When my head hits the pillow after a long day into night, if I’ve experience any of the states of mind below, I know it’s been a day well spent. How often do you feel these ways?
1. Clarity. 80 percent of success comes from being clear about who you are, what you want, and what you believe in. If the knowingness gets buried in the day’s busyness, pause for a few minutes. Sit quietly. Listen. Let the thoughts drift by. And stay in the moment.
2. Competence. When you spend the day doing what you’re good at, you can find joy. To reach the next step in your journey, learn to be excellent today. Do all you can do to become as competent as possible in your work, and you’ll not view it as work. Read. Study. Discuss. Stay open of all of life’s lessons.
3. Control. Find ways to gain control over your day. It’s not as simple as time management; it’s more of a state of mind. No person, no problem, no email, nor phone call can interrupt you unless you decide to respond. Learn to politely say no more often. Simplify with deeper focus. Your satisfaction level will soar if you feel control over your day.
4. Concentration. Forget multi-tasking. Research has proven multi-tasking creates stress, mistakes, poor client service, inertia, and makes us unhappy, says McKinsey & Company. The ability to focus on one thing and see it through ultimately improves your productivity. Be single-minded. It’s okay. That’s no easy task in this over communicated world, but concentration is vital to your well-being. Unplug from the always-on, always-connected business day whenever you can.
5. Creativity. Saturate your life with new ideas from all sorts of places. Jot them down in a journal; it’s fun and fascinating to view the world as a source of creativity. Whether you’re an architect, attorney, or anesthesiologist, a cook, coach, or craftsman, creativity is an endorphin to professionalism. And it needs to be exercised like a muscle. Use it or lose it.
6. Courage. I love this one because it stretches our humanity. Most days I’m faced with something I must quickly learn how to do, or study to understand, or solve situations that don’t seem solvable at first. Courage is most in demand and least in supply. It takes courage to do the things you know are right. When you do, everything else makes sense.
7. Continuous Learning. From the beginning of time up to the year 2003, personkind generated 5 billion gigabytes of data. By this year, we’ll generate that much data every ten minutes.1Can we really learn and retain in this fearsome hurricane of information? Yes. Develop pinpoint selectivity, and become an authority on only those topics that matter to you. You’ll gain an edge. Your brain will stay sharp. The joy of learning exists for its own sake. Get lost in a book. Play more golf. Take up Spanish. Your mind will hum with gratitude.
Thanks to Master Life Coach, Mary Duwe for her insight. She was my business coach for two tough years and changed my life in remarkable ways.
