Do you want a positive future? READ THIS TO FIND HOPE

Just as there are effective and ineffective ways of running companies, so there are effective and ineffective ways of managing your own life. There are countless books on the subject; most are unreadable. But the facts remain that most people have limiting habits which prevent them from achieving their full potential for success and happiness in their working lives. Some of the advice contained in the literature of ‘self help’ can genuinely help to increase personal effectiveness and life achievements. What follows are some of the most practical and commonsense ways in which you can increase the return you get on the efforts you put into your life.



LOOK AND LEARN

‘Learn from success,’ is the advice of Peter Drucker, godfather of all personal effectiveness gurus. If you see a situation in which everybody else fails and somebody succeeds ask the question "What do they do that we do not do?" Look around you and consider what positive people and any high achievers do and try to copy them in your own style. IT WORKS



SET LIFE GOALS

Much stress - and failure - results from conflict between different roles in your life for example, between your full-time job, your role as a parent your role as a partner and your role as, say, an enthusiastic gardener. You can perform each of these roles with varying degrees of success, but one role will often suffer from your commitment to another. It is a useful exercise to write a list of all the significant roles in your life and then, after thinking them over for a few days, to rearrange the list in order of importance. Refer to the revised list regularly, asking yourself whether or not you have been devoting your best efforts to the things that matter most to you. With time, you will achieve an optimum way of dividing your time and energy.



SET TARGETS

Lack of clear, measurable targets can be a major source of frustration and de-motivation If you work then agree your targets with your boss (don’t be passed off with generalisations) or, as a last resort, set yourself targets which your boss would have set if he/she were any good.



Targets should be specific (write them down); tough but achievable, measurable, set in the context of time (i.e. to be done by such and such a date); and relevant to your goals. Arrange targets in order of priority and regularly take time to review your progress towards achieving them. VISUALISE ACHIEVING THEM DAILY.



SET PRIORITIES

Whatever you are trying to achieve, there will probably be more tasks to be done than time to do them in, and some tasks will certainly have more of an effect than others on whether or not you achieve your goals. For many people the urgent work gets the priority attention which should go to the important work. You need to distinguish between the two and, if something has to give, makes it the urgent and trivial items. Your priorities are any task that take you forward towards your goals or dreams not those that get you through the day.



LEARN TO SAY ‘NO’

Getting put upon or taken for granted and being asked to do things that you would prefer not to, especially if they take you away from achieving your priorities then learn how to say ‘No’ with confidence. Nearly everyone is constantly being pestered to do things, and many people find it easiest to agree to do everything they are asked to do. There is nothing wrong with this if you are happy with it, but if it leaves you frustrated and miserable it is a problem which needs addressing.



No one can do everything, or keep everyone happy and agreeing to do one thing means not doing something else. Regularly taking on extra work just for the sake of being ‘nice’ is a sure-fire way of undermining the work that matters and thus limiting your effectiveness. It also makes nonsense of any planning, prioritising, and hoping. You don’t achieve the objectives that matter to you by squandering your time and energy on things that don’t matter to you. Saying ‘No’ may involve a few minutes ‘stress now’; it could save you hours, days or weeks of stress later on.

Try saying "Yes, however I will be able to help you in x minutes, hours or days"



QUESTION EVERYTHING

Your working life can be made much simpler by asking yourself the question ‘Is this really necessary?’ whenever you are about to do anything. Don’t assume that because something has always been done in a particular way that it is the most effective way or even that it needs to be done at all. Most working routines have ‘wastage’ in them (do you for example, insist on being involved in other peoples work for no good reason other than to boost your ego?’), resolve to fight ‘wastage’.



ASSESS YOUR PROGRESS

Try putting aside a short period each week for self-assessment. Don’t be afraid of finding faults in yourself but try to identify the things you are doing right as well. Sustained attention to the strengths and weaknesses of your current and past performance can yield dramatic results: just being aware of them seems to bring improvements naturally. It is equally important you assess how you are feeling, and do you still feel positive about your future.



ASSESS YOUR ABILITIES

There is a technique for examining businesses known as the SWOT analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Try this on yourself. Ask first: ‘What are my strengths?’ (Write a list of at least 10.) Are all your abilities being used? If not, start, thinking of ways of putting this right). More generally, consider whether your plans for the future make the best possible use of your strengths.



Next try to identify your weaknesses. (Think hard and honestly about this) Then think about what, if anything, you want to do about them. It is foolish to imagine that you can be perfect, but you can improve your effectiveness considerably by dealing with your weaknesses; either by trying to eliminate them (by correcting some blind-spot, such as lack of computer or language skills) or by adjusting the way you operate in order to compensate for them.



Opportunities should become more plentiful as you work on your strengths and weaknesses, but most lives have opportunities in them anyway, just waiting to be recognised and exploited. Ask yourself if there is anything out there that you could be doing to enhance your performance; and ask yourself what would happen if, instead of putting most of your work into solving problems, you applied time and energy to taking opportunities.



Finally, think calmly about threats to your effectiveness. Are you neglecting training, or preparation, or planning? There is no point in neglecting threats which you can deal with.



MAKE SHORT TERM PLANS

It is not difficult to spend 10 or 15 minutes at the end of each day looking at the tasks you have coming up, deciding which should have priority and making a list of items to be tackled the next day. The same can be done on a weekly basis. These few minutes of thought will not only help you stay in control, they will also give you the psychological boost of feeling that you are in control, resulting in reduced anxiety, enhanced confidence and, as a result, increased effectiveness.



