In the first part of this article, I explained to you the fundamental difference between what is urgent and what is important.
In this second part, I will present 6 excellent strategies to increase the results you get from your initiatives!
1. Take notes!
I have already spoken to you about the importance of writing lists to identify your goals.
But that's not where the note taking stops!
Every day, you come into contact with opportunities and information that can improve your life.
Do not take these opportunities lightly. 🙂
How many great ideas have been lost and how many fruitful contacts have been broken because of forgetting or simply because we have not taken the time to write them down?
Write down your daily activities
Think of all the solicitations that you have in a day.
If you do not take the time to note the most important of them, you will certainly forget some of them.
Many people postpone what they have to do simply because they lose sight of all of their activities (and how important they are to them!)
That's why a list of things to do can help you, the famous "to do list", as they say in English.
Noting what you have to do reminds you to do it at the right time.
This is also what an agenda is for.
Moreover, if you do not have an agenda, I suggest you get one without delay!
There, I hear them say to me: "My schedule is not full enough to require a diary …", "I never used a diary of my life (and it will not start today)", etc.
I can only tell you one thing: even if you do not feel the need, if you do not already have one, start using a calendar as soon as possible.
And one with pages big enough to write down several things (do you want to achieve your goals, yes or no?)
If you live in 21e century, 😉 I recommend electronic calendars like Google Calendar (there are also a lot of productivity applications for smart phones that complete the whole thing).
But I also suggest the diary of a friend, life coach Melissa Lemieux, who helps time management and self-realization (A year for me).
Write down your great ideas!
Empires have been created thanks to a good idea.
I now have an impressive amount of content to write other books, blogs, etc. simply because I bothered to write down my ideas the moment I had them.
People often believe wrongly that they will remember their ideas if they think about it.
Unfortunately, ideas are often context-bound.
We have ideas when we talk to others, when we walk and even when we take a shower …
And if we do not take note of them, it is more than likely that we will not remember when we need it.
Here are some tips for not missing your great ideas:
- Keep some sticky and pencils at different places in the house. Like that, as soon as an idea points to your nose, you can note it.
- Do you have a smartphone ? In this case, you can send your ideas by email or install a application which allows you to take notes orally when the context does not allow writing.
- If not, you can get a small dictaphone which will do the trick.
All you have to do is find a way to write down your ideas when you're in the shower or when you parachute! 😉
Create events and track them
You complain that you do not see enough people you like?
Take notes and create the event!
People are (very, very often) content to be reactive in their interpersonal relationships.
They go to work colleagues because they see them every day.
They do not have to make the effort to call them.
Do you want to see someone who is dear to you?
Remember to call it in your calendar, otherwise you may forget …
When you start taking new initiatives to get things done, you may need to call people and meet them.
You will need to collaborate and follow up on your projects.
I am surprised every week to see how much people are talking but not acting.
This is the reality of the human being and also that of business.
It is sometimes necessary to contact a person three times to answer.
And its silence does not usually come from a lack of interest but a lack of efficiency.
Society is saturated with disorganization and inefficiency.
If you develop your sense of organization, you will be positively noticed!
Successful people have, among other things, succeeded thanks to their sense of organization.
That's what allowed them to get results and get to the top.
If you develop the same rare attitudes as these people, they will surely notice you and trust you more quickly.
They will know that they can count on you.
Thanks to these good habits, I have earned a reputation for efficiency.
The people who work with me know they can count on me.
It makes all the difference, I can assure you!
Note to save time
There are a lot of activities that require a certain amount of information and that you repeat, sometimes often:
- You buy from the office supply
- You go on a trip
- You change your address
- You prepare your tax report …
- Etc.
If you write down what you have always need to perform these activities, you will not have to redo the list each time.
With time, you will also enrich these lists.
You will make sure you do not forget anything and avoid unpleasant mistakes.
You will also save time because you will have all the relevant information when you need it.
2. Have perspective
Efficiency and proactivity are attitudes that require a lot of perspective.
The ability to realize ourselves also depends on our ability to take perspective.
A student looking for a summer job that is easy to find, low-paying and in no way related to his field of study lacks perspective.
What would happen if he guided his actions according to his studies and career, if he saw how his summer work is related to the goals he wants to achieve?
He might find a job that would enrich his curriculum vitae and provide him with better experiences.
This student would go further and faster than those who lack perspective.
To succeed, we must think further than the tip of our nose!
"Cathedral builders", even if they cut stone, are more likely to get better working conditions and responsibilities than "stonecutters" because they maintain larger fields of work. interests.
They are interested in more subjects and learn continuously.
Their proactivity and vision help them to be rarely depressed and they are motivated!
