Tag: Vision

Don’t Focus On Your Strengths

Achieving Goals, Success

We hear a lot of motivational speakers talk about focusing on your strengths, whether it be your top 5 or your best strength. However, anyone who has become successful at anything had to develop and become good at what they currently do.

Strengths are certainly useful, but they do not provide long term success, because there is no long turm objective, other than to become better at what you are already good at. It is smarter to have a vision or purpose for your life, a reason why you get up in the morning, and centre your development around that.

It could be to help people to read or to make a difference in people’s lives or to run your own company or many other things. Your strengths will often help with these things, but only if they align with your vision, purpose or reason. It is more likely that you will need to develop in areas that you are not strong in currently and with work these then become your strengths. The goal is to live your best life, which will require developing in areas that are not your current strengths.

Just Do It

Achieving Goals, Success

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

– Winston Churchill

 

The slogan of Nike is “Just Do It”, which is a call to action, but the action is deeply personal. When we hear Just Do It we are directed in our minds to the thing we are unsure about, the thing we are scared to do, but we are drawn to doing. We all have things that we want to do but we don’t think we are able to do or we feel that it will end in failure, so we don’t even try. I think having such doubts comes from previous failure that hurt us deeply in the past, and have become a forgotten wound that has healed and left a scare deep in our subconscious.

There is a moment between when we think about doing this thing we are scared to do and our brains talking us out of it. It is this moment of a few seconds when if we don’t act then it is unlikely that we will Just Do It. Many of us feel that we need confidence before we can do new things or that we need courage to do it. Both of these are often true, but there is something that comes before confidence and courage. Before we can have confidence, or courage, I believe that we first need clarity, we need to know what our Why is. If we understand the reason why we do what we do we can understand everything that we do. It is the act of discovering our raison d’être, our reason for being. When we know our reason for being we develop confidence in our own abilities, fueled by our passion for what we value. First we need clarity, then we get confidence and then we take the step of Just Doing It by having the courage to give it a go.

Courage, by the way, is not having the confidence to do something before you do it, no, it is giving it a go even if you are scared. The courage always comes with being scared, and the more scared you are the more courage you need to give it a go anyway. The clarity we have in what we believe and value is a sort of compass pointing us in the direction our soul wants us to go to and our confidence is a platform we can use to jump from when we take risks and try new things.

I have had a difficult time over the past decade when my confidence has been shaken to its core and anxiety seemed to take over my everything. However, I am taking back my confidence and my courage by finding clarity and being willing to give new things a go. I know that you can do the same. We have all had things that have knocked us down, but it is not about how many times we get knocked down but how many times we get back up. If we always get up one more time than we get knocked down we can rebuild, restore and move forwards. As long as we are moving forwards baby steps count too. So think of that thing you are putting off doing and Just Do It.

 

Something to reflect on:

Knowing thyself is the key to success at anything. Clarity leads to confidence, which leads to courage. Whatever is in your heart to do, just do it.

 

The importance of leadership

Leadership

“Leadership is not about the next election,

it’s about the next generation.”

– Simon Sinek

 

Imagine a world where there was no leadership, what would it be like. There would undoubtedly be an upsurge in chaos throughout every sphere of human culture. What about good leadership? What happens when we have no good leadership? To me good leadership is about taking care of those around you as much as it is about having a vision and leading people towards that vision. If people in any organisation are not looked after, whether it be within a voluntary organisation like a church or a business with a thousand employees or more, these people will invariably become self serving and feel that they have to watch there back in fear of losing their job. Anxiety goes up, well-being goes down and eventually the organisation collapses under the strain through the self serving actions of people create splits into tribalism or the selfish actions of some cause massive detriment to others in the organisation and those outside of it as well.

 

Morality in leadership

The price of bad leadership is very high. Just look at what is happening in the US at the moment. Almost all of the actions President Donald Trump makes are self serving, which causes those around him to compromise on their own ethics and the office of the President, which is supposed to lead and support the people, becomes eroded. This highlights very strongly in my eyes that good leadership requires a higher morality, either taken from religious, philosophical or secular ideals. This higher morality must come from something outside of ourselves, something that is a guiding star in all decisions and actions made by a leader.

 

Inspiration in leadership

It is well understood that good leaders inspire others to follow them, but many leaders fall back on the default of managing those they lead rather than inspiring them. If you only manage the work of others then they will do their job but they will rarely show any brilliance in what they do, they will do the minimum and go home at the end of the day unfulfilled. A good leader creates leaders in others, they actively encourage others to strive towards an ideal that allows them to be more than they believe that they can be, because the vision laid out be the leadership demands it. This is how innovation happens, how social action happens, how people change the world for the better, through the creation of a vision of a better world.

