“Ways to make 2012 your BEST year yet!”

Define what success means to you and make sure you have a plan to get there. Write it down and carry it with you so you can review it from time to time. If you have already done this make sure you are still on the right track.

Make sure that you have the right attitude. To have the right attitude to improve you must answer “yes” to these four questions. Do I need to? Do I want to? Can I? Will I? Ask yourself these four questions and when you can answer yes to all four of them you are ready to move forward.

Plan your work and work your plan. Make any midcourse adjustments if you find yourself off track.

Recommit to your career, a relationship, a new start, and get excited again by setting goals, thinking about your long-term vision and where you truly want to end up to reach your definition of success, it is amazing what you can accomplish.

Continue to ask yourself, “Is what I am doing right now, being busy or being productive?”

Remember, today is the only day you have. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not here yet. Make the most of today by focusing on what is right, not what is wrong.

Deal with your setbacks. Everyone has them, but letting them steal your confidence, and plan for the long-term is not the answer, you must continue to persist through setbacks.

Be patient and stay the course as you move in the direction of your success. Remember “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Reward yourself when you achieve one of your goals or meet a deadline.

Don’t worry what other people think about you. They are so wrapped up in their own lives that they are not thinking about you.

Be thankful for what you have and for what you have achieved.

Make sure that the people you hang around with have your best interest at heart. If they don’t find some new people to hang around with.

Block out all the noise and concentrate on the things that you can control.

Make sure that you stay organized so that important matters don’t fall through the cracks.

Do the most important and hardest tasks first. They are easier to accomplish when you are fresh and rested.

Work at staying healthy. Without your health nothing else really matters.

Don’t live in the past, just learn from it. Don’t live in the future, just prepare for it. If you do either of these you will miss out on all the great things that are happening today.

Keep a smile on your face. It is great for your attitude and takes a lot less work than it does to frown.

Being Realistic

People and companies want instant gratification. We have little patience. That is why employees feel as if everything is the flavor of the month. Earlier we discussed how a company starts an initiative. This same scenario works when it comes to patience. We want things to happen now, and set unrealistic timeframes. I am just as guilty. As CCG grows I want things to happen fast. Sometimes I need to consciously remind myself of my expected timeframes. Remember my analogy about how a company starts an initiative, and the plan on paper is a great plan? What most companies underestimate is how long the plan will take to work. We used a football field earlier so let’s stay on the same field. A company starts on the 5 yard line with the goal being; get to the other end zone 95 yards away. The initiative gets to the 50 yard line and the company begins to ask why aren’t things working (i.e. why aren’t we in the end zone yet)? We lose patience, scrap that plan and start with a new plan back at the five yard line (new flavor). What companies should look at is the progress that has been made, and what needs to happen to move progress along faster. Once again, it is about mindset. Choosing to look at things in a different way allows us to see things through different eyes. Even the slightest change in the way we look at something and giving it the proper patience can have a huge impact on the outcomes.

To see something from start to finish these days is rare, but when done right the results can be unbelievable. I see that all the time. Companies want instant gratification and at first their excitement level for change is very high, but over time something happens. Their excitement level begins to fade and people forget about their commitments to “changing the culture/ fabric/DNA”, and amazingly when this happens things go right back to normal. Again, you have flavor of the month! Remember we discussed Jim Winner’s four phases of attitude? People get bored quickly and begin the looking phase. Stay the course and be patient. Good things will begin to happen when we build good habits and create profitable action. When we want true change, we must stay focused on the prize or goal and not the price. It takes very strong leadership from within an organization to allow change to happen over time and without strong leadership; it becomes almost impossible for change to happen.

Patience is a quality most great leaders possess, and we must possess it too. We must stay lock step with the end goal and “center the needle” daily reminding ourselves of the prize. Setting and resetting the vision and crystal clear expectations must be an ongoing “to do” daily, weekly and monthly to get the true change we are looking for. Most people and companies truly underestimate what it takes to be world class.