Achieve more by working purposefully

Have you ever found yourself at work chasing your tail? I'm not talking about literally chasing your backside. I'm talking about small stuff day in, day out, all day, everyday and your life doesn't change.

I'm telling you, even if you're the most efficient email responder in the world, your life is probably not going to change unless, of course, there's something fundamentally important about those emails, you are essentially just doing ministerial stuff on a day to day basis.

The sad reality is that a lot of these things that we find enjoyable are also the most inconsequential stuff. For example, checking your Facebook updates and notifications may be a lot of fun. But if instead of reading your textbook or doing your assignment, you waste your time on social media updates and emails, your life is probably not going to go where you want it to go.

You're probably not going to achieve much of a breakthrough in that midterm or finals exam you're studying for. The same applies to your relationships and this definitely applies to your work. Focus on what's important.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that they should focus more on what's pleasant. They are under the impression that they should devote a tremendous amount of time on things that are convenient.

Well, here's the problem. If everybody approached life that way, most people will be making minimum wage. If given a choice, most people would rather do the most pleasant and least time consuming stuff. In most cases, most people would rather do things that don't take much effort or energy.

This is human nature. I really can't blame them for thinking this way. After all, it's hard wired into the human condition that we take the path of least resistance.

Unfortunately, if you did that, you're not going to set yourself up for getting much of life's rewards. The reason why lawyers, doctors, medical professionals and top level executives make so much money is because they have to pay a high price and go through quite an ordeal to get the knowledge that they have.

This requires sacrifice, not doing things that are quick, easy and pleasurable in favor of things that are unpleasant, inconvenient and are downright annoying. But if you're able to do that day after day, week after week, month after month, eventually, you get to where you need to go and the rewards come. That's how life works.

Unfortunately, if you refuse to work with a sense of purpose, it's so easy to just continue to do stuff that really doesn't matter. Sure it's a lot of fun to check your email. It's good to know what other people are up to on your Facebook friend list. But at the end of the day, none of that stuff really matters.

What matters is whether you are putting in purposeful work to the big goals in your life and the best way to do this is to work purposefully. In other words, you zero in on the big vision you have for yourself and you allow that vision to give you the inspiration, sense of urgency and the emotional power you need to focus on what you need to do to get to where you need to go.

This can take a long time. This is why a lot of people are not up to the journey. They fold. They lose motivation. What's really happening is that they missed the forest for the trees. They focused only on what's in front of them and they lose sight of the big picture.

If you don't want this to happen to you and you want to tap the power of working with purpose, click here.

What does your work say about you?

When you meet somebody new, the first thing you probably think about is what their clothes say about them. You might even pay attention to the way they speak, what they choose to talk about and their facial expressions. You might even notice their body language.

Based on all these signals, both verbal and non-verbal, you can kind of come up with some sort of conclusion on what this person's about and what kind of person they are.

This is not unusual. This is how most people read each other. This is how most people make judgments about each other.

If you think that people don't make character judgments, you are sadly mistaken. In fact, you may be setting yourself up for a nasty let down at some point in the future. People do this all the time.

Well, here's the thing. If you think that personal judgments are restricted to the things people wear or how much money people have in the bank or the kind of cars they drive, you are not seeing the big picture. In fact, you are looking at insignificant details.

What if I told you that somebody can be dressed in rags and can still be a future millionaire? What if I told you that somebody can look like the worst kind of bum but still be life's biggest winner in a short period of time?

You might think I'm crazy or unrealistic. Well, think again. The truth is you only need to look at people's work products to see where they're going because the work you produce says volumes about who you are, and most importantly, who you think you are.

The vast majority of people continue to struggle in their professional and financial lives because they think that the results that they produce don't really matter. They think that the work that they do is just one insignificant portion of their total identity.

This is where they screw up. Let's face it, the world doesn't care about your feelings. It doesn't care about your motivation and it seriously disregards your potential. How come?

Everybody's got potential. Everybody's got emotions and feelings. What the world pays attention to are your results. These are the things that you actually do. These are the things that you actually say. These are the things that matter.

When you change your actions, you change your personal reality. Unfortunately, this is the last thing people look at when they try to define their character or try to communicate who they are to the greater world.

They try to do this through fashion. They try to do this with the way they talk. They try to do this with what they choose to talk about.

If you want to be taken seriously and if you want to become a more effective person, focus on your work product. Focus on whether you show up to work on time. Focus on whether you do whatever it takes to achieve the kind of success that you want for yourself.

Everything else is basically fluff. Everything else are basically inconsequential details. Because ultimately, the most honest indication of what you're capable of and where you're headed in life is your work product.

Change that and you change your destiny. To get a practical guide on how to do this on a day to day basis, click here.

Become more effective by taking things more personally

How many times have you been told that you should not take things personally? How many times have you been told that at the end of the day, things don't really matter? Our world is a product of forces we can't control. There's just something out there that's far bigger than us and there's really no point in trying.

Well, if you come across this type of thinking, please understand that the moment you believe them is the moment you rob yourself of personal power. The reason why so many people struggle with success is because they haven't taken their life more personally.

They have an impersonal viewpoint in their life. They look at themselves as pieces of plastic on the surface of a raging sea. They really don't have any control over where they're going. They definitely don't give themselves a sense of control over the way things are turning out in their lives.

They feel that they're just a passenger in the long car journey of their personal lives. This really is too bad because if you think about it, if you want to go to where you want to go, you should at least bother to position yourself in the driver's seat. You should at least take the effort to try to turn that steering wheel to the direction you want your life to go.

Sadly, too many of us have simply given up. Too many of us have simply said  that there's really nothing they can do so they take a very impersonal view of their lives. Instead, they focus on the small stuff.

They focus on what's on YouTube. They focus on garbage in social media. They come up with a million and one reasons to take their minds off the things that truly matter.

If you want to turn your life around and achieve the kind of reality you think is essentially cut off from you, you have to step up. You have to say to yourself that you are the owner of your life. You are responsible for your life.

Nobody will take that responsibility. Everybody's got enough problems of their own. Sure you may come across people in your romantic life who would say to you that you complete them. You would come across people who would say to you that you give them meaning.

But ultimately, they have to take care of #1. They have to take care of themselves first. You can't rely on those people to do something that you should be doing for yourself. This involves self love and self respect.

How can you love others when you can't even love yourself? How can you expect others to do something for you that you won't do for yourself?

This is why it's really important to take ownership of your life. Make it personal. If you're struggling in any area of your life, it is worth your time to focus on that area. It is worth your time to put in the time, effort and energy to figure out what's going on so you can get better results.

This is not going to go away by itself. This is not going to go away anytime soon if you don't put in the right amount of time and focus. You have to do it. Take ownership today.

If this idea makes sense to you, click here for a practical guide on how you can take full ownership of your life. Be in the driver's seat of your life instead of constantly being the person last to know.

Personal pride can push your personal effectiveness upward and out

Usually, when people talk about pride, they often frame it in negative terms. As the old saying goes, we shouldn't be proud because pride comes before the fall. How many times have you heard of people celebrating the bad karma of somebody who is very arrogant or prideful?

It's not unusual for most people to view pride in negative terms. They think of somebody unreasonable, someone who's a bully or somebody who's basically a jerk. But believe it or not, pride can actually make you a better person.

I'm not talking about the sensitive, touchy kind of pride where you take offense when you feel when people don't give you the respect that you think you deserve. I'm not talking about that kind of pride. That kind of pride is worthless in my opinion.

Instead, the pride that I'm talking about involves pride in your work. It involves the connection between the things that you choose to do with your time and who you are as a person. This definition of pride connects the dots between the output that you produce and the value system that you use to produce it.

Make no mistake. Everything external about you is a reflection of your internal truths. The way you dress, your haircut, the way you talk, the way you carry yourself and yes, most importantly, the quality of your work are reflections of your values as a person.

If you take pride in the work you do, it's going to show. You're not going to show up to work late. You're not going to put in very little effort. You're not just going to waste your time at work just enough to collect a paycheck. Instead, you're going to do whatever it takes or however long it takes to produce maximum value in the lives of people depending on you. Why would you do this?

Well, you understand  that this is a reflection of who you are as a person. That whatever output you produce with your efforts is a reflection of your quality as a person. That is real pride. If you use that kind of pride, you become a more effective person across the board.

