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Tag: Success
Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, Self-Discipline By Peter Hollins
Following through is hard but gratifying in the long run…
Some people usually don’t follow through because they self-sabotage, misuse their time and energy by procrastinating, setting impossible goals, managing their time poorly, yielding to temptations and distractions.
Other people have internal roadblocks that impede them from taking action because they are either lazy, lack discipline and willpower, fear judgement, rejection or failure, try to be perfect, are too insecure, lack self-awareness, are unconsciously protecting themselves.
Indeed, people who have interval roadblocks and who fail to follow through tend to set unrealistic expectations for themselves and end up underachieving or underperforming.
Furthermore, they overthink everything and lean towards negative thoughts which paralyzes them. Making a decision becomes difficult because they don’t have clear rules and priorities.
They also worry too much. They ruminate on past, present, future, real, fictitious problems that are most likely out of their control.
Finally, they don’t know themselves well enough to create the best goals and environment for themselves.
The Requirements of Following Through
Following through requires four elements: focus, self-discipline, action and persistence.
With focus, you are able to keep “your head in the game and your eyes on the prize”. You concentrate all your effort and energy onto achieving your goals.
With self-discipline, you are bale to regulate your thoughts, control your focus and to work regardless of your emotions and your circumstances.
With action, you are able to get closer to the finish line, execute the plan and translate your intentions.
With persistence, you will develop resilience and be able to push through until you have achieved success.
How To Start Following Through?
To start following through, you have to take a good look at yourself, build a better relationship with yourself, develop the right mindset and equip yourself with the best tools to succeed.
To develop the mindset, you must believe that:
- You are capable and hard work leads to success.
- The steps that you take are purposeful and fit into a bigger picture.
- Discomfort is necessary to success. Following through will require you to get out of your comfort zone and do things that you have never done before.
- The information and knowledge you acquire increase with the steps that you take. You learn more about yourself on top of learning new skills and life lessons.
- Taking care of your mental health will reinforce your willpower and discipline.
Is Following Through Good For You?
Sometimes, you will have to make the decision to follow through or to give up.
To make the best decisions, you have to create a set of rules that will serve as a guideline, a code of conduct, a task roadmap and a mission statement.
Methods For Following Through
To stay motivated enough to follow through, you must identify the things that motivate you.
Some people want to avoid negative consequences at all cost and will do everything in their power to succeed.
Others are pushed forward by the need and desire to improve their lives.
To stop procrastinating and to follow through:
- Associate your present goals with an activity that provides instant gratification.
- Break down huge goals in small manageable steps.
- Evaluate the risks of inaction.
- Create an environment free from distractions and temptations.
- Avoid multitasking and focus on one single task at a time.
- Group similar tasks together and accomplish them all in one batch.
- Create lists of tasks that don’t add value or that are out of your control in order to discharge your mental load.
- Acquire between 40% and 70% of information.
- Allow yourself to recover mentally from time to time to avoid burnout.
Review
There are many reasons why people stay stagnant in life. In Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline, Peter Hollins breaks down the psychology and the art of following through on your goals.
Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline is recommended for people who struggle to get things done and is full of powerful tools to help you take action and achieve your goals.
Peter Hollins jumpstarts you towards your dreams, shares several tactics to execute whatever you set your mind to and makes some very good points when it comes to the mistakes people make when pursuing their goals.
Following through boils down to extracting lessons from past failures and knowing yourself well enough to create the best environments, rules and roadmaps for you to succeed.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Focus guides your thoughts in figuring out how to follow through and directs your actions toward achieving your vision.
Leisure is an important part of life, but if it’s excessive and takes the place of reasonable productivity, then it becomes a vice.
Follow-through is 100% mental. It takes a cognitive effort to follow through on something, especially when you hit discouraging obstacles.
Stop judging yourself and others for being different. We are all different.
Our productivity is very fragile and requires particular care to flourish. Treat yourself to what helps you thrive if you want to follow through.
