Stay focused on your big goals by Ashley Sanford

How many times a day do you think about something you need to be doing for a long-term goal, or perhaps a new year’s resolution? Several times, I assume. However, acting towards it might have been – put off for another day?

“Umm—now’s not the time, maybe in a while” “I’m overworked today, maybe tomorrow”. “I could get on with this the next month when my exams are over” or worse: “I won’t be able to do this at all, because it’s a waste of my time.”

Excuses, Excuses and more Excuses!

The problem here is not “the time” or that other task on the list. The problem is simply one thing: Lack of Focus.

Here are tips on how you can stay focused on your goal and keep yourself from making excuses at neglecting, procrastinating, and eventually failing at achieving your goals.

 

 

Focus on One (Or Two Major Goals): Part of the reason why we fail at achieving one single goal is because we are trying too hard to juggle and achieve too many all at once. You don’t want to “drop the ball” just because you tried too hard to throw too many in the air and keep them up. Until you have fully achieved and completed one or two major goals, you shouldn’t move on to the next.

Log Your Progress: You can update your current progress to allow yourself to visualize how far you are getting on with it. A daily log of tasks related to your most important goal will allow you track your progress and map out your slowing or growing rate of enthusiasm.

People also create vision boards for daily inspiration. You can create a collage using pictures, articles, text, or anything useful that you can stick to, related to your goal.

Follow a plan: Have you planned out how, when, and where you will achieve your goal? Plan out what you will be doing (and how) each day, each week, or each month to move towards your goal. Set an attainable time limit to make it realistic and achievable. Put it on paper and regularly check how well you are doing according to your set plan.

Ask Yourself Why You Are Pursuing the Goal: You must have a strong reason to pursue the goal, and if you don’t give yourself one, you won’t be able to feel motivated to achieve that goal! Knowing exactly why you want to achieve that goal and constantly reminding yourself of the reason(s) is an essential part of remaining focused.

For example, if I have a goal to give my GMAT exam and obtain a great score, I need to ask myself exactly why I want this. I could take the easy way out and apply to the selection of Universities that don’t ask for it, right? However, I will keep reminding myself that I want to achieve a good score and it is really important because it will allow me to give a shot at my dream University, it will allow me to aim for top institutions, and allow top schools to approach me themselves (saving me research time).

Keep reminding yourself why you need to be moving towards the goal with solid reasons.

Learn to Say No: One of the biggest problems faced while trying to achieve a goal is not being able to say “no” to distractions. Do you keep putting off your goal for something else that just came up out of nowhere? Sometimes, a simple text message, call, notification, or knock-knock does the job of putting your goal on hold for the rest of the day. Learn to say no to any and every distraction!

 

Learning to Love God's Way by Melissa Rich

I hate using the preface “as Christians”, because it can be so wrongly placed but "As Christians", the greatest commandment is

A. Love the Lord your God with all your heart... and

B. Love your neighbor as your "self".

This is FOUNDATIONAL to EVERYTHING else in our lives... EVERYTHING. It is confused sometimes since in order to love another, we must first learn what it means to love God and then learn what it means to both be loved by Him and to love ourselves.

Love is not a "soft" word by any means. It is so often misunderstood.  A person who has poured themselves out in love will know this all too well. Love takes risks and gives, not based on what is deserved but based on what it has to offer.

If God is "love" then we can see so many facets of love that are overlooked in our personal relationships too often, both friendships and otherwise. Love is a "commitment" word. A person who is in pursuit of loving God and learning to accept His unconditional love for them will learn also to love others and will show evidence of it; and those who are on that path will also recognize it and be drawn to it.

I am building from the bottom up, without self-love and respect; there will be nothing to give another. These are foundations we must build personally if we are to have healthy, Godly, lasting relationships.

LOVE THAT STOPS PROGRESSING IS DEAD: As "Christians", we "owe" this love to one another because God first loved us. We are commanded to love, as "He" has freely loved us. Love does not use, abuse or squander another for its own gain, no matter what. It does not take revenge or demand to always be right. It does not point the finger outward but it looks inward and concerns itself with pleasing "God" not man or oneself.

I personally do not think that learning "true" love is the easiest thing to do because true love puts a demand on the deepest part of us; but it is absolutely possible if we are willing to grow. It asks us for things we are not already doing and giving and it moves us to "willingly" give what we would never have given before. Love is always "progressive" it never stops developing and expanding; when it does, it is no longer alive.

LOVE WAS ALWAYS INTENDED TO BE “GIVEN”: I don't believe we are to pour ourselves out to just anyone, anywhere without wisdom but I do believe there are places and times where God requires us to give because "He" gave, not because we are keeping score.

Though I have never been married, I would dare say, learning how to give freely as a "personal choice" understanding the value of "giving freely" to what is likely to be the most significant relationship in your life, is one of the most important components to both peace and unity in a home. It is also amongst the greatest investments you will ever make in your life. It assumes the best of the other and keeps bitterness out.