 

Humility in leadership

There is a term which gets bounded around quite a bit when talking about leadership and that is ‘servant leader’. A servant leader is someone who’s primary drive is to take care of those they lead, someone who lifts people up, who builds confidence and skills in others so that they can excel at what they do. When someone is looked after by the leadership in their organisation then they will do everything they can to move that organisation forwards. This is not top-down leadership, this is ubuntu leadership. Ubuntu is a South African word that means “I am because of you.” It is absolute respect and compassion for every other human being. When this is the focus of the leadership then those they lead will feel like there organisation is more like a family than a workplace.

 

“Everyone who takes care of

those around them can be a leader.”

 

If these three things can be manifested in leadership then the world will be better for it. You might be reading this blog post and be thinking that you could not be a leader, but I would politely disagree. Everyone who takes care of those around them can be a leader. If at your workplace you make sure that everyone else is OK, if you regularly ask them how they are doing and offer them solutions to their problems you are a leader. Even if you are not in an obvious leadership role, but you look after your team and help them move forwards in what they are doing you are a leader. To be a great leader we must also have the capacity to inspire others to follow a vision of a better world and to have a strong moral compass to guide us through the tough times.

 

Something to reflect on:

In your life who would you consider to be a good leader and who would you consider to be a great leader? What is it that make them such a good or great leader? Are these things that you could do to become a great leader yourself? Leadership is a mindset with actions to back this mindset up. Let us lead humanity to a better place.

How to achieve your dreams

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t you’re right.”
― Henry Ford

 

As we learnt in my recent blog post, How to be more confident, self doubt is a decision not to try, and it is also a habit. This might sound harsh, but those who achieve success in their chosen field do so largely because of their mindset. Here are a few ways in which we can make good choices when working towards our dreams.

 

Say “What if?”

When we come up against difficult challenges in our lives often we can back down and avoid doing anything risky or that involves us putting ourselves out there, open to criticism and possible failure. One way to get past this barrier to success is to say to ourselves “what if?” What if we did succeed, what if we managed to achieve our dreams, what if. This allows us to consider the possibility of actually succeeding, rather than becoming consumed by the thought of failure.

 

Start the day right

Often our days are influenced greatly by how they begin, we often say that someone who is in a bad mood has got up on the wrong side of the bed. Having a positive start to our day can have a massive impact on the decisions we make and whether we feel confident to make bold moves or to take advantage of opportunities. It is important to create a morning routine of positive rituals. If you are religious this could involve prayer or giving thanks to God. If you are not religious, giving thanks to the universe for being alive.

 

Studies have shown that gratitude is very important for our wellbeing and it can bring so much positivity into our lives. Doing some physical activity at the start of the day can be very energising. This could be just stretches, if you have a physical condition such as Fibromyalgia like me, or it could be doing some weights or going for a run or swim. Whatever your level of ability and health, some physical activity at the start of the day can set you up to have an awesome day. It is also important to set our intention for the day. You could ask yourselves “What am I going to bring to today?” and decide that no matter what you are going to have an awesome day. Our brains look for the things we focus on, so if we begin the day in a negative mindset we will look for problems, but if we start the day with a positive mindset our brains will look for opportunities.

 

Handling the negative

When negative things happen to us often we crumble or we react, getting angry or upset. If we let this happen we can push ourselves off course and away from our dreams. One of the most important skills we can learn is to pick ourselves up when life knocks us down, but more important than that is to become immune to the negative nonsense. If we develop the habit of letting other people’s opinions of us or little mistakes that we make become magnified through our focus on them, then we cripple our chances of achieving our dreams.

 

This self sabotage is a habit that we need to break. So, when minor negative things happen in our lives telling ourselves that we are OK and can keep moving forwards means that we will and we can. It is rare that we get knocked down to rock bottom, but we often have to deal with negative circumstances and people each day. This is what we need to build up an immunity to, so we can live with more joy and help others bring joy into their own lives.

 

Motivation is key

The Wright Brother successfully took flight in a manned powered plane on 17th December 1903. They were not the only people trying to achieve this. Samuel Pierpont Langley led a team who were very well funded, well educated and followed around by the press constantly. Whereas, the Wright Brother had no funding, no one followed them around anywhere and paid they for their venture from the proceeds of their bicycle shop. However, Samuel Pierpont Langley did not have something that the Wright Brothers did, which was the right motivation. He wanted fame and fortune for being the person who figured out manned flight, but the Wright Brothers had a vision of flight changing the world for the better. They were aiming at making advances for the betterment of humankind.

