Success is Looking For You!

Every year around this time, we have conversations about our past performance and we start to think about our goals and what we want to accomplish in the coming year. It’s great news when you’ve had a great year! You feel proud and happy – and you should! However, every success compels us to DO more… to BE more…

I’ve had the great fortune of receiving several awards for my work over the past many years and I was excited each and every time I was recognized! But now – they are distant memories – things I did “back then”. While I enjoy the memories – they have nothing to do with today - because today is a new day – with new challenges and new opportunities to find success.

I’m always reminded of one of my favorite quotes at this time of year:

“The actions and behaviors that led to success in the past, will lead to failure in the future.” - An old Boss of mine

Think about it. If we continue to operate “as we always have” because we have achieved some level of success – we may be missing out on what “could be”! Similarly, if we don’t grow and change with the times – we can become obsolete…

• Blockbuster Video vs. Netflix
• Walkman vs. iPod
• Horse and Buggy vs. Tesla

OK you get the point. So how do we do this? How do we get better every year? Of course there’s the old stand-by – take training and learn new things - and of course I support that 100%!

BUT – WHAT IF….???   What if we thought differently about HOW we worked – instead of WHAT we know? 

We all have a ton of things to accomplish during the week. We will never be “caught up”.  Realistically, we can’t do it all….at least not all at once. What if we focused only on our highest priorities? What if we narrowed our “to do” list to the 3 to 5 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS for the week? And every week – we got those things DONE?!  Now that would be progress and would lead to success. I would argue that many of the things that pull on our time each week are not necessarily focused on priorities. The Real priorities. The one’s that matter the most. The one’s that drive our business forward. Yeah – those guys.

We all want to be successful and we need to maximize our time to get there. We need to be selfish with our time. We need to say “no” when we need to say “no” as long as we can justify the priority work.  We need to ask for help when we need it. We need to collaborate with our peers to accomplish more – to share the load sometimes. There is a way to get there and it’s not always easy – but the payoff can be big.  

Just 3 to 5 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS every week…think about it again.  What are yours?  Can you focus on them next week? GOOD!

Write them down and plan ahead…Success is looking for you!

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