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Motivation
50 Motivational Quotes That Will Put Your Motivation on Overdrive
May 14th
Let’s face it – no matter how excited you are about a new project or priority in your life, there will always be days when your motivation lags. Days when – despite all the progress you’ve made in the past – it just sounds easier to sit on the couch playing video games than to buckle down and crank out the work needed to meet your goals.
In order to be successful, you must be able to motivate yourself past these humps. So whenever you feel your drive and determination lagging, turn to motivational quotes from famous authors to provide the extra spark of passion needed to keep you on track.
The following are some of my favorites, divided up into a few different categories. I hope you find them useful when it comes to sustaining your own motivation through difficult projects!
Motivational Quotes for Work
Great businesses aren’t born overnight. Instead, they require consistent, committed effort to succeed – which means that you’ve got to find a way to maintain your passion over the long-run. Whenever you encounter doubts creeping into your mind, read through the following motivational quotes for work and reference the categories that are appropriate to your unique needs:
Goal Setting
Whether you’re still in the planning phases of your business or whether you’re plotting a plan of attack to bring about your long-range vision, setting good goals is a critical part of succeeding in business. Check out the following quotes for extra inspiration on how to turn your business dreams into reality:
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.”–Benjamin Mays
“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own.”–Mark Victor Hansen
“Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.”–William J. Bennett - The Book of Virtues
“The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and actualizer… He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.”–Robert L. Schwartz
Excellence in Work
Once you’ve got your goals together, you’ll need to put in 110% of your effort in order to transform these visions into reality. To increase your motivation to work at a consistently high level, take a look at the following words of wisdom:
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”–Aristotle
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”–Charles R. Swindoll
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal — a commitment to excellence — that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”–Mario Andretti
“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.”–Pearl Buck
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”–Vince Lombardi
Determination and Persistence
Since every business or other endeavor is bound to hit some rough patches, it’s often a person’s level of determination and patience that brings about either success or failure. Read through any of the following motivational quotes for work related to determination whenever you need an extra boost of encouragement:
“Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses… on your powers, instead of your problems.”–Paul J. Meyer
“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”--Hal Borland
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”–Calvin Coolidge
“An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.”–Thomas Fuller
Leadership
Leadership is an important quality for businesspeople to possess, whether you use it to run your own company or simply to motivate others to follow your unique way of thinking. To boost your skills in this area, take your cues from the following renowned leaders and their most famous sayings:
“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born — that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.” –Warren G. Bennis
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”–John Kenneth Galbraith
“Leadership is not magnetic personality — that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people’ — that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”–Peter F. Drucker
“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.”–John Buchan
“High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.”--George Orwell
Success
Think of success as a holistic process – one which results from the combination of goal-setting, excellence, patience, determination and leadership you prioritize throughout your business career. The following quotes from famously successful business people reflect this reality, providing an excellent source of motivation for whenever you feel your spirits lagging:
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”–Stephen Covey
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”–Norman Vincent Peale
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”–Winston Churchill
“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.”–John Maxwell
“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”-- Thomas J. Watson
“The great successful men of the world have used their imagination. They think ahead and create their mental picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building – steadily building.”–Robert Collier
“It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.”–Arnold Toynbee
Motivational Sports Quotes for Athletes
You don’t need to be a Michael Jordan-caliber athlete to draw inspiration from the following quotes. Even if you’re just a recreational player or someone who’s using sports as a means to get back in shape after long periods of inactivity, the following motivational sports quotes for athletes should provide the extra encouragement needed for you to stick to your fitness goals:
“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”–Michael Jordan
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”–Lance Armstrong
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”–Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I know what I have to do, and I’m going to do whatever it takes. If I do it, I’ll come out a winner, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else does.”--Florence Griffith Joyner
“Every time you stay out late; every time you sleep in; every time you miss a workout; every time you don’t give 100% – You make it that much easier for me to beat you.”--Unknown
“If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don’t nurse your bruises. Get up and light-heartedly, courageously, good temperedly get ready for the next encounter. This is the only way to take life – this is also ‘playing’ the game!”–Emily Post
“We must train from the inside out. Using our strengths to attack and nullify any weaknesses. It’s not about denying a weakness may exist but about denying its right to persist.”--Vince McConnell
Motivational Quotes for Students
Education matters, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to achieve! Committing yourself to pursuing knowledge in a single area is a tremendous endeavor – one that often seems overwhelming given the depth and breadth of information that’s available today.
So if you want to better yourself through education, keep the following motivational quotes for students in mind. Hopefully, you’ll find them inspiring when the thought of cracking open yet another textbook sounds as arduous as writing such a tome of your own!
