Make Time to Think

Highly successful people are skilled at turning ideas into actions. They are not burdened with dreams that they fail to pursue. It is not just the actions that make them successful. Success comes from their thoughts and ideas.

During your busy day, how much time do you set aside for thinking? I would suggest that for most of us, it is not enough. We are too busy with the actions. We are too busy working to get things done.

And when we do get a new idea, we seldom take the time to explore it deeply. We either add it to our to-do list, or we discard it without any further thought.

How can we increase the value of our ideas? We need time to think. Daily.

There are times when I find myself overwhelmed with possibilities. Frustrated because I cannot find time to implement all the ideas I have captured. When that happens, I recognize that I have not given myself enough time to think. Ideas need to be considered, evaluated, challenged, tested, and explored. If you give an idea the proper time to marinate, implementation becomes infinitely easier, quicker, and more effective.

The proper amount of time can be difficult to measure. But with practice, you become more skilled in this area. If you sit too long on an idea, it can become stale. You lose the passion and the energy that first arrived with the idea. Learning how to think about an idea is a skill.

If you are not taking time to think about your ideas daily, I suggest you set aside some time to think. Schedule it. Try it for 30 days. I believe you will find it will increase your effectiveness, and success.

 

The Top 3 Reasons People Invest in Themselves

I have often wondered why some people are continuously investing in themselves, and others invest nothing. There are three main reasons I have discovered that lead to a person being comfortable investing in themselves. They are:

1) Humility – They have an attitude of humility. They never believe they know it all. They are willing to listen and be open to new information.

2) Expectations – They have an expectation of a positive result. They have experienced the link between learning and success, and they are wanting to achieve a goal that requires learning something new.

3) Enjoyment – Some people are good learners. They have practiced a lifetime of learning. They are very successful learners. Some of their positive self esteem is based on their ability to learn.

There are other reasons also, but they don’t seem to have the longevity factor that these three have. Some people invest in themselves based on trying to achieve other people’s expectations. Seldom is that situation highly effective.

Are you a learner? What drives you to invest the time, energy, and money required to learn more?

Protect Your Goal

A friend of mine explained to me the importance of protecting my goal. It took a few minutes of explanation to grasp the full effect of what he had said. But it has changed my daily outlook.

Most people don’t reach goals in their life because they let them die. My friend suggested that once your goal is crystal clear, you can reach it. But along the way, you must protect it. Here are three required strategies when you are considering your big life goals:

1) Let tomorrow’s goal inspire today’s action. If you are to reach your goal, let your inspiration come from the clear vision you have for success. Take daily actions based on the steps needed to reach your goal. Keep the goal clear in your mind every day.

2) Don’t let distractions blur your goal. There will always be distractions. If distractions make you question or change your goal, then they are negatively impacting your success. If you let distractions fill your day, then your goal will become blurry. Over time your vision for tomorrow will lose clarity.

3) Continuously adjust, but don’t divert. You will encounter failures, losses, mistakes, and obstacles. It is unavoidable. All of these are the cost of success. If you let them stop you, you have failed. But if you keep learning, adjusting, and moving towards your goal, you cannot fail.

If you are going to achieve big goals in your life, you need to clearly define them, and then protect them every day.

3 Steps to Powerful Empowerment

A strong leader empowers their people. An empowered team will always out perform a team that is led by intimidation. But empowerment is both an art and a science. It is usually a mixture of intuition and fact that guides us to begin empowering others. It is also a skill that you should never stop developing.

Here are three key reminders on empowerment:

1. Recognize you can’t empower everyone. This is usually a mistake of an inexperienced leader. Many have a desire to become an empowering leader, and immediately want to empower everyone on the team. It does not work. Not everyone is ready, able, or deserving to be empowered.

2. Choose people to empower carefully. If you want to empower someone, their success becomes your success. Invest in people that have the knowledge, skill, and desire to be empowered. If someone only possesses two of these three traits, they will be lacking in their success.

3. Invest your time and energy in their success. This is the most critical step. Many times we empower, but fail to follow through. Consider the first time you empowered your son or daughter to drive the family car. How did you know they were ready? How did you train them? How did you help them and transition them to be a successful driver? I am sure you did not just throw them the keys, say “here you go”, and walk away. When you empower anyone, you must take the time to verify they are ready, prepared, trained, and have a proper transition plan before they are on their own.

The rewards for empowering others can be great. Every empowering relationship should result in a win for both parties. You cannot maximize your leadership without it. As James B Stockdale has said, “Great leaders gain authority by giving it away. “