Stop waiting. The time is never perfect.
Do whatever it is you are putting off until the time is right. The right time is right now. You will make time for the things that are important.
What is important to you? For the answer, look at how you spend your time.
Everyone who takes on the challenge of striving to reach a goal doubts his or her ability. At least, doubt creeps into their minds at times. The secret of success is to plow through these doubts. Know they are part of the process. See your self-doubt for what it is: your lizard brain (to borrow terminology from Seth Godin) trying to protect you from failure or humiliation.
At the beginning of a project, know that self-doubt is coming. Know that your lizard brain is going to try and convince you to stop trying, to give up. Plan, from the outset, how to quiet your doubt. Take comfort in knowing that you are not alone; others feel self-doubt as well. It is an attempt at self-preservation. Successful leaders are those who move past the doubt to persistence, and complete their goals.
Learn to control doubt. Be persistent with forward movement toward your goal. See doubt as a way to learn and improve. Overcome doubt and you will win.
Leadership is about accomplishing tasks and reaching goals through a team. Great leaders lead teams that accomplish a lot. These teams seem to get more done, and done better, than those around them. A successful, productive team is a thing of beauty.
A successful team with a strong leader has energy. Energy is derived from the team members; the team’s energy is driven and encouraged by the leader. Nothing dampens a team’s energy more than team members who feel they have no control.
Leaders who dictate every action or task of the team create an environment where the team won’t make decisions or take action its own. The team waits for instructions. It feels it has no control. Conversely, great leaders give their teams direction, rather than instruction. They surround themselves with people who can do their jobs better than they can. And, these leaders remember that their team members are good at their jobs.
Leaders of successful teams are results-oriented. These leaders tell their teams what the result should be. Then, they get out of the way. Team members will ask for help when they want it.
As a leader it is important to be authentic with your peers and leadership. One important aspect of authenticity is a willingness to share your true opinion when asked for it. Many leaders, when asked by their boss for an opinion, tell the boss what he or she wants to hear. It is important to pick battles carefully. It is also important to be authentic and give your real opinion. Do keep an open mind and be willing to be swayed. But, when asked for an opinion, share your real opinion.
I shot the photo that is in this post in a back parking lot around the corner from my office. I am attaching my own story and meaning to it. I imagine that someone was told to always put blocks behind the wheels when this truck was parked. The purpose of the blocks must not have been explained. Blocks are sometimes used to keep the vehicle from rolling in the event of parking brake failure. Wheeled vehicles tend to roll DOWNHILL when not under some manmade power. In this photo, the blocks are on the uphill side of the truck.
It is important to look for ways to improve, and to inspect the status quo. Don’t follow a process only because that is the way it has always been done. Know the why behind the process. Learn. Improve.
What are you working on today?
What is the most important step you must take right now for your most important project?
How can you make this step the best it can possibly be?
How can you you make the results of this step your best work ever?
Do you need the help of others?
If you do need the help of others, how can you help them do their best work ever?
Can you remove the obstacles to your best work ever?
Can you remove the obstacles to your team’s best work ever?
Can you answer the questions above and ship your best work ever, TODAY?
No great company started out great. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Hank Aaron, Billie Jean King – none of these started out as a great. No great leader started his or her career as a great leader.
Greatness requires only persistence, and continuous improvement. Strive to be better today than you were yesterday. Look back on today and find things you can do better tomorrow.
Greatness is within your grasp. But, it does require lots of incremental improvement. How can you improve?
How will you be remembered? What about you will live in memories?
I just attended a memorial for a friend. Person after person talked about how my friend had touched their lives. They spoke of how he had made them feel. They remembered interactions with him.
What matters most is not what you accomplish, not the goals you set and meet. What matters most is how you live your life, how you make others feel, how you touch their lives. Your legacy is made up of thousands of interactions with others. Make each one count.
Great leaders are able to inspire their teams to do great things, to do things even the team hasn’t conceived as possible. Great leaders communicate a belief in the accomplishment of a goal. They have the power to expand the abilities of their teams.
Comparison
What are your goals? Where do you want to go? How do you get there?
The most important part of reaching a goal is what you do on a daily basis, and how you improve each day. Comparing yourself to others and where they are is not the way to reach YOUR goals. Your goals must be just that, your goals, not what you envy in others, not what society says they should be, but, what YOU want.
Compare yourself to the yourself of yesterday. Grow toward your goal.