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”–George Washington Carver
“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.”–William Arthur Ward
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”– Aristotle
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”–Albert Schweitzer
“Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.”–Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”–Chinese Proverb
“Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.”–William Arthur Ward
“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.”–Helen Exley
“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.”–Chinese Proverb
Famous Motivational Quotes
Finally, whatever your goals are in life, you can’t go wrong by taking the advice of the following famous motivational quotes:
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”–Norman Vincent Peale
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”–Steve Jobs
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”–Maria Robinson
“Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity.”–Albert Einstein
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”–Lyndon Johnson
“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”–Thomas Edison
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”–Wayne Gretzky
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”–Winston Churchill
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson
To use these motivational quotes effectively, find the one that speaks to you. Although all of the phrases listed above can be considered “motivational,” only you can decide which one resonates with you most directly.
Next, take the quote you’ve settled on and copy it onto small index cards or other pieces of paper that can be stored around your home and workspace. If you’re creative, you can create inspiration boards, signs or other decorative displays featuring your favorite motivational quotes – really, though, the most important thing is that your chosen phrase be accessible in a variety of different places. This will make it easy to access and review whenever you feel your motivation slipping away.
Do you have a favorite motivational quote? If so, how do you reference it throughout your day in order to stay motivated? Share your favorite sayings and recommendations for using motivational quotes effectively in the comments section below!
(Photo credit: Bright Flamy Symbol on Black via Shutterstock)
Pawel Reszka is the founder of Affhelper.com. On his blog he talks about ways to make money through content marketing.
6 Types of Motivation Explained
May 11th
What makes people do what they do? Why do some people succeed while others fail? The answer just might be motivation. We know that from an early age motivation prompts us to want to learn and exhibit different types of behavior and stimulates us to accomplish new feats of success. As we grow and mature through the different stages of our lives, we hopefully learn what motivates us and what does not.
What is motivation?
Motivation is generally defined as the force that compels us to action. It drives us to work hard and pushes us to succeed. Motivation influences our behavior and our ability to accomplish goals.
There are many different forms of motivation. Each one influences behavior in its own unique way. No single type of motivation works for everyone. People’s personalities vary and so accordingly does the type of motivation, that is most effective at inspiring their conduct.
Types of Motivation
Incentive
A form of motivation that involves rewards, both monetary and nonmonetary is often called incentive motivation. Many people are driven by the knowledge that they will be rewarded in some manner for achieving a certain target or goal. Bonuses and promotions are good examples of the type of incentives that are used for motivation.
Fear
Fear motivation involves consequences. This type of motivation is often one that is utilized when incentive motivation fails. In a business style of motivation often referred to as the, “carrot and stick,” incentive is the carrot and fear is the stick.
Punishment or negative consequences are a form of fear motivation. This type of motivation is commonly used to motivate students in the education system and also frequently in a professional setting to motivate employees. If we break the rules or fail to achieve the set goal, we are penalized in some way.
Achievement
Achievement motivation is also commonly referred to as the drive for competency. We are driven to achieve goals and tackle new challenges. We desire to improve skills and prove our competency both to others and to ourselves. Generally, this feeling of accomplishment and achievement is intrinsic in nature.
However, in certain circumstances be motivation for achievement may involve external recognition. We often have a desire or need to receive positive feedback from both our peers and our superiors. This may include anything from an award to a simple pat on the back for a job well done.
Growth
The need for self-improvement is truly an internal motivation. A burning desire to increase our knowledge of ourselves and of the outside world can be a very strong form of motivation. We seek to learn and grow as individuals.
Motivation for growth can also be seen in our yearning for change. Many of us are wired by our personality or upbringing to constantly seek a change in either our external or internal environment or knowledge. We view stagnation to be both negative and undesirable.
Power
The motivation of power can either take the form of a desire for autonomy or other desire to control others around us. We want to have choices and control over our own lives. We strive for the ability to direct the manner in which we live now and the way our lives will unfold in the future.
We also often aspire to control others around us. The desire for control is stronger in some people than others. In some cases, the craving for power induces people to harmful, immoral, or illegal behavior. In other situations, the longing for power is merely a desire to affect the behavior of others. We simply want people to do what we want, according to our timetable, and the way we want it done.
Social
Many people are motivated by social factors. This may be a desire to belong and to be accepted by a specific peer group or a desire to relate to the people in our sphere or in the larger world. We have an innate need to feel a connection with others. We also have the need for acceptance and affiliation.