Love was always intended to be "given". And this love gives because it “can” not because it “has” to. It gives because it finds true joy in fulfilling the needs of another. A person who has learned to love like this does it because they believe in the value of giving freely without expectation. They understand that all things cannot be measured with the natural eye. If it is the man God has given you, it is a no brainer, pour it out. He’s your personal garden to tend to. 

I understand this is a somewhat “foreign” concept, but think about it. To be so free as to be able to be a blessing to the ONE man that God has assigned you to be a “helpmeet” to and to do that with all your heart and without reserve. To have the freedom of heart, mind and soul to be able to be the “wife” that God has called you to be, to uphold that “role” with the utmost integrity and sincerity regardless of whether or not you “feel” like it. Marriage is not a party, it is a “partnership” and each has been given roles by “God” to fulfill in that partnership.

A PURE HEART: With this premise of "Love", we are to think, view and respond to others from a "pure" heart, not one of malice and bitterness and a person who has been hurt, violated in particular ways whether it was before they were old enough to choose or if it was after, may need to work on their own heart before having the capacity to be in a relationship where they have something to truly give and where they understand themselves enough to be able to communicate their own thoughts and needs without intense emotion, manipulation and/or unrealistic expectations.

I believe we unconsciously attract who we really are (whether we know ourselves well or not) so if we are "stuck" in the past, we could likely end up with someone who is also "stuck" in the past and the two together are a recipe for disaster.

If we lived in a “perfect” world, we would already have been prepared for this level of relationship in marriage and we would easily move into it without reserve; but since we do not, these are things we must approach “intentionally” in our lives. If you are “reserved” when you consider being a “helpmeet” and you have a “defensive” response to everything anyone says about “submission” and being a “helpmeet”, there is a very good chance that you are either 1. Emotionally unhealed from former abuse and/or 2. Misinformed as to God’s original design for marriage and the family.

At the end of the day, in order to experience the best of what God intended for marriage, we must be our personal best as wives. I understand that the “men” have their own issues and I will leave that to the “men” to deal with; as for “us ladies”, let’s challenge one another in our views towards men and marriage. This bitterness and anger is perpetuating generations of the same. Learning to love as God loves is the only chance we may have at experiencing something better for our future than what we have experienced in our past.

Healthy Competition

How to encourage healthy competition 

In all spheres of life, and particularly within the commercial world, healthy competition can spur individuals and teams on to achieve great things. With stretching targets, realistic time frames, clear guidance, and supportive management, individuals will usually perform at a far higher level than would be the case without the stimulation of competition.

 

 

When managed effectively, competition can deliver a wealth of benefits. It can provide individuals with the motivation they need to work hard and achieve objectives. It can encourage effective team working as managers seek to harness the different strengths of team members to secure optimum team performance. It can engender greater commitment to quality as people seek to use this as a lever to beat their competitors. Competition can serve as a spark to creativity as individuals seek out all possible avenues to get ahead of the crowd. It can also help managers to identify which individuals thrive under pressure and which are better suited to less stressful roles.

 

However, there are potential downsides to competition and these need to carefully managed in order to prevent the cons from outweighing the pros.

 

What are the biggest challenges (in encouraging healthy competition)?
Employers can often find it difficult to agree on the type of competition they want within their organization, the targets that they will use and the measurement techniques that they will apply. For example, it is common for businesses to give different sales teams clear revenue targets with the lure of the highest bonuses for the top performers.  Whilst this will usually give rise to healthy competitive rivalry, it can also mean that important long-term projects get pushed to one side as the team dedicates all its energy to achieving the short-term revenue target. In business, ‘you get what you measure’ so it is critical that the goals and objectives which are set for teams are in line with wider business requirements.

 

In very competitive organizations, managers can also find it difficult to get individuals to see the bigger picture and act in the best interests of their organization as a whole, rather than following the very narrow targets that they have been set as individuals or as a team.

 

What should you avoid doing?Employers have to be careful not to let competition have a ruinous effect on morale at any level. For example, if individuals in different teams find themselves competing against colleagues for resources, budgets or the time of staff in different departments such as Marketing of Legal, ill-feeling can quickly spread amongst the disaffected parties.

 

Equally, businesses should introduce clear processes and guidelines that prevent individuals from different teams squabbling over the allocation of sales revenue if parties from different teams have worked together to win a contract. Infighting such as this is always damaging.

 

Managers must also be alert to the risk of creating a long-hours culture or creating conditions where bullying can be used. For example, when targets are allocated at a team level, it can be very difficult for individuals to be seen as the first to leave the office, despite having have completed their contracted hours, because they fear being told by colleagues that they are not pulling their weight.

 

What are your three top tips?

• Introduce very clear policies regarding competition and ensure the information is communicated effectively. Individuals must know what behaviour is acceptable within a competitive environment, and is considered undesirable or unethical
• Use a ‘Balanced Scorecard’ approach to ensure that individuals are measured against all desirable targets and not one simple goal
• Ensure that you have senior managers who are able take a ‘helicopter view’ and adjudicate fairly between teams for the greater good when disputes do inevitably arise

Culled from cubiks.com

How to deal with Naysayers at work

I came across an article on LinkedIn and it makes for an interesting read. Could't help but share it here.

