Tag: self discipline

How to Lead Up

Life 101: Develop competence. Build the discipline to finish small projects. Solve interesting problems. Help good clients succeed. Do lots of small good things for other people. Share the credit. Take the blame. Share your journey. Associate with good people. Help others realise they are capable of more than they think. Give them confidence. Lift them up if they fail. Celebrate their courage. Ask them what they learnt. Be present in their lives. Live with purpose and intention.

The days of sending your CV over to HR and waiting for the job offer are dead. No great job offers come through HR.

As Seth Godin says “No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

  • “My boss won’t let me”
  • “They won’t give me permission”
  • “I don’t have a publisher”
  • “Oprah Winfrey won’t respond to my emails”

Stop “waiting to be chosen” and “Pick yourself”.

If you want to write, write. If you want to make videos, make videos. If you want to be creative, make things with creativity. If you want to run an event, invite 50 people to an event. Don’t wait for permission… because there is nobody left to actually give you permission.

If you ask your boss for permission to do something, this is what they hear: “If this fails, blame goes to you (because you gave me permission); if this succeeds, credit goes to me (because I did it)”. Only an idiot would take this deal. Your boss didn’t get there by being an idiot.

Great problems create great leaders. Take the time to build the foundations before you build the skyscraper. Take responsibility. Become a trusted team member.

How to Fail at Leadership

The 3 areas you can mess up if you are to fail at Leading yourself and others:

  1. Relationships
  2. Self Awareness
  3. Openness to Change

Check out the video below to understand what it means to not mess up on relationships, self awareness and openness to change.

What is Leadership?

An effective leader is a person who:

  1. Creates an Inspiring Vision.
  2. Motivates People towards the Vision.
  3. Executes on the Vision.
  4. Builds a team to Achieve the Vision.

Read about how to do each of these 4 steps: What is Leadership?

If you liked this post, you will also like A truly compelling vision and 17 Personal Habits for a Fulfilling Life.

The Last 5% is the Hard Part

Starting is easy.  There are no prizes for starting the marathon.  You get the medal for finishing.

Most people I know are good at starting.  Few people I know are good at finishing.

Who do you know who is good at finishing?

What do they do differently?

The closer you get to the end, the stronger the emotional resistance grows.

“An artist never finishes a work, he abandons it.”

Pablo Picasso

I thrive on interaction.  This blog gives me a short term feedback as I write. I can hit publish after 15 to 20 minutes and immediately get responses. 

I’ve consistently failed to write a book because I am addicted to the short term feedback of blog comments, of emails, of youtube videos…  I’ve never been able to commit to the 3 year process of writing without “likes” and comments.

The question for me: is it still important to me to write a book?

How Self-Discipline will make you a Better Leader

Self-discipline is the foundational habit that makes all other good habits possible.

Self Discipline

What is self discipline?

It is the ability to do a chosen action even when you don’t feel like it.

Anyone can do the action when they feel like it.  It is the ability to do it when you don’t feel like it that really marks the difference between having a large positive impact in the world or just dribbling away all your days.

A peaceful picture of a bench, a tree and some tranquil water. Seems appropriate.

All habits are developed by repetition. If you repeat something bad for you, it will become a habit. If you repeat something good for you, it will become a habit.

Resolve to stick through the important tasks that you chose to start.  As you repeatedly finish what you start, it will become more and more natural to you.  Blogging was hard for me at the beginning, but now I know I will publish within 20 minutes of starting a post (I am coming up to 500 posts out there on this blog and other online resources such as forbes, lifehack, IESE, Active Garage, slideshare, venturebeat, venture village)

Three Step Guide for Better Productive Days

Here is a morning guide for being intentionally productive:

  1. Write down the top 5 most important tasks
  2. Pick the #1 most important task.
  3. Work on it until it is done. (THE HARD BIT!)

If you aren’t thinking of an important bigger picture, you will be distracted by easy interruptions.  It is hard to stay the course when you don’t feel like it.  Your life gets better when you get better.  Your leadership gets better when your habits get better.  Facebook, email, twitter are so instantly addictive that I will be distracted by them every day that I am not working on something that is of importance to me.

All important success comes from finishing projects.  If you get better at finishing, you get better at life.  Do the projects today that the “you” of tomorrow will be thankful for.

Start and complete a task every morning before anything else.  Dandapani taught me to start by making my bed first thing in the morning.  I start by reminding myself that I finish what I start (and making the bed is not so difficult).

Further Resources

Photo:

Tranquil bench and lake photo credit: Matt Champlin 

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