Jun 11, 2014

How personally effective are you? How do you measure your level of personal effectiveness? How do others rate your personal effectiveness? These are killer questions that you must ask yourself on a regular basis. When answering them, be more objective and less subjective. Focus on ‘hard’ measures like time, sales, percentage, and completion rates. Use soft measures like viewpoint(s), feelings, and perceptions sparingly. Here’s a great framework with 7 keys to help you along your personal effectiveness journey. Key 1: Determination Be determined, finish what you start, finish off anything that is outstanding, and see things through till the end. In other words, always get to the finish line. In addition to this, be decisive. Decisions create momentum and momentum creates determination, and determination creates results. Key 2: Self-confidence Continue to build your self-confidence, develop your technical skills and your interpersonal skills. Study. Complete at least one formal qualification a year and something less formal every three months. Surround yourself with people that you trust and that are good for you and your self-confidence. Always talk positively to yourself, tell yourself you will get there, that you can do it, that you will do it; and remember practice makes perfect. None of us were born geniuses. Key 3: Persistence Keep knocking, keep knocking, and keep knocking. To the most effective people, ‘no’ actually means ‘yes.’ That said, know when to stop knocking. Just remember though that you may be choosing the wrong time to knock. Hard work and persistence - what a powerful combination. Remember never be afraid to ask and keep getting up. Up is good, staying down for too long is bad. Key 4: Managing stress Stay centered, practice mindfulness, exercise, talk, and schedule 'me-time.' Sleep, eat healthy, stay hydrated, and do whatever it takes to keep you performing at your very best. When you feel yourself slipping into negative stress mode, re-read the first sentence of this paragraph. Finally, ramp up your assertive skills. Stand-up and say or write what you believe in, don’t internalise things. You might not get what you ask for, and people will disagree with your view, but that’s cool, it’s good to lose, it’s good to draw and it’s good to win. Don’t be defensive and lose with grace, draw with grace and win with grace. Managing your moods is a must if you want to become more effective. Key 5: Problem-solving skills First up, understand the problem first and then define it. Do some brainstorming and generate possible solutions. Use De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats technique or do what I do when I get stuck, iron the washing, cycle for endless hours, pump weights or mow the lawn. Next up, move to analysing the possible solutions, select the best one and trial it. When appropriate, let the problem go and move one. The final point here is to reduce problems by being proactive and become better at planning, and you will triple your personal effectiveness. Key 6: Creativity Learn to think outside the zone - be different, think different, let curiosity and originality into your soul. You must feed these two traits by putting yourself in creative environments that allow you to think creatively, that allow you to come up with new visions, new ideas, and new solutions. The bottom-line here is that if you want to become more effective, you must also become more creative. So, get you right brain into gear – fast. Key 7: Planning Get great at planning. Plan your life, plan your decade, plan your year, plan your quarter, plan your month, plan your week, plan your day, plan your hour and plan your moment. Use whatever planning device that works for you. Planning brings the planner calmness; planning allows the planner to be assertive; planning enables the planner to achieve more; planning allows the planner to rest, and therefore, increases the planner’s personal effectiveness. So, get your left brain into gear – fast. To conclude today's blog post, focus on the thinking, the behaviour and the actions that each key demands. Remember, you might have to throw away some of your old keys, but do it, don’t be afraid, unshackle yourself from your past. Attach these seven keys to your life’s key ring and the only time you will ever look back will be to appreciate just how far you have travelled on this journey we call life. Until next time, stay safe, stay cool and stay healthy.