 

This is because their mission to change the world, their drive to succeed and their passion for what they were doing kept them going, even though they would crash several times every day, until at the end of 1903 they achieved their dream. If we want to achieve our dreams we have to examine our motivations. If we are only interested in self gratification and relishing the spoils of success then any success we have will feel empty. When we raise others up, when we make positive change in the world, when we bring joy and success to others, then we will be on the way to achieving the dreams that we can be proud of.

 

A dream achieved is only worthwhile if we bring other people closer to their dreams along the way.

 

 

5 Things all effective leaders need to have

Leadership

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

– John C. Maxwell

 

When it comes to effective leadership profit margins and performance projections are not the game. A leaders job is to know where they are leading their followers and to be able to articulate it in such a way as to inspire their followers to move in that direction together and to look after those that they lead. Leadership is about vision, energy, wisdom, human connection and having a moral compass.

Vision

Simon Sinek talks frequently about leadership and the need to have a vision and his vision is “I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single day inspired to go to work, feel safe when they are there and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.” My vision is of a world where the vast majority of people collaborate to help each other lead happy and successful lives and live fulfilling lives as a result. This is why I created and continue to write this blog. I would not be so bold as to compare myself to Simon Sinek, we are not even in the same league, but what I am pointing out is that a vision is of a world in which we want to live, it is tangible, it is something we can imagine and work towards.

The job of a leader is to instill their vision in the culture of those who they lead, so no one is fuzzy on the direction that they are going in. This means that the vision becomes a part of everything that the members of a team or the employees of a company do on a daily basis. When Managers only reward short term gains, like reaching a profit margin, then the whole thing becomes unstable and often collapses, but a vision is something that is almost unreachable, it is a north star which we will never reach, but it points us to where we are going. It is therefore a constant and creates a successful and stable working environment, which breads more creativity and innovation, because the vision is clear and the team or the employees feel safe to take creative leaps.

Energy

It is no accident that effective leaders have lots of energy, because energy is infectious and we are drawn to those with energy. If a leader uses energy well they energise the people around them and they diffuse it into the culture of their workplace, causing their team to put there mental, emotional and physical resources to the task of working towards the shared vision, towards the north star of that team and that company.

This only works, however, when the leader in question actively interacts with their team or their employees. Whether you are a CEO or a Team Leader passing your energy onto those under your charge is an essential ingredient of effective leadership, it is part of making a human connection with those that you lead, because for someone to follow you they need to trust you, and trust is built up over time through positive interactions where, as a leader, you look after those in your charge.

Wisdom

It takes time to become an effective leader, it is a combination of both knowledge and experience, along with the other traits I am discussing in this blog post. It has been found that the most effective leaders are between the ages of 45 and 70. This is the sweat spot for effective leadership. Wisdom is a term that is banded around a lot, sometimes it is referred to when talking about people in their 80s and 90s, but I do not think that it is necessarily always about age.

I believe it is about the daily pursuit of knowledge and understanding of how to do the things we care about well. It is about us putting this knowledge and understanding to the test of experience every day, and on the other side of failure after failure we find wisdom. It is a deep understanding of how and why the thoughts, speech and actions of greatness result in this outcome. It also takes time to become wise, which would account for the age range within which we find effective leadership.

Human Connection

When leaders are in charge of a small team of people there are day to day human connections. Everyone knows the names of each others children, everyone’s lives are intertwined. The team will work and socialise together and relationships are built up over time through many many little interactions that amount to strong human connections. Therefore the leader needs to be adept at building and encouraging these connections, these relationships. Empathy is a strong component in these relationships, to connect emotionally on an individual level.

Empathy is a cornerstone of any human relationship and a good leader knows that teams and companies are not built on money or products, they are built on human relationships, because 100% of employees are human beings and 100% of customers are human beings. An effective leaders job is to look after their team or their employees and their employees will look after the customers. This is how sustainable businesses grow, and the stakeholders will benefit from this model more than if the leaders only focused on what the stakeholders wanted.

Moral Compass

As leaders rise up the ranks they become more and more detached from the employees they lead, so empathy no longer works, human connections become lessened, because there are less of the little interactions that add up to a working relationship. This is why empathy decreases in effective leaders in higher ranking positions, but it is in fact replaced by compassion. In other words they become more focused on doing the right thing even when it is hard.

