Today I want to talk about how to set yourself up for success. I believe, and I’m always telling my Clients, that the real key to success is having the right mindset. With the right mindset, you can accomplish ANYTHING! But still, it doesn’t hurt to give the right mindset a helping hand.
Most of the work that I do with people centres around having the right mindset because I believe that until you have the right mindset, everything else you do will be a waste of time. But having the right mindset isn’t an instant process. It takes time to really develop.
So, while my Clients are working on getting the right mindset, one of the strategies I use to help them is to go through what I call setting yourself up for success. And that basically just involves working out some practical things that you can do that are going to increase the likelihood that you’ll be successful.
Examples From My Own Life…
Let me give you some examples from my own life of how I have been able to use this. One of the things that I noticed about myself, particularly after I left the Corporate world, is that I am always at my most productive in the morning. However, afternoons used to be a bit of a struggle for me. I found that of a morning, I was fresh, sharp and focused. My mind was at its peak and I could get through work effortlessly. But by the afternoon, I was starting to feel lethargic. This is more of a problem when you’re working for yourself and you don’t HAVE TO do anything because you don’t have a boss looking over you. I didn’t lack motivation, I just found that I couldn’t think quite as clearly, and I was more easily distracted.
I thought, this is terrible! I don’t want ANY unproductive time in my day. How can I fix this? Well, there were a number of things which I did to turn things around. One thing which made a big difference is that I found some awesome vitamins to give my nutrition a boost. And that’s very important, but as well as this, there were a lot of other little things I did which also made a big difference to me.
One of the first things I did was to adjust my scheduling. I wanted to do all those things of a morning which required me to think the most, because that’s when my mind was best at thinking. I tried to avoid doing anything of a morning which didn’t require much thought, because that could easily be done of an afternoon, and it was a waste of my most productive time to be doing those things at that time of day. So, I would do things like Blogging and creating content first thing of a morning.
Of an afternoon, I would do all the things that didn’t require me to think very much. So, I’d be doing things like admin, going through my emails, my household chores, as well as a lot of formatting work. When I’m writing a Blog or creating content, I just write. I don’t worry about formatting or making it look neat. I just write. Then when I’m finished of course, I then need to go back and format everything to make it all presentable. So all this formatting, I would do of an afternoon because you don’t really need to think about it too much. The work of Blogging and creating content which required me to think and be really creative, I would do first thing while my mind was fresh.
There we heaps of other little things I did as well. When I Coach people 1 on 1, I like to prep for the call. Review any previous notes I’ve had with this Client. I like to have my space all organised so that when I’m on the call I can really focus on helping this person. So, I created a “Coaching Tray” which is a little tray that I have on my desk where I keep all the things I use when I’m Coaching. On top of the tray is always a Checklist of all the things I need to have ready for each call. The tray is always there with everything in one place so that when I’m preparing for a call, everything is right there for me.
I would deliberately make a conscious effort to avoid doing anything that I knew from experience would be likely to get me distracted. I wouldn’t check my personal emails or Facebook during the day because I knew I’d probably end up spending an hour on that if I started.
I also planned for downtime. When you’re not working in the shackles of Corporate life, you don’t have your lunch time and breaks dictated to you. But you do need to have breaks, you’re just not locked into taking them at a scheduled time, you take a break when you need to. But often too, breaks can lead to distraction. So, I planned how I would spend my breaks. When I felt like I needed a break, I’d go grab a coffee, I’d sit somewhere quiet where I wouldn’t be disturbed.
Another really important thing is that I planned for failure. I know that even with the best of intentions, things won’t always work out. Sometimes I just couldn’t get my mind in gear of a morning, sometimes I just felt tired of an afternoon, sometimes I allowed myself to get distracted. I knew that inevitably this would happen, so I had a plan in place of how I would deal with it when it happened. For example, if I felt tired of an afternoon, I would just go to the bathroom, splash my face with cold water, go grab a bottle of chilled water, go for a bit of a walk around outside, get some fresh air. Then I would come back, reset and start over again.
As a keen F1 fan, I will always remember watching one of the Practice Sessions last year when Lewis Hamilton was practicing a 5 Second Penalty in the Pitts. Why would he do that? Because he was so committed to success, that he wanted to be ready for ANYTHING that could potentially happen. The chances of getting a 5 Second Penalty aren’t that great. It doesn’t happen very often, but he wanted to know if it did, he’s already rehearsed it, he knows exactly what to do.
So Now Let’s Turn This Over To You.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself are there any area’s where you’re not as productive as you could be? Is there any 1 thing in particular that seems to keep popping up that stops you from being as successful or productive as you could be?
In an ideal world, what would be the perfect conditions for you to operate under where you’d be at your most productive? Is there anything that you can do right now, that would help to create that sort of environment for you? What are some of the things that you can do to ensure that you’re setting yourself up for success? What are your “triggers” for distraction normally? What is your plan for dealing with that when it happens?
Well, start by putting things in your favour. Like I said, set things up so that you’ll be doing your most valuable work when you’re at your most productive. Create the environment that is going to be the most conducive to you being at your most productive. Avoid the things that are likely to cause distraction. Expect failure and have a plan for how to deal with it.
Actually Take The Time To Do This!
Now that you’ve done that, did you notice any areas where you could improve? What are some of the strategies that you can now implement that will help you to be more successful?
Let me know in the Comments…