For the last three years, a good portion of my earnings have been dependent on concrete results. Each month, I know exactly how productively I worked. The market is slapping you every time you don’t roll your sleeves fairly.
So you have to deserve success.
According to some statistics, private businesses survive in the range of 4-18%. The others go bankrupt. Because of this, most do not have the courage to test themselves on the market.
I must also say that this “sport” is not for everyone. It’s not for those who love “secure” work when they receive the pleasant sound of a monthly inflow message via e-banking on the first day of each month. Whether they were good at business or not.
It doesn’t matter if they feverishly played Super Mario or a Puzzle Bobble game 50% of the time or were worth it – in the end everyone has the same inflow. That’s more or less about “safe” jobs, right? No stress jobs. In the same basket is the one who does not like to interfere with his job and the one that works for him. But well, everything is for people (because not everyone is the same) and everything has its advantages and disadvantages.
The comfort zone was always a line of less resistance and entrepreneurship is a “storm” that is not easy to go through… but if you “survive” then it makes sense. What is the good thing about this “storm” walk? You work on yourself, you work hard – otherwise if you don’t work on it regularly, you don’t exist soon.
Over time, you can feel yourself progressing, but the results are there and you can always quantify everything. Everything is clear and easily measurable.
However, as much as you sometimes think you are good – the best judge (market) tells you exactly and accurately right at the end of the month how good you are.
I decided to leave the comfort zone some 4-5 years ago. I needed a new challenge in a professional way. The transition was not easy. Because the comfort zone gently “lulls the potential” you have. When I recognized it with myself and was sure it was, I made a change. When you already jump into the “other” dimension, you have no choice but to optimize yourself in all fields and be as productive as possible.
I figured I needed to make better use of the time I had available. I have been involved in literature in this field and have been greatly assisted by the character and work of the brilliant Brian Tracy.
I will share with you some techniques that have helped me to achieve better results and can be applied both on a business and personal basis. It was necessary for me to grow further, so I hope it will be useful to someone else.
# 1 WHY DO I ALWAYS DELAY THINGS
Probably each of you can remember the situation of delay to infinity something that is very important to you. Tomorrow, then day after tomorrow, then next week … Instead of going quickly and directly on the main issue. Because that important thing can really affect your life?!
That important thing can be talking to your boss about the better conditions, contacting a vital client, and something else that is very important to you …
Here’s an example of how this should not happen again. Let’s say you have a dynamic next day. With quite a few tasks. It is very important that you make an activity plan for the day before tomorrow. Let’s say you have 5 tasks for tomorrow. Write down each of the tasks and put numbers 1 through 5 next to each item. Number 1 should be the most important and 5 the least important thing.
In the morning, you first go to finish a number 1! You give priority to what is the highest priority. No thinking or procrastination. Because she is by far the most important and long “biting” you. So there is no waiting. Finish the first task!
And you figure out that this item is more important than all the other items together that day (though the rest are not relevant).
Now, imagine yourself repeating this every next day, next week, and next month.
Go straight to your main destination every day without delay !! If you accept it, then it slowly becomes a habit that can push you far, far away in your professional life and in your private life !!
# 2 OVER-USING TECHNOLOGY
Another thing that has a great impact on slowing down the efficiency and management of our time is the overuse of technologies. Everyone already sees this, but as hypnotized we continue to type on these smartphones like crazy. Just keep an eye out for cafes what’s going on. Zombies on all sides.
I have to share the situation from one cafe recently. A young dad and a cute blonde daughter are sitting next to me. The daughter watches the contents of the tablet 3cm away from her eyes. Her dad doesn’t have a problem with that, because she’s calm and doesn’t interfere with surfing on his phone. There is no communication, you guessed it.
A few minutes later, her daughter leaves on a hundred tablets and begins to move around the cafe half-stiff, making some strange movements. Nothing is clear to me. I think what is the diagnosis of jbt, what is this ?! I get up from my chair to see what she was looking at on my tablet, when I see some dinosaurs moving there on the You Tube channel. Then I laughed anyway and it was a little easier for me. A little later, though, I wondered where this was all going.
Some research at MIT University has shown that every time a message, notification, or e-mail arrives, our brain reacts as if it had received something. This increases our curiosity to the maximum and creates the need to immediately check what it is about. How many times has it happened that this is just some stupid information and that it has no effect on your life, and because of that, you got up, quit your important job, stated it and got tired.
I’m currently doing this with some weather forecast application!
I find myself deleting the inbox from a stack of useless emails from time to time to free up space for receiving new emails! Once you click that once, it won’t stalk you all the time. Marketing gurus call it remarketing, if I’m not mistaken.
