In my previous article, I discussed getting the building blocks of health and personal development. This is important, as individuals need to be in peak performance to ensure that they give their business the best chance to grow. This means that individuals need to ensure that they get enough sleep, keep themselves in good physical condition, eat the right food and look after their mental health. If an individual neglects any one of these factors, they will not be able to provide a consistent level of performance to support the development of their business.
In this article, I will discuss some further suggestions to boost productivity.
Find your ‘why’
Setting a meaning to your life is crucial to self-discipline and setting long-term goals. People need meaning in four ways, namely purpose, values, controls and self-worth. Consider setting long-term objectives, deciding how you will achieve them ethically, and make sure you have control over achieving these goals.
Do a ‘pre-mortem’
An effective way of preventing large projects from failing is to consider what could go wrong before it actually goes wrong, as opposed to understanding why the project failed after the event. Take the time to consider and record potential issues the project may face, then take steps to mitigate these risks.
Set effective goals
A key discipline is identifying goals and articulating them in a way that helps us to achieve them, and a popular way of doing this is through the use of goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). Let's take a quick look at each of these concepts in turn.
Goals need to be specific. Always consider the 5 ‘Ws: what, why, who, where and which. Try to define them in more detail and specify what success means with specific measurable outcomes. You need to be able to track your progress by specifying criteria. A common trap with setting tasks is failing to set achievable ones. Tasks that are too far out of reach, or that you have limited control over will sap your motivation, so consider breaking them up into processes, rather than outcome-based goals. For example, completing an assignment might be better broken down into spending 10 hours a week on it. Always take time to consider if the task is relevant–is it the right time to do it, and are you the right person? Make sure it is time-bound, as deadlines are critical for self-discipline and momentum.
One last point with regards to effective goals is to make them exciting. You need to be emotionally and intellectually thrilled by the prospect of completing it.
Prioritise and delegate
An essential part of managing your brand is the ability to prioritise and delegate. Feeling like you need to do everything yourself is one of the worst mistakes you can make as a leader.
Make sure you take time to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team to determine their suitability for completing tasks. You need to understand the time required to complete the task and build in a degree of flexibility, especially when you don't control all of the inputs.
Start categorising your tasks into a 2 x 2 square as ‘Critical and Urgent’, ‘Not Critical and Urgent’, ‘Critical and Not Urgent’ and ‘Not Critical and Not Urgent’. This is a particularly useful exercise, as without it, critical non-urgent tasks tend to get neglected. Always ring-fence time for these important tasks.
Avoid procrastination
Nike told us all to ‘Just Do It’ in their iconic marketing campaign, and if we could, we would. However, this slogan is more useful than you might think, as we are all guilty of making excuses for why we can't do something.
In psychology, there is a concept called ‘behavioural activation,’ which aims to force an individual to do the things they want to do. It is normally used to help people with mental health conditions, such as depression. The principle behind behavioural activation is not to focus on the beliefs or feelings around why something isn't being done, and that actually doing the activity lets you discover that it wasn't as bad as you thought. Finishing things leads to momentum, which in turn makes it easier to start and complete other activities.
Finish what you start, but know when to quit too
Having self-discipline is about doing what you need to do, even if you're not in the mood for it. Although starting a new project can be emotionally satisfying, after a while issues may arise that make that same project difficult or tedious. Think about the projects you have previously abandoned and look for patterns–once you know what it is that causes you to stop, you can begin to fight these factors earlier. Another common cause for abandoning a project is lack of research. Be sure to spend some time trying to understand how others have succeeded in similar projects and make sure that your plans are realistic. Use the tips above to set up SMART process-based goals to keep on track.
Conversely, it is easy to stick to a project that is failing due to the amount of time already invested in it, which is known in economic terms as the ‘sunken cost fallacy’ (Hall, 2019). It is essential to develop a mindset that is geared towards attaining success, rather than avoiding failure. At the outset of every project, set a ‘stop loss criteria’. This is a term borrowed from stock market investors, who will set buy and sell criteria at the outset of purchasing shares. Once a share falls below the stop loss criteria originally set, they will automatically abandon that stock and sell it at a loss. Set a time limit or budget for your project, and if it exceeds that, kill it even if it might take off later. You can always look at it again later on.
Dress for success
People respond to the clothes you wear, and what you choose to wear on a given day can have an impact on how you feel too. Push yourself to stand out in your tidiness and fashion sense. Look for a style icon who dresses like what success looks like for you, and analyse a few photos. What makes this person look good to you? What about their style resonates with you? Being presentable every day takes a degree of self-discipline, but it pays to be smart.
Wearing a uniform or a name badge while running your clinic conveys a sense of authority and helps embed the fact that you are an expert in your field. This is particularly important in clinical fields, as it helps build a sense of trust with your clients.
Conclusion
Driving both yourself and your brand to success requires a set of rules, and the determination to keep pushing. By using the tips above, you can apply a more disciplined approach to your personal and business development.