25 Hot Tips for Reaching Business and Life Goals: Part Three

Peter continues his countdown with things that he has learnt in business (and life) which he guarantees will help you be more productive, increase your daily work performance, improve your attitude and help you be happier and healthier in general.

Here are tips 15-11:

15. Look for the good things that others do – especially your team members or staff

Kenneth Blanchard wrote a great book called “The One Minute Manager” – and one of the key messages in it was to have the totally opposite attitude that many poor managers have. Many inexperienced managers spend all day trying to catch you doing something wrong and can’t wait to tell you. So instead of this, his philosophy was “try and catch them doing something right” – even if it isn’t exactly 100% correct. Giving genuine praise to people is very difficult for most people to do and is much harder than being critical. It takes practice but the long term benefits will be enormous if it is sincere and regular. Try and shift your focus from what’s wrong to what’s good and right.

14. Surround yourself with good people

If you surround yourself with negative people with their negative thoughts and energy all day then they can have a huge impact on how your day pans out. Start by employing good people – people who have the skills but also are enjoyable to be around, people you like. Also choose friends who are positive, are good listeners and are encouraging. Set up a network of contacts and a support group who have similar values to you. Don’t expect or rely on just one person to be and do everything for you (especially your partner). Share the load and the burden with a network. The Sydney Swans “no dickhead policy” is a good example of this in practice.

13. You are what you think

You create your next moment by what you are thinking about right now. What are you thinking about right now? What is your inner most dominant thought? It creates your outermost reality. Are you in control of your thoughts and therefore your day, your life? If you’re not who is? Latest research suggests we have about 65,000 thoughts every day and 70 – 80% of these are negative. Are yours out of control? Do they wander all over the place? Can you sit in a meeting and concentrate fully on what is happening or does your “monkey mind” take over? Are you fully efficient being able to focus for long periods? Stressed thoughts, busy thoughts equals busy mind, busy life. Calm positive thoughts equals calm positive day and life. Garbage in, garbage out. You are your thoughts – when you fully realize this you become very mindful about what you think.

12. You are what you eat – or put into your mouth

I’ve learnt the hard way by experiencing most things and I’m still learning. I have a family history – my father died of a heart attack at 57 from high cholesterol. I smoked cigarettes for 15 years and drank alcohol for 30 years and I worked in both these industries for 15 years so I know what I’m talking about. Think about and plan what you put in your mouth each day and think of it as a fuel for the day. If you don’t eat right you won’t perform to your best capacity. We hear every day in the news what to do but we still consume too much sugar and bad fat and not enough fruit and vegetables. We eat too much processed food full of crap that is no good for us. The supermarkets and shops are full of it. It’s a simple choice for most people – every day. What did you choose today?

11. Take time to recover

Learn to switch off and recharge the batteries and learn what really works for you and what doesn’t. If you want to keep performing at a high level every day then you need some down-time to recover properly and not just physically but mentally – this is what elite athletes do. In fact one of them, Andrew May has written a fantastic book about this called “Flip the switch”. Massage, yoga, Qigong, swimming, gardening and sex rate highly as activities that help you switch off.