The weekend has nearly arrived. Are you feeling exhausted after another full-on week? We all lead busy lives, so I thought I’d share this beautiful and inspiring TED talk by travel writer Pico Lyer.
Plug in on your journey home and listen to his wise words on how the art of stillness can actually help us all be more productive. Enjoy.
Are you sitting uncomfortably? Then we’ll begin.
One of the foundation capabilities of being a good (or even great) leader is self-awareness. But being self-aware is a skill that research shows we lose as we rise through the ranks. Why? Because the more senior you get, the less people give you honest feedback.
So to improve your self-awareness, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. But that’s really difficult. So difficult, it’s almost impossible to do on your own.
(As a point of balance, being honest is as much about recognising your strengths as it is about identifying areas to work on). However, you’re reading this expecting to feel uncomfortable. So here’s a way to begin focussing on improvements. Let’s start with a quote from the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung (the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was developed from Jung’s theory of psychological types)
Have I lost you? Are you saying to yourself ‘don’t be so ridiculous’? If you are, maybe you’re not as open to being self-aware as you thought.
Read the quote again. Or maybe think of it in another way; The things that annoy us most in other people can be things we dislike (and generally deny) in ourselves.
Really think about it. Be honest. What’s happening for you now? See what unfolds in your thinking and how your new awareness could impact you as a leader.
Remember Jung’s quote when you feel the same kind of frustrations with people rising over and over again. Then think about whether there’s an opportunity to understand yourself more.
Better self-awareness will help you identify behaviours you want to improve.
The next step is knowing how to turn that awareness into changed behaviour.
If you’re a leader the chances are you’ve had to work very hard to get to where you are. But sometimes, along the way, we lose perspective on healthy work behaviours versus those that can damage not only you, but your team (and ultimately your business).
If this sounds familiar, have a read of this interesting article from Jullien Gordon. As a self-confessed ‘recovering workaholic’ he’s identified seven ‘light-bulb’ moments that occurred for him as he worked on addressing his work/life balance…
How are you feeling about 2015. Have you set some goals? Well here are few tips to helping those goals stay current and not get ‘lost’ like so many of their ‘goal cousins’ the new year resolutions.
1) Write it down…you may think you don’t need to as it’s all in your head. However, if the doubts and demons appear during the course of the journey towards your goal, looking back at your notes will help you. You can’t dispute the energy and passion in your own handwriting as you conceive your goal.
So, with your pen in hand…
1) what is your end goal
2) when do you want to achieve it by?
3) why is it important to you
4) what will be better for you once you have achieved it
5) what won’t be so great if you don’t achieve it
6) how motivated are you at this moment of writing, to achieve that goal?
7) what could sabotage your achievement of this goal (be honest with yourself!). For each potential sabotage, what could you do to minimise the likelihood of being knocked off track?
8) how can you break your goal down into little chunks?
9) when would you like to achieve each ‘chunk’. You may find you need to go back and extend the deadline for your overall goal after you’ve done this. We are often over ambitious in our expectations of ourselves, and this is a key contributor to giving up.
10) who are your goal champions. I like to have a few key people I tell about my goals, so I can celebrate the success of little chunks with them, but also bemoan challenges along the way (and no goal comes without challenges)
Good luck for 2015. And if you need any coaching help and support in achieving your goals, just get in touch!
New Year’s resolutions are usually about giving something up. This tradition has stayed strong, despite psychology telling us it’s harder to give something up, than start something new.
So why don’t you start 2015 with a goal that focuses on starting something new, rather than giving something up. For example, rather than giving up chocolate, why not start eating more fruit. You might end up eating less chocolate anyway!