Ratings 3.5/5
Author
Quote Of The Week #241
5 Essential Skills For Rewarding Networking
Depending on your communication style, networking can be entertaining or draining…
Some enjoy being the center of attention and others laying low in the back.
Either way, there are a few tips you can use to reap the most rewards of any networking event.
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Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World By Cal Newport
According to Cal Newport, Deep Working is “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.“.
What is Deep Work?
Deep Work means that we must learn to focus intensely on a single task for long periods of time without distractions and without breaking concentration.
Deep Work requires a sense of confidence and a conviction that you will succeed.
Deep Work is at a disadvantage in a society that values social media.
Deep Work is not a trend but it can make you more efficient and transform a boring job into a satisfying one.
Furthermore, Deep Work is rare but is valuable in today’s economy.
Finally, Deep Work ethics in the workplace are rare as well. Most people have embraced distraction because it is more convenient and allows us to avoid planning and concentration.
How to train your brain and build habits for Deep Work
To create real value and to get ahead in this economy, it is imperative to develop an ability to:
- Learn and master hard things quickly.
- Produce at an elite level.
There are several rules to Deep Working and to replacing distraction with focus.
Rule #1: Work Deeply daily
Deep Working is about building habits and rituals that go beyond willpower and that will help you sustain focus.
Personal desires such as eating, sleeping, sex, television and music are the main cause for distractions.
Willpower is not sustainable enough to fight off distractions because your will will eventually be strained.
That is why Deep Work necessitates rearranging your schedule. You can schedule Deep Work by:
- Minimizing shallow obligations from your day to day.
- Dedicating a full day or more to concentrate on a task and to shut out all exterior noises.
- Routinely going deep everyday at the same time and for the same amount of time.
- Fit in Deep Work wherever and whenever you can.
Besides scheduling your Deep Work and to maximize your success, you must also establish how, what, where, when, for how long you want to practice Deep Work.
Rule #2: Embrace boredom
Deep Working requires that you focus on a task and reject all distractions in a world where your brain has been conditioned to research distraction.
Outside of Deep Work sessions, you have to take care of your mind, embrace boredom, learn to meditate, schedule a break from focus to give in to distractions, rewire your brain to resist distractions.
Surprisingly, embracing boredom will help you improve the limits of your concentration abilities.
Rule #3: Quit social media
There are many benefits to social media.
However, Cal Newport states that modern technology is to blame for shallow work and suggests that social media should be intrinsically used as a tool.
He also emphasizes that you must assess your priorities in life and the impact of social media on your life.
To regain control of your time and attention, you can apply the law of the vital few over your network tools then avoid using Internet to entertain yourself.
Rule #4: Drain the shallows
A deep life is a good life. - Cal Newport in Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Click To Tweet
Shallow Work can be damaging to your life.
Shallow Work can be defined as “Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
To identify and remove the shallowness from your life, you must apply the following strategies:
- Schedule your entire day to avoid spending time on autopilot and to fully benefit from Deep Work.
- Determine how mush time you are spending on shallow activities and eliminate them.
- Become hard to reach via your network tools.
Review
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport explains all the strategies you can implement to become more productive and more focused in this economy .
Cal Newport takes most of his analogies from educators because they have to go in depth in their field of choice and provide quality work.
However, this book is written for bosses and leaders who want to go to the essential, be more productive, efficiently organize their day, improve workplace culture and who want to achieve their highest potential.
It is sad to see that meditation, Deep Working and deep thinking have disappeared from and been perverted by the corporate system.
Indeed, corporate culture promotes shallows activities. People are busy as ever but are often distracted by network tools and forced to break from their concentration.
Furthermore, people –if they are not the person in charge–who practice Deep Working are not well perceived in the workplace even though they are high achievers and improve productivity.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport is a good reminder to stay focus and to go to the essential in life.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
A deep life is a good life.
