New Beginnings…
“Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we
were making the first step toward disaster.” ~ William Bridges
Last week we discussed the impact of a positive, optimistic and enthusiastic ATTITUDE on your success potential.
This week, we are going to tackle an area of performance equally important: Your ability to get and stay ORGANIZED.
But before we move on to this week’s lesson, permit me to digress a bit.
I want to cover one more point on POSITIVITY — to capstone our discussion last week.
Your Life Depends On Being Positive…
Why is a positive and proactive attitude so important? Because it actually changes our physiology… causing our bodies to heal themselves!
Proof?
Here is a snippet from a man I respect greatly, the son of the World’s Greatest Possibilitarian, Dr. Robert A. Schuller.
On Sunday he said, “I recently read an article entitled “Mind Over Matter.” It appeared in a publication called “Health Features.” It reads as follows:
“Positive thoughts can be as effective as drugs in beating diseases. Studies show preventive medicine may soon be more than just monitoring your vegetable intake and exercise levels, and include how many negative thoughts go through your head in a day.
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that a patient’s beliefs and hopes affect their prognosis.
One of the major contributors to maintaining health and removing disease is the attitude of the patient, says Professor Oakley Ray, a psychologist from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
He reviewed one hundred years of research on psychology and disease for a paper published in American Psychiatrist and concluded that WORDS can have the same effect as DRUGS; thinking optimistically can change your whole biology.
Ray quotes a wide range of evidence including various studies linking mindset to heart disease. One such study from the Harvard School of Public Health established that optimism lowers the risk of heart disease in older men while pessimism and hopelessness increase it.
There is strong evidence that patients with heart disease who feel hopeless about their condition do worse.
Positive thoughts and words are the means in which God starts to have an impact on our lives in a positive way” concludes Reverend Schuller.
Personally, I have always believed that people with a positive attitude (and equally positive self-talk) were significantly more successful, well-balanced and effective than people who go through life with a negative, self-defeating attitude.
The bottom line is, while positive WORDS may not be a miracle drug… what if they are and you refuse to accept the miracle?!!!
If for no other reason, find a way to inject POSITIVE words into your life each day, and maybe MIRACLES will find their way into your life as well!
Now, onto this week’s lesson!
Stop Confusing Effort with Results…
As we say in The Power of TQ, It’s not how hard you work—it’s how much you get done—that determines your success.
Even though you may be busier than ever before, you may be simply doing things the hard way, or worse, just spinning your wheels—confusing EFFORT with RESULTS.
Simply do TQ Factor 8A more frequently:
“Create systems to help automate your most productive activities.”
Another Fact of Life…
Every activity contains a series of steps that must be completed correctly to be successful. Systemize your success.
Identify the critical steps required to complete your most productive and rewarding activities. Then, create a “well-oiled machine” to automatically crank out results for you.
Systemize those steps through technology, checklists, delegation or by enrolling additional team members — and you will achieve the results you expect — far more often.
Automate this Factor and you’ll double, triple or even quadruple your productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.
The Bottom Line…
If you have a great attitude, crystal-clear goals, rock-solid plans, and an army of people to help you… you are well on your way to the success you desire.
However, if you do not have the organizational systems necessary to support your efforts… they will torpedo your success. (Take this as gospel from a man who wasn’t born with the “organization gene” found in my beautiful wife!)
— E.R. Haas, CEO
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” ~ George S. Patton
Category: Color Commentaries, Personal Growth
