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They are all acting like that rocking
horse! They keep doing the same thing over and over again moving like fury
and yet they stay in the same place. But they look busy and anybody
catching a glimpse of them in their daily work would think they are really
on task. At the end of the day they're tired. They get up the next day and
they busy themselves, repeating the same things they did yesterday.
Who am I talking about? The thousands
of people I've seen in offices, factories, shops, some are working for
themselves as well. Most of those people are rocking horses not racehorses.
How can you become a
thoroughbred racehorse?
The first thing is to decide on your
values. Find what is the most important thing in your life. What do you
value the most? That's easy. It's what you mostly do. If you say your
family is the most valuable thing to you and yet you spend most of the time
at your desk or in a bar then you value your desk or the bar more than you
value family. If there is a mismatch between what you say and what you do, it's
what you do that gives you the answer. If you say you want to be the best
business leader in the world but you watch four hours of TV every evening,
I can tell you now that you want to watch TV, not to be the best business
leader in the world.
Be honest with yourself when you are
looking at your values. Don't just set dreams. Dreams are fine but you need
to know what really drives you from inside. Don't forget to include your
insecurities. Many people include such things as integrity in their values.
Is integrity also an insecurity for you? Deciding on your values is the
most important thing you can do in life. Unless you know your values, you
are destined to be a rocking horse. Well worth some deep thought.
Spend some time thinking about your
values. Only when you know them can you possibly set goals for your life
and work out the difference for you between motion and progress.
From your values, then you can
determine your goals. Your goals must match your values and support them.
The SMART goals process which is commonly quoted is fine in some specific
circumstances when deciding on small incremental steps toward your main
goal but SMART is not enough. Your life goals must be huge, not realistic
in the normal sense of the word. If they are realistic, you are setting
yourself up for mediocrity. You are setting yourself up for motion rather
than progress.
When you have set your goals, you can
start to work out where you should be spending your time. You spend your
time on things which move you towards your goals which are in line with
your values. Analyse where you are spending your time. There are simple
tools to help you do this, mainly involving a sheet of paper and a pen.
Keep a detailed time log for a week. By detailed I mean accounts each
minute of each day. You don't need to go into huge amounts of detail for
each activity. Just analyse it simply by looking at each thing you've done
and asking "Did this move me towards my goal?" Was in motion or
progress?
By using this simple question "Was
it motion or progress?", you can decide on every activity. You will
need to be systematic in managing yourself. The simple fact is that if you
ask yourself this question at each moment when you start or find yourself
undertaking an activity, you will be able to decide whether you are a
rocking horse or a thoroughbred racehorse.
Be inspired today!
Graham Speechley
Business Leaders Group
Oakley House
3 Saxon Way West
Headway Business Park
Corby
Northants NN18 9EZ
United Kingdom
© Copyright 2012
Business Leaders Group
- All Rights Reserved.
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