Four important steps to success in your work place
Get the job done
Make sure to deliver what you are supposed to in time before you start something else. Especially if that other thing is not work related. If you do not know what to do at the moment, find something to do or ask your boss or business partner what to do next.
Prioritize
Do your most important work tasks first and try to learn which these are. Learn what is importan and what is not as important.
What is good enough?
Realize that your work is good enough. You do not always have to give 110%.
Get to know yourself
How are you using your time and what gives you energy? Which time in a day are you the most active and got the most energy? Focus on work but also alow yourself to relax now and then.
Dreams into reality
If you are like me you have whole list of things you do not currently have accomplished. Things you desire. Goals that you for some reason have not yet been able to reach. This should not hold you back and is nothing that you should feel negative for. Anything and everything can be accomplished with the right mind set. Decide to do it or get it and you will. If you believe in what you do nothing is impossible and turning thoughts into reality is then an easy task.
As a business owner you are in a great position compared with other people. You have more possibilities to steer your ship in the direction of your dream and goals. You know what you work for and work until you achieve that certain goal.
To make it easier to realize your dreams you need a plan to follow. Below is a few things you should think about when writing a plan for your venture.
1. Write down and have a look at your dreams and turn them into more specific goals.
2. Connect the goals with activities. For example: I need to do this and this to accomplish that.
3. Take action and start doing the needed activities on a daily basis.
Follow this plan and you will get closer to you goal every day that passes by. You might want to review that plan from time to time and track and analyze the results so far to see if you need to change anything in your plan.
Below I have a small compilation of tips to make the process above easier for you.
Believe in what you do. Do no let fear and other obstacles stand in your way.
Desire, desire and desire. If you want something really bad. Be passionate about it. Passion is a powerful tool. Make sure you use it.
Be specific. What is your goal exactly? When do you want to reach your goal? The deeper you define your goal the better it is.
What are you waiting for?
If there is something in your life you have postponed over and over again, without a good cause. You might want to ask yourself the question “What am I waiting for?”.
Whatever it is we are waiting for. There always seems to be a “good” explaination to it all, “I will do it after the holidays”, “I will do it when I have more time” and so on.
If you are a person making statements as the ones above your are living a quite passive life and probably also in your business life. Let face the facts the examples above is only bad excuses to
avoid getting things done. Will living a passive life get you somewhere? Probably not.
Why are you waiting for something else to happen before action is required? Act now and get active. Here follows some tips to get you going.
The right time
The right time to do something may come and it may not come. Are you willing to wait for it while you and the world around you is changing. You are getting older, trends come an go and economies are changing. It might be to the better, but are you willing to take that chance?
What is standing in your way?
Think about what things in life that is standing in your way. Is it the TV? Your day time job? Your relatives/family? Whatever it is, you need to think of away to get pass that field of obstacles in front of you. It is easy to turn of the TV and do something more productive, while it is a lot more difficult if it is your family situation that is holding you back. It can be really hard to discuss such thing in the family, but if you are not fully happy with the situation as it is right now I think it is worth to at least talk to your family and tell them how you feel and what you want to do. Hopefuly you can compromise and come to an agreement. And now you are on your way to realize your goals.
The comfort zone
Here it come again. The famous talk about the comfort zone. Are you still in it? Are you getting too comfortable with being comfortable? If you are. Do not delay it. Take action now.
Be consistent
If you have stepped out of your comfort zone and started to take action. Make sure to be consistent with it and keep it flowing. If you do something daily it is more likely that you will succeed with it and it also keeps you from falling back in to your comfort zone.
Have fun
Having fun with what you do also increases the chance that you will not fall back in to your passive life, living in your comfort zone. If your job is boring, Why are you doing it? If the situation is that you at the moment have to work at a job you do not want. Take action and enjoy every second when you are off. Start a business on the side or find a hobby to enjoy.
Do something to make your life more positive.
Define your goals
By defining your goals you are opening your own eyes. This makes it all more clear and the more precisly you define your goals the more likely is it that you will recognize it when you have reached it.
The call of the entrepreneur
I have seen this video a couple of times on different blogs, and got to see it again while visiting my mate Adnans blog over a Blogtrepreneur. It is a great video clip, make sure you watch it.
No victory without sacrifice
I was watching the movie Transformers the other day, which was a great movie. It was one quote that was kind of important in this movie that caught my attention and got me to reflect to what I write about here on the blog and that was, “no victory without sacrifice”.
I have written about this many times before and it is really worth looking in to again. As an entrepreneur you got to dare to try new things, taking risks and maybe do things you normally would not do, to reach the goal you have set up for what you are currently working on.
