Goal achievement:
Never been this straightforward

 We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.-Aristotle

People have lots of things they wish they could learn or achieve. It’s could be playing a guitar, swimming, driving, learning to use a software, fly a plane, develop programming skills, play a game or just any other skill that could help them advance in their career or enjoy life. For a considerably large number of people, it all ends in this recurring game of wishing or for those that make any advance at all it tapers down to this frustrating process of “fits and starts” [starting and stopping in no time].

You might have asked a question like, “why does this task look so daunting….or why is it so difficult?  I probably think the reason is very simple. You have never learnt how to go about it or have simply refused to work at it. In this article I would want to share something I think is all you need to get that task off your table and enjoy the joy of accomplishment or achievement. Let’s go…

These simple steps I recommend might be something you already know. But just key in…Learn some more and remember that what you know doesn’t matter. It is what you do that counts.

1. Decide what you want to do, clearly define your goal and then the sacrifice you are willing to make to achieve it. In the absence of clearly defined goals you only become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia-taking steps totally unrelated to what you hope to achieve, leading you in a different direction than you would like to go.

2. It’s not enough to do [1] above. Write it down…and I’m pretty serious here. I repeat WRITE IT DOWN. Never assume that because you have decided what you want to achieve in your mind that all would go well. In fact someone once said that any goal you have that is not written down is only a wish.

3. List everything that needs to be done to achieve the goal. Break the goal down into manageable steps with approximate start and finish dates. This could involve topics to be covered, exercises to be done or people to meet, stages, parts etc. Rene Descartes agreed with this when he said, “Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.” One goal at a time…and the energy keeps building. John Dewey opines that arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. And that’s the way stuff works.

4. Get to work on it daily or as often as your plan permits. Never miss a step in your on the way. If you do, get yourself to do more work to be able to stay on schedule. If you don’t miss steps, reward yourself. Remember you can’t skip the “work part”. According to Vince Lombardi, “…the dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success.”.

5. Stay disciplined. This is the stage where the last parts of the set of people that don’t achieve their goal hop off the carriage. It takes discipline to stay till the last steps of your goal. It’s at this point that it sometimes feels like you are not making any progress. It’s okay when you feel that way or in reality see no improvements. It’s not a time to quite. It’s a time to stay out the process. This unwelcome part of the process is the experience that all great achievers have on their way to mastery and nature isn’t about waiving it for you. This is the place self discipline comes in. And this is the way Arden Mahlberg defines discipline. He said it means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want to or when we do not feel like. As soon as you break through this threshold you can be sure you are about seeing the red tape.

Unfortunately, most people are talkers and not doers. Others are starters and not finishers. But people that succeed are those that display a remarkable sense of self discipline till the end. This point is what I call the “last page of the book”: it takes men of character to get here.

Finally I must say that I have been looking for the shortest cut to realising ANY dream, achieving any goal or succeeding at anything worthwhile in life. And this is the shortest I have found so far. And if you are thinking like me now you will understand why I strongly agree with Bevery Sills when he said, “There are no short cuts to any place worth going.”

And Brian Tracy concludes it this way: All great success in life is preceded by long, sustained periods of focused effort on a single goal, the most important goal, with the determination to stay with it until it is complete.

Your appearance tells a story

Until recently I have been writing about Personal branding. So far we have looked at “Developing Your Personal Brand” and “Rebranding Yourself”. Today we would be looking at how to advance this agenda through your appearance in this article entitled “Advancing Your Personal Branding through Your Appearance”. Let’s go…

Your appearance tells a story of who you are. And since your appearance is an on-going narrative of your person it is very critical that you pay close attention to it. A few things you want to do to stay in control of this story would include:

1. Dress well, Dress smart. Wear comfortable clothes. Make sure that what you have on isn’t tight. This could make you uncomfortable and having it all glued to you is plain ridiculous. It sometimes sends a wrong signal especially in the case of ladies. I know you get my drift.

2. Be consistent. No excuses please! Remember your dressing tells a story. Its YOU communicating albeit NON-VERBALLY. You don’t want to say something today and another on Wednesday [Smart on Monday…and, “oh I forgot to iron my shirt on Wednesday”]. Show some consistency.

3. Maintain a trimmed hair, shave regularly [for guys], and ladies get your hair in some fitting style, shave your leg and those exposed armpits. And please everyone never forget your nails. They look like an untended garden when ignored.

4. Cologne, perfume and an after-shave would be helpful – they should be able to call attention to you in a mild and reasonable way. 

5. Have a unique style. Be in a class of your own. Let people know you for a certain style. Choose unique accessories. You might want to get fancy pens and pencils. They are easily noticed and remembered by others. You don’t want to be carrying some mass produced give away company pens that leave no distinctness. But again be careful what they know you for. You don’t want to short-sell yourself.

