It's Friday! As the week comes to a close (for most of us), I want to share a set of habits that have become an end-of-the-week routine for me. This routine has been key to ending my week on a positive note and "teeing up" a great start to the following week for me.
Quality and personal excellence are two key elements of your personal brand. The degree to which you fully embrace the importance of these elements is communicated to others on a continuous basis and is incorporated into others' vision of who you are (i.e. the personal brand that you broadcast). RELATED: The Perfect Recipe For A Great Personal Brand Those who are fully aware of this fact can definitely undertake action to broadcast a personal brand that elevates their professionalism through conscious focus on quality and personal excellence. Here are 14 things that impact the quality of your personal brand:
FACT: The best answer lies within each of us. We simply need help sometimes drawing it out. Related: 7 Tips For Becoming A Leader At Work When we remember this fact and act upon it as a leader, we shift the paradigm for how we help others solve problems. We also help them grow and build their self-confidence. It's the purest form of helping to develop others.
Managers may come up with dozens of reasons as to why they shouldn't delegate a specific project - or at all - to their team members. Related: 3 Steps To Help You Master The Art Of Delegation Here are the eight myths about delegation:
Balancing "highly focused work effort" with adequate rest and recovery is invaluable in any performance venue - work, athletics, sports, hobbies, and so on. Without adequate recovery time, we stress our bodies physically, emotionally, and mentally. Energy levels suffer and peak performance is impacted. But how can you energize your workday? Related: Hump Day Treat: 5 Quick Tips For Better Productivity Recovery time not only includes planned vacations and time away from work on the weekends, but also daily "rituals" designed to regroup and recover from the stress associated with your day-to-day work demands. High performance periods throughout the day MUST be balanced with recovery periods throughout the day. Without those recovery periods, performance tends to ebb substantially due to inadequate physical, emotional and mental energy availability.
Executive coaching clients who have worked with me have heard me encourage them - time and again - to begin their week with a well-thought-out weekly planning process. A process that I first embedded into my weekly routine after reading David Allen's best seller on time management and planning, Getting Things Done, years ago. Related: Time Management: 4 Keys To Avoiding Work-Related Stress My weekly planning process allows me to enter each week feeling "in control." Not only that, but it also gives me confidence that I am focusing on the most important things in my life - my work life and my personal life - THAT week. My weekly planning process includes review of a number of lists and tools, my calendar, my goals, my Inboxes, messages, written notes, and so on - a whole host of items that allow me to scan across my entire horizon of open loops, action-centric matters, and goals. Two lists that I ALWAYS include in my weekly review and planning process are: 1.) my "Never" or "Absolute No" List, and 2.) my "Always" or "100% Commitment" List. These are two lists of promises I've made to myself that are in total alignment with my beliefs, personal vision, work, personal goals and objectives. Reviewing these two lists on a weekly basis flexes my awareness muscle and helps keep me conscious of these important promises.
Want to know how you can be unforgettable to employers? The answer is the "rule of three." Related: 3 Great Activities To Keep Your Job Search Moving Whether you're giving a presentation, telling a story, submitting a proposal or selling your services - keep in mind the "Rule of Three." Have you ever noticed the pattern of "3" in many of our traditional childhood stories -- three blind mice, the three stooges, the three little pigs, Goldilocks' three bears, three wishes... the list goes on and on. Research has shown there is a rationale behind the use of "three" in our societal storytelling - our brains tend to naturally think in threes. Add one more element and the memory pattern tends to slip. Why not take advantage of this human tendency when interacting with others? Knowing the "Rule of Three" and using it in your presentations, your "elevator pitch," your cover letter, your letter to that important client, and other key communication pieces can be incredibly impactful. Use the "Rule of Three," and people will tend to remember what you said and will likely remember YOU said it. As you wrestle with formulating your very next presentation, pick three stories, three key points or three ideas that best illustrate the message you are attempting to convey. Repeat those three elements throughout your presentation. End your presentation by going back to those three elements. The "Rule of Three" works and is a powerful tool for facilitating retention. This post was originally published at an earlier date.
Information is power. Knowledge is power. At work, information and knowledge allow us to be at our best and contribute in a highly effective manner. We stay focused on the important, are fully aware of emerging issues and obstacles, and understand the "big picture." Without timely information and knowledge, we end up working in a vacuum and we're not hooked in to "real time" needs, opportunities, and circumstances. Related: How To Build Positive Workplace Relationships You simply can't effectively succeed if you're out of the information loop at work. You're bound to get tripped up. Are you in the loop or out of the loop? Some signs you may be out of the loop include:
