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Tag: Success
Goal Setting & The 80/20 Principle — 18 Ways To Apply This Principle And Change Your Life
Strangely, this week, I found myself explaining the 80/20 principle to everyone I know. Though this principle is well-known by leaders, it is rarely applied. Leaders around the globe get flooded with information, sometimes more than they can handle. However, they have to make swift decisions and keep their most important objectives in mind.
To extract value and positivity in every situation, to improve our daily life, our institutions, our efficiency, our processes, our achievements, it is detrimental to understand the 80/20 Principle.
Wondering how to generate goals and focus on the most important ones using the 80/20 Principle?
What Is The 80/20 Principle?
The 80/20 Principle is actually known as the Principle of Imbalance, the Principle of Least Effort or the Pareto Law, uncovered in 1897 by Vilfredo Pareto, an italian economist. In the 19th century, in England, Pareto noticed that 80% of the wealth and income was accumulated by only 20% of the population.
Furthermore, Pareto remarked that the wealth was not evenly distributed and that not only wealth was distributed in this manner. The Pareto Principle was consistently reproducible in different countries, in different times and with different sets of data.
The Pareto Principle :
- has been justified by Professor Zipf who demonstrated that 70% of marriages happened to people living 30% within each other.
- has been used by Joseph Moses Juran during the industrial revolution, in Japan, in order to improve the quantity, the reliability and the value of customer goods.
- is illustrated in every cause to effect relationship. For example,
- 20% of employees or customers are responsible for 80% of the company profits.
- 20% of criminals commit 80% of the crimes.
- 20% of your clothes in your closet will be worn 80% of the time.
- 80% of our achievements happen in 20% of our time.
According to Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle The secret of achieving more with less, the principle either requires 80/20 Analysis or 80/20 Thinking:
- 80/20 Analysis: Before taking action, Prior analysis of the non linear relationship between cause and effort. This analysis is time-consuming but more detailed.
- 80/20 Thinking: Before taking action, intuitively identify what is most important, then verify the usefulness of the 80/20 principle in the given situation. This is faster.
Why It Will Change Your Life
Generally, the 80/20 is used to prioritize, to set goals, to achieve more in less time and with less effort. It can be applied in business, in life, in any social grouping and in various cultures. For instance, in business, it helps you identify the areas where you lose time, money and where it is possible to cut your losses.
To exploit its full potential, the 80/20 principle exerts us to:
- Spot the most important and ignore the massive unimportant.
- Understand that every action doesn’t lead to the same outcome or even lead to one.
- Use and work on strengths rather than weaknesses.
- Seek shortcuts instead of taking long detours.
- Gain more control over our lives and thoughts, our work and career selection.
- Relax, work less and “target a limited number of very valuable goals”.
- Transform your work habits.
- Target a number of valuable goals.
- Develop a healthy business strategy.
- It is always possible to improve your skills.
- Multiply what is effective.
- Apply it in business to reduce costs and to generate more revenue.
Putting The Principle Into Practice To Set Tangible Goals
The 80/20 is for those who want more of their life, for the ambitious, for the goal-oriented and for the self-disciplined. Being ambitious is not synonymous to bein overworked, busy, or sacrificing yourself. To harness the 80/20 Principle, to make your dreams more feasible and to grow exponentially in any field:
- Discover what you are more enthusiastic about in life.
- Avoid investing the same amount of energy in everything that you pursue. Be strategic and identify the best 20% and invest 80% of your effort.
- Most people believe that goals are wishes, mere desires that they don’t believe they can achieve. Get clarity and be specific on what you want. There is no unrealistic goals.
- Make your goals big. The bigger the goal, the bigger the impact on your life, the higher the motivation and the longer you can maintain the vision.
- Make sure that these goals are self-imposed.
- Keep your goals simple. Simple is rare but simple is effective. Choose simplicity first. For example, identify the simplest and most standardized product, nurture the simplest 20%, make it high quality and eliminate the rest. In addition, simple businesses are better than complex ones because they deliver better value and perform better.
- Find ways to make your goals achievements fun. Avoid spending time on easy tasks and tune out distractions. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it best: “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least”.
- Avoid focusing on the negative and waiting for a positive outcome. It is necessary to let go of the customers, employees, products and processes that don’t bring profits
- Know your values and purpose. Then, align your goals with your values in order to feel more fulfilled.
- Analyze the reasons and the costs of these goals beforehand. Applying the 80/20 Analysis will indicate whether or not you would pursue them.
- Write down your goals for various parts of your life (career, work processes, leadership styles, lifestyle, health) and accomplish the most important goal. These goals must have value. Writing down goals allows you to solidify them subconsciously and to get everything into place.
- Write down what you really want and write it down as if you are writing it from the future, having already achieved your goal.
- Work on this one goal all the time. 20 Percent of your activities will result in 80 percent of our results. It is a known fact that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in a basket. Instead, choose the basket to put all your eggs into.
- Review these goals on a daily to keep your commitment to yourself.
- Divide your goals into smaller steps to make your plan more coherent and easier to achieve.
- Identify the obstacles, the knowledge needed, the relationships that you have to build to achieve your goals.
- Measure your progress with parameters like money, time, energy, emotional investment. You can even create a deadline. If you miss a deadline, create another one.
- Share your goals with those that will implement it.
Last Words Of Advice!
Don’t beat yourself or your team up for not realizing all your goals. Have you used the 80/20 principle and what have you noticed? What is one of the goal that you want to accomplish?
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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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
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The Leader Planner13,95€
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The Leader Planner13,95€
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Quote Of The Week #119
Unf*** Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life By Gary John Bishop
Self talk is everything. Matter of fact, it has been proven that negative self talk has tremendous impact on your health and your level of success.
Indeed, we can determine our emotions and actions by steering our thoughts. We can then control out thoughts by monitoring our self talk and the language we use. We can finally use strong and assertive language when speaking to and about ourselves.
There are several principles to change your mindset, to unf*** yourself and to achieve true success.
1. Your life won’t change until you make it
You must understand that you:
- Have the life that you are willing to put up with.
- Are not defined by your circumstances but only how you respond to them.
- Even if you have no control over life events, you have full control of how you respond to it.
So, it is imperative that you stop playing the victim, stop blaming others, stop blaming luck, your childhood and other external influences for your circumstances.
You must also find out what you are willing or unwilling to pursue and put up with.
2. You will succeed at whatever you set your mind to
The reality is that you are already winning at the life you have.
Your failures and hurts are hidden victories that are pushing towards your subconscious goals in whatever domain you are working in.
You will find out sooner or later that you are really good at what you believe, at realizing your assumptions about yourself.
Therefore, once you understand that principle, you can use that aspect of our mind to go after positive goals.
3. It’s all a matter of perspective
Negative experiences have a tendency to spread like wildfire. It seeps through our everyday life and turn small problems into bigger ones.
The reality is everybody has problems but your problem is not always as big as it seems. To put things into perspective:
- Don’t allow your struggles to overlap with different aspects of your life.
- Take several steps back until you have a clear logical view of your problems.
- Face your past and future. You have probably faced these same problems in the past or worse and have overcome them. Looking back at your past, you will realize how ridiculous some problems now seem.
- Believe that the future has great things in store for you.
- Solve problems one by one.
4. You must take risks to be successful
We are obsessed with a need for safety and for certainty. Subsequently, we have stopped taking risks.
At some point in your life, you were taking risks.
Those risks have now become an inherent part of your routine. The moment you stop taking risks is the moment your life becomes flat and unsuccessful.
To be successful, you have to be willing to take risks, to face uncertainty, to look stupid and to be judged.
5. You are not your feelings
What you think and what you do are two different things and won’t necessarily align.
Most successful people and overachievers have understood that principle.
They feel the negative feelings but focus and act independently from their thoughts.
You don’t have to feel like it to act like it. By acting or by fully immersing yourself in activities, you reduce the amount of negative thoughts that you experience.
6. Success is waiting outside of your comfort zone
Some of your biggest achievements happened when you stepped out your comfort zone.
The more you remove yourself from your comfort zone, the more you will feel a sense of accomplishments when you succeed.
7. You have to be relentless
To get what you want, you have to be relentless, avoid distractions and disagree with negative thoughts.
You also have to start focusing on the problems in front of you, one obstacle at a time.
You don’t give up, you don’t quit, you don’t change your plans.
8. Your expectations won’t always be met
Remember that you have the freedom to choose.
Life and opportunities will never fully meet your expectations.
That’s why you have to learn to expect nothing and accept everything.
