Remember, Persistence Pays Off. Stay Motivated With These 5 Tips.

The most important goals you set for yourself will take time to achieve. That’s a fact.

At some point, though, I can pretty much guarantee that you’re going to feel frustrated things aren’t moving faster. But, the truth is, hurrying won’t help you. It can be hard to stay motivated when times are tough. You may even feel like you want to quit. But if you are patient, your persistence will pay off.

Here are five tips I use to remind myself of the big picture -- and to not give up too easily.

1. Create a realistic schedule. The key word here being realistic. If you haven’t written down the steps you’re going to take to achieve your goals and when you expect to complete them by, it can be hard to stay on track. At the same time, remember to be flexible: Nothing productive will come out of beating yourself up if you’re behind schedule. There will be unexpected twists and turns on your path to success. Revisit your schedule frequently and update it as need be.

2. Surround yourself with like-minded people. At work and on your time off, spending time with people who have a positive outlook on life can be very inspiring. Avoid people who have a defeated attitude and are generally negative, because their perspective will inevitably rub off on you. It also helps to talk to friends and family about your aspirations. People who have your best interests in mind will want to talk to you about them and may even be able to provide constructive criticism.

3. Never stop learning. When I’m in the process of tackling a big job, there are a few books I revisit for inspiration. The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz is one of them. Reading advice from successful people, whether it’s online or in a book, can jumpstart your enthusiasm. At the same time, it can be good to take a break and immerse yourself in another topic to help facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas. Taking a step away helps put everything into perspective, which is so important. (Don’t sweat the small stuff!)

4. Carve out time for yourself. Take care of yourself. Recharge your batteries by doing something that makes you happy. When I’m stressed out and frustrated, walking away from what’s upsetting me is almost always helpful. I’m more able to come up with effective solutions when my head is clear and I’ve slowed things down. If you focus solely on reaching your goals, you won’t enjoy the journey. And the reality is that there are a lot of victories to be enjoyed along the way. You’ll miss out on life if you’re consumed by your ambitions. In my opinion, that’s no real way to live.

5. Set more than one goal. I have trouble following this advice, but I know it’s good. Achieving goals in other arenas of your life -- like fitness and health -- will keep you happy and give you confidence. You can complete what you set out to do. It’s just a matter of time! You’ll feel less pressure to succeed at work if you have other things going for you. And what you learn about achieving your goals in other arenas will inform your professional aims. With that in mind, don’t forget to congratulate yourself!

From Entreprenuer

The Career Manager As An Ant Or A Grasshopper

Ants never quit.  If they're headed somewhere and you try to stop them, they'll look for another way.  Ants think winter all summer.  You can't be so naive as to think summer will last forever. So ants are gathering in their winter food in the middle of summer.  Ants think summer all winter.  During the winter, ants remind themselves, "This won't last long; we'll soon be out of here." Ants gather all that they possibly can during the summer  to prepare for the winter.

Let’s take all of the above one step further, particularly as it applies to  career managers and leaders. As the story goes, while the ant works and works and enjoys life responsibly, the grasshopper just sings, attends parties  and enjoys life to the extreme fullest. And what is the result  of this? Consistently, every winter/rainy season, the grasshopper goes to beg the ant for food and the ant only obliges the little that he believes he can do without. As time went on, of course, the ant which always saved for the rainy day, invested the surplus in acquiring better education or setting up a business. The grasshopper, years later, not having planned his life, and always in desperation for food, goes and gets a lowly job in the exact company which the ant owns or has risen to be a very top management staff.

As the world will have it, a financial and business crisis starts worldwide. The lowly staff, who is the grasshopper, is among the first to lose his job which is in the control of the ant who, as mentioned earlier, either owns the business or is a very influential top management staff. Whatever the situation, we find that the ant is better equipped to handle ‘the storm’ than the grasshopper. Does this scenario ring a bell? Unfortunately, as this current scenario is playing out, another ant and another grasshopper enter the corporate world for the same scenario to be repeated once again, later.

You are like an ant, we believe, but are some of your peers or subordinates grasshoppers? We leave you to check and judge. Kindly share this fabulous but instructive message with others, for we just do not know who may greatly benefit from it.

Unhappy Workers Name Their Biggest Complaints

The discontent U.S. workers have for their job has many looking for new opportunities.

Overall, nearly 20 percent of Americans are unhappy at work, with more than 60 percent having considered quitting their jobs, according to new research from Rasmussen College.

The study revealed a number of reasons why employees are contemplating finding something better. More than half said they have thought about leaving their job because they don't get paid enough, while 31 percent said a lack of advancement has them thinking about new employment possibilities.

Additionally, 26 percent feel unfulfilled in their current situation, 24 percent think their position brings them too much stress, 21 percent aren't able to use their education or skills on the job and 20 percent want more of an opportunity to climb the corporate ladder.

Researchers attribute one possible reason for such overall dissatisfaction is that people's jobs are not in line with the career path they planned to follow. While having a clear career path is important to 71 percent of employees, just 24 percent feel they're doing what they set out to.

"Having a clear career path from the very beginning is critical so you don't end up stuck in a job outside of your skill set or lack of advancement opportunities," said Tamryn Hennessy, vice president of career services at Rasmussen College

While workers may long for a better job situation, there are several concerns holding them back. The research discovered that 35 percent of employees don't want to pursue a new job because they're afraid of losing financial security, while 25 percent are scared they'll regret their decision. In addition, 16 percent feel they don't have the right skills or education to move on.

"We know starting a career or leaving a job and starting a new one can be a nerve-wracking experience," Hennessy said. "At the same time, we see in our graduates every day how rewarding it is to pursue a career you're passionate about."

The study was based on surveys of 2,000 U.S. employees.

From Business News Daily

Getting Bored of Social Media? You're Not Alone. (Infographic)

Everyone may be on social media, but not everyone’s loving it.

People are getting tired of overshares, being contacted by people they don’t want to talk to  and constantly being hit with other people’s thoughts. With more than 1 billion tweets sent every 48 hours, it’s no wonder users are suffering from content overload, according to this infographic by mobile discovery startup Delvv.

With 1 in 5 Americans regretting at least one tweet, comment or text they send each month, it’s no wonder people are taking breaks from social media. (Especially this time of year, with 48% of Protestants, and 31% of Christians shunning technology for Lent.)

Take a look at the full infographic below.

From Entrepreneur

How to say no

You need to stop saying yes all the time. Here's how

We've all done it. Taken on more work when the boss asks us to, even though we're already overloaded. So why can't we say no and how do we start saying it without offending anyone or risking our jobs?

Linda Reed-Enever runs a public relations consultancy that specialises in helping small businesses. She used to be overwhelmed with the amount of work she took on because she found it hard to refuse.

“My problem was that I would feel sorry for a small business and if they couldn't pay then I'd cut my rates to the bone so I could help them,” she says. “But this meant there were months when I was really struggling. I would always make sure my staff and bills were paid but there'd be some months when I'd come out with very little.”

Last year, after breaking her wrist, she had time to think about a new strategy. “I had to delegate more, which was definitely good for me and for my staff as they became motivated by having new challenges. And I hardened myself to telling businesses that I could help them but stuck to a rate that was sustainable for my business. I also got rid of some clients who were the wrong mix for me and taking up all my resources.”

But she admits saying no is really tough. “People are good at pushing buttons to get what they want,” she says. “But you need to be aware that sometimes expectations are unrealistic. When you say no it sounds like such a negative but it can impact negatively on you. It is actually okay to say you can't cope with certain jobs.”

Josh Johnston is the founder of the Lifelong Group, which teaches people to think differently about how they work and live. He says you need to develop an overall awareness of your workload so you know exactly what your capacity is for taking on extra work.

“You don't want to just say no because you're too busy,” he says. “You need to show your boss or colleagues what your working week looks like and this could mean physically showing them your week's schedule.”

Having an understanding boss helps in this situation but if you don't then Johnston says you should reframe the conversation so they have input. “Point out your concerns to your boss,” Johnston says. “Then ask him or her to help you prioritise your workload so you can take on what they want. You might be surprised by their response. I tried this once when I was overloaded and my boss decided what he wanted me to do wasn't so important after all.”

Tiffany Quinlan is HR director at Randstad. She says saying no can be a real challenge because our natural inclination is to please.

“We say yes even though we know we can't deliver,” she says. “And when we can't deliver then we are viewed as not being in control and that isn't good for anyone. We have to look at the reasons why we want to say no and they are generally because we are over-committed, we don't have the skills to do something, or we just don't want to because we feel it's not in our job description or it's something we feel is beneath us.”

Quinlan says there are ways of saying no without offending anyone.

“If you are over-committed then say you'd be happy to do the task but you won't have time to do it until say, a couple of days time,” she says. “If you can pull out your to-do list so much the better as this shows you are in control.”

She adds in this case it's about managing expectations. “If the job is urgent then they will find someone else to do it but if you agree to it and don't deliver then no one comes out a winner.”

If you need to refuse a job because you don't have the skills then Quinlan says the best thing to do is respond honestly. “Say you'd love to take on the task but you've never done it before so perhaps someone could talk you through it,” she says. “People struggle to admit they don't know everything but this way you are showing a desire to learn.”

She adds the worst thing to do is to throw your hands up without saying why you won't do something as this likely means you're not going to be asked to do something again and your career could suffer.

“No one really knows what you have on your plate except yourself and the best way of saying no is to explain why you can't take something on,” she says. “This is comforting to your boss as it shows you're trying to work out a solution."

From The Age

When SMART Goals Don't Work, Here's What to Do Instead

Starting a business doing what you love, losing a lot of weight, quitting smoking, completing a triathlon -- these are all lofty aspirations.

The standard wisdom for achieving any of them is to set a goal that’s specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time driven. This approach is often referred to by the acronym SMART, as outlined in the November 1981 issue of Management Review.

It’s easy to see why SMART goals became popular: They are clear, concise and seemingly simple. Indeed research has shown SMART goals can save time and simplify the process of setting measurable goals.

"The specificity of SMART goals is a great cure for the worst sins of goal setting -- ambiguity and irrelevance ("We are going to delight our customers every day in every way!"), Dan and Chip Heath stated in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

"But SMART goals are better for steady-state situations than for change situations, because the assumptions underlying them are that the goals are worthwhile," they noted.

In a business context, SMART goals can be effective for those focusing on just boosting a number. But for grandiose goals -- for anyone aspiring to do what he or she loves for a living, say -- the SMART goal methodology has serious flaws. SMART goals aren’t always that smart -- especially for those shooting for a big, hairy audacious goal, or BHAG, a term introduced by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Here's a look at some other approaches taken by goal-setting experts:

Why SMART goals fail to deliver on lofty aspirations. As simple as the SMART method appears, it doesn’t allow a person to forge an emotional connection to the goals. Without this, a person is less likely to be motivated.

Leadership IQ, a training and research company, studied 4,182 employees from 397 companies and found that just 15 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed that their goals would help them achieve great things. Only 13 percent of workers strongly agreed that their goals would help them maximize their full potential.

Part of the problem is that SMART goals are too focused on outcomes.

Say a person wants to lose 20 pounds by Dec. 31. In January he joins a gym and starts working out and eating better. He loses 5 pounds and feels great. Then in March, he takes a vacation. Relaxing on the beach, he is hardly thinking about going to the gym and eating healthy.

He returns home only to realize he regained 2 pounds and feels terrible, guilty and defeated. Eventually, he succumbs to the old habits and gives up.

What went wrong? Minor setbacks can put a big damper on outcome-focused goals (such as trying to lose 20 pounds by the year's end). Plus, SMART goals often fail to fuel someone's inner fire, and research shows intrinsic (internal) factors are much more likely to lead to long-term behavior change. 

So if the SMART method doesn’t work for audacious goals, what does?

Crafting destination postcards. In Switch, Dan and Chip Heath say combining a “destination postcard” -- a clearly painted picture of where a person wants to be -- with the right habits is the key to achieving big goals.

Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, takes this a step further, noting that a person needs a heartfelt emotional connection to set a goal with the power to propel him or her forward.

His research defined eight characteristics of goals that lead to great achievements: 

1. It's possible to vividly picture how wonderful it feels when the goals are accomplished.

2. The goal setter must learn new skills to achieve the year's objectives.

3. The goals are a must for helping the company.

4. The individual actively participated in setting this year's goals.

5. The person is able to participate in the formal training needed to achieve the goals.

6.  The individual must stretch out of his or her comfort zone in order to realize the goals.

7. Accomplishing the goals will better the lives of others (such as customers or the community).

8. The goals work well with the organization’s chief priorities for the year.

Murphy devised a new methodology such that the goals should be (a) heartfelt, (b) animated (evoking a picture repeatedly playing in the mind's eye), (c) required and (d) difficult, which he referred to by the acronymn HARD. 

Focusing on improvement. Perhaps in keeping with Murphy's method, the associate director of Columbia University’s Motivation Science Center, Heidi Grant Halvorson, has advocated a "get better" mind-set for personal growth and development. She contends that when individuals embrace a “get better” approach, they tend to take healthy risks and are less afraid of failing -- essential ingredients for achieving goals.

With Halvorson’s method, a person would set a goal like “I want to learn how to become great at marketing” rather than “I want to be great at marketing." Or the goal might be “I want to learn how to develop healthier habits" instead of “I want to be skinnier.” She recommends writing down goals and then rewriting them using words like improve, progress, develop, become and grow.

Many people adhere to a “be good” goal-setting approach (setting benchmarks based on others' achievements). Yet research by John Bargh and his colleagues has shown that when people mimic others they tend to focus more on menial, unrelated tasks (to feel productive) rather than on difficult goals essential to growth and achievement.  

Echoing these sentiments is Geoff Colvin, author of Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else: “The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome.” 

From Entrepreneur

Are all entrepreneurs rogues?

Research suggests it helps to have the naughty gene if you want to be a success.

To spread your entrepreneurial wings and fly you have to be comfortable taking a risk or two.

Having a competitive spirit helps too, according to research on the key psychological drivers of entrepreneurs conducted last year by organisational psychologist Kirsty Bucknell for Commonwealth Bank.

                                                                                           

In interviews with almost 500 entrepreneurs and decision-makers on seven key personality traits, risk-taker (24 per cent) and competitor (20 per cent) were prominent among successful business owners.

But some of the same qualities that propel successful entrepreneurs forward could also be the ones that drive them over a cliff.

Entrepreneurs such as Alan Bond, Christopher Skase and Geoffrey Edelsten, hit great heights in the business world in the 1980s but then also experienced an equally spectacular unravelling of their achievements.

The psychological characteristics behind such riches to rags stories, might be their risk-taking traits.

Anne-Marie Orrock, founder and managing director, Corporate Canary, a human resources consulting firm, says entrepreneurs typically have a psychological make-up with a high degree of “dominance”.

“They are fairly ambitious; they are high risk-takers; they are very goal-orientated; they are very competitive.” They think conceptually and on a big scale.

“In order for them to be successful they have to take certain risks in the first place,” says Orrock.

Tim Mazzarol, Winthrop Professor of marketing and strategy at the University of Western Australia, says the experiences of high-flyers that end in bankruptcy, criminal charges, and for

Alan Bond jail, highlight the 'dark side” of the entrepreneur.

“It is often found in the form of egoism, hubris and a tendency to become self-deceiving about their own ability,” Mazzarol says.

He describes the trio as “promoters” rather than entrepreneurs, adding that they were typical of the 1980s approach to entrepreneurship in Australia.

“All were seemingly carried away with the desire to show off their wealth and became tempted to take risks that led to their businesses falling into bankruptcy.”

He argues that entrepreneurs today “use creativity and innovation combined with effective management and marketing skills, plus a good deal of social networking and transformational leadership, to create value”.

But any entrepreneurial venture comes with an element of uncertainty and risk, he adds, and anyone can make a mistake.

“For most entrepreneurs there is a fine line between success and failure,” he says. “The ability to grow a business rapidly without failure is an amazing feat. Most fast-growing businesses fail because fast growth is like riding a tiger or being on a rollercoaster.”

So how do risk-takers harness their psychological drivers in a way that helps them stay on the rails?

The Commonwealth Bank research shows that innovator (10 per cent) and learner (8 per cent) were among some of the other key psychological drivers in entrepreneurs and decision-makers. These qualities could help entrepreneurs learn from others, learn from their own mistakes and act as a buffer against self-deception.

Although Orrock says studies show our personality profile is fairly fixed, it is possible to change it by degrees.

“To circumvent the negative side of your personality and character traits, it is really about getting a greater sense of self-awareness about yourself and how you operate.

“You won't change from being a dominant person,

but you will adjust in degrees. You can work at being less analytical and focus on being more considerate of others socially.”

She suggests using validated psychological profiling tools can help entrepreneurs identify whether they have the psychological make-up needed to succeed in business.

A business coach can also help entrepreneurs become more aware of their psychological blind spots and how to make effective progress. “It's hard to just do it in isolation,” she says.

From The Age