Kaizan Blog

“If you’re going through hell, keep going”    Winston Churchill

Whenever successful people talk about the qualities needed for success, they ALWAYS mention persistence. What’s the big deal about persistence?

Persistence works because :

1. If you give up, you lose. Simple as that. There are many situations in your life, where the only way you can lose, is if you give up.

2. Most of life is a numbers game. The more you keep going, the more chance you have of winning

e.g.

• The salesperson who overcomes rejection and sees 1000 prospects will probably make more sales than one who sees only 10
• The person who meets 100 prospective partners is more likely to find their ideal partner, than the one who gives up after 1 bad date
• The person who keeps trying to build a successful business has more chance of succeeding than the one who gave up after their first failure.

Basically, a lot of success in life, revolves around the fact that if you stay in the game, you will win. And persistence is about staying in the game, despite what happens  to you.

But remember, persistence isn’t only about “keeping on going”. If you aren’t making progress, you need to step back and understand what is going wrong. If you can see problems with your approach, then you need to refine your plans. Once you are confident that your plans are up to scratch then its time to get back to it.

And therein lies the secret to persistence:

Continuing unflinchingly towards your goal, with better and better plans.

Action Step

Identify a situation where you feel like things are going poorly and you are considering giving up. Think about whether your approach is the best one? Are there any shortcomings? How can you change your approach in a way that improves your chances of success?

Once you have a refined, improved plan then it’s time to focus back on the goal.

Keep going.

Never Give Up.

Procrastination is a very common experience in life. Putting off things that we know we should be doing.  When people acknowledge that they are procrastinating on a task, they become very negative. Many view procrastination as a personal failing.

“I know I should be doing this but I’m not. All I need to do is get started but I’m finding every excuse not to. Why aren’t I doing it? There’s something wrong with me. Why am I sabotaging my success?”

There are lots of reasons why people procrastinate including:

1. The task seems overwhelming
2. You don’t know where to start
3. You’re afraid to start (often secondary to lack of confidence about having the ability to carry out the task)
4. The task seems unpleasant

When I see the above list, it makes me feel that procrastination is anything but a personal failing. On the contrary, if you actually felt like a task was unpleasant, scary or overwhelming then the logical response would be to procrastinate on doing it.

When you think about it this way, you see that procrastinating is a very valuable signal. It shows that your project hasn’t been framed correctly.

What do I mean by framed correctly?

Taking the first two reasons for procrastinating, it is clear that if a task is too large or too vague then it will feel overwhelming and you won’t know where to start. That’s a failing in the structure of your project.

In this case, you need to divide up your project goal into smaller sub-goals. If the sub-goals are also too big then they can be divided up again. Going back to the principle of Thinking Big but Starting Small, the first task that needs doing should be made as small as possible just to get the ball rolling.

With the third and fourth reasons people procrastinate, the problem is more in the mental framing of the task. What is it that you are afraid of or find unpleasant about the task? Is it lack of knowledge or skill? In that case you may need to do some more research or ask someone that can help.

Procrastinating on an unpleasant task may often stem from the perception that the task offers no value relative to the downside. In this case, trying to find the (hidden) value in the task can help.  The most unpleasant, boring task can have some value, even if it is just to develop the skill of tolerance!

Action Step
The next time you catch yourself procrastinating, think about the reasons why you’re actually avoiding the task. Within those reasons will be the solution to re-framing the project. I have yet to see a project that couldnt be re-framed to make it easier to take action on.

Desire is the fuel of all goal achievement. If an Olympic athlete didn’t really, really want to win the gold medal, then there is no way they would put up with all the years of training necessary to compete at that level. Contrast that commitment with the usual vague wishes that the average person comes up with and you can see why a lot of people struggle to achieve their goals.

Napoleon Hill, in the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” called it a burning desire and it’s when you want something so bad, that nothing will stand in your way.

You may dream about success but dreams will only get you so far. If you were to develop a desire so strong that you would do everything in your power to accomplish it then your chances of success are infinitely greater. That’s the power of desire.

But what do you do if you don’t feel that strong desire for your goal? It’s very common. The problem is that some people start thinking “If I don’t feel a strong desire for it, maybe my goal isnt the right one?”  Or others see people who are passionate about their goals and conclude that ”maybe I’m just not passionate about anything?”

But the thing you may not realise about desire is that isn’t all or nothing. And it also isn’t something that strikes out of the blue. Most desires develop over time. They need to be nurtured. The conventional wisdom is “if you desire something, you will think about it a lot”. But did you know that the converse is also true: “if you think about something a lot, you will desire it“. This astounds some people.

Imagine this scenario (better yet, try it for yourself to be absolutely sure): You pick out a random travel destination, let’s say Rome. It’s a place you may have thought about as a nice place to visit for a holiday, but had no real commitment to visit. For a few days, you force yourself to think about it all the time. You visit websites about Rome, read novels set in Rome and talk to your friends about nothing else. From the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to bed you make sure that it’s all you think about.

After a few days, you would almost certainly have an increased desire to visit Rome. The sustained focus has made you want something you were almost indifferent to a few days earlier.

And it’s the same with your goals. It may take longer, but if you talk and think about your goals all the time, your desire will increase.

Action Step

Try it! Start obsessing over your goal. Force yourself to make it your focus for every waking moment. Your desire will increase in proportion to how much you do this.

I used to work in an office where one of my colleagues was held up as a model of dedication and devotion to work. The main reason for this was that he worked much longer hours than others, generally not leaving the office till 9pm.

However despite the long hours, the odd thing was that he was always behind on deadlines. In fact, as time went on he was missing more and more deadlines and struggling to cope. How could he be working so hard and still be falling behind?

The reason was that he was writing reports that contained unnecessary detail and flowery language (e.g. “I will be detained by prior commitments that will render me unable to apportion appropriate time to this activity” instead of “I am busy”). This made his reports 2-3 times longer than they needed to be. This obviously meant he took longer to get things done than others.

What struck me most about this situation was that when he was confronted with this information, he was very resistant to making any changes. Simply by removing some of the unnecessary detail, he would have produced better reports, in less time, using less energy. And yet he couldn’t believe there was a solution to this that didn’t have a downside. He fought it all the way.

Technological development in our society is all about discovering more efficient ways to do things faster and better with less resources. So why can’t people apply those principles to their lives? It’s because they get stuck in doing things the way they always have. And the costs are huge. The colleague in the above example never got home before 10pm. What kind of family and social life do you think he had?

In what areas of your life is your adherence to set ways of doing things costing you?

Action Step

Look at some area of work and life that takes you a lot of time and energy and think about whether there is a way to do it better and more efficiently. Compare the way you do things to the way other people approach the same task.  Can you apply some of their ideas to your approach?

Notice how attached you are to the way you do things now but also think about the possible gains to be had by finding new approaches.

Examples of areas to examine could include:

1. Your daily routine

2. Work tasks

3. Household chores

In an earlier blog post we talked about the value of writing down your successes. Unfortunately since then, some people have told me that they really struggled to come up with a list of any meaningful successes. In other words they were unsuccessful!

Of course this is rubbish. It’s not that they haven’t been successful, it’s that their definition of what counts as success is so harsh, that nothing meets the grade. They are literally cheating themselves out of success.

Ok, so I’m sure there are ways that we can all be more successful, that is after all, the foundation of Kaizan, but that doesn’t mean that we should discount what we have achieved so far.

Here are some things to remember about defining success:

The press and television have no idea what success is

In today’s society, we get brainwashed into thinking that success is all about fame and money. Bringing up healthy well-adjusted children is no longer considered a success unless you are also a billionaire. Someone volunteering at a charity is not a success but someone appearing on a reality TV show is. Don’t let those deranged viewpoints affect your perception of what being successful is.

Success is personal

There are many things that you may have accomplished that may not seem like much to anyone else but are significant for you. Someone I know has never driven her car more than a mile from her house. The other day she overcame that fear and drove 1.5 miles away. Ok, it might not mean much to most people, but it was still a significant achievement for her and so that makes it a success.

Small successes count.

Don’t discount small successes. In any major achievement, the big victory would not have been possible without the smaller successes along the way. Whatever you are trying to achieve, you need to celebrate every milestone along the way to success, not just the final destination.

How things turned out doesn’t affect whether or not it was a success

“I beat lots of other applicants to get a really sought after job but the company went broke three months later.”

“I managed to lose some weight but now I’ve gained it all back”

These quotes are examples of classifying whether something was a success based on what happened later on. In the first example, the person still beat many applicants to get a sought after job. That is, by anyone’s measure, a success. In the second example, losing the weight was still an accomplishment. It also makes that person more likelier to succeed next time than someone who had never lost the weight before. Don’t rob yourself of successes by thinking about what happened later. By that logic, Abraham Lincoln achieved nothing in his presidency because he got shot.

We have all had successes in our lives. Make sure that the way you classify success isn’t cheating you out of what is rightfully yours.

We’ve found some new articles to help you get more out of life:

If you find it hard to make time to look after your finances, you might one day wake up and find all of your money gone. Avoid that unhappy fate by taking care of your money in the least time possible with:  Five Minute Finance Fixes

In a global recession, with many people losing their jobs and scared for the future, wouldn’t it be quite handy to find out the secret to doubling your income (in any market)?

That pot plant is the reason you’re a failure. Or is it? Learn how to structure your environment to better support you in achieving your goals with Feng Shui On Steroids: Design Your Space to Achieve Your Goals.

Surely looking in the mirror and flexing your biceps is as good as going to the gym? Apparently not.  Don’t let your gym allergy turn you into a health disaster. Find out 14 Simple Ways to Convert Your Sedentary Lifestyle.

Little strokes fell great oaks. Find out the secret to how narrowing your focus can make a big change: The Art of the Small- How to Make an Impact.

He’s wearing a leather jacket and shades. He must be bad news. But then why do all the women go for him? Find out the fascinating reasons why in Why Do Women Go For the Bad Boys.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by a big goal you’ve set for yourself? There’s too much to do and so much needs to happen that the goal seems impossible. It makes you feel anxious and discouraged when you think about how much is ahead of you.

Whether you’re creating a successful company, building your dream home, studying for an exam or re-building your life after a relationship breakup, this feeling of being overwhelmed can be a familiar emotion.

What are you focussing on when you feel overwhelmed? Most likely it is the entirety of the challenge ahead. In any big goal there are lots and lots of steps that need to be taken. When you think of everything that needs to be done to get to the final goal, your mind struggles to cope. It creates anxiety because it’s impossible to focus on everything at once.

But guess what? You don’t need to focus on everything at once.

All you ever really have to think about is the NEXT STEP.

Big goals need vision. You should certainly have an idea of where you are heading. You also need a plan which gives you some idea of the steps required to achieve your goals. But once you have set your goal and worked out a plan, you don’t need to worry about every single step, you just need to focus on the next one.

For instance, when some people study for an exam, they become anxious about how much information they need to read and remember. The whole textbook! It’s easy to see why the thought of reading an entire textbook can cause anxiety. It’s a lot of information. But the fact is you can’t read the textbook all at once. You can only read one sentence at a time. And you only need to focus on that next sentence.

Don’t make things harder than they are. When a goal is large, the number of steps involved is far more than anyone can focus on at one moment. Don’t waste your mental energy trying to handle it all at the same time. Plan what you need to do and then get working on the next step of the plan. As long as you are making timely progress, one step at a time, you will reach your goal.

Join our new Kaizan Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/kaizantweets) where you can get live updates of:

• Events
• New Articles
• New Blog posts
• New Books

that are added to the site.

Don’t know what Twitter is? No problem! Check out these links to find out more:

http://tweeternet.com/

http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter

I recently heard a business coach say  that Twitter was “just the  ’I'm going to the toilet now….brushing my teeth now’ aspect of Facebook that only Gen Y seem to care about.”

He couldn’t be more wrong! Check out this great article:

http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/

Joining the Kaizan Twitter feed is the fastest way to get updates about Self-Development events, books and articles on the Kaizan website.

See you on Twitter! (http://twitter.com/kaizantweets)

“Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.” Epictetus - 1st century AD

By now, most people are pretty familiar with the idea that it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you interpret it that determines your happiness.

For example, two people suffer a relationship break up. One looks on it as the end of the world as we know it. The other looks on it as an opportunity for freedom and excitement. Same event. Two different ways of looking at it. Consequently two very different emotions arise from the same situation. So there is no such thing as a “bad” event, if you have a positive interpretation of it.

But while people may accept this as true in a  hypothetical example, they will often look at their own lives and say “But in my case, I can’t choose to interpret this in any other way. The fact is…”

But how true is this? There are many examples in history where even “facts” acknowledged by experts and society at large were proven to be wrong (earth is flat, Y2K, Decca records telling the Beatles in 1962 that “guitar groups are on the way out”). Experts and society often get things wrong. But what about you personally? How often do you misinterpret situations?

“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” Mark Twain

Like Mark Twain,  a lot of us often assume that the worst thing is going to happen and we are often wrong. We are also notoriously bad at predicting the significance of certain events. How often has the worst thing that ever happened to you, actually turned out to  be the best thing that ever happened to you?

And how often have you interpreted someone’s actions wrongly because you didn’t have all the information? Many of us can recall times when we thought someone was being rude or difficult only to discover later that they were actually upset over something that was happening in their own lives.

The point is, we often don’t know the correct interpretation of a particular situation, and yet we continue to insist that we have interpreted the situation correctly and that we are justified in feeling angry, sad or disappointed.

So, when faced with a situation, rather than opt for what may or may not be the correct interpretation (you’re probably wrong anyway):

Go for the explanation that serves you the best.

Let’s take the example of the credit crunch / recession. Two beliefs could be:

1. The economy is falling apart. We’re in for years of misery.

2. This is a time with huge opportunities and I could make use of them in a way I couldn’t have before

One of these beliefs is correct. Perhaps it is the first one, I dont know. But if you were to assume the first one, you would do nothing except possibly lie on your bedroom floor in the fetal position. If you assumed the second belief was true you would be much more likely to get out there and be proactive. Which one would serve you best, even if it wasnt correct? Clearly the second one.

You DONT know what the facts are. You are often wrong. So don’t go on “facts”. Interpret events in the way that serves you best.