A genuine and passionate desire to contribute and to make a difference in the lives of others can be another form of social motivation. If we have a longing to make a contribution to the world around us, it is generally a sign that we are motivated by social factors.
The real importance of understanding the different types of motivation is in our ability to determine which form of motivation is the most effective for inspiring the desired behavior in either others or ourselves. None of these styles of motivation is inherently good or bad, the positive or negative outcome is truly determined by the way they are used.
(Photo credit: Businessman Placing Motivation via Shutterstock)
Royale Scuderi is a writer, life and business coach who empowers individuals and businesses to achieve higher productivity, growth, business success and work - life balance. She offers wisdom, insight and ideas to help you get the most out of your life at Productive Life Concepts.
Guard Against “It Doesn’t Matter”
May 2nd
I have been reading quite a few books and blogs about writing non-fiction articles recently, putting the styling techniques and grammar tips into practice. I have also been reading more novels to expand my imagination and hopefully, vocabulary, so I might aptly describe what I would like to. I was on a quest to become a more prolific writer.
So as I drafted a few articles for newspapers, I applied the lessons I learnt and set about editing and re-writing my drafts. I was quite pleased with my efforts and satisfied I had done my best. I decided to leave one of the articles overnight and come back to it one last time the next day with a fresh eye before submitting it to the editor.
The next morning, I turned on my computer again and expected to run quickly through the article, smile at myself, and attach it to the email to send off.
However, I was caught by deflated surprise. Suddenly, I found a number of flaws in the logic and argument. There were typos everywhere, and the writing sounded dull. The article didn’t sound too interesting anymore. I was almost on the verge of tears and was tempted to write to my editor and tell her my dog ate the draft.
I said to myself, “It’s just an article and it doesn’t matter if I didn’t get printed this time.”
Julia Cameron warns against this mentality in her book, The Artist’s Way, a book to guide others to discover their creativity.
Many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find, as they near completion, that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. It’s no longer worth the trouble. To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest (“It doesn’t matter”) is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability.
Indeed, it was my way of avoiding the disappointment I felt about my work. I also did not want to spend extra time and effort to further polishing the article. I didn’t want to deal with the perceived obstacle, nor admit that my confidence in the draft is shattered. Suddenly it seemed that the whole world could write better than me.
I found as many excuses as I could:
- There were more proficient writers
- My topic was boring
- Others could write the same topic so it didn’t matter if I submitted my draft or not
- No one would read what I wrote
- I won’t die if I didn’t write
- There was no point in trying to become a writer
Self-doubt blinded my passion for writing. The effort required to reach the goal I set for myself seemed too much for my psyche to bear.
I consoled myself that even if I didn’t reach the goal, it doesn’t matter.
And with that, my enthusiasm and energy slowly dwindled away. I was establishing a defensive wall around my self-doubt.
This is why many of us never write that book, or that guest post, or paint that picture or design that graphic.
We think: it doesn’t matter. But it does – even if only for ourselves…
I finally picked up my weary soul and went about editing the article. It took me another 2 hours, but after I sent it off to the Editor, I felt good about myself, that I had conquered the self-doubt in me.
Next time you find yourself saying “it doesn’t matter” – stop yourself, and focus doubly hard on that exact task you think doesn’t matter. For it does, and each little step you spur yourself on will create all that difference in life.
That article I submitted led to a subsequent invitation to write again, and again…and now I write regularly for that paper.
It does matter.
(Photo credit: Tower on Beach via Shutterstock)
Once an overachieving international executive, Noch Noch was diagnosed with burnt out and stress-related depression in 2010. With her life turned upside down, Noch Noch is now taking a break to regain her physical and mental health, whilst jotting down her reflections on living with depression and the journey to self-awareness on her blog Be Me. Be Natural. She also started a new project on creative therapy at Bearapy. You can follow Noch Noch on Twitter, Facebook or G+
How to Stop Overthinking Everything
Apr 26th
When we’re faced with a crisis, or if we have an important decision to make, many of us fall into the trap of overthinking. You get stuck on a thought wheel that goes over and over again with no break and no insight whatsoever. It’s the kind of thinking that does nothing but perpetuate its own existence.
We get this guilt-induced feeling that if we keep thinking on something long enough (usually constantly), then we’ll eventually come up with the right answer. All we have to do is think long enough, and BOOM! Divine inspiration appears.
How can you stop yourself from overthinking?
Distract yourself
Find an activity, like knitting or working with your hands that requires so much attention that your brain is forced to be distracted from overthinking. Working with you hands is especially good, because it engages your motor skills as well as your thinking process. Your brain simply doesn’t have the resources to split itself into a third activity, that of overthinking.
