Tag Archives: Discipline

Ahead of the curve

What drives you to make yourself better? Do you wait until you have hit a wall or are bored with your work? When do you focus on being healthier? Is it when you suffer an injury or nagging pain stops you from doing the things you love?

Instead of waiting for January 1 to do a total reset, start practicing mindfulness and maintenance everyday.  It is easier to do 10 minutes of body work a day to stay healthy and avoid aches and pains than suffer an injury that will set you back for three months.

Read books or blogs (like this one!) that challenge you.  Focus on not only sharpening your current skills but creating new ones. Life is about learning and progressing everyday.

If you choose to do body maintenance each day for 10 minutes and challenge yourself everyday by reading something new or trying to learn a new skill, by the end of 365 days you will be ahead of your curve. You won’t need a January 1 reset. The New Year will now mean 365 more days of learning and personal growth.

Make it the best day!

-K

 

A little each day

Moving the rock up the hillside takes time.  Small increments of progress. There will be days of bigger movement then others. That rings true for our daily lives.

Some workouts will be better than others. Some days we will get more done. What matters is that we consistently show up and make progress.  Even though that progress might seem small in our daily lives, it is compounded over 365 days.

Show up, be present. Even a few inches of progress a day will keep you on track and get your rock to the mountain top.

Make it the best day!

-K

Get your goals

Keep an eye on your goals. Focus on what can be done short-term for long-term success.

Tomorrow’s results get set in motion today, get after it!

Make it the best day!

-K

Information

Be informed. Read articles from reputable sources. Check those sources.

Knowledge will help you be prepared for future discussions and will help you plan your next move.

We can progress with new knowledge. Yelling and fighting will not progress anyones cause. No one likes to be told they are wrong.

Approach situations with a willingness to discuss. Be prepared to talk, not argue.

Learning new information will always benefit you, search it out.

Make it the best day!

-K

Highs and lows

When we look at any chart or our lives we see ups and downs. Very rarely, if ever, are people or businesses on a straight trajectory up. Constant gains, always acquiring clients, never experiencing downtowns or hitting your numbers every month is hard to sustain over a two to five-year time frame.

How we deal with the lows, determines how quickly we get back to our even or back to our upward movement. Some lows are harder to come out than others. No matter how long the lull may be, it is important to start back up with a plan.

A plan that can start small and increase over the coming months. Make sure your short-term and intermediate goals are achievable, knowing that you would prefer a longer term, upward moving positive trend. That will be more beneficial over the sharp upturns, which ultimately lead to the same speed of down turns.

There are always highs and always low. Celebrate them all, but always have a plan when the lows come. It will make the journey back to positive that much more enjoyable.

Make it the best day!

-K

Emotional response

An email comes through with some not so nice things to say about a product, experience, or a recent transaction from a client. What is the first thing you do?

Most likely it is get a little irritated and want to respond with a lot of “I’m right and you’re wrong” type statements. Those might be good for grade school but in business we need to make decisions with a clear mind and separate feelings from a response.

If we responded with our emotional reaction every time, chances are we would end up in a lot of arguments and lose clients. A good way to start a response is to look at the facts and take your time. Do not respond in 5 minutes or even 30 minutes. Take a couple of hours to let your emotions come back to baseline.

Also remember, we don’t know what is going on in our clients life. They could have an extremely stressful day and you happened to take brunt of it (which is not the way to go, but that is another conversation)

Take a couple of hours to formulate a response. Remember to keep emotions out of the email and remain cordial. Use facts and offer more assistance.  The more help you offer, the more difficult it becomes for the other person to push anger towards you.

Always try to keep your emotions in check when dealing with business relationships. It will help keep client relationships strong and show you can be counted on to deliver a solid customer service experience.

Make it the best day!

-K

Actions

Take action before you speak. Words are rendered useless if there is no follow-up in actual action.

Talk enough about what you are doing or making happen with no actual results and that will ultimately reflect poorly on your reputation. You want your friends and family to trust you and take you at your word. Knowing that if you do say something, it gets backed up.

Start practicing doing instead of saying. See how many more things you get accomplished. Then also look and see how many people actually recognized what you did! Even when you didn’t talk it up to begin with.

Make it the best day!

-K

Need, want, like

That is an amazing t-shirt, I want that! Holy cow that ice cream was just the best, I need that! Oh I like that picture of the ocean. It makes me smile.

Do we need that object, new car or candy bar? Or do we just want something in that moment? If we give it one day, will that feeling pass?

Analyze where you are and what you are thinking of buying. Most of the time it can wait. Think it through. This is very important for snacks that can derail your hard work of eating healthy. Taking a step back from that snickers and look for a better option. Or maybe this time it is just water to fill that ‘bored hunger.’

Need, want, like. Look at it, assess the situation, make a decision. More often than not, it’s a want and you will get by just fine without it.

Make it the best day!

-K

The ultimate tool

Our attitude is a key indicator as to how we handle a given situation. Yes, having a good attitude about your current state is important. However, it comes back to mindset when looking at the ultimate tool for success.

What is your present moment mindset? What is your mindset about your upcoming tasks?

Having an open mindset that readily accepts learning new things and the understanding that you can always adapt is important. We are learning everyday.

The most powerful tool you can have is a positive mindset.

Make it the best day!

-K

Hang in there

Many situations arise where moods can change in a moment. How we deal with these mood and feeling swings will impact our emotional outcome.

It is hard to stay calm when an unexpected situation arises. Breathe, find your center and try focus on your desired outcome (not the run around you are getting from the customer service reps on the phone). It is hard to stay calm, but try to remember the service rep most likely didn’t contribute to the issue.

They are there to help resolve, so speak with calm tone and try to make their day. Rest assured they have plenty of people who give them attitude the whole day….

Stay calm, outcome focused, and confident that the situation will turn in your favor.

If it doesn’t, remain positive find the lesson that can be learned.

Make it the best day!

-K