Deep work is at a severe disadvantage in a technopoly because it builds on values like quality, craftsmanship, and mastery that are decidedly old-fashioned and nontechnological.
The deep life, of course, is not for everybody. It requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. […] But if you’re willing to sidestep these comforts and fears, and instead struggle to deploy your mind to its fullest capacity to create things that matter, then you’ll discover, as others have before you, that depth generates a life rich with productivity and meaning.
Ratings 3/5
Author
So Good They Can’t Ignore You By Cal Newport
The culture that we live in encourages people to live their dreams and follow their passions.
We don’t necessarily have a guideline to live the dream, to exercise our passions and to find the career that best suits us.
It seems that to get a fulfilling job or to do great work, following your passion is definitively not the way to go.
Why not?
Because following your passions is difficult, rarely successful and dangerous. Studies have shown that:
- Passions are not determined at birth.
- Most people can have several passions that have nothing to do with choosing the right job. Some people don’t necessarily have a passion to follow.
- Passions for a job takes time to develop. It takes time to build relationships, to become efficient at what you do and see the impact of your work.
- You become passionate when you master a skill.
- You become confused and anxious when you follow passion.
What should you do then?
When going after the career you want, you must measure the importance of growing a set of skills and adopt the craftsman mindset.
Indeed, there are two ways of thinking about work. There’s the craftsman mindset and the passion mindset.
The passion mindset focuses on what the world can offer you. It sets you constantly on high alert, seeking for what you don’t like. It leaves you perpetually in a state of confusion.
The craftsman mindset is useful in building the career that you want, irrespective of what type of work you do.
It focuses on what you produce and what you can offer the world. It leaves you with clarity and a love for what you do.
How to acquire the craftsman mindset?
Great work is a combination of creativity, impact and control. This combination is rare but valuable.
Matter of fact, great jobs are rare and valuable. To find them, you need to build up great skills and in turn offer skills that are rare and valuable.
The craftsman mindset is the best way to acquire skills Capital.
To grow a craftsman mindset, you can follow these 5 steps:
- Decide what Capital Market you belong to.
- Identify the type of Capital you want to pursue.
- Define clear goals for yourself.
- Get out of your comfort zone and stretch your abilities.
- Be patient.
How to gain control using your new found Capital?
Gaining control over what you do is an important part of enjoying what you do and is the hardest part.
Gaining control turns out to be tricky: you cannot ask for more control if you don’t have enough Capital to back it up or you have acquired lots of control that you can no longer evolve in your role.
It serves to have a unifying focus or mission for your career. A mission will focus your energy toward a useful goal and increase your impact on the world. To accomplish your mission, you can take small steps that generate concrete feedback.
Review
So Good They Can’t Ignore You is an extremely practical, logical guide to get the career that you want and to be so “good they can’t ignore you”.
In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport believes that you should not pursue your passions in order to achieve career success.
Instead, you should seek to improve your skills and apply yourself in a particular field. By mastering a skill, you will gain in efficiency and gradually become passionate about the work you do.
According to Cal Newport, people who solely follow their passions end up shifting careers when they realize that their career is not what is cracked up to be.
To get a fulfilling job and the career that you want, he suggests 4 rules or principles that are extracted from many successful people lives and that are difficult to implement.
It was very interesting and somewhat refreshing to hear an unpopular opinion. His principles and opinion are not designed for dreamers.
It is however designed for people at entry-level at their jobs, for analytical people who are geared towards efficient performance and who are career focused.
Even if I’m a practical person, I admittedly don’t see anything wrong with pushing people to follow their passions that might get them out of their comfort zone and into their dream job.
I think that there isn’t one approach to success or else everybody would be doing it. Some people are motivated by having a solid plan, others by an unshakable purpose and others by an exciting passion.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Ratings 3/5
Author
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
25 Self-Improvement Questions Every Leader Should Answer This New Year
The New Years are a time when leaders reflect on their past year, past behavior and past achievements.
