There are a stacks of books about how to be successful, I know I have read many of them over the years. A few stick out as favorites and others slip into the vagueness of memory. There five simple behaviors that if practiced consistently will return success. Certainly you will get more accomplished on purpose.
Here are the five:
1. Value of Time
2. Having an Agenda
3. Focused Priorities
4. Being Ruthless About Waste
5. Obsessed with Results
Let’s look at each and see how you and I might apply each of them.
Valuing your time is a must! You need to have some type of calendar system that you trust and that you can take with you wherever you go. Routines and blocks or chunks of time where you do the same thing each week so it can become a habit. Most entrepreneurial days are chaotic and hectic to say the least but having a routine to start the day and end the day will ensure that “things” don’t slip through the cracks.
That is where having an agenda comes in to play. Having an agenda is vital to a successful person, former President George W. Bush said, …because if you don’t have an agenda you will fall prey to someone else’s agenda” and on that President Bush was right on! On your agenda should be your focused priorities. Those things you intend to make happen no matter what. They should be in writing and the order of their importance.
So let’s review what we have so far, An intense value of time and yet allowing enough time to complete each task or job so that a job isn’t rushed and completed half right. My Dad used to have a catchy phrase for that but I can’t use it here…
Next you have an agenda of what you want to accomplish on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Additionally there should be an agenda per project or encounter so you know what the outcome is to be. Thirdly you have the things you want to get accomplished prioritized and all of these should be in writing, either electronically or the old fashioned way with pen and ink. The test here is that wherever you have your list, it should be a place you absolutely trust. Meaning is can’t be erased or misplaced.
Number 4, being ruthless about waste of any kind is another facet that makes these five work so well. Don’t waste time, resources and especially not relationships. A written plan and knowing exactly what success looks like goes along way to mitigate waste. As you implement your plan notice areas where you can conserve. Conservation of movement, effort and resources.
Last but certainly not least, be obsessed with results. Too many times I have seen managers waste time, money and relationships with employees or clients because they are obsessed with the wrong things. It’s the results that matter… so be obsessed there! If, by chance, you don’t get the results you desire or expect try this thought from the NLP world… Your communication can be judged by the results you get. If you didn’t get the results you wanted, look to yourself first to see how you might have communicated what you wanted more clearly or at least in a different way.
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