Other activities are the ones that make you feel curious, proud, amused or challenged. When you’re feeling good and you’re forced to stretch just a “teensy bit” beyond what you’ve done in the past, you’re really get your brain working for you. Or try watching a suspenseful movie. Studies have shown that when someone views something suspenseful, the brain is forced to become stuck in the present because all of your senses are completely engaged. You literally don’t have time to worry about the future because your mind is focused on that’s stimulating you right now.
The STOP technique
A therapist once told me that she gave her patients rubber bands to wear on their wrists. As soon as the thought wheel started, they would snap their wrists with the rubber bands to get them to stop. Immediately.
Other ways to use the STOP technique is to say the word “STOP” out loud, or if you’re out in public and don’t want to cause a scene, imagine a big red STOP sign right in front of you. Anything that immediately brings your attention to what you’re doing at the moment will stop the overthinking wheel from turning.
Pull the trigger
If you’re in a situation where you know you need to act, and want to act, but you’re trapped by fear, take the first step towards doing whatever it is. Even if it’s a baby step.
Constantly wishing, hoping and praying doesn’t give you any momentum, or any relief. It just keeps you stuck in that wheel. But taking the smallest step gets you out of that treadmill that’s going nowhere and whether or not the first step is a misstep really doesn’t matter. It will still set things in motion so that you’ll move yourself out of the feeling of suspended animation that rumination causes. You’ll start to feel like a snowball, gathering momentum as you go.
Avoid overthinking traps
If you’re the type who over obsesses about money, pry yourself away from constantly checking your bank account every day. If one of your coworkers is so negative that she always drags you down, start taking lunch at a nearby restaurant to avoid hanging out with her so much.
The traps are things that cause your subconscious to react without you even realizing that there’s a connection between the two. You feel down around you coworker but you just can’t figure out why.
Sure, it’s good to do some self-examination and try to find the insight that will solve our problem, but at some point, we hit the point of diminishing returns. We’re wasting valuable time doing something that gives us nothing in return but more misery and anxiety.
(Photo credit: Portrait of Young Man With Books on His Head via Shutterstock)
Laura Finger is a freelance writer, who blogs about the process of being a creative entrepreneur. She can be reached on Twitter at @rihannsu, or her blog at Boatjumpers.com. When not writing, she's hard at work trying to escape back home to Texas.
Hack Your Mind to Get Motivated
Apr 10th
Let’s face it. Most creative people and knowledge workers have to perform in their jobs and personal lives at a moment’s notice. With constant pressure coming at us to produce more, better, and faster, it can be a hard to get motivated through all of the work that we have to do on a daily basis.
SEE ALSO: How to Stay Motivated
If you find yourself “slipping through the cracks” and becoming unmotivated day-in and day-out, use mind hacks to get motivated.
Insert a daily review into your life
Something that I have been playing with for a couple weeks now is having a “mini review” every morning, thanks to Peter Bregman and his 18 Minutes framework. Peter suggests before we do anything else in our day to take 5 minutes to decide how our day will be “highly successful”. This consists of me opening nothing else but my task management suite and looking over my available actions for the day and marking what I want to get done.
This small but important time slot in the beginning of the day can help me get motivated by giving me a purpose. Without a purpose for my day I will surely slip into an unmotivated state.
Taking small breaks and refocusing
Another awesome way to get motivated is to make sure that you are giving yourself much needed breaks throughout the day. These don’t have to be the “normal” two, 15 minute breaks with a lunch hour in between. Oh, no. We are talking about small breaks through out the day that can last a few to five minutes.
The idea is that rather than forcing ourselves to work, that we stop every so often to give ourselves the permission to read our favorite blogs, update our twitter status, etc. so we can push our concentration back to our work. This idea of giving ourselves small breaks throughout the day allows us not to build resentments against our work, and can keep us motivated and focused for longer periods of time.
Go to a higher altitude
We talked about how you can insert a daily mini review into your life to find you motivation for the day, but what about motivation for your life? This is where David Allen’s altitudes come into play.
David Allen (you know, the GTD Guy?) talks about 6 Horizons of Focus. Basically, these are different levels that you can look at your life and they range from “pickup milk on the way home” to “be the father that you always wanted”. What you want to do is at least monthly (if not weekly) take a look at your higher Horizons of Focus. These would be your 30 to 50k feet Horizons. This is the range between where you are going for the next 12 to 18 months to the reason that you are on this planet.