As you develop your perspective, you train to look beyond the tip of your nose. This attitude helps you to think strategically and consistently.
- How are your activities related to each other?
- What is the link between your daily activities and your medium and long term goals?
With every initiative you take, think long term. Think about what your actions will bring you in many ways at once.
You can also enrich your perspective in the short term, every day.
For example, it's easy to think that the more we work and the more results we get.
But that is not always true.
Imagine that Sylvie must return a project in a few days and that she works 14 to 16 hours a day to finish on time.
She lacks perspective because she is content to react to the stress of her deadlines.
Even though the number of hours of work she does each day is high, many of these hours are absolutely unproductive.
The stress, fatigue and imbalance of working unceasingly diminish Sylvie's ability to produce good results.
She works in part for nothing.
If Sylvie had perspective, she would provide rest periods to ensure that the hours she works are really productive.
As a result, it would increase its results along with its quality of life.
Sylvie could also organize her activities according to her expected state of fatigue.
For example, she would do repetitive activities that require less attention when she is more tired.
To summarize, when you develop your perspective, you subscribe to the adage Prevention is better than cure !
3. Channel your energy and create synergies
Do you know the expression that one plus one gives three?
This is exactly what the synergy.
If we do not give ourselves goals or have a global vision, we scatter our efforts without even realizing it.
In this context, all our activities are equal because we do not worry about the results they give us.
I know many brilliant people who do not succeed in their lives because they are scattered …
It is not a question of working 12 hours a day and six days a week to succeed.
It is still necessary that our work helps us to achieve the goals that we desire and which progressively improve our situation..
With time, these improvements accumulate, allow to obtain more results, more quickly, and end up making us live the life of which we dream.
If you want to succeed, you must take more and more initiatives.
But do not forget that those who succeed the most also fail the most because they are the ones who try the most.
A strategy to minimize the risks of failure and maximize results is to cross the fruits of your efforts.
In other words, one initiative can support another.
For example, when I wrote my first books, I then drew on their content to create lectures, trainings, radio columns, and articles in magazines.
We do not always have to reinvent the wheel!
When you create synergies between your objectives and between your actions, you maximize the fruit of your work and your learning.
Here are some strategies that will help you channel your energy.
Think order
A well-known maxim says that we must not put the cart before the horse.
This maxim illustrates how counterproductive it can be to work without worrying about the order of activities that lead to good results.
Does one approach promote the results of another approach?
For example, if I had not created the topics and contents of my lectures and training before to promote them, I would have found myself with an unbearable workload when I had my first contracts, because I would have had everything to do at the same time!
Think of what you can do in an order that allows you to achieve maximum results.
Enrich the overall vision of your goals and think long term.
You will soon find that some of your goals intersect with others and that achieving one can help you achieve another.
Unfortunately, we often find that we have badly organized our activities after the fact, when we are wrong or when we are working unnecessarily.
Also consider the positive impact that the results of one goal may have on other goals.
For example, after the publication of my psychology books, it was easier to write radio stories and magazine articles than if I had tried to make radio and publish articles before my books appear.
Keeping an overview of your goals will minimize your mistakes and promote opportunities you may not have thought of.
Work on one goal at a time
The capabilities of our brains are limited, particularly in terms of attention.
Whenever you change your business, you need to remember what you were doing to put yourself in context.
So every time you change your business, this update is wasting time.
That's what happens if you work on multiple projects at the same time.
It is better to work for one goal at a time, without losing sight of others, of course.
A similar strategy that I presented earlier is to group activities that are similar.
In this way, you decrease the number of times you change activities and minimize the loss of attention and chances of making mistakes or forgetting to do something important.
Create a context for success
In a previous article, I explained how much your results would depend on the important changes you would make to your life, such as stopping doing some of the things you currently do.
To create a context for your success, you need to make that kind of change and make it real in your life.
For example, if you tend to amass magazines, items, etc. in case you need it one day, it's high time to revise this habit.
To create a favorable context to achieve your goals, you must eliminate everything that is not necessary and that may distract you.
This is often the case with all the things we accumulate.
Over time, objects accumulate and hinder the smooth running of our activities.
Diogenes of Sinope, a cynical philosopher of ancient Greece, had chosen destitution and used a barrel for any home.
According to him, it helped him focus on the essentials, on the inside.
The "Diogenes syndrome" denotes the opposite of the behavior of this philosopher and consists rather in accumulating a large quantity of objects that are useless.
We sometimes adopt certain attitudes related to this syndrome, without however paying into the pathology …
If you decide to live the "unlimited growth", you will focus enough on who you are, on your goals and your vision.
At this time, instead of thinking especially about what you can get, you will not want to consume because it is your life that will make you especially happy.
