Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (15 page)

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CHANGING YOUR LIFE

Success is an inside job. It is a state of mind. It begins within you and is soon reflected in the world around you. When you change your thinking for the better, you become a better person. By dreaming big dreams and envisioning an exciting future, you become a leader. By writing down your goals and making plans to accomplish them, you take full control of your life. And by practicing the ideas taught in this book, you can and will become
unstoppable
.

ACTION EXERCISES

1.
Resolve today to accept 100 percent responsibility for everything you are or will ever be. Instead of making excuses, decide to make progress.

2.
Identify one area where you use the words “I can’t” when you think of the need to change or do something different. Now imagine that your limitations in that area are all in your mind.

3.
In what parts of your life have you become comfortable, so much so that you resist change, even if it would be an improvement? What could you do to get out of this comfort zone?

4.
Identify one area where fear and doubt are holding you back from doing something that you want to do. Imagine that you were absolutely guaranteed success in that area. What would you do differently?

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5.
What are your favorite excuses for not making the decisions or taking the actions you need to if you want to achieve all your goals? What if your excuses were not true?

6.
Desire and knowledge are the antidotes to fear and doubt. What could you do immediately to increase your knowledge in an area where you want to take action?

7.
Identify one key area of your life that you have created with your own thinking. How could you change your thinking in that area to be more successful?

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C h 6

a p t e r

Commit to Excellence

The quality of a person’s life will be determined by the
depth of their commitment to excellence, no matter what
their chosen field.

—Vince Lombardi

The starting point of great accomplishment is for you to break loose from the mental bonds that hold you back. Dreaming big dreams and setting big goals provide the starting point of thinking, seeing, and feeling yourself to be capable of achieving far more than you ever have before.

How you think and feel about yourself is largely determined by how
effective
you feel you are in the important things you do, especially in your work or career. It is not possible for you to feel happy and confident as a person if you are not competent and capable in the areas of your life that are central to your personal identity.

One of the most powerful ways for you to change your thinking about yourself is for you to
commit to excellence
. It is to make the decision, right now, to be the best, to join the top 10 percent in your field, no matter how long it takes. The very act of thinking of yourself as
potentially
excellent at what you do actually changes your mind-set and improves your personality. It makes you happier and raises your self-esteem. You like and respect yourself more, just by deciding to be the best.

The market pays superior rewards only for superior performance.

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It pays average rewards for average performance, and below-average rewards, unemployment, and bankruptcy for below-average performance. Today, the race is on in every area.Your competitors are more capable and determined than they have ever been before, and will grow even more so next year, and the year after, and for the rest of your career. You have to run faster just to stay in the same place.

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THE GOOD OLD DAYS

At one time, you had to be excellent to rise to the top of your field or market. Today, however, excellence is taken for granted. Today, you have to be excellent just to get into the market in the first place. Then you have to constantly improve, getting better and better, week by week and month by month, if you want to keep up with the competition.

In every field, the top 20 percent of companies make 80 percent of the profits in that business or industry. The top 20 percent of salespeople make 80 percent of the sales and 80 percent of the income. The top 20 percent in every field enjoy most of the great rewards of money, pride, satisfaction, and reputation that go along with being the best at what they do. Your job is to join them, as quickly as possible.

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THE CONTROL VALVE

ON PERFORMANCE

Perhaps the most important quality of high-achieving men and women is that of
ambition.
They see themselves, think about themselves, and conduct themselves every day as though they were among the elite in their fields. They set high goals for themselves and continually work to exceed those goals. For them quotas are minimums, not maximums. They look upon the accomplishments of everyone else as challenges to themselves to be even better. And so must you.

The core of your personality is your level of
self-esteem
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much you think of yourself as an important and worthwhile person.

Your self-esteem is the power source of your personality. It determines your levels of energy, enthusiasm, motivation, inspiration, and drive. The more you like and respect yourself, the better you do at everything you attempt. And the better you do, the more you like and respect yourself. Self-esteem and personal excellence reinforce each other.

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THE BETTER YOU DO

Self-esteem
and
self-efficacy
are flip sides of the same coin of personality. You can genuinely like and respect yourself only when you know, deep in your heart, that you are really good at what you do.

A sense of
personal mastery
is absolutely essential to the healthy human personality. Every single thing that you do in an excellent fashion boosts your self-esteem and makes you feel better about yourself. It makes you feel even more confident of performing at even higher levels.

Achieving your full potential requires high levels of courage and confidence. Great success requires a continual willingness to move out of your comfort zone, and to break the bonds of learned helplessness that hold most people back.

The higher your self-esteem, the more powerful, positive, and determined you will become. The more you like yourself, the more willing you will be to take chances, to step out in faith, and to persist longer than anyone else. The better you become in your chosen field, the stronger and more confident you will become in every other part of your life as well.