Taking risk is somehow vital when you are running your own business and an entrepreneur that does not dare to do something different and try out new ways of getting to a goal will most likely fail or get stuck somewhere on the road to success. To help you I have put together a short list of steps to take to overcome the fear of taking risks. So read the steps below and step out of your comfort zone.
Do not hold back
If you are going to do something, then really do it. Commit yourself to what you are doing and do it fully.
Your feelings
Do not let your feelings control your actions in your business too much. Do not let anxiety beat you, look at the facts and calculate what you have to loose and what you have to gain.
Just DO it
Do not hesitate. Of course you should not always take a risk without calucalting but sometimes it is easier to just jump off the cliff than to stand and watch how high up it is. The longer you wait, the higher the chance is that you will “chicken out”.
What you got to do is bet to win, and realize that you do not always win but for everytime you try you are getting closer to you goal. After each risk taken it will get easier, it is like practicing a sport.
Are you willing to risk loosing out on wonderful rewards and success just because you are to afraid to step out of your own comfort zone? If not, it is time to act.
There is no victory without sacrifice
Handling Failure
Failure is something most of us have to deal with in our life, both in our personal life and in business and work situations. Failure should not be seen as something negative, instead you should learn from your failure, and the next time you try whatever you failed at, you use this new wisdom and go for it.
Do not be afraid to make mistakes
If you are starting a new venture or are looking to try out new things in life you are sure to make some mistakes. A small mistake does not make a failure alone, and should never be considered a failure. Make mistakes and learn from them and you will grow in competence in whatever it is you do.
Take risks
I use to tell people “You got to bet to win”, which simply means that you got to take some risks if you are going to succeed, and on the road to success there are many wrong turns that leads to failure but that should not scare you. Dare to do something different and you are more likely to succeed than your neighbour sitting in front of his TV complaining all day long. If you are failing at least it shows you are trying to accomplish something.
See it as a learning process
As with all that is new for us we discover obstacles along the way as we work with it, and because of this you should take it as a learning process where you get valuable feedback to your own capabilities and your ventures possibilities. It is a known fact that we humans learn from failure. Keep trying until you find out what works and what does not work.
Keep a positive attitude
Always aim to keep a positivt attitude to your failures. Do not let the negative sound of the word send shivers down your spine, there should be no shame in failing even if that is what is taught to most of us. Do not mind what other people say or think if they can not give you any constructive feedback to help you improve.
A good thing is to ask yourself “What good comes out of this situation?” and “What can I do better next time?”. By putting yourself against the wall with some questions you get to move on, and put the failure behind you.
So any final words to this article? Yes. DO NOT GIVE UP
Self Discipline
Self discipline, the art of being able to step out of your comfort zone and stop making all your decisions based only on your comfort level. Is that a good description? I think so, or as a matter of fact I know it is that way based on my own experiences and what I have heard from other entrepreneurs, most of them working from their home.
By stretching beyond our comfort level we are able to really get things done that needs to get done and by that we are also boosting our confidence in what we do. Most of us know what needs to be done and are actually able to do it, but a lot of people, including myself, sometimes find it hard to discipline ourselves above of what is comfortable at the moment, and with this our companies do not perform what they should if we would give 100% to get our job done.
Because of this we all really need to have a look at this, and what can be done to change this set of mind to the better. How do we stretch ourselves over to the next level out of the comfort zone? There are a couple of steps to help you improve.
Your Responsibility
A first step to take is to acknowledge your responsibility. You got to see what you have to do to be succesful with your venture and admit to yourself that you are sitting around doing nothing and that it is your own fault if you do not succed when doing this.
Define your purpose
What do you want to accomplish? That is a question that helps you determaine a cause of why you are doing what you are doing. A part of this process is setting goals and realizing the importance of goals.
Do not feel stressed
It may take some time to get things done, but do not feel stressed over work, try to find the balance and allow things to take the time it needs. My article on stress management can be a great additional read to this article.
Schedule work
If you are really having a hard time getting a good structure in your work, setting up a schedule with work sessions is an excellent tool. As self-employed you should still work at least 8 hours a day if needed, and if you are working at home you can be more flexible so if you need you can spread your work sessions over the day. But if you are really having problems with your discipline you should not divide your work sessions in more than two 4 hours sessions.
Except from scheduling the hours you should also set up a priority list, with what you have to do today and what should be finished during these work sessions. When something has been done, strike it off the list.
Avoid distractions
As I discussed in my article, Importance of a seperate work space it is very important to find a place to work at where a minmum of distractions are available. This includes family members, TVs and other stuff keeping you from 100% focus on your task.
As with everything you need to do you will be tempted to not do it from time to time, to make up excuses for youself why you should not do it. Do NOT fall for that. Instead offer yourself some incentives and think of what you can do, when the money comes rolling in. Maybe a cruise in the Carribbeans or a new bike? On what level you put it is up to you, but it sure helps to motivate you.