You will not buy anymore to reward yourself or to relieve frustrations.
The things we accumulate are often used only to waste the time we spend on uselessly managing them.
A thing ?
Keep only the things that are essential to your goals.
Eliminate anything you are not sure about using.
To achieve this, you need to create a sober and simple context that will allow you to focus on what really matters!
4. Get off the beaten track and innovate!
Another important change I mentioned at the beginning is start doing things you are not doing right now.
Remember, the situation you are in now depends on what you did in the past. If this situation does not satisfy you, you must change some things.
This is how you will really achieve.
To achieve this great goal, you need to start thinking differently and taking the initiatives that will produce the results you want.
This choice is yours.
This will improve your confidence that you can do things you have never done before.
For example, if you have an unsatisfactory and poorly paid job in the last ten years and you know very well that this job will not improve your life, you can give yourself the goal of changing it.
What depresses us and demotivates us is often the context we create with a "status quo" attitude!
It is in this context that your ability to innovate and find original solutions to old problems takes on its full value.
What better kind of job could you get?
What assets, people and experiences can help you?
But above all, do not answer these questions from what you already know.
Because this is what you already know and your current way of thinking that have kept you in this situation for years (if you find it unsatisfactory).
You must have the courage to believe in your potential.
People who have climbed to the top and live the life they dream of without having studied for a long time and while they came from poor families have points in common that all successful people share:
- They believed in their dreams.
- They have provided the efforts and initiatives to learn every day.
- They have left their beaten track (and their famous "comfort zone").
5. Take opportunities instead of letting them pass under your nose
The most successful people know how to take advantage of the different opportunities available to them.
Better still, they focus on creating them!
The information and situations we face every day can help us achieve our goals.
But if we do not know where we are going, it is impossible to know what can help us, to enjoy it at the right time.
The more you take action, the more initiatives you take and the more chances you have to take advantage of good opportunities.
Like learning and success, the amount of opportunity is also growing exponentially.
Every opportunity you seize will lead you to one or more others.
And again, you have to have perspective.
For example, I was interviewed to participate in a documentary filmed in 2007 because I had a conference in 2005 whose report was on the Internet.
You can not predict what the specific benefits of each of your initiatives will be.
The only certainty if you take action is that there will be!
It is therefore essential that you do not listen to your fears and that you leave your old habits.
But beware !
You must not disperse by pursuing several hares at a time.
Make sure the opportunities you enter are consistent with your goals and your vision.
6. Empower yourself, and hold yourself accountable!
In closing this article, I would like to remind you of the importance of taking responsibility for your life and the results you get.
It is so easy to justify the misuse of our time, our disorganization, or the fact that we are not getting what we want.
But we are never as well served as by ourselves!
Take full responsibility for the results you want.
Do not wait for anyone but yourself because it's up to you to achieve your goals.
All the rest, you do not control it!
When you take responsibility for your success, you attribute positive changes to yourself, to your decisions, to your efforts and not to others or to chance.
There is a direct relationship between self-actualization and increased confidence and self-esteem.
A person who values themselves and has taken the time to get to know each other knows more about what to do to get things done and has the confidence and motivation to succeed.
On this subject, you will consult with profit my book Who am I ? How to accept oneself, to assert oneself and not to self-sabotage, to blossom! which focuses on self-knowledge, confidence and self-esteem.
The more you realize yourself, the more you are proud of yourself.
This is how you increase your inner security.
If you raise your standards and get off the beaten path, you will get much more out of life.
Do not let defeatists convince you that you deserve nothing better than what you currently have or that your dreams are not worth the tepid security of the lives of those who do not realize themselves.
You only have one life to live.
Is not it better to have nothing to regret?
In closing, here are some of the positive consequences that such personal achievement initiatives will have on your life:
- Your personal contribution will be higher: you will be more productive and you will achieve more.
- You will improve your vision of yourself (self-esteem).
- The more you give to others and to society, the more you will receive.
- The efficient organization of your time and activities will develop your personal discipline and your ability to achieve more results by providing less effort.
This context will not allow you to work harder but to work better. You will get the most out of every action, every minute of work.
And do you want to learn another good news?
Just taking time to clarify your goals and being more efficient will have an impact on how you perceive yourself.
This simple initiative will begin to improve your self-esteem and increase your desire to succeed.
Unlimited growth increases proportionally to what you want from life.
If you are aiming for a roll, you can be sure of getting only one roll (or even just crumbs …).
On the contrary, if you devote more rigor to the management of your time and activities, you will get much more.
If you liked this article, know that it is from my book Unlimited growth. You can get it in ebook version to read it in full.
Here is a book that I suggest you to go further:
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