. Together Everyone Achieves More is not just a fancy sound bite.  Studies show that those teams that are committed to each other out perform individuals and teams who are not.  Good teams don’t happen by chance. You can’t expect to throw people together – call them a team – and expect them to perform that way. Let everyone know what is expected of them. The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing – so tear down those cyloe’s , eliminate the individual sandboxes and build collaborative teams – one team player at a time.

For the first time in our life time we have the potential of working with four different generations in the same workplace. Each generation communicates and interacts differently. Each generation have their own set of values and are motivated differently. But the one thing that will never change is that people are people – and they all want to be treated as people. EQ (Emotional Intelligence) – often referred to as soft-skills – is now considered a more valuable commodity than IQ. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to be the most successful manager or business leader in the room.  You just need to get everyone on side. Applying the 3 C’s is a great start.