Usually, they meditate on their future goals, future actions and their future selves.
Leaders think about self-improvement,
life lessons, tend to shift priorities and renew their mindset.
Below, we have gathered a few questions to help guide leaders through the process.
Wondering whar are the questions that every leader should ponder upon this Year?
1. How would you describe your best and most authentic self?
2. What would you say is your main purpose in life?
3. What are you most grateful for?
4. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
5. What do you want your achievements to be this year?
6. What is your idea of success?
7. Which habits, qualities and leadership skills would you like to acquire by the end of the year?
8. Which projects would you want to create, join or complete?
9. How would you like to spend your free time?
10. Who and what do you value most?
11. Are you willing to step out your comfort zone?
12. Which habits energize you and improve your mindset?
13. What are your overall motivations?
14. What was the best thing that happened last year?
15. What was the most challenging thing that happened last year and what did you learn from it?
16. What would you have done differently?
17. What do you wish to let go of that no longer serves you?
18. What are your emotional triggers and what can you do about them?
19. What and who keep you present?
20. What boundaries will you be setting?
21. Are you making good use of your time?
22. What are your main core values?
23. Are you the best leader you can be?
24. What is your ideal life?
25. What are you most excited for this year?
Last Words Of Advice!
Take it one day at a time…
Honestly answering one question at a time will help you assess where you were and where you are heading this year.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Quote Of the Week #227
Start.: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters By Jon Acuff
In life, we must always take a step back and ask ourselves the following question: “Where am I?“.
Everybody successful person who has accomplished something in life went through the following 5 stages in life: Learning, Editing, Mastering, Harvesting and Guiding.
Most people don’t follow these 5 stages and instead choose the Average Path. Why?
Because the Average Path is comfortable and effortless. People who go down the average path are just existing and don’t make decisions.
How to get away from the Average Path?
To get away from the Average Path, you just need to Start no matter how old you are.
In reality, the way you Start your journey in 100% in your control. You are sure of your Start but you will not know how it will end.
To have a good Start, you must first be realistic about your current situation and your goals in life.
You have to be focused and work hard on your Start.
You must also recover a childlike perception of yourself all while using the tools you have gained as an adult.
Do I Need To Know My Purpose To Start?
You don’t need to figure out your purpose to Start.
You don’t need to determine the end results before taking your first step because doing so puts too much pressure on you.
Furthermore, you will not want to do anything and will not want to fix your life before finding it.
The truth is you don’t need to find your purpose but just do everything with purpose. You can start anything you want without a purpose.
What Happens When I Start?
When you start going after the things you want, fear will show its ugly face.
It will make you question your self-worth and make your journey more torturous.
It will make you think that it’s too late and that you are behind in schedule.
It will tell you that everything needs to be perfect.
You honestly have to find a way to deal with your fears.
You have to live your life without regrets.
The Learning Stage
At this stage, you are in your 20’s.
You are still testing the waters and trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.
The Editing Stage
In your 30’s, you start looking back at your 20’s.
You select what matters most to you and going after what worked for you in the past.
You start focusing on your career and relationships.
To edit your life, value what you have, search for your passions, find out what brings you the most joy and what activities align most with who you are at your core.
You don’t have to wait for outside to live the life you really want to live.
You don’t have to stay places where you grow as a person or where you have no passion for.
The Mastering Stage
In your 40’s, you mastered every thing that is important to you.
You are more self-assured and are certain about where you are going.
To master your life, you have to put in the hours and hone your craft by volunteering, taking up part time jobs and participating in hobbies that bring you closer to your goals.
In mastering your life, you will face many obstacles and challenges.
The Harvesting Stage
In your 50’s, you reap what you have sowed in your 30’s and 40’s.
In this stage, it is wise to:
- Treat people right
- Not get complacent or lazy
- Treat your accomplishments as rewards and not reasons for what you do.
The Guiding Stage
At this stage, your are in your 60’s.
You are retired and enjoying the fruits of your labor.
You start mentoring, helping people on their journey and start giving back to your community.
But once you are in this stage, you have to return to the Learning Stage and start all over again. To guide people, you must ask people questions and listen to their stories.
Then, you can tie your guiding experiences to something you were always interested in.
Review
Start.: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters by Jon Acuff is a funny book with great life lessons.
The principles behind the Start.: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters are very similar to those in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
Jon Acuff‘s examples and introspective comments are hilarious but also liberating. He shares his strengths, his weaknesses and doesn’t take himself too seriously.
I truly recommend this book because it provides comfort and encouragement. In addition, at the end of the book, Jon Acuff shares a practical step by step guide for you to overcome fear and escape average.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
the surprises life gives are always better than the things you think you see coming.
Average is so popular because average is familiar. We all know how to do average. Ninetynine percent of the people on the planet do average. The road is well worn, the decisions are obvious, and the next steps are crystal clear.
Every journey has a first step. Every dream has a first destination.
No matter what fear and doubt tell you, your identity is not at stake with the decisions you make and the actions you take as you learn.
Don’t buy the lie that changing the world has to be a chore or make you miserable. Be brave enough to have fun with whatever you whittle down in your life.
Ratings 4/5
Author
50 Affirmations For Leaders To Welcome The New Year
Happy New Year!
Congratulations, you’ve made it through another year!
To start this new year empowered, we have put together a few affirmations for you to improve your leadership journey.
Wondering how leaders welcome the New Year?
1. I love my life, who I was, who I am and who I’m about to become.
2. I believe in myself.
3. I have the ability to succeed.
4. I am worthy of success.
5. I am resilient and self-sufficient.
6. I have a positive mindset and attitude.
7. I release negative self talk and beliefs.
8. I am enough and I accept myself.
9. I respect myself.
10. I am focused on my goals and my personal success.
11. I do my best every day.
12. I am open to learn.
13. I live in the present and look forward to my future.
14. My past will not dictate my future.
15. I can do anything I set my mind to.
16. I am willing to step out of my comfort zone.
17. I see obstacles as challenges and failures as an opportunity to grow.
18. I have the energy to achieve my goals.
19. I possess the knowledge to achieve my goal.
20. I have the confidence to achieve my goals and to stand by my personal choices.
21. I make good use of my time.
22. I am in full control of my life.
23. I don’t have to justify myself to anyone.
24. I am honest with myself.
25. I trust myself and my abilities.
26. I do not need validation from others.
27. I am willing to face my fears.
28. I am grateful for my life and my achievements.
29. New ideas come to me regularly.
30. Abundance flows freely through me.
31. I make sound decisions.
32. I am at peace in my life.
33. My life is abundant and full of joy.
34. Possibilities are endless and I am limitless.
35. I am unafraid of taking risks.
36. I am able to achieve a work-life balance.
37. I am in control of my thoughts and emotions.
38. I am surrounded by people who encourage me to be my best and true self.
39. I am able to foster true connections with others.
40. I live up to my full potential.
41. I express my true and best self.
42. Everything is going according to plan.
43. I create the life of my dreams.
44. I attract the right people and opportunities.
45. Prosperity and wealth flow to and through me.
46. All my problems have a solution.
47. I am living my best life.
48. There is nothing I am not able to overcome.
49. Each and everyday is an opportunity for improvement.
50. I already possess everything I need for success.
Last Words Of Advice!
Affirmations seems simply but are higly effective.
You just have to pick at least one affirmation to repeat each day in front of the mirror or before you take a step outside.
Everyday, thanks to affirmations, you have the ability to become a better version of yourself.
Today is the day you decide to be gey rid of оld hаbіtѕ аnd take up nеw роѕіtіvе оnеѕ.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
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