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THE ABSOLUTE PREREQUISITE

The fact is that it is impossible for you to be truly happy or successful until you know in your heart that you are very, very good at what you do. For this reason alone, you must resolve to overcome any obstacle, pay any price, and go any distance to achieve this level of excellence.You must set a goal to be among the top 10 percent of performers in your field, and then do whatever it takes to get there.

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Fortunately, getting to the top is easier than you think. The great majority of people seldom think about personal excellence.

And if the thought crosses their minds, they quickly dismiss it and go back to average performance. Most of the people around you are content to do their jobs, for better or for worse, and then go out with their friends, or go home and watch television. However, when you begin to make those extra efforts that enable you to excel, you will find that, like a runner going into a sprint, you soon move ahead of the pack of the average performers.

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DEVELOP THE WINNING EDGE

One of the most important of all success principles is the “winning edge” concept. This concept explains success and failure, and has been demonstrated over and over. This principle says:
Small differences in ability can lead to enormous differences in results.
It seems that the top people in every field are usually just a little bit better than the average in the critical things that they do. But consistency in being a little bit better in your key skill areas eventually adds up to an enormous difference in results.

In fact, all you need is to be about 3 percent better in each of the key result areas of your job to develop the winning edge. This edge enables you to move to the front in the race of life. Once you get a little ahead, you can then maintain and increase this gap by continuous self-improvement.You can continue to get better and better with learning and practice. With this strategy, you will soon emerge in the top 10 percent, or even the top 5 percent, of people in your field.

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KEY RESULT AREAS

Success in any job requires a minimum level of performance in one or more tasks or functions. These are the key result areas (KRAs) of the position. Key results areas are the tasks that you absolutely, positively have to do well to be successful in your overall job, whatever it is. As it happens, there are seldom more than five to seven key result areas in any job, position, company, or area of responsibility.

Your job is to identify the KRAs of your job and then make a plan to improve in each one.

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The reason they are called “key result areas” is because they are the essential skills necessary for you to do your job completely and well. A weakness in any one of them can hold you back from excellent performance in your overall job. You are successful because of your strength in certain key result areas, but your
weakest
key result area determines the degree of effectiveness with which you will be able to use all the others. Your weakest key skill area largely determines your income.

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IDENTIFY YOUR KEY SKILLS

Each job or desired result can be defined in terms of the key skills necessary to achieve it. For example, there are seven key result areas in selling. A weakness in any one of them can hold you back from selling as much as you can. They are: (1) prospecting; (2) establish-ing trust and rapport; (3) identifying the customer’s problem or need; (4) presenting your product or service as the ideal solution to the problem; (5) answering objections and concerns; (6) getting agreement to proceed; and (7) obtaining resales and referrals. If you perform well in all seven of these areas, you will soon be at the top of your field. If you are poor in any area, your performance in that area will determine your income.

In management, there are also seven key result areas. They are: (1) planning; (2) organizing; (3) selecting the right people; (4) delegating; (5) supervising; (6) measuring; and (7) reporting, both upward and downward. If you are excellent at every key skill except for one, that one weakness alone will hold you back in your career as a manager.

There are critical success factors in almost every area of life. For example, there are four critical success factors that determine your physical health. They are: (1) proper diet; (2) proper weight; (3) proper exercise; and (4) proper rest. Almost all of your health problems can be traced back to a problem or deficiency in one of these four areas.

The starting point of personal excellence is for you to identify the key result areas of your job. Define them clearly and write them down. Make a list of the tasks, in order, that you must perform to get the results expected of you in your job. Evaluate your current ccc_tracy_6_90-117.qxd 6/23/03 2:48 PM Page 95

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performance in each of these key result areas. Where are you strong?

Where are you weak? Be honest.

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SET STANDARDS OF PERFORMANCE

If you want to lose weight, the first thing you do is weigh yourself.

If you want to improve in any area, you first measure how well you are doing in that area today, and then use that as a
baseline
for improvement.

Once you have determined the results that you absolutely, positively have to get to perform at your best in a particular aspect area of your life or work, you then give yourself a score of 1 to 10 in each key result area, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.

You must be at a 7 level or above in each area to do your overall job in an excellent fashion. Wherever you are scoring 7 or below, you must set a goal to improve in that area.

Always start your program of personal improvement where you can get the greatest result the
fastest
.This will invariably be in the key result area where you are the weakest. Identify your lowest-scoring KRA and then make a plan to improve in this skill area as quickly as possible. Simultaneously, you develop a plan to gradually improve in each other area where you are weak.

Every step you take toward improving yourself in one of your key result areas will improve your results in your job. The better you get at your job, the more you will like and respect yourself.

The more you like and respect yourself, the better you will feel, and the more energy and enthusiasm you will have. You will soon become unstoppable.

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PERSONAL STRATEGIC PLANNING

In the business world of the twentieth century, it was generally agreed that corporations should conduct strategic planning on a regular basis. Individuals, though, were encouraged to set personal goals. In the twenty-first century, however, the situation is different.

Today, each individual, just like a company, must engage in a regular process of
personal
strategic planning.