It’s still a common misconception in a significant amount of businesses that, by providing employees with basic training in workplace safety, they are suitably equipped for a disaster. Realistically though, a basic education in health & safety regulatory affairs simply is not enough. Equipping your workers, choosing good supervision and coordinating regular safety practise sessions are crucial to the safety of employees.

A team supervisor has a greater function to carry out than just general management. Whomever you select as the supervisor requires great communication skills, they should also see health & safety education as crucial. On top of observing all of the rules and regulations, the employee supervising furthermore needs to check that every employee performs well. This is not a simple task. A skilled supervisor is required to have an excellent knowledge of the industry and manufacturing procedures not to mention an extensive comprehension of up-to-date regulations with regard to safety, risk appraisal and first aid. It’s just not enough to send your staff to a health & safety course. Your employees must gain practical experience of risk assessment and the identification of hazards. They additionally must have a solid of the essential precautions that they’ll need to take not to mention how best to cope if disaster strikes. Not until these procedures become a habit are staff properly prepared.

Safety equipment is equally as vital to the your workers’ well-being as the training itself. Without the appropriate equipment or should workers see that supplies are broken only after a crisis has happened, all the training available can’t help them.

Frequent maintanence of your apparatus is a necessity. If piece of equipment doesn’t meet the applicable legislation, ensure it is fixed or call out a maintenance professional as a matter of urgency. Proper health & safety education is important for the well being of your staff, but they also need to have the correct gear, the chance to practise, and an educated supervisor who can get the workforce charged up about being safe at work. And then following health & safety legislation will become part of everyone’s working habits instead of something troublesome for the workforce to remember.

It’s felt in numerous companies that, as long as every last employee has sufficient health and safety education, they are sufficiently prepared for an incident. The reality is that, irrespective of the industry you’re in, a basic education in health and safety regulatory affairs just is not sufficient. Equipping your workers, selecting good supervision and encouraging frequent practise are all key factors. Someone in a supervisory job has a much greater function to carry out than just overseeing the work area. A supervisor must see the necessity of health and safety training and have the ability to get everyone else excited.

In addition to following rules and regulations, a supervisory role includes maintaining employee performance too. Naturally it isn’t easy to achieve all this at once. In-depth product knowledge is a necessity in a supervisory position as well as an advanced comprehension of up-to-date legislation regarding safety, risk assessment and CPR. Providing health and safety training really isn’t adequate for your workers. To successfully discover a risk to their safety they require to put their new-found skills to the test. Employees must understand how to eradicate problems as well as knowing what to do when the unexpected happens. Only when these processes have developed into second nature are workers properly protected.

Training is by all accounts not enough if you don’t have the required safety equipment. Should they discover they are without items they need, or even notice that they’re damaged only after something has happened, then all the safety training your employees have already taken will have been in vain.

Maintaining your equipment on a regular basis is fundamental. If an item is not in perfect condition, have it mended or call out a maintenance engineer as soon as you can. Your employees have to receive good health and safety training, but they also require good quality apparatus, the opportunity to practise, and a supervisor with contagious enthusiasm. Then adopting health and safety legislation will soon become a normal part of working life and no longer something challenging everyone has to make an effort to remember all the time.

A flourishing business depends on effective people management skills. These skills can be acquired and learned. It can be a plus to have a innate affinity for getting along with people, but you can do some things to help the process. Relationship Building: Begin by remembering staff’s names. Talk to staff; look co-workers in the eye during a conversation. Be respectful, in addition do pay attention to the other person’s point of view, irrespective of whether you agree with them. The development of listening skills is among the greatest things you can do to better your talent management skills. Encourage any input from your co-workers. Live up to your word: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. When you don’t keep your promises, the delicate bond of trust is shattered, and if they can’t trust you employees certainly won’t perform at their best. When you say something or make a promise about something, you are wasting your time if you don’t act with integrity. To be frank, when your people can’t count on you, your employees will not be available if you actually need them.

Feedback is important: It’s a two way street. Having an open mind with regard to other’s ideas is very important in effective talent management. Being approachable and receptive establishes that you want to listen to other people’s opinions, your ideas will be valued in the same way. Promoting discussion in addition encourages innovative ways of thinking, ways of fulfilling the mission of the company, and improves the company dynamic. When team members have a voice, each member invests in the outcome. Promote all sorts of communication: Your people management skills boil down to one thing – communication. Be accessible, practice listening skills, remember to welcome all sorts of feedback, and allow team members a chance to speak. Inspire team members not only to speak with you, but with each other. The growth of a business depends to a great extent on the interchange of ideas, if the team members communicate well, it is simple to recognize problems swiftly, and corrections can be implemented before matters get out of hand. