Thriving Thursday ~ Focus today on growing and progressing in your business. Moving forward is the ONLY way to go in business!
Habit:
a. A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.b. An established disposition of the mind or character.
Positive Habits both personal and professional are a must in life… consider some of these. Do you poses or practice them?
Develop a foundation of good habits!
- Habit: Proactive: (personally) Take responsibility for your life. Face reality and choose positive responses to things that come your way. (professionally) Take action. See realistically what is coming over the horizon – do not be a reactionary – get a head and be real.
- Habit: Management: (personal) Create life around you that is inline with your values and goals. (professional) The management of your time is crucial for creating a “working life” around you that is inline with your values. To be organized and address tasks/projects with levels of “priority” gives you strength and control. Remember to manage yourself not just time.
- Habit: Win-Win: (personal) In relationships you think of ways things benefit both participants not of just yourself. You feed your partner with choices/decisions/actions that are not just one sided. (professional) Setting up opportunities where two entities win from one situation. Collaboration is a key tool to win win relationships. You take out negativity competition and scarcity mind sets and find ways to both gain.
- Habit: Understand First – Then be Understood: (personal & professional) First listen, extend to reach “empathic” listening skills – this is where you are listening with the intent to understand. You will listen with ALL of your being. Evaluate what is being said before reacting. Take in all of the facts, comments, concerns, questions and really think before you respoond being sure to cover all areas being shared. This is a great skill for sales people!
There are several other habits you can and should poses in life and business the ones listed above are foundational. Do you practice those? Work at building them into your every day life.
Habits you can use to build onto your foundation for your business…
Preparation – the habit of being prepared for situations or even your daily routines is a BIGGIE. Having a process that allows you to stay on top of things and be prepared for the day helps you stay focused.
Communication – the habit of good communication can be hard at times but if practiced over and over – being aware of what you are saying helps move forward to achieving good communication. How you communicate your delight in jobs well done, how you communicate your displeasure in a job done are two very big aspects of communication. The biggest is communicating what you are looking for, directions, your desired outcome to those who work with you.
Tools: the habit of using tools to help manage your time, be more productive, and share some of the “heavy lifting” in your business is not so easy to adapt especially if you are one that does it all on your own and/or in your head. The one who uses a ton of “stickies” everywhere instead of one place for notes. To be successful I have to say this is the top habit to form!
Making Habits Stick!
Commit to a minimum of 30 days to practice your desired habit. It is said to take it in 3’s, 3 hours, 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months and so on – by repeating your habit over a period of time it will ingrain that behavior into your routine or person.
Start simple – do not try to change everything at once and start a bunch of desired “habits” at one time. Start with one and move forward with it – as that one becomes natural you will add another one in.
Consistency – forming a new habit takes consistency, sticking to the action/behavior no matter what build strength in that action/behavior. The more consistent you are with your habit the more likely you will be having it stick. Find someone to be accountable to where you can help each other be consistent with creating that new habit.
OK to mess up – understand when creating a new habit you may not be successful immediately. It may take you several tries to make it stick – the point is if it is important to you to create this habit do not give up, you will achieve it.
Write them down – write your desired habit down. Writing your goals, writing your daily plans is very powerful. There is a direct link to writing it out and it becoming a part of your subconscious and having it be taken serious.