How to deal with Naysayers at work?

Are there any naysayers in your life? Someone who is discouraging you from pursuing your goals and dreams, perhaps? Someone who thinks that you are joking and says “It’s impossible!” when you share your grand plans for your future? Someone who sabotages you when you try to cultivate a new habit or quit a bad habit? Someone who is keeping you from achieving your highest potential?

Naysayers in my Life

At one point in our life, we are bound to meet naysayers, be it colleagues, acquaintances, friends, or even close friends and family. Naysayers are termed as such because their favorite response is “nay.” Say you want to quit drinking alcohol. They’ll go “nay” and tell you that drinking a few more mugs won’t kill you. Say you want to lose weight and you eat healthily. They’ll go “nay,” that healthy food is boring, and then tell you to eat unhealthy, junk food instead. Say you are considering pursuing your passion. They’ll tell you that it’s not feasible in the bad economy today (the economy is always bad to them), that it’s not going to make you money.
Most of the times, naysayers have little to add to the conversation, only endeavoring to extinguish your hopes and dreams.

What do I mean by negative thinking?

I'm not talking about constructive criticism or the identification of constraints and potential obstacles that must be overcome. I'm also not advocating riding on unbridled optimism all the way to the project management equivalent of the Little Bighorn. I'm talking about objections that are specifically engineered to defeat the project. These are statements (however elaborately supported) that can essentially be paraphrased: "It can't be done."

Dealing with Naysayers

Each time I meet a naysayer, I’ll first try to understand where he/she is coming from. Does he/she have a valid viewpoint, or is he/she just speaking from his/her fears? If it’s clear that the person is projecting his/her own fears rather than giving constructive thoughts, I’ll disregard his/her input. My goals are precious, and I’m not going to entertain anyone who tries to dump toxic waste onto my goals.

After I know that someone is a certified naysayer™, I’ll reduce contact with him/her, because I’m not interested to deal with someone’s fears and hangups about my goals.
For each of the goals I mentioned earlier (striving for my highest results in life, becoming a vegetarian, and quitting my job to pursue my passion), I ended up achieving them, and then more — despite all the horror stories and promises of failure by the naysayers. Each time, I discovered that the journey was nothing like what the naysayers had painted it to be. Each time, I found more joy, love and fulfillment on this new path than if I had stuck to my old ways. Each time, I experienced more personal growth than if I had done nothing about my goals.
You see, for naysayers, they don’t know how it’s like to pursue your goals. Everything they say, they say it with the intent to scare you away from your goals. Do you know why?
It’s because they’re actually scared themselves. Because they’ve never done what you’re trying to do, they’re scared that you’ll succeed. They’re scared that if you succeed, it’ll show that they have been wrong about life all this while, and that they should be taking action when they aren’t. They’re scared to discover that they’ve been undermining their potential and wasting their lives all this while.
It’s unfortunate for them, but you need to remember that these are their fears, not yours, and there’s no reason why you should own their fears about your goals. Your life is yours and you don’t need others to tell you what you should do. If you’re facing a naysayer,

Safeguard your goals.

Imagine you’re creating a beautiful, grand sandcastle at the beach. Now, imagine someone pouring water on top of your castle every minute. Will you be able to build anything eventually?
No, of course not. Each time you build your castle foundations, they instantly get demolished by the gush of water. In the end, you’ll get some clumpy-lump-of-an-excuse for a castle, not to mention you feel highly frustrated. All your efforts to create your castle will be in vain.
That’s the same thing when you listen to naysayers. Being discouraging and skeptical, they tend to focus on the downsides, the “dangers,” and — this one’s my favorite — anecdotal failure stories about your goal(s). For every second you listen to them, it’s like pouring acid over your dreams. In the end, you are left with a demolished self-confidence and a wavering “Should I still do this?” thought about your dreams, whereas you were highly optimistic and confident prior to your encounter with them.

Evaluate the naysayer’s background.

Before considering anyone’s advice, I’ll always evaluate how the person is doing in his/her life. I’ll consider the following:
Is this person living a life that I want for myself?
Is the person successful in the goal that I’m pursuing?
Does this person have knowledge and expertise in what he/she is commenting on?
If the answers are “no,” “no,” and “no,” then I’ll discount what he/she says. After all, this person is where he/she is precisely from following his/her own thoughts and advice. By heeding his/her words, it can only get me to where he/she is, not where I want to be.

Evaluate the naysayer’s words.

Another tip is to evaluate the naysayer’s words. As the CEO of your life, you are the best person to assess and decide what works and doesn’t work for you. Consider the following:
What he/she is saying — does it resonate with me?
Is there validity behind his/her words?
Will applying this advice make me better off?
Is he/she coming from a place of fear or love?
If the answer is “no” to questions one to three, and the person is coming from a place of fear, then this advice isn’t for you – even if it is well-intended. Don’t let yourself get weighed down by it.

Source: LinkedIn