Motivation…
Going forward, I will write a lot about motivation.
Motivation is something that I have had a hard time with since I was young. I am by nature a perfectionist, if I don’t feel a task can be perfected from the beginning, I have a hard time motivating myself to complete that task. Therefore I have devised way’s to keep myself focused.
A side note. The biggest key to accomplishing any life goal is focus. Sounds easy right? Wrong.
The Power of Focus will serve as a great guide to helping you gain the focus you need to accomplish your tasks. They provide tools to help you move the things out of your view of focus which may be causing you to become unfocused. They provide simple planning tools that the laymen can understand.
To be honest, sometimes it is just a matter of kicking myself in the ass and forcing myself to sit down and focus. Focus on writing my next article, focus on writing my next blog, focus on completing tasks for work which I may find daunting, boring, and unworthy. However, it is those boring, daunting and unworthy tasks that lead up to the big exciting tasks, and the big and exciting pay offs that we all seek.
A few things I have found that work really well for me:
1. Sleep - It is really tempting to stay up all night and work on that project that is due tomorrow afternoon, unfortunately sleep studies have showed over and over again that people perform at a much lower rate, and make more mistakes when tired. Not only that, but they become much less focused and easily distracted. In my line of work, unfortunately overnight work is sometimes required, and that leaves a lot of IT people burnt out and unfocused.
2. Limit toxins - I know, your saying to yourself, dude, I don’t drink sewage. Toxins can be anything from caffeine (I can hear you gasping now), alcohol, cigarettes, sugary foods, fatty foods, the list goes on and on and on. Ok, so I am an IT professional, is it possible that I can survive with out caffeine? *SIP* nope… sucking down a coffee right now. Actually, I normally limit myself to 1 Venti Hazelnut Cappuccino a day. You have to find out what works for you. I find that eating as many organics as possible, keeping my meals as healthy as possible, and keeping everything in moderation, I reach OPTIMAL focus.
3. Exercise - If you loath exercising, spend time daily walking somewhere, 30 minutes is better than nothing. Me, I used to be a soccer player, a runner, and currently have a passion for biking. If you find yourself competing with yourself, its healthy, and the exercise will lower your stress level, and increase your focus. By the way, one of my favorite parts of my work out is spending time in the steam room and the sauna.
4. Meditation - Anxiety is horrible, constantly being in fight or flight mode kills your focus, and your ability to complete tasks effectively. I have found that spending two 15 minute periods a day doing deep breathing exercises allows me to focus to a level that is almost unbelievable, since discovering deep breathing and Yoga, I have effectively been able to fix what most take medicine to help.
5. Challenge - Challenge everything around you, including yourself. The more you challenge yourself, the better you focus becomes. Your brain is like a muscle, it needs exercised as well, I spend time learning everyday, language, expanding my knowledge on Linux.
6. Music - Maybe music isn’t your thing, find a good podcast. I switch back and forth. It depends on my mood. I let my moods dictate what I am listening too, the whole point is to block out the things going on around me that could distract me, like a chatty coworker.
If you have any questions about any of these things, please feel free to email me at phillip.b.roberts@gmail.com.
Get outside the comfort zone..
To be successful today you have to be bold. You have to learn to step outside of your comfort zone, and set your fears of rejection aside. In today’s economy, and today’s business climate, in order to successfully make contacts, you need them to remember you, at the same time, you want them to remember you in a positive fashion.
My wife and a friend of mine often talk of how I am talented at selling myself, I somehow accomplish this with out being cocky, although, I am always sure of myself. My wife jokes a lot about how much I flirt, it could be the old lady on the street, or the male waiter at the restaurant, I tend to always flirt. One of the easiest ways to leave an impression on someone is to make them smile. Compliments work well, I can find something to compliment about anyone. Flirting is a natural occurrence between two humans, the laws of attraction are normal, if people find you attractive they will remember you, however, being good looking isn’t necessarily being attractive to others, personality means everything. It honestly isn’t often that I walk into somewhere more than once with out the people remembering me, even my local Starbucks knew my order by my second visit.
One of the biggest reasons people can’t make these achievements is fear of rejection. Fear of rejection is a normal human instinct, nobody enjoys being rejected, and most people protect themselves from rejection by avoiding it altogether. Thankfully, we can condition ourselves to ignore those fears, and throw caution to the wind. Here is a challenge, the goal of this challenge is to help overcome the fear of rejection. To find out more about this, I suggest a book by Timothy Ferris called The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Challenge A - Everywhere you go in public, look directly into every persons eyes whom you find attractive as you walk past. Do not break eye contact, even if they aren’t giving you the eye contact back. If the person asks you what you are looking at, just state that you thought they were someone you know.
Challenge B - Go to your local mall and find the most attractive person you can, someone you would normally be nervous to approach. Approach this person and ask them for their phone number. It is best if you prepare a script ahead of time, state something along the lines of the fact that you are in a hurry, however, you wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to get to know them because you are so attracted to them, tell them if they aren’t interested at all, to just give you a fake phone number. If you have a significant other, just throw the number away. The key here is to repeat the exercise as quickly as possible.
If you get the opportunity to try this out, please feel free to comment about it, I would be interested in hearing about your experience.
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