Mark S. Brown – Page 40

When You’re Working, Work at Your Best

Have you ever thought about how you could always work at your best? When you are at your best, doing what you need to do, what does it look like, feel like, sound like?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you were always effective at 100% of your capability? I thought I would try to capture what my best felt like. I completed a short exercise where I started writing my ideas about my productivity. I started with the sentence, “I am at my best…” and captured my ideas on being my best. Here they are.

I am at my best…

when my energy level is high (mornings)
when my attention is focused
when I have a clear goal with a clear deadline
when achievement of the goal supports a bigger purpose
when I am in a comfortable and quiet environment
when I am not overwhelmed or behind in my tasks
when I can be creative
when I have time to think about strategic options
when I don’t worry about what others think
when I plan my actions in advance
when I am intentional with my actions
when my attitude is positive
when my work reflects my personal values
when I over-prepare
when I am helping others
when I am listening
when I take time for exercise
when I am learning
when I have data I trust
when I am working with people I trust and respect
when I truly value the people I am with
when I embrace failure as a process required for success
when I tackle the hardest tasks first

This was a great reflective exercise for me. It defines what is required of me every day if I want to be at my best.

Your list is different. Take a blank piece of paper and challenge yourself to define when you work at your best. What does it feel like for you?

Are You Ready for Your Next Opportunity?

It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” When opportunity arrives, it is too late to prepare for it. The time to get ready is now.

Personal growth is a choice. However, John Maxwell tells us that growth is the great separator of those who succeed long term from those who do not.

To take advantage of an opportunity it is not enough to be in the right place in the right time. You need awareness and preparation. So what are you doing to prepare yourself for your next opportunity? Here are a couple of things to consider:

1. Set aside time to grow in your calendar daily. Growth requires effort. Growth doesn’t happen automatically.

2. Decide on your areas of growth. What will help you achieve your dream? Your purpose? Where is your passion?

3. Apply what you learn. Growth is not effective without application. Integrate what you learn in your daily life. Take risks. Stretch yourself. Embrace failure with a plan to learn and grow.

As you grow take advantage of the opportunities as they come to you. Larger opportunities usually appear through taking smaller opportunities. If you are waiting for the perfect opportunity, you miss many opportunities that could lead to your success.

This approach seems so simple and necessary. It makes me wonder why more people don’t prepare. If you need help getting started, let’s talk.

Are You Living Purposefully?

I recently read an article that made me reflect on how I set and track my goals. The challenge is to live life purposefully. To be effective life goals need to be brought to mind frequently.

I have a system that I use for keeping track of my tasks, my priorities, and my calendar. It drives what I do on a daily basis. However, this article forced me to think about how I track my purpose. I have business goals that I track. I have life goals that I could verbalize. But I don’t have my big goals captured in a way that they would be in front of me at all times.

I knew I could do better. I decided to take some actions.

1. Write down my big goals. This is needed to bring clarity to what I want to achieve. I had written yearly and monthly goals, but they seemed too tactical didn’t capture the true essence of what I wanted to achieve. I wanted my goals to include not just “what” but also “why”.

2. Visualize my goals over time. I want to be able to sense how my goals will feel in one month, three months, one year, five years, and even ten years. Goals are easier to connect with if they are less abstract and more real. Not just in the sense of a number or a target, but how achieving them will affect your life.

3. Reaffirm these goals on a daily basis. Every day I create my daily task list, I have added reading my goals every day. I want to answer the questions: Am I aligned? Am I working towards my purpose? Is the “why” still important?

4. Reflect daily. This may be the most important part of a daily routine. You need to know if you stayed on track. I want to ask myself everyday these two questions: Were my actions today effective in moving me closer to my goals? What do I need to adjust for tomorrow?

Every day counts. It is too easy to be distracted and become disconnected from your “why”. Living purposefully requires daily attention, but it is a discipline that pays big rewards. How are you staying connected to your goals and dreams?

What Questions Should You Be Asking Yourself Today?

It was Socrates that said, “An unexamined life is not worth living”. I am reading John Maxwell’s newest book, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions, and in the second chapter, John reveals the questions he asks himself every day. He then challenges the reader to make their own list. I recently took that challenge.

Questions are an important tool in examining yourself. I did not think it would be very difficult, but quickly realized how empowering this exercise was.

Here are the six questions I decided I should be asking myself every day:

1. Am I helping others? This is a question of purpose. As a coach, my aspiration is to help others become successful in their lives. Every day I need to evaluate what I have done to achieve this objective. I should define the value I have contributed. This question keeps me aligned with my purpose.

2. Am I guided by my heart? This is a question of motive. Motives matter. I find it interesting that John Maxwell points out that motives are different than values. You can have good values and still be affected by the wrong motive. This question helps me be guided by positive motives.

3. Am I being authentic? This is a question of character. I need to be who I am. My actions need to reflect who I am and who I want to be. If you want to do more, you have to be more. This question aligns my actions with my values.

4. Am I working in my strength zone? This is a question of effectiveness. If I spend too much time out of my strength zone, then the best I can be is average. Doing what I am best at, allows me to excel. Spending time in my strength zone is what can differentiate me. This question allows me to be strategic.

5. Am I taking care of today? This is a question of priorities. I follow a process to make sure my actions are important. I invest time in my faith, my family, my health, my work, and doing what is required of me. It is a matter of organizing my day with the right priorities. This question helps me keep perspective.

6. Am I growing as a person? This is a question of success. Investing in myself is an investment that has everlasting value. I can only succeed to the level of my awareness, my belief in myself, and my competency. I invest in myself daily, to grow as a person, and to grow my success daily. This question challenges me.

These are the six questions I defined when I took the challenge. I found this to be a very enlightening exercise. It gets to the very core of who you are, and who you want to become.

Are you ready for the challenge? What questions would you define for yourself? What questions will help you examine your life, and live to your fullest?