There is no short cut to this, it is all about hard work, but with the steps above you are able to set your mind to this and start your journey to success.
When you have set a higher level of self discipline you will be able to do almost anything, the only one that can stop yourself from doing something is you.
Handling Criticism
If you are innovative in any area and do stand out from the crowd you are most likely to recieve quite much criticism, both constructive and unjustified. Even if you are not the most innovative business owner out there I am sure you have been criticized many times. But were you able to respond to the criticism? Did you take the criticism and turned it in to something good? Below is a few pointers how to handle criticism in your business.
Do not feel discouraged
You have to keep an positive attitude and do something good with the criticism you get. All the criticism you get will not be justified, and when it is not you got to be able to speak up for yourself against the person criticizing you.
If your critic is hostile, it is often from being jealous and what the person criticizing you knows is that it will hurt you, make you sad or maybe even angry. As an entrepreneur you got to work on your self-esteem and keep your head high all the time and really believe in yourself. The best way to handle destructive feedback would probably be to just ignore it. Whatever you do, do not sink to their level, if you are to respond to their criticism, do it in a way that will help you instead of making it worse. You do not always have to defend yourself.
Listen and then act
If it is constructive feedback you get you should really listen to what the person has to say and take that in to consideration, but do not just listen to one persons opinion, whether you feel the feedback is good or bad you should always look for more sources for feedback and if the majority says the same, it is time to act.
Do not forget to express gratitude to your critic when the criticism is justified.
If you feel that the criticism you just got was justified but in no way constructive, take that negative feedback and turn it in to something positive. Ask the critic to explain, and give you full feedback so that you can improve.
You can really benefit from criticism, and the ability to handle criticism is a vital key to success.
You are not alone
There are a lot of entrepreneurs like you and me out there, that are doing the exact same thing. If this is a big chock for you, you might want to make a market research and then just face the fact that you are not alone.
You compete with your business alongside hundreds or maybe thousands of other entrepreneurs offering exactly the same product or service as you or something similar. So what you got to think about is how can you stand out from the crowd? How can you be different and be seen surrounded by all your competitors? Why should a customer use you instead of your competitors?
The uniqueness of your company is one of the most important aspects of it all, and this is an issue every business should address. Even if it is hard to be 100% unique, every step to uniquness is a step in the right direction.
How do I proceed to make my company unique and more attractive to my customers? This might sound simple, and it also is, specialize in some area of your business or nisch. Make your product or service better in ways that your competitors are not, it can be the products or the price, the support and service or even narrowing down your target group compared to what the rest of the industry is targeting.
By specializing in some way you are saying to your potential customers “Look at me”, and that makes other take note of your company and you are also much more likely to get interest in media, which will help your business a lot and probably send a bunch of customers your way.
With this article I do not say that you can not succeed with a business that has a lot of competitors but one thing is for sure, if you want the odds of succeeding to be higher, be unique.
Stress Management for Entrepreneurs
As a hard working entrepreneur on your journey to freedom you are probably feeling stressed from time to time. Deadlines to be met, computers and servers that does not work and just the feeling that you do not have time for all your projects.
If this is something that describes your situation, do not worry, Andreas is here to help you. Just read though the steps below and take the time to really adapt them and I am sure you will feel better.
Plan and prioritize your time
This is a big part of most peoples stress problems. They have not scheduled their work. With no plans, goals and priorities your work will never be fully organized and most things you start will not be finished before you start with a new task and this makes you get stressed out about not finishing. Make a priority list, and schedule your work day and you will see that you will feel much much better.
Take a deep breath
Step outside for a while, stand still and take couple of deep breaths. This adds oxygen to your system and will probably help you get more relaxed instantly.
I have written about this before, you got to allow yourself to take a break from your work and really relax from time to time. Step away from your computer, and go for a walk, stretch your body and just do something else for a while. When you are ready to go back, close your eyes, take a deep breath and count to ten, then sit down and start working again.
Talk about it
Do not hold it in. If you are feeling stressed talk with a close friend, family member or colleague about it. You should also not be afraid to ask for help when you need help, none of us are super heroes that can handle every situation without any problems. Even if it is just about getting help with an assignment at the office from a fellow entrepreneur or if you need advice and help by a professional with your stress related problems, it is never wrong to ask for help.
Dare to say NO
I mentioned this in another article I recently posted called, Easy steps to a calmer life but it is absolutely worth mentioning again. Get to know your limitations. How much can you take? Think about that for a second and do not forget to say the easy word NO when you feel you had enough. If you are already stressed up, the last thing you need is more to do.
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About Andreas Bard
My name is Andreas Bard and I am a web entrepreneur, writer and blogger. On this blog I write motivational articles and aim to help you on your way to success with your business venture.
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