4 “Lost” Success Practices-Want to Find Them?
Richard A. Conlow
Achieves Top-Tier Employee Engagement & Customer Experience Ratings for Multi-site Organizations | Gained 48 Service Awards for Clients | Author: The 5 Dynamics of Servant Leadership & The Superstar Leadership Model
Success is often defined as materializing from "the strangest secret" or "the secret". This meaning that success is the same for all. A success practice is only lost because someone hasn't found it yet.
Each of us define success on a very personal level, and the definitions are as unique as each individual. Generally success is something we are striving to attain. It's something we value in life or want to have, or do or be.
Where Does Our Success Come From?
The bottom-line, how ever we define success, is that our habits determine our fate. Habits are behaviors that work repeatedly and are reinforced. Our state of mind is supported by good habits and vice versa. Regardless of the outcome and whether it's positive or negative, we do things the way we do because we receive reinforcement and even satisfaction from our behaviors. Smoking is a habit that some people acquire. The initial reinforcement for smoking may be that it "calms my nerves" or "makes me look cool." After I smoke for a period of time, it becomes part of me. Eventually, I'm stuck with the habit, and I may even forget the original reasons for adopting the behavior. Work practices are formed the same way.
Here are four success habits when relentlessly emphasized give us a process for our success. Famed football coach Nick Saban at Alabama (winner of five national championships) often talks about this with his players. Too often the gurus overlook this as they share their formula for a better way of life.
Success Practice #1
Start by build on your positive behaviors. Emphasize your strengths. Reflecting on your positive attributes is like stopping to smell the roses. Consciously review the experience and savor it. This success is what we are targeting, so it's important to soak it in. Enjoy it! If you just mark your accomplishment off your To-Do list and start on the next goal, nothing will feel significant. There will always be more to do.
We must give and take credit. We get better by reviewing what we learned, too. Learning from our successes creates more success. It's important to look at accomplishments, to take responsibility for them, and to celebrate them. Ken Blanchard says, "If you don't blow your own horn, someone else will use it for a spittoon." Also, recall all of the steps you took to win. Isolate them and review how you can repeat the steps. Share your story and pass on the good news. There is an old adage among trainers; “We teach what we most need to learn”.
Success Practice #2
Next, address self-limiting behaviors. To consistently succeed, we all need to raise an awareness of the things that we don't do which keeps us from achieving our goals. We can use this information to make conscious changes in our behavior. Here are a few steps to follow;
- Identify what you're doing/not doing well and what you need to learn.
- Then act. Recognize that you don't have to believe it before you do it. Try it out. Do it and watch for results after a reasonable amount of time.
- Plan changes deliberately. Keep learning new ways to improve. Initially, you may find that your natural reaction and old habits take over. Notice when you "slip," and re-identify the habit you want to use instead. Consciously choose it next time.
- Get reinforcement. Reward yourself, and ask colleagues to give you feedback when they see you use your new success practices.
Success Practice #3
One of the most effective ways to learn a new successful practice and incorporate it into your daily life is to share it with others. This is about mentoring others. Use the LUTI model, which stands for "Learn it, Use it, Teach others, and Inspect it." It represents an effective way to fully integrate new learning while changing personal behavior. (The model was developed within the Xerox Corporation as part of their quality improvement effort.)
Transcend competition. This competitive approach to success, or "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality, can be a self-limiting habit. If I hesitate to share my success with others, I limit the potential positive impact of the habit by hoarding it to myself. Likewise, we limit integration of the new skill or idea. We teach best what we need to learn most.
Think more about making a contribution than about beating others. Success is really not about how much you get but how much you give to others. In Passions and Prejudices, Leo Rosten said, "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be 'happy.' I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all."
Success Practice #4
Make sure that your future avoids being doomed. Seize the future! Our current habits got us where we are now. If we don't do things differently, we will experience the same results in the future. Small things done differently in strategic places creates major impact With our disruptive world, continuous improvement is a critical success factor for anyone.
So, seek opportunities to make changes in your behavior. Look for the most obvious areas where you will be able to practice or demonstrate change. Also, set 'stretch goals'. Challenge yourself to accomplish specific results that will force you to concentrate and intentionally pursue change.
Finally, remember this adage: "If it's to be, it's up to me."
Want to ramp up your success applying these 4 lost success secrets? Engage our complimentary Success Practices Assessment & Guidebook now!
As a bonus check out this video: How to Set and Achieve Your Goals-the 5 Laws of GoalPower
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