By Daniel Stamp dstamp@prioritymanagement.com
If you really want to do something different next year to enhance your career and life satisfaction, look first at the actions and beliefs that impact your own behavior and then at those of the people around you. Here is my wish list for what each and every one of us as individuals can do to make 2011 the best year ever!
- Design your work life to support what you really want. You can only find ‘passion’, ‘work/life balance’ and ‘meaning’ by looking within yourself first.
- Make the tough decisions to pursue work and out-of-office activities that reflect what you care about most deeply. Open your arms to change but don’t give up on your deeply held values.
- Live this year within your means. Ask yourself whether you really need to buy as much stuff as you do? Do you know how much money you really need to have a satisfying and fulfilling life?
- Make improved relationships a goal at work and at home. Remember that the best relationship is the one in which your love and respect for each other exceeds your need for each other.
- Ask yourself if ‘staying busy’ is really an escape from your current reality. If your ‘busyness’ is self imposed, think about what you may be using it to escape from. Now act on your conclusions!
- This year when you make a mistake, take immediate action to correct it. If you feel like you’ve lost... don’t lose the lesson.
- When you have a disagreement at work or with a loved one at home, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past and don’t ever let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
- Make ‘listening’ an essential skill to develop next year. Don’t speed listen - because you can’t reduce every message to a caption. Many message require several pieces of information to be understood, and when you respond only to the first piece, you simply create more misunderstanding. Listen to what is really being communicated and absorb the whole message before you start to respond.
- Keep ALL your commitments. Don’t make commitments (to a meeting, a lunch, completing a piece of work) and then not follow through or cancel at the last minute. Remember that you might be busy - but so is everyone else. Recognize that when you fail to honor your commitments, you are saying two things to the other person: “My time is more important than yours” and “You are not important”.
- Keep score in 2011! You’ll never know if you are winning or losing if you don’t keep score. Start building a portfolio of your ‘wins’ - a ‘star-file’ if you like. In it you can keep good performance reviews, e-mails or notes of thanks from colleagues or customers, learning certificates and the like. Don’t be shy - you can pull it out when you are having a bad day or use it for career enhancement. Just one positive a day will give you a fat ‘star-file’ by year’s end.
- Learn something new this year. There is a huge scope for improving your mental capacity. Learning has a direct and beneficial effect on your mental health and well being - whatever your age. It’s fun to learn - a good way to meet and make new friends. Remember to share your new knowledge - it’s a way to achieve immortality!
- To be truly happy and fulfilled in 2011 means establishing a loving atmosphere in your home and a deep and caring respect for people at work. Love, respect and responsibility are the foundations of your life. Make them a priority today and every day of your life.
Highly practical ideas.... congrats. :-)
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