6. Exhume confidence. If you get the first point about dressing right, this step would be easier. Have you noticed that when you wear something that you aren’t sure of, your confidence seems to erode? On the other hand you need to understand that your physiology affects your psychology for example you can’t be sad and have your shoulders high. Looking down is synonymous doesn’t help your self confidence. You are a different person when your shoulder is high and your head is raised.

7. Wear a smile-This is a no brainer. Remember that saying about you being incompletely dressed without a smile?

Make sure that whatever you do…your appearance does not undermine your overall narrative.

How to arrest procrastination

without a warrant

Procrastination is a persistent and debilitating condition that affects productivity. Below are twenty [20] tips to help you overcome it

1. Get organised-It unclogs your system, and puts you in a motivated state. The truth is that one of the reasons behind procrastination is lack of motivation.

2. Prioritise your task. It immediately sends a message to your brain how important a task is. That way your subconscious mind begins to work your mind through the process of emotional preparedness for that task.

3. Move whatever it is you need to do at the top of your list and begin with it. Experience has shown that whatever is at the bottom of your list is what is very unlikely to be done-do important things first.

4. Organise your time. You put off things most of the time because you feel time starved.

5. Break down the task in small, manageable steps. One reason people procrastinate is because they feel overwhelmed by the task at hand.

6. Focus on one thing at a time. Distraction is one reason why people procrastinate. People start something they think is important and stop suddenly midway because of distraction. [Note that every attraction is also a distraction: Even seemingly good things/people like friends, family, Internet, Mobile phone etc can distract you. So just shut them out]. Sometimes you need to tell someone who has come for a banter that you need to go back to work. People are usually respectful enough to just leave you alone.

7. Take short breaks between steps in the task. That way you are able to complete the task and not put it away midway…and then keep procrastinating.

8. Delegate less important duties. That way you can free yourself to begin what you have always procrastinated about.

9. Change your mindset: Never put off for tomorrow what you can tackle today.

10. Some people procrastinate because they are afraid of failure. Well you need to read lots of biographies to understand that to succeed you need to act as if it were impossible to fail. Starting with failure in mind sends the wrong signal to your brain which in turn will trigger failure. And you may need to take some advice from Randy K. Milholland who once said, “We all have a few failures under our belt. It’s what makes us ready for the successes” or you might want to consider the opinion of one of the greatest basket ball players in known history [Michael Jordan]. This is what he had to say-”I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” Always ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that would happen if I take action”.

11. You need to plan for setbacks or you might never start – accept that you will fail sometimes! But put in place a rebound strategy. With a strategy in place you would be in the best place to look your fears in the face fearlessly.

12. Procrastination is a choice. You must realise you are a free moral agent and have the power to choose what you want. Communicate this to you whole faculties through self-talk.

13. Change what you think and say. Be positive. Improve your self talk. What you say affects your mind and your mind affects your body. This process is what determines whether you are motivated or not. Motivated people rarely procrastinate. So conduct a think-talk audit and find out if you have been short changing yourself all this while.

14. Visualise the reward. What would happen if you completed this task and also ask yourself what would be the consequences if you lost the opportunity to handle this task because of procrastination. Most people are motivated either by pain or reward.

15. To stop procrastinating you need to fire-up your subconscious to enable permanent changes in your motivation. An effective way to do it is to look at WHAT you listen to and WHO you listen to. You don’t want de-motivated, negative people speaking into your life. You might want to get Self help books and audios that challenge your productivity.

16. Read biographies and autobiographies of men who have come through all kinds of challenging circumstances. This awakens your consciousness to the indomitable powers of the human spirit. This in turn challenges you to action in pursuit of all those tasks that have always looked daunting.

17. Take some minutes to imagine how much drained you feel emotionally because you have been putting a particular task off. How do you think you would feel if I told you the task has been taken care of by someone else [on your behalf] say  3 minutes ago? That’s how it would feel like if you had just done what you needed to do. You can use this process now and again to put yourself in the emotional state that would get you to do what you need to do. The feeling you get after the task is done your reward to yourself.

18. Get someone close to hold you accountable for that task. This can be very helpful.

19. Fix a deadline and track your progress

20. According to William James, “Nothing is as fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”. This is why it’s so important to break your task into small steps. It’s easier to finish if you work in this way. Sometimes procrastination isn’t even the culprit. The culprit is probably you. Overloading your schedule and thinking you can get everything done…and when this isn’t possible you then call out procrastination-this is hardly the way to go. Bite as much as you can chew. Finish old projects before taking on new once. You must realise that most old and unfinished projects get boring by the day-Introducing a new and more exciting project means that you are more likely to keep procrastinating about old ones.