This compassion is their moral compass, which becomes more prominent in effective leaders over time. It is detached from the individual employees that the leader is leading, but it is focused on doing what is right for all of the employees in their charge. Even if they are the CEO of their company, an effective leader is dedicated to doing the right thing, even when there is pressure to do the easy thing and put profits over people.

Effective leaders need to have a vision and clearly communicate it out to those they lead. They need to use empathy to make real connections with the team they lead. They also need to engage their moral compass of compassion when leading from a more senior position when they cannot rely on close working relationships to support and guide their employees. Being an effective leader has a lot to do with knowing that people are more important than profits, because effective leaders create effective leaders in those that they lead. To be a great and effective leader we have to make sure we look after the person to the right of us and the person to the left of us and we can all do that.

Mini Reflection: The challenge of short and long term goals

Mini Reflections

Always have a vision, an almost unachievable and wonderful reality that matches your values and beliefs, but also set achievable daily goals which are aimed at the vision ahead of you. The vision is the destination, your values and beliefs are your compass and the map comes into existence when you know where you are and where you want to get to. However, without achieving the daily goals we will never get there.

Bringing a new focus to this blog

Happiness, Success

After much consideration I have reshaped the focus of this blog. I have come to realise that happiness and success are in fact the pillars which support fulfilment in one’s life. The goal of life is fulfilment, which is impossible without understanding how to achieve both of these pillars. This is the manifesto for my new blog, which I have renamed The Fullfilment Project, the aim of which is to help people live a full life.

Manifesto

The Fullfilment Project is about inspiring every individual to find fulfilment in their lives. I believe every human being deserves to live a fulfilled life, which stands on two pillars, that of happiness and success. These are two vital intertwined states of being. You may be beaten down by life and circumstances, you may be living a blessed life, either way I aim to inspire you to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday, and as a result to find fulfilment.

I will post weekly content aimed at inspiring you to be the best version of yourself that you can be, a self that is happy, successful and fulfilled. I will focus on personal development, setting goals, daily hustle and cooperation with others.

I am on a journey studying the best ways to find fulfilment in life, so that I can share my findings and help as many people as I can to achieve their dreams and feel fulfilled, because I have a vision of a world where everyone cooperates with each other to find happiness and success, and therefore find fulfilment.

If we know the way to find fulfilment then we have a responsibility to guide others to find it and when others know the way we have to be humble enough to follow them. Happiness, success and fulfilment can be found in cooperation with others, because when we help others find these things we find them ourselves. This is our fulfilment manifesto.

Vision & Mission: The catalysts for greatness 

Leadership, Success

For a company, a team or an individual colleague to do well there needs to be a foundation of Values. Without this foundation there is no direction, and as Simon Sinek has taught us, there is no Why. There also needs to be consistency across the Behaviours of the company, team and colleague as well, this is How the Why is achieved. If the Values and the Behaviours are right then the Results will match and success will be the outcome.

However, just having the right Values to inspire the right Behaviours is not enough to attain greatness. This involves how we get from the Values to the Behaviours, having a clear and consistent path to follow. In order to attain greatness there are two other pieces to this picture, things which are the bridge from the Values to the Behaviours. These are the Vision and the Mission. Both should be clear and outcome orientated.

The Vision is the extension of Why we do what we do, it is the overall goal that shoots for the stars, it is an ideal outcome, an ideal worth working hard for. For example, the Vision of the Royal National Lifeguard Institution is “To end preventable loss of life at sea.” This is a clear and noble goal, as all Visions should be.

The Mission is more about What we are going to do and How we are going reach the Vision. It is the second part of the bridge between Values and Behaviours. It is a kind of action plan in the form of a statement. For example, this is the Mission statement of Disney, “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere.” This might sound like what Disney do, which it is, but it also tells us How Disney does it.

In order for the Vision and the Mission to firstly be created and secondly to become part of the culture of a company or team and the mindset of an individual colleague, we also need passionate leaders who inspire others to believe in the overall Vision and Mission. Then each individual within the team or company will make it their reason for coming to work, their reason to strive for greatness.

This is the job of Line Managers at every level, to coach their team, so that they may oporate at their full potential, in a way that helps their colleagues find joy in their contribution. This is teamwork at its best, and it begins with Values and Vision and continues with Mission and Behaviours. Let us all be the leaders which inspire greatness in others, so that we may achieve greatness together.