It’s a good practice to sit down and get creative with these horizons as a way to get motivated to do your life’s work. The mini daily review is great for daily grind and trench work, but if you don’t step back and go to a higher level, you will spend your life living in the trenches where the chances of becoming unmotivated are much higher. Give your life meaning by looking at the big picture instead.
Become mindful
So, reviewing and breaking throughout your day are good ways to get motivated, but one of the best ways is to make sure that you are staying mindful. Being mindful is the key to doing the work that you are supposed to be doing.
Like I mentioned before, it can be really hard to “come out of the front-lines” or work. When you finally do you may look at what you are doing and think to yourself, “what’s the point of this?” Chances are if you are thinking that you aren’t being mindful of your work and life.
Becoming mindful not only helps you find the work that you should be doing but it helps you get motivated to do that work. Once you find the things in your life that need to stay and the things that you can let go of through mindfulness, having motivation will be the last thing you need to worry about. As your clarity of mind increases, your motivation for work will happen naturally.
I wish I could tell you the key to getting motivated is to quite whining, and just do your work. But, sometimes we have to use “tricks” to get motivated. Practice the above recommendations and you shouldn’t have too much trouble with staying motivated through your day and life.
(Photo credit: Motivation via Shutterstock)
Want Life to Be Easy? Get a System!
Mar 1st
Constantly planning and analyzing and evaluating is hand work. Having to figure it all out on the fly takes a lot of effort, and it chews up our precious supply of persistence and focus. Earlier articles have discussed the benefits of having a routine, and that’s good. I want to build on that and suggest having a system, especially one that is automated or outsourced…and can function without you.
A system is particularly important when you have lots of details to keep track of that are necessary to have and to eventually act on, but aren’t immediately necessary to do your work. In fact, they are usually in the way.
When you have to plan a marketing campaign and create a PowerPoint for a client, you want to be able to focus and not worry about follow-up emails to prospects. Yet you also want to know that all that will be handled when the time is right.
Enter: The System.
Let’s take the example of following up with prospective clients. Obviously, this is important, otherwise you never get new clients and you end up losing your business, taking a day job, and subsisting on rice and Ramen. Yuck.
But what do you do when you get a new lead? If you’re like many people (including yours truly up until a few months ago), you jotted it down in to-do lists or on an Excel spreadsheet or sticky notes and kicked it around until you closed the deal — if you ever did. Sadly, lots of leads got dropped due to poor tracking and follow through. In the same vein, each lead was treated as a special case, which required lots of thought and made it hard to compare the process and results across leads.
(Now I know why my hair is falling out.)
That’s insanely stressful, having to make up a new process all the time. At the very least, you should have a simple, reliable System, so that when you get a lead you can put the information into The System (even if it’s simply a well-maintained collection of manila folders). That way you have a plan so that, for example, on day 10 you send an email and day 20 you call and day 30 you send them a brochure. Now you can just DO, you don’t have to think (which takes work — and expends will and focus). Also, every so often you can review and analyze your System and the metrics it generates to look for opportunities for improvement.
Now Add a Zero…
A reliable manual system is a good thing to have. A person you can ask to do stuff for you is great as well, but when you introduce automation life gets fast and easy…and we like fast and easy, right?
I just got a shiny new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) service a little while ago. Now I have a single place to store prospect info. It calculates the value of my pipeline and projects cash flow, it reminds me to follow up on regular intervals, and it files correspondence according to the prospect’s email address. With a modest investment in set-up time, the thing now runs itself. Better yet, it tells me what to do so I can just do more with less work and pain…and that’s also what we all want, right?
And each time you systematize a business process, the effect is more than just cumulative — it’s multiplicative. If the systems actually integrate seamlessly (when your CRM, autoresponder, and billing system play nice with each other), then we’re talking exponential results for your efforts.
Okay, What Now?
So, look at your life and your work. Where is there lots of tasks (especially routine and mundane ones), data to be stored for later use, and steps to complete in a long drawn-out process? That’s where you can create a system.
You know, there’s probably an app for that…
(Photo credit: Close Up of Line of Dominoes via Shutterstock)
Why Joy Can Be Your Enemy
Feb 9th
In previous posts, I discussed why the so-called “negative” emotions of anger, shame, sadness, and fear are actually good friends and guides. In this post, I am going to close the loop on this project by outlining why joy, a “positive” emotion, can be your enemy.
How can this be? How can joy cause trouble? What’s wrong with feeling good?
Well, nothing, of course. Except that the pursuit of joy (and the fear of losing joy) can distract us from creating long-term happiness and fulfillment. And it can even bring about circumstances that cause tremendous suffering.
But how does this happen?
In one of two ways: Attachment and Distraction.
How is attachment a problem?
Attachment can be a problem when it clouds your judgment, preventing you from making the right choices (for you) in the hopes of getting or keeping something that you think will bring you joy.
I’m sure you’ve known people who have quit their jobs and moved away from their friends and families to a new city in order to stay together with a boyfriend/girlfriend, only to find themselves dumped and far from home when what they really needed to do is accept that other person is moving away and get on with life. Attachment to that other person, wanting to get or keep the Joy that comes from being with the other person, brought that on. Similarly, people can get attached to ideas, places and objects, and let this attachment prevent them from making wise decisions.
We can also get attached to the results of our actions and create trouble for ourselves and others. How many times have we told ourselves the following:
“I’ll be happy when I get rich/get married/have kids/get a promotion/get a better house…”
Staying so focused on the payoff prevents us from enjoying the journey, and in extreme circumstances it can lead to problems brought on by unethical behavior. Whether it’s fudging taxes, covering up problems at work, lying to your spouse to keep the peace, all of them can bring serious consequences crashing down upon you…simply because you wanted the joy associated with the payoff.
Joy can be a distraction
It can be — and it may be a harmless one, like procrastinating with Facebook or playing video games instead of taking action on something that would bring achievement and fulfillment.
Starting that big project at work can be hard. Same with fixing up your house, training for a 5K or writing a book, but those things can be incredibly rewarding (much more so than playing Angry Birds). But playing Angry Birds can provide the distraction of fun and joy.
Right now that prevents you from ever going down those paths.
Taken to the extreme, distraction becomes addiction. You drink/take drugs/gamble because it feels better than facing some challenge. No one becomes an addict because they honestly want the lifestyle and rewards — they do it because it feels good (initially at least), and it brings joy to have a drink or a hit or another card. If it didn’t feel good — at least in the moment — no one would do it.
But we do…because people find joy in distraction and they can’t tear themselves away from it long enough to take care of themselves.
In closing
Joy can lead to attraction and be a distraction. We get attached to another person or object, or to a certain result, and this can lead to bad decisions. Similarly, we can use momentary Joy to distract us from taking on more difficult challenges that would ultimately prove more fulfilling. Such distractions can prove devastating in the case of addictions. Joy is important, of course — I don’t think we could live without it for long.
But like the other “negative” emotions mentioned above, we need to keep it in its proper perspective.
(Photo credit: Boxing Punching Bag on Red via Shutterstock)
Why Productivity Won’t Make You Happy: Life Lessons From a Dying Man
Feb 1st
I’m a sucker for productivity tips, they give me hope. I think it’s a hangover from school days when each September you would see me equipped with a new set of notebooks and pencils, just dazzled by the promise of a fresh new start on success. Reading productivity blog posts is the virtual version of indulging my office products habit and closely related to my secret guilty pleasure — “Organizing Porn” — but that’s the subject of another post.
More things, more quickly
I am not a pilot, brain-surgeon or rocket scientist. Nor am I planning the invasion of a small country, yet you could be forgiven for thinking so judging by my ruthless obsession with increasing efficiency and my compulsive habit of systematically breaking down everything I do into incremental, sequential (or parallel) steps. I have de-cluttered and re-prioritized, systematized and categorized.
I am doing more things, more quickly than I even thought possible. I have a full-time job, a part-time job, a small business and a private practice. I am communicating with more people, faster and better than before. I am LinkingIn, Facebooking, Tweeting and Blogging. I am OmniFocused and Evernoted, I have mind maps and action plans, to do lists and tickler files, 43 folders and a 5 year plan.
Even as I am dizzied by my own super-human levels of productivity, I’ve started to feel that I am surviving more than thriving. At the gym yesterday, as I dutifully clocked up my treadmill miles, I couldn’t help noticing that a large part of my life now closely resembles that of a plucky little hamster, sprinting gamely on its wheel. Last week, I spent my Thursday afternoon at the bedside of a patient who was dying. I met this man in the last months of his life, when he was suffering from end stage Alzheimer’s disease. He wasn’t the man he once was. Although he could no longer express himself, he communicated so much to me about who he was that truly inspired me.
“Have you eaten?”
When I would visit him in the nursing home at meal-times he didn’t recognize or remember me, yet without fail, as I sat down beside him he would pat my hand and say, “Have you eaten?” and offer me the food from his own plate. When I would get up to leave, he would look with concern out the window, checking on the weather and to see if it was dark, telling me to be careful as I bid him goodbye.
On the last day we were alone together for several hours. The stillness in the room descended like a heavy blanket of snow, pierced only by the sound of the oxygen machine and his breathing. Time slowed down at last and I felt a shift in my perspective and perceptions about what had been so important and urgent before I sat down beside him. I was holding his hand as he took his last breath and his heart beat its last. Accompanying someone to the end of their life is an experience that never fails to humble you but something about this experience has really changed me.
A glorious legacy
On Sunday, I was invited to a gathering of his family and friends. The house was full of people, eating and laughing, celebrating a life well-lived. Looking around, his daughter told me he would have loved this day. I sat down to look at a photo-album, eager to see glimpses of the man he had been. In this portrait of a life, I saw what was dear to him. As I turned the pages, looking at the photos of him playing with a grand-child or laughing at the helm of his boat in the Summer ocean, I saw confirmation of what I had felt intuitively; that this was a man who loved to spend time with his friends and family. A man brimming with generosity, fun, kindness and love. A man who brightened the lives of all those around him. A man who cared for, comforted and cherished those he loved. I remembered that I knew what he had done for a living and yet what struck me most was this. His glorious legacy was who he had been and not what he had done.
Conclusion
What I offer you from this experience is a reminder to stop and smell the roses and in order to do that, you may well need to employ some productivity techniques to clear yourself some space. Order is the antidote to overwhelm and I am certainly not going to be abandoning all the tips and tricks for productivity I know but I may just be adapting them. The real key is, I think, is to remember that productivity is a tool and that the ultimate goal is quality of life.
When you look back at your life, will you agree with current definitions of what is urgent and important?
(Photo credit: life after death via Shutterstock)
Mirabai Galashan MTh. helps people make the most of every day of their lives. She is a hospice chaplain, healer and teacher who works with individuals, couples and groups, offering counseling, coaching and holistic healing. Mirabai has a masters in Spirituality and Health over 20 years' experience as a professional practitioner of complementary therapies. Learn more at http://mirabaigalashan.com.
The Secret to Getting People to Do What You Want
Jan 17th
Wouldn’t you like to have mind control over people? Wouldn’t it be great to have them do what you want?
The idea of getting of a potential dating partner to take notice of you, getting your children to behave, having your boss promote you, getting people to help you succeed in whatever you want that all sounds great doesn’t it.
Well, let me tell you that it is possible to have people do what you want.
I am not talking about any sort of mind control. Back in my Special Forces days, we studied psychological operations. In the military, psych ops (as it is called) is used to influence a target audience’s emotions, motives and reasoning. Now this can do down any number of rabbit trails. What we found worked the best was not any sort or manipulation or trickery. It was basic human psychology.
Today I am going to tell you about what can help you in your life, make you more productive, help the people around you and get the results you are looking for. Are you ready to learn the secret of how to control people’s minds?
People will do what you want when you give them want they want.
Wow, doesn’t seem like much of a secret does it?
The question back to you is, why don’t you practice it? The important thing to remember about the secret is that when you don’t follow it, people will resist you, act against you, do the things you don’t want them to do. A lot of times we get it backwards. If my boss would give me a raise, I will work harder. If my spouse shows me more love, I will show them more love. You have to give them what they want first, then they will follow through with what you want.
Let’s make this even more simple. Instead of what they want, turn that into what they need. People say they want to be rich, they need to feel fulfilled. People say they want sympathy, they need empathy. People say they want power, they need respect. If you supply what someone truly needs, they will do anything you want.
Listening is the key
People would rather talk than listen. You can use that to your advantage and let other people talk and tell you what they want and need. People just like to talk. Freud pointed out that just the act of talking can provide healing. People tend t naturally do this in a supportive environment. By listening intently to what someone is saying you can hear what they want and need and supply it.
Scratch the itch
The key then is to identify what motivates someone and fill the desire. We did the same thing when I was in the Green Berets. One of the Special Forces’ missions is to train indigenous forces. A twelve man A-team would be inserted into country to work with 300 – 400 guerrilla soldiers. Twelve men cannot force 300 – 400 to do anything, especially if they have to live with them. We had to get them to do what we wanted them to by motivating them with their own needs. Only by understanding them, talking to them, and observing them could we know what was “their itch.”
Now here is the key. Once we had what motivated them, we didn’t use it as a bribe. We incorporated it into what we wanted. So by fulfilling their need, they fulfilled ours. They needed a well, we needed the roads improved to move supplies. Well to build a well you need to bring in supplies. We had them improve the roads in order to build the well. You can do the same. You want a discount on a price. The vendor wants to move a floor model. Find out their needs and fill it with one that benefits you.
It is not hard getting someone to do what we want. It is not about manipulation or some sort of military thought control. It is simply listening and observing to find out what they need and filling that need.
(Photo credit: Image of a Hypnotist via Shutterstock)
For 20 years, Michael Martel was a Green Beret in the US Army. He now works with people to put Special Forces like effectiveness into their lives and businesses. Go to Achieve The Green Beret Way and learn about his book Get ER Done: The Green Beret Guide to Productivity and other tools for achieving outstanding results.
Beat the Blahs with The Boredom Manifesto
Jan 16th
Most of the time, you keep up with your schedule. You wake up each day, go through your morning routine and then start working. You start doing your stuff. Piece by piece, task by task.
And most of the time, it’s boring.
Many times it feels far better to just do nothing. Sometimes you feel like relaxing in the backyard but you have a business meeting you really have to attend. So you get up and go.
Other times you feel like watching that game on the couch, but you promised yourself you’re going to run 5km today. So you get up and go.
You don’t enjoy it, but you finish it. You go to that meeting. You do your 5km run. And then the next one. And the next one.
And at some point when you really look back and try to understand how you did all the stuff that you did. You look at how you achieved all that you achieved.
Then you realize that — statistically — the boring periods in your life were far longer and persistent than the joyful, motivating and enthusiastic ones.
It’s true. Just look back and see for yourself. Have you really been all that high for your entire life? Were you enthusiastic all the time? Exhilarated? Pumped up? Adrenalized?
Nope.
But you got out and did your stuff. You somehow managed to cope with the boring moments and fill them with things you wanted to do.
The Beauty And The Boredom
As human beings we are wired to follow pleasure and reject pain. Many daily activities are centered around this pattern. We do what we enjoy and repel or postpone what we don’t. I did it myself for quite a while:
“As of today, I’m gonna do only what I like to do.”
Guess what? After I went like this for a while I wanted to measure my output. Surprise, surprise: turned out that by doing only what I liked, my throughput (in terms of tasks, goals achievement and so on) was lower than expected. As a matter of fact…it was way, way lower.
Did I feel well during that time in which I actually indulged in pleasurable tasks? No doubt about that.
Did I do more? Nope. Absolutely not.
So, that was the moment when I learned how to do the motivation trick. Every time I wasn’t at my best, I started to use some motivational stuff. A quote. A quick and easy exercise. A personal mantra. Or a blog post (I even made a list out of them — and it turned out to be quite a popular list). And for a few years, this motivation trick did the job.
But then something even worse happened.
I realized that by pumping myself up each time with outside stimuli, I was actually lying to myself. I was no better than a dog in a Pavlovian experiment. I was feeding myself sugar bars, trying to replicate the natural and honest exhilaration responses I would sometimes get. A fast and easy sugar rush to the brain and — boom — my task was done.
But as with every sugar rush, there’s a huge downturn. After the sugar has left, you end up feeling miserable again. Which will, in turn, trigger another sugar rush reaction just to get rid of that miserable state again.
Sound familiar? I bet it does, we’ve all done this…
So, there was a moment when I had no option but to accept boredom in my life. To reshape my entire vision about beauty and pleasure.
Because if you really look at it, seldom is beauty built in sudden bursts of exhilaration — in those huge and powerful adrenaline-empowered jumps. More often than not, real beauty is built with small chunks…with small steps…with small (but constantly fulfilled) promises.
The Boredom Manifesto
So that was the moment I came up with what I call The Boredom Manifesto. A few sentences that are making me accept and make use of boredom instead of sugar-coating it using motivation tricks. It’s not motivational, as it doesn’t try to embellish the reality or even to make it look different.
Boredom is boredom. It’s part of life. All of our lives.
So we’d better make use of it instead of rejecting it.
For every tiny task I finish when I really don’t want to, I know there will be a reward somewhere. I don’t need it right now, I just know it will be there when I’ll need it.
For every boring activity I bring to an end, knowing that it’s part of a bigger plan, I’ll have a better picture of my life.
For every pushing through, there will be more muscles.
For every unpleasant, yet necessary stuff I finish now, there will be less striving tomorrow.
I decide to accept and embrace boredom as part of my life, for it’s in its dull, flat and grey moments that all the greatness I’m capable of is built, grey second by grey second, flat minute after flat minute, dull hour after dull hour.
As long as I keep pushing forward.
Embrace the boredom…don’t fight it. It’s in those moments of boredom that you’ll find some of the brilliance you’ve been looking for in your life.
(Photo credit: Bunch of Sad People with Happy Man via Shutterstock)