As we come up on the New Year, a lot of people give up on the goals they set out to complete last January. We tend to kick ourselves, saying “Darn, I let another year go by.” Nobody feels good when there is a pile of unfinished things lying around! So what I want to share with you today is how to NOT feel this way. It’s time to start knocking some things off of your list. Even if you ONLY complete a couple things on your list, it will BOOST your confidence and put you a step ahead come the New Year.
The year isn’t over yet! Why are people already giving up? I’m sure you know by now that 22 years ago, this time of year is when I started my business. This was the time of year that I went from $2.03 to starting a business out of the trunk of my car. If I had “waited for the holidays to be over,” I may have missed my opportunity! Thank God I didn’t just wait for the New Year to decide to pull my life together.
One easy thing you can do to increase your productivity and morale – in personal or business life – is to dig out your list of things you wanted to accomplish this year. Pick THREE that you can realistically finish before the end of the year, and DO THEM now! You still have a couple weeks. If you’ve been needing to put a second coat of paint on the bathroom walls for the past 8 months – come on, that takes half a day to complete! And BAM, one thing off your list!
Productivity is the cure to procrastination and laziness. After you knock a few things off your list, you will get the ball rolling! You’re already ahead! Completing three tasks, no matter how simple, may just be the momentum you needed.
I need to ask you a few questions. This message will be here waiting all day, so go ahead and take a moment to seriously think about the answers to these questions and WRITE DOWN the answers:
If you want yourself, your family, or your team to come together, be more productive, be more loyal, you need to give them a purpose or a vision to work for.
Do you ever notice that some employees work harder? They care more about their job so they put in more effort. While others – and maybe you are guilty of this – focus on finishing one task at a time without real awareness of how it all comes together.
Sadly, many employees don’t care if a business is successful, and it will show in their work! They are in their own corner doing their own thing, and there is no loyalty. When you can rally a group together, cast a shared vision on them and motivate them, you will see the glue of a well-oiled machine.
And the truth, is you may not be able to rally your entire to agree with your personal vision. The sooner you figure out that not everyone thinks the way you do, and that not everyone shares the same vision as you the sooner you can start picking out and developing a team of people who all have the same goal in mind.
Most people don’t utilize teamwork, they try to do their own thing and obtain their own goals. This can create conflict and separation, which will kill productivity. It also creates jealousy and an environment where nothing is fluid. There is no communication – just butting heads.
What you must understand is what motivates, motivates! What motivates Bob does not motivate Karen. Some people are motivated by money; they will work their butt off for a bigger paycheck. Others are motivated by stuff, making money to buy new things. Another group cares about a cause; they are motivated by helping change people’s lives. Maybe Steven down the hall is only motivated by moving up in his career and increase his personal portfolio.
So, the second thing I am going to tell you to do to increase productivity is about creating a bond in your team. There is something that can tie all these different motivations together and it adds purpose to the mundane, nonsense, day-to-day tasks. We all have mundane, boring tasks in our lives we have to complete. And doing them is a chore! But when you assign PURPOSE to those tasks, they are a means to an end.
People lose vision because they get bogged down by focusing on those seemingly insignificant tasks! Washing dishes, doing laundry, pushing paperwork…etc. The point is each these things when taken at face value seem so meaningless and dull. But when you have a true vision for your life, even getting gas something that will help you achieve your ultimate goal!
Right now, our world is hurting. People are suffering, hungry, jobless, and hopeless. There is something deep down in all of us that ties us together, no matter what our motivation is. We all have compassion for each other. We all see the suffering that is going on around us. Bob may only care about making money on the outside, but deep down he has compassion for the state of the world we all live in today.
Many years ago I was looking at a loooong looming Christmas list, and I was overwhelmed. And I looked at it and thought to myself, do any of these people even NEED anything? Really? I gathered my friends together and we created something called Secret Blessings. And our mission was to use our Christmas money to pay off debt and to help those who REALLY need it. Does Sally need a Life’s A Beach coffee mug, or would you rather put that money towards putting a MEAL on someone’s dinner table?
After that first year of Secret Blessings, where we fed the homeless and paid for a stranger’s electric bill, something kind of funny happened. Our closing ratios improved. We were more productive. Because we knew instead of our money going to more STUFF, it was going to a purpose that was greater than ourselves. Some people even lost weight!
We lose motivation when we don’t have or we forget the purpose of it all. So my suggestion to you, is assign that purpose to money. It doesn’t need to be related to your business or your vision, if you want to tie your team together assign a purpose to it. There is something within every human being to do and be a part of something that is greater than us. If you want to create great morale and teamwork at home and in the workplace, not to mention instigate the benefits of productivity and loyalty, then create a vision that is bigger than what you are doing! Pick a charity, family, or cause to contribute to, and watch how it effects people.
You’ll be blown away, as I have been year after year after year after year!
In great faith,
One powerful question a lot of companies neglect asking and instead spend a lot of time in the dark, wondering how to make their product or service better for their clients. Or, worse, they waste time guessing or blaming the economy, their coworkers or the market for what isn’t going right. Just ask the question!
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