MAKE LONG TERM PLANS

You need a planning tool like a calendar, diary, Ipad, software or just a blank piece of paper but something to make long term plans and use it to jot down appointments, reminders, priorities, and including things you need to do by yourself as well as engagements with other people. This is an excellent way of keeping priorities in mind, ensuring that you allow sufficient time for particular tasks, making double-booking impossible and generally keeping your mind free for useful thought rather than worrying.



EVALUATE YOUR TIME

There are two common ways in which you can prevent yourself from being as positive, successful and happy as you might be. The first is by wasting your and other people’s time in unnecessary, un-focused or rambling discussions and procrastination. The second is by being so obsessed with not wasting time that you never slow down to relax or discuss things in the informal, un-pressurised way that can often lead to creative breakthroughs or enjoyable exchanges

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You can resolve this paradox by being aware of the way in which your powers of concentration fluctuate during the day. Most people experience several highs and lows even between 9.am and 5 pm, usually at around the same times each day. If this is true for you, try to ensure that you do your most important work during your highs - and be as productive as possible during those periods - while being more relaxed during your lows. Real slumps (which many people experience in the early afternoon) might just as well be devoted to undemanding, routine work. Lesser slumps might be best for relaxed discussions. Overall, the better you understand the variable quality of your time, the more you will get out of it.



USE A SCAM/JUNK TRUNK

You have to deal with ‘scam/junk’, and it takes time perhaps only a few minutes, but interrupts your important work. When confronted with scam/junk items, try putting them on a scam/junk trunk, perhaps a scam/ junk email trunk, or best of all, just delete, forgetting about them and then dealing with them in your ‘10 minute interludes’.

These are dead periods which occur in nearly every working day: just before receiving a visitor, before the start of a meeting, before going out, before the children come home. Commonly known as TIMEGAPS.



CONTROL STRESS

Signs that you are experiencing too much stress include bad temper, loss of appetite, reduced sex drive, insomnia, persistent headaches, panic attacks, poor judgement, physical tiredness, obsession with detail - and poor performance



What can you do about it?



One thing to do is deal with the causes, which can include too much work, too little work, uncertainty over goals or, most commonly, insecurity and uncertainty.

It may be impossible to do anything about bosses or family members who are indecisive, unable to delegate or constantly changing their mind, or about a poorly defined role, or about a role that combines too much responsibility with too little power. But it is certainly worth trying to persuade other people involved to change their ways, change your role or clarify your goals. It may work, and even if it doesn’t, the very fact that you have taken some action will start to reduce stress.



You can reduce it further by removing any self-inflicted stresses, particularly by making any decisions you can make (even small ones) to resolve uncertainties



DEAL WITH STRESS

The other approach to stress is to deal with its effects rather than its causes, aiming to find ways of releasing the tensions caused by your life. Physical exercise, anything from walking or gardening to serious working out, is one of the most effective methods. Or you can try conscious relaxation that is, setting aside time to do nothing but rest, listen to music, or even meditate. Another valuable tool is ‘alternative stress’: engrossing yourself in some other activity, from a highly competitive game of ‘Scrabble’ to an evening class, charity work or a social brain chellenge. Above all, when feeling stressed, don’t just sit there feeling sorry for yourself. Do something.



THINK PHYSICAL

Many of us prevent ourselves from achieving our full potential in purely physical ways. Unhealthy habits, lack of fitness and poor posture things all have an adverse effect on your life, as does an unhealthy working environment.



You may not be able to solve all your problems in such areas, but it is certainly worth paying attention to them and making what improvements you can. Remember, human beings are designed to be active, mobile creatures; any habits that include tension and immobility will tend to undermine your effectiveness and happiness.

You should also be aware of the debilitating effects that exhaustion can have on you. Psychological studies show that, for most people, efficiency begins to decline after eight hours’ work and declines quite rapidly after much more than 10 hours. Many people work excruciatingly long hours to little effect precisely because they fail to realise this. Working efficiently rather than working long hours is an excellent way of increasing your effectiveness.



WELCOME CHANGE

Failure to adapt is probably the biggest single reason why once flourishing lives and careers suddenly grind to a halt. Whether you are faced with new technologies, new relationships or new life conditions, try to welcome the changes. Learn to see change as your friend, after all it is everywhere.



THINK POSITIVELY

A cliché yet true. Just worrying, moaning or thinking in a defeatist way can never make your life better. Responding to challenges, looking for solutions and believing in you can and usually does give real hope for your future.



THINK AND WIN

When dealing with conflicts with other people remember solutions that leave the other people profoundly and permanently dissatisfied always work less well than ones that offer some benefit to everyone. WIN > WIN is an attitude than can change lives, let it work for you.



DO IT NOW

This may seem obvious to you, however taking a first step immediately to resolve a problem, deal with conflict or to get started on a difficult task really is a major MOTIVATION and personal life enhancing action.



THINK

However stretched you may feel you will normally use no more than a small fraction of your mental powers. A small amount of time spent simply thinking, reading, personal brainstorming and developing memory skills will reward you with faster, more flexible and more open thinking skills.



LISTEN



Good listeners are people who have learnt to use their ears and eyes more than their voices. The most effective way to show other people respect and to develop your learning and ability to influence others is to allow your listening to dominate your relationships and conversations. What is it people say "You have 2 ears and 2 eyes but only one mouth – use them in that proportion".



BE HUMBLE

Avoid being too proud to admit your faults, to being wrong, listen to criticism from others and be open to good advice. BUT be assertive when you feel you are in the right or being unfairly criticised.



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