I started running the 5kms local Park Run a year or so ago and have also run in a couple of other runs of 9kms, 10kms and 11kms. I enjoy the community aspect of it but still don’t enjoy running, although enjoy the countryside whilst running. Whilst I’ve always used the gym most of my adult life, I’ve always hated the treadmill and feel there’s nothing more monotonous than running aimlessly on one spot. Every park run morning I force myself to get out of bed to run, telling myself it will do me good and being fit and keeping active will keep me healthy. I manage to ‘make’ myself do things I really don’t want to do by using mind over matter. We all know it means we work hard at building our own willpower to work towards being able to use our mind over matter. There are things
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This is the time of year when we all set goals with every intention of achieving as many as we can. We tell ourselves that this year will be different from last year and we won’t make the same mistakes again, that we’ve learned from our errors. We may or may not start with imagining what our business will look like at the end of five years, ten years or even one year! Imagining or having ideas doesn’t necessarily make them happen! Goals do! Actions do! We do however have to ensure our goals are SMART (specific, measurable, actionable relevant and timely). Vision – We need to have an idea or concept of what our business dream is; what might the ‘end’ product be; what will the business look like when fully mature. To have this clear in our minds is a good way to start as this gives us
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How many RE-s have you got? How many RE-s do you want? How many RE-s are you going to introduce into your business in 2020? Perhaps you’re feeling like you’re glad that this year is about to end, and you want a period of time and space to REcover and REcuperate, recapturing any wins you might have had to carry forward to next year. REset; RE-arrange; RE-organise – A New Year can encourage us to REthink how we do things for the forthcoming year; being creative about what we do and why and considering if there’s another, perhaps easier way to do things Sometimes we may feel all we’ve done is REpeat the same things in the same way; we may often feel we should RE-start, REstore or even REbuild our business to RE-invigorate how we see our business and how others may see it. Be REflective – I’m sure
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As we approach the end of the year, and whilst you enjoy your Christmas Day reflecting on how the year has been for you and your business you might be thinking about what your business ‘personal best’ was and how you might seek to achieve a new business ‘personal best’. To do this we need to have a plan, a strategy, goals and actions or steps to enable us to have clear focus, direction as well as be able to pace ourselves to ensure we can achieve what we’ve set out to do. The definition of ‘personal best’ according to Andrew Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of New South Wales are “goals that are specific, challenging; competitively self-referenced goals that involve a level of performance that meets or exceeds an individual’s previous best”. Often, we spend more time focusing on our personal best for
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It’s interesting when we get to this time of year how we reflect on how our year has gone and divide these into what we did well and not so well. Our year is often based on what we achieved or didn’t achieve, however, we also need to balance this out by looking at what the circumstances were that helped us achieve and what the causes were that prevented us from achieving. When we look deeper into these events, we can find the root cause for perceived failure and / or the basis or reason for our success. There are various tools we can use to examine these; below are some examples of tools available for us to look at. The Five Whys is a root cause analysis – we repeatedly ask ourselves the ‘why’ question to dig deep into a problem or issue. The Five Ws also known as
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To enable us to make progress and achieve we know we need to get results and we know we need to set goals to do this, however, if it were that simple, we would all be achieving, and we don’t. We know if we want to get fit, we need to have a plan, make a decision i.e. join the gym, however, how many of us have joined a gym and never or hardly gone? Then we check our bank account statement and see the monthly subscription coming out every month and say, “I must get to the gym” and then we don’t! There’s a huge gap between knowing what we want and doing it, and it’s this huge gap we need to cover or close, but how? Perhaps you should follow the T-A-R-M-A-C steps to enable you to achieve. T – Triggers Sometimes before we move forward, we need
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I do love the quote below by Harvey Mackay “Time is free but it’s priceless You can’t own it, but you can use it You can’t keep it, but you can spend it Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back” It’s a well-known fact we can’t save time or make time, however we talk about time as if we could. We also talk about time as though it is something that’s outside our control. In other words, the clock never stops ticking and we are always trying to keep up. We almost act as if it’s controlling us! We also know that we can’t do anything with the past, the future but we can do something with the present. We know that “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst” William Penn. We feel time moves too fast and we wish we could stop
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Answer yes or no to the following SIX questions: Do you know what your values are and are they written down?Do you understand your values and what they mean to you and your work or business? Do you prioritise your time regularly / daily?Do you value your work or business, and understand how your work can specifically help your target market?Do you value your time, and is this reflected in your daily routine?Do you value yourself, and is this reflected in your personal life, work or business?   If you answered NO to 1 or more of the above questions, follow the Success Factor 10 SIMPLE STEPS What image do you want to project for you and your business? When feeling overwhelmed, what areas do you struggle with?What are the main problems you face in your business that use your valuable time and energy?What are the emotional pressure points you struggle with
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How Many ‘Ps’ do you have in your business? How Productive are you? Do you measure this? If you do measure this, are you taking steps to make positive changes? Problem – we know that if we aren’t productive, we have a problem, and if we have a problem, we can’t be productive Plan – to enable us to deal with the problem we need to have a plan with small steps and tasks to complete Prepare – before we tackle our plan, we need to prepare for any work that needs to be done beforehand, looking ahead for any anticipated problems Produce – by taking small steps and actions we know that we will be able to fulfil our actions enabling us to achieve Positive – we need to keep motivated and upbeat otherwise we won’t be able to fulfil our tasks each day Pessimistic – we need to
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Oh NO! Not Again! Why does this always happen to me? “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. Winston Churchill Are you one of those people that think or even believe that everything always happens to them? If you are then maybe you might want to consider how those ‘other’ people manage to have everything in their lives going right! But is it right to say that it’s either one or the other, and what is fact and what is perception? If we want success then we should always strive to get their and never falter, trying to keep enthusiastic as best we can. Winston Churchill also said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Often those people we perceive to have it all and are always lucky is often is our perception, their mindset and
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