Probably in the morning, as soon as you wake up, you start checking social networks, and you are not even aware that you have entered into “slow-motion mode” since early morning!
It’s even done before washing, brushing teeth, breakfast … We become slaves to technology, instead of dictating the rhythm! I can’t wait for concrete research to show how much sleep has been reduced by carrying smartphones with us to bed. You give € 1000 for your phone and let him harass you. We have reached the strange level of evolution!
The point is that it interrupts us in performing essential tasks and incredibly reduces our efficiency and speed in anything we do.
According to some studies, it was found that we take the phone around 85 times during the day to check something! ??
A warm recommendation, in this section, is to unsubscribe from all the stupid websites that get you some newsletters, magazines and notifications. Reduce email checking twice a day. In case something is urgent, leave the emergency number at the bottom of the email below your name to save yourself.
Technology YES, but controlled.
# 3 CHOOSE 3 THE BIGGEST TASKS
You probably have a list of the things you would like to achieve. If you don’t, it’s time to make that list. Because if you have a plan for something, you can work to make it happen. If you don’t have one, then you could call it wandering aimlessly.
What tasks should you put on that list? Before making a plan, key areas of life, such as life, should be analyzed:
- career,
- family,
- health,
- hobbies …
Within these areas, write down 10 things that are important to you, and then identify the 3 most important tasks. And just devote yourself to them! They are more important than the rest … And then the focus! It’s like making a good photo. Without good focus there is no good photography.
A miracle can be done if you commit to them in the next year!
If you are talking about a career, you can learn the language you wanted significantly, but you were lazy to finally enroll in that course … You can learn sales skills or how to become a good graphic designer … That is how you designate for each of your key areas.
However, it is not just career that matters. Many neglect health, and this is a prerequisite for your business and your family to function. A Harvard study of 120,000 people found that by adopting 5 lifestyle habits, you greatly increase your quality of life, as well as your life span. For women for 14 and for men for as long as 12 years!
These habits are:
– Do not consume cigarettes (don’t be near also),
– Exercise moderately (at least 30-45 minutes a day),
– Eat healthy,
– Drink moderately,
– Maintain optimum weight (keep BMI between 18-25).
Our resources and capacities are limited so we cannot perfect ourselves in 10-15 areas in a year, but in a few we can – if we want to!
Here, the question of balance between family and work also arises as a logical question. How to be successful in both fields?
The mindset of the rich is not only a balance between work and family – it is necessary. You have noticed that very successful people often mention family members.
The middle-class mindset says this is difficult and impossible.
Business is often crude and without emotional support, but also material when needed, a person is more vulnerable, and often this item slowing down growth in a business career. Keeping that balance is not easy. The business literature I consulted on the subject said, “so it’s not easy for a man to walk on a wire, it has to be worked on.” Hey, that is compared to a man walking on a wire ?!
In my environment, there is an example of a successful man who loves and plays tennis very well. Wear exclusively Lacoste because of Novak Djokovic! He used to play with the company several times a week. Sometimes 1 on 1 and sometimes tournaments are at stake. And training and good joking and networking.
However, after having two children, continuing the pace of playing tennis, the atmosphere at home was often unbearable. His wife had a job, and he simply “wanted” to enjoy his hobby because, well, he was so used to it and simply comfortable with it.
In the end, to keep it all going, he reduced tennis to 1 a week and the harmony in the family was back!
# 4 IDENTIFY OUR LIMITATIONS
A very powerful thing about personal optimization is identifying our limitations.
Many are good at something, but let’s just say, because of another trait, everything is ruined. We probably all have that kind of person in the environment. She’s great at many things, but then suddenly “explain” at something, or with such a vocabulary, she expresses her attitude that you’re simply sick…
Some other person can be great, cultural, a good friend. But it is simply slow or doing the job the wrong way. Giving a feed-back or feed-forward to such a person can completely change that person and their results for the better!
Recognizing this limitation in itself does a tremendous job.
Is not easy to. You have to go against yourself. Those who have an ego like Mont-Everest will certainly find nothing to themselves and will not even ask the environment if they are missing something. But the others will. They will even ask close people what is wrong with them to be even better at the work they do. In other words, what should they improve with themselves? And then it will work to ease those restrictions.
Finally, think about which skill you need the most right now, that would benefit you most on your professional and personal development ???
Write it down.
What is preventing you from lifting your ass, starting to improve yourself immediately, and minimizing that limitation that slow down your professional and personal growth?