Less Resolutions Equal More Success

New Year’s Day is the traditional start of resolutions. Like we could actually do something the morning after a New Year’s Eve celebration.

Not a fan of the annual start to your diet, saving money, and joining a gym. There is nothing magical about January 1^st. When you are ready to make a change, Start Now.

Two reasons most resolutions fail:

1. We try to do too much at once.

2. We don’t figure out why we want to change.

Warren Buffet’s method is to write down 25 professional goals, then focus on the 5 most important goals, and ignore the rest. He considers the other goals distractions from succeeding at more important goals.

My take is we can only accomplish up to 3 goals at a time. By limiting my focus to one or two goals at a time, am more likely to succeed sooner. Complete more goals in a year by focusing on fewer goals.

Most people are not focused, and lose motivation the first few times they meet resistance. The reason is they have not thought out their why.

Often make tweaks to my work routine. The reason these tweaks usually take is my motivation is to Do Meaningful Work Well. Like to be 1% better than yesterday. If this means have to drop some habits or start a new routine, so be it.

My strongest motivations are fairly simple.

Here to Serve Customers, Their Customers and My Coworkers. If it requires extra effort, okay.

My Brain Needs a Healthy Body to Carry It Around. Why you see me run pitifully on days off, and take frequent walks. Lost 10 - 15 pounds when necessary at 1 pound per month. Changes that last.

Do not to tie up every minute in a day. Free time is thinking time. This is where you can really make large leaps in innovation and productivity. Keep asking different questions when you do.

“Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.” - Lin Yutang

Have not changed my resolutions this year. My whys are a compass that guide me. What are your whys?

What Are You Doing to Make Your Life Better?

Just came from a Volunteer appreciation dinner. The church recognizes people giving for all these different activities.  People there planning for the future, teaching religion, funeral services, social justice, choirs, feeding the homeless, leading groups, ushering, greeting people, and in line with my skills - set ups, tear downs, serving coffee and doing dishes. All these people are doing the little things that build a better society.

Your life will not get better until you do something different than you are doing now. Something that stretches you, makes you uncomfortable, meeting new people, or try a new skill that you aren’t really sure you will succeed at.

In college my professors said our knowledge is always changing. So we are not teaching you the facts, we are teaching you how to learn for after you graduate.

Taking a class on navigating office politics tomorrow. Office politics are not my favorite subject. Would rather keep my head down and work. Would rather scrub walls and the floor than deal with politics. However if the right decision needs to be made, would like to have input and contribute where I can. So will take a class to improve skills for the future. 

So the question is, what are you doing to make your life better?

The Resilient Employee

Do you want an employee who over-reacts to provocation from a customer? How much business could you lose because of one overstressed reaction? No one really wants to find out.

Resilient people do good work on bad days. They don’t take it out on customers, nor on their co-workers. You can tell they are tired, you can tell they don’t feel well, but they still do good work with a minimum of drama. Tomorrow they are back at it, feeling better, listening, collaborating and doing good work.

Resilience comes from having survived tough times, coming back from events out of our control, and preserving through failures and bad experiences. It is a faith that we can make it through crazy customers, clueless bosses and co-worker visiting from outer space. Just another day folks, nothing to see here. (or is there more?)

Emotional strength and intelligence comes from knowing life is about more than you. Common Goals and values drive better behavior. It is taking care of others. Serving the public. Loving people. Especially when they don’t deserve it.

What do you do when your world changes? Where do you find your resiliency? Is it in your history? in your family’s stories? Your uncle who served in the war? Your neighbor who is always calming and interested? Or is peace something deeper. After all God is Love.

Developing Soft Skills

Businesses love to talk about the best leaders have soft skills. In short they work well with people to get the most out of their teams. They are often very respected and productive workers as well.

Starting out, how do you get soft skills? Where does this reputation come from? What soft skills would you like to have?

First, most people’s reactions are not about you. They think about what affects them. So do you, but you don’t think about that. When someone is losing their cool in front of you, wait until they calm down enough to talk with. Then ask questions.

The person who listens more attentively learns the most. Don’t think about what to say next when someone else is talking. What are they saying, and what is behind it? Often the most important part of the message is not said. It comes through their attitude and phasing. Ask questions about what they are saying to keep them talking.

Was very shy as a young man. Talking with young women threw me. I literally had to practice talking with people. To be less nervous, would talk with people who I did not know and could probably not help me. Often would talk with any woman of any age about any topic. When I met attractive women of datable ages, was no longer tongue-tied.

If you really want to excel with soft skills, CARE about people around you. Get your own ego out of the way. You can learn something from everyone, and you can help more people than you think. Praise people every time you see something you like. “They won’t remember what you said. They won’t forget how you made them feel.”

Study Servant Leadership. John Maxwell is my favorite author on this subject. Leaders aren’t there to make every decision. They enable their teammates to do more tasks better, and even excel at them.

I care about your success. Otherwise would I spend the time to write this? Start trying to listen to and praise people now. Does not matter how awkward it feels at first. You will start making their day and your day.

“If you could kick the person responsible for most of your troubles, you would not be able to sit down for six months.” - Unknown

Make a Good 2017

You make any resolutions? Most people don't, but wish for a better situation. Resolutions are good for focus, but not necessary for your good year.

Do the little things for 2017. It is not having a grand vision. Success comes with consistent actions.

• Can you get to bed a few minutes earlier, and get enough sleep?
• Are you walking or going to gym more often?
• Have you cut down on portions?
• Avoiding unnecessary carbs or snacks?
• Eating more veggies?
• Brush and floss your teeth?

No crash diet, but each action above will contribute to better health and less weight.

Don’t make a resolution. Take action over & over. 

• Remember what you were grateful for yesterday first thing in morning. 
• Start projects & chores before the last minute. 
• Leave 10 minutes earlier. 
• Write down tasks for later.

Being less stressed leads to a happy 2017.

Happy 2017

Don’t know about you, but 2016 was a bear. Challenging at work, with my wife, with her Mom’s condition getting worse, and Dad passing away. Very happy to see 2017.

Going to work to make 2017 better. Most of us make resolutions that we fail at. Don’t intend to fail. Discipline is my biggest weakness. So have to work around my foibles. Did get under my goal weight of 175 lbs. in 2016, but gained 4-5 lbs. back. And that was before going on vacation in Florida.

First am going to focus on just a few things: Improving my health and conditioning. Improving my listening and slow down with people. Learning whether or not serious about developing a copywriting business. One thing have learned is the less resolutions you make, the better the odds you will complete them.

Notice I put my first resolution as a positive outcome. Your mind believes you, so “Remember catsup at the store” instead of ‘Don’t forget catsup at the store.

Working on a unifying theme for my resolutions. That way the individual tasks to accomplish are not the resolution, nor the measure of success. ‘A better 2017 than 2016’ will be enough regardless of what challenges come to derail one resolution. 

What is your one goal for 2017 you would enjoy? What theme would carry us through the year ahead? Themes could be Health, Happiness, Peace, Education, Work, Joy, Gratitude or more.

Happy New Years to you, your family and friends.

Get Better Idea 1 - Responsible

Being responsible for your actions. You eliminate denial and go straight to learning. Then we improve our life and the lives around us.

Leaders and Parents take responsibly for people around them. You are responsible.