You not only become more knowledgeable. You become more authoritative, efficient and yes, more effective. This is how you earn more money. This is how you command greater respect. This is how you live a more substantive and substantial life. It is all based on the concept of pride.

It's kind of like having a personal brand. When you buy a bag and it has a Hermes logo on it, you have certain expectations. You know full well that chances are high that that bag is not going to fall apart the moment you buy it. Chances are it's going to be of the utmost quality and reliability. After all, it has the Hermes brand.

Well, look at your personal pride as your personal brand. When people see your work product, they see your brand. When people see how you talk and how you treat other people and how you carry yourself, they see your personal brand. That is the pride that I'm talking about.

Personal pride can help you become a more effective and successful person. It doesn't matter what you're struggling with in the here and now. Use the power of personal pride to take things to a whole other level.

To get some practical tips on how to do this, click below

Use the power of emotional ownership to get more stuff done

I remember the first time I worked in corporate America. I was hanging out with people who were simply there because they had nothing better to do after college. They looked at their first corporate job as some sort of “holding tack” for graduate school, getting married, or professional school.

As you can well imagine, these people that I worked with really did not take their work all that seriously. This should be clear that if you don't take whatever it is you're doing seriously, you have no business expecting to get rewarded to do what you're supposed to do.

That's precisely what happened. Most of my friend did not get promoted. In fact, a lot of them never managed to get a pay raise. Still, this did not prevent them from complaining about their lack of success. They're quick and eager to point the finger to things and people out of their control.

They convinced themselves that maybe their boss simply had it in for them. Maybe they were just in the wrong industry and there's something wrong with their situation.

This really is quite sad because what I saw with my coworkers is pretty much a microcosm of how most people look at their lives. We refuse to take ownership of our decisions. We refuse to see the connection between our choices and the lives that we are living.

Make no mistake, your life is a choice. How much money you make, what you look like, where you live, the size of the car you drive, the brand of the car you drive, the amount of respect you get, all of those are choices.

When you make a choice and you take action on those choices, things begin to change. That's how life works. That's how reality plays out. Unfortunately, a lot of people turn a blind eye to this. They're too quick and eager to blame everything and anything outside of themselves for whatever is going on in their lives.

Little do they know that they can't control these other people. It's hard enough to change yourself, can you imagine trying to change other people? If you want to achieve great things with your life, use the power of emotional ownership.

How do you do this? Well, please understand that everyday, you're supposed to produce results. Those results are judgments of your character. Get emotional over that fact. If you feel that you're not getting paid enough, well, this means that you have to take emotional ownership. This means that you have to produce more work of a higher quality at a faster rate.

This means that you have to network better. This means that you have to go the extra mile. If you still don't get paid what you think you should be paid, at least you learned enough skills for you to take to your next job and the next job after that.

Eventually, somebody will reward you because you know that your work is an expression or reflection of who you are. It's a reflection of your values, character and everything and anything that is fundamental about you.

If you look at your work life from this perspective, it's only a matter of time until you achieve the victory you are capable of achieving.

Give yourself the gift of a sense of urgency

Do you find yourself struggling in certain areas of your life? Do you find yourself lacking motivation when it comes to certain big projects that you'd like to pursue? If you're like most people, you know what you should be doing to take your life to the next level. In fact, these things should not be a mystery to you.

This is not rocket science. If you were to ask most people, they know what they need to be doing or working on so their life can dramatically improve. Still, for whatever reason, they're not doing what they're supposed to do.

They have a clear idea. In fact, a lot of people even have a plan or a series of action that they need to take to achieve big victories with their lives. Still, the vast majority of people have not decided to go down that road. Most people would rather take care of the small things or the daily trivialities of life before they tackle serious issues. What's going on?

Well, it's not because people are dumb. It's not lack of intelligence that pushes people to behave this way. It's also not laziness. The problem is every single day, there will always be opportunities to do other things.

If you're not careful and you're not set on a particular plan of action, your whole day can be filled up with side issues, side projects and stuff that came up at the last minute.

Now, this happens everyday. Can you imagine it taking up weeks, months or even years? This is precisely why most people are unable to achieve the big victories or reach the big goals that they have set for themselves.

Again, it has nothing to do with intrinsic capacity like intelligence or emotional awareness. Instead, they simply rob themselves of a sense of urgency. If you don't have a sense of urgency, everything is of equal value. You end up chasing your tail and achieving very little as far as your big goals are concerned.

So, how do you give yourself the gift of a sense of urgency? You only need to do one thing: set a deadline. When you set a realistic deadline for doing certain things or achieving certain things, you light the fire under your feet.

You tell yourself, “By this date, I am going to take action. By this date, I'm going to make the necessary sacrifices and I'm going to line up everything so I take action in a certain sequence to produce a certain result.”

That's how you gain a sense of urgency because at that point, you're focused. At that point, you have stopped playing around. Things no longer look equal in your eyes because now, you have a priority. You see how this works?

To learn about the practical steps that you need to take to give yourself the amazing gift of a sense of urgency, click here. This simple trick can do wonders for your personal effectiveness and ability to achieve great things with your life.

Don't give yourself so much time you constantly run out of time

When you're setting deadlines for yourself, make sure you select the right deadline. You have to understand the reason why deadlines exist in the first place. They're not just about putting some chronological restraints on a particular project.

While there's a lot of value to that, there's something more to deadlines that strict, time-based parameters. The main reason why deadlines work is because they force people to take action before a certain time passes.

In other words, they push people to do things that they normally would not do. Let's face it, people being people would rather kick the can down the road, or better yet, don't do what they're supposed to do at all.

That's the basic truth about the human condition. Doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter how much education you have. This is true for all people.

With everything else being equal, we'd rather not do anything that is outside of our comfort zone. We'd rather do things that we're accustomed to. This is why big projects often terrify us.

We know what we're supposed to do. We know how much good achieving these things will have in our lives, but we can't quite get ourselves to do it. How come? We're scared of change.

We're afraid that we might have to give up certain things. We're afraid of putting in all this time, effort and energy only to come up short. The last thing that most people want for themselves or their families is to try really hard only to come up short and fail.

This is why they give themselves all sorts of excuses and deadlines terrify people. Well, here's the problem. When you set a deadline that is so far out into the future, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Sure, from time to time, you are able to do things right on time or even well ahead of schedule. But let's get serious here. How often does that happen? In fact, if your like most people, you can probably count that with one hand.

When we set a deadline far into the future, the rest of our lives catch up. There's all sorts of duties, obligations and responsibilities competing for our time. This is why we run out of time constantly because if you set up a deadline long into the future, there will be all sorts of new stuff taking up your schedule.

If you're not careful, by the time the deadline comes, you're just as unprepared as if you had set up the deadline to a much earlier date. You see how this works?

So, don't give yourself so much time that you constantly run out of time. Instead, set up a realistic deadline so as to maximize the value of the deadline. In other words, the deadline should motivate you to action. It should get you to take action right on time. That's how you set the proper deadline.

Of course, you shouldn't set the deadline so close that it scares you. In fact, it can be so scary and intimidating that you end up paralyzed.

To learn how to tap the power of proper scheduling to maximize your personal effectiveness and efficiency, click here.

Why Being a Perfectionist Will Kill Your Productivity

If you tend to set high bars for yourself and always try to put your best foot forward to achieve your goals, your perfectionism could be killing your productivity. While striving for perfection can help you achieve great results, it can also prevent you from being your best and can foster a lack of productivity. Here are several ways the being a perfectionist will quickly kill your productivity.

Perfectionism Makes You Less Efficient

When you strive for perfection in the tasks that you do, even when you've completed the task, you will linger on to find new ways that you can improve. This lingering process might start off as a quick ten-minute process but can quickly escalate until you find yourself spending an hour or more looking for things to improve. This causes you to spend way too much time on a task that required and puts you behind schedule.

You Become Less Effective

As a perfectionist, you probably do little things because they seem like a good addition. However, you fail to consciously think whether those additions are necessary. Sometimes, those additions not only fail to add value but might even ruin things.

You Tend to Procrastinate

When you have perfectionist tendencies, you often wait for the perfect moment, which tends to overcomplicate a project. What is a simple task, might get blown out of proportion, to the extent that it then becomes intimidating subconsciously. This causes you to procrastinate on working on it because you are waiting for the ever "perfect" moment before you begin. Unfortunately, this perfect moment never happens until it's too late.

You Miss the Bigger Picture

Since you are too hung up on the little details, you tend to forget about the bigger picture and the end goal. It isn't uncommon to see better jobs in pruning the trees than the growth of the forest.

You Fuss Over Unfounded Problems

Most perfectionists tend to anticipate problems before then crop up and develop solutions to address the issues. It ends up becoming an obsession to pre-empt potential problems. Unfortunately, most of the problems that you envision never surface or they don’t really matter as much as you thought they would.

While striving to aim for higher standards isn’t a bad thing, when the quest for perfection turns into an obsession, it will quickly kill your productivity. The answer isn’t to stop striving for perfection, but rather to be conscious of your perfectionist tendencies and manage them accordingly.

Top Tips for Minimizing Distractions to Get More Done

Increasing your productivity doesn’t take a magic wand or require you to get an advanced degree in statistics. If you are struggling with a lack of productivity, you need to take a closer look at your daily habits. Being unproductive is nobody’s fault but your own. Here are some of the top tips that you can incorporate into your daily life to minimize distractions and get more done.

Tip #1 – Learn to Anticipate Yourself

When it comes to productivity, you’re your own worst enemy. According to a study by the University of California Irvine, office workers are only able to focus on a task for an average of three minutes and five seconds before they become distracted. Surprisingly, 44 percent of those distractions are internal. The good news is that internal disturbances are the only kind that you can control. Learn to know your patterns and plan for these distractions.

Tip #2 – Send Out Busy Signals

More than half of your distractions are external distractions that come in the form of email, people, phone calls, and chatter from other offices. If you want to stop these external distractions before they start you have to give out the right signals. If you utilize instant messenger, set yourself too busy and wear headphones, even if you aren't listening to music. Providing subtle queues may seem passive aggressive, but they will also save you from annoying distractions.

Tip #3 – Make Technology Work for You

At times, technology may seem like an enemy, but technology can be your anti-distraction buddy. Turn off your email alerts, create an auto-response to text messages, and set your phone to go to voicemail. Block out chunks of time on your calendar as "busy." Unless you are dealing with life and death situations at work, your coworkers will be able to manage without you for a few hours.

Tip #4 – Learn to Say No

If you are already overloaded with work and you feel like you never get anything accomplished, then you need to learn to say no to new requests and projects. You can nicely let people know that you would love to help, but your plate is currently full.

If you are starting to have more and more unproductive days, it’s time for you to determine your distractions and put a stop to them. By being proactive, silencing technology, and learning to say no, you will find that you will start to become more productive.

Top 5 Productivity Hacks for Procrastinators

No one is immune to falling victim to procrastination. Everyone puts things off from time to time, so there is always room to increase our productivity once we know how to deal with our tendencies to procrastinate properly. To help you combat procrastination and become more productive, here are the top five productivity hacks for procrastinators.

Name It

The first thing that you need to do is notice that you are procrastinating and acknowledge it. It is essential that you do this without judging yourself and without getting overly stressed that you don't have enough time. The next time you notice you're procrastinating, just say to yourself "procrastinating," or "moving on." This allows you to acknowledge your procrastination so you can move on.

Figure Out Where Your Time Goes

When we're procrastinating, we all use different props to fill our time. To improve your productivity, you'll need to identify what these are for you. Digital distractions are extremely powerful procrastination temptations that we need to try to resist consciously. To figure out where your time goes, start to write down exactly where your time goes.

Make Time Your Best Friend

Most procrastinators frequently fool themselves when it comes to the passage of time. You might often get to the end of the day and not understand where the day went. If this is something that happens to you, then you need to shift your relationship with time. You’ll need to become aware of how long each task takes you, rather than making a guess.

Improve Your Time Estimates

Often, as a procrastinator, you may tend to estimate how long a task will take without factoring in any time for your procrastination. This causes you to take much longer than expected to finish a task. If you know that you tend to procrastinate, factor this into your estimation, so you're not always falling behind.

Meet More Deadlines

Often, the only time we manage to get around to focusing properly on your tasks is when you have a looming deadline. So, if you want to improve your focus and increase your productivity, you might want to start giving yourself more deadlines. The best way to do this is to get in the habit of promising to deliver certain things by a specific time/date.

Even self-professed procrastinators can improve their productivity. With these five productivity hacks, you can start to decrease the amount of time you spend procrastinating and get more done.