Review
Unf*** Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop, is designed for people who feel stuck in life, who lack introspection and who need to build themselves up from the inside out.
Unf*** Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life teaches you how to talk to yourself, to find your true potential, to stop self sabotage and being offended.
Gary John Bishop repurposed the ancient principles of stoicism and shares tips on how to master your mind in order to be successful.
He also provides you with great words of affirmation and personal assertions. So, check it out!
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
The more you tell yourself how hard something is, the harder it will actually seem.
It’s entirely within our power to determine how we think about and talk about our problems. They can be a nuisance or a stepping stone. They can hold us down or lift us up.
everything is solve-able, and if you can’t see a solution, it only means you haven’t worked it out yet.
Success is never certain. It never comes without risk.
Ratings 3.5/5
Author
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The Leader Planner13,95€
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Gary John Bishop
Gary John Bishop is the New York Times best selling author of Unfuk Yourself & of Stop Doing That Sht.
Quote Of The Week #118
The Successful Introvert By Wendy Gelberg
Many introverts evolve in society feeling like something is wrong with them, like they don’t belong or out of sync with society.
That is because we see people on TV acting out their emotions and interacting with other people.
Introverts Characteristics
Introverts live inwardly and are often engaged in internal activities.
They are uncomfortable in social situations. they find social situations to be draining and enjoy long periods of solitude, which makes it challenging for them to advance in the workplace.
Introverts are good listeners and process information before they speak.
Some of the adjectives that frequently come up in describing introverts are quiet, serious, calm, reserved, detached, restrained, and private. - Wendy Gelberg in The Successful Introvert Click To TweetFurthermore, introverts can be seen as “fair, thoughtful, intelligent, competent, diligent, and trustworthy”.
How To Manage Your Introversion?
Introverts must understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Introverts must also discipline their active minds. They tend to make assumptions and create stories in their mind that hold them back and are not always true. Instead, they must pick stories that propel them in life.
Introverts must learn how to protect their energy and take breaks when they need to in order to rejuvenate and be more alert at work.
There are several additional strategies to manage your introversion in order to achieve success:
- Focus outward.
- Keep your eyes on the prize.
- Practice and fake it until you make it.
- Feel fear and go towards it anyways.
- Be unafraid of rejection.
- Embrace solitude. Protect their space and energy.
The Skills Every Introverts Need To Succeed
Introverts need to learn other extroverted skills to make them more effective in the workplace and to get out their comfort zone.
1. Networking
Networking is challenging for introverts but is necessary and inevitable.
For introverts, networking seems self-serving and distasteful.
To be able to network and connect better with people, it helps to listen to people’s needs, to ask them for advice and to understand that every interaction can pay off in the long run.
2. Communicating Consciously
Because introverts withdraw in their own world, must:
- Pay attention to their own thoughts.
- Be careful when and how to communicate with others so that the latter don’t make negative assumptions about them.
- Stay detached from their work enough to be able to socialize.
3. Promoting Themselves
Self-promotion makes introverts very uncomfortable.
However, your work will not speak for itself.
You have to learn to promote your own work and competencies.
Review
Most books about career development and success are generally geared towards extroverts, which can get discouraging for introverts.
In The Successful Introvert, Wendy Gelberg gives hints on on how, when and where to use your introversion. She shows that there is strength in introversion, that there are places and moments where your introversion is valuable.
The Successful Introvert by Wendy Gelberg is eye-opening. I recommend this book for shy and introverted leaders (in progress) who want to gain self-awareness, optimize their leadership and develop their career.
Some of us are not leaders yet and wish to become leaders. The thing is our introversion is often times what stops us from getting what we really want in life.
In addition, the corporate world does act like introverts are problematic and often singles them out. Introverts have to learn to accept who they truly are and make the best of their personality type.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
The key to success is versatility.
Introversion is not a limiting characteristic, although the accompanying traits may require some special accommodations (also true of extraversion, but that’s a subject
for another book). We make comparisons to people who are highly successful and see the ways in which we fall short. Meanwhile, we don’t get to see the struggles or challenges that they had to deal with, so their success looks falsely uncomplicated.Some of the adjectives that frequently come up in describing introverts are quiet, serious, calm, reserved, detached, restrained, and private. All of these speak to our inner focus, and they can contribute to success when used appropriately.
Ratings 3.5/5
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Quote Of The Week #117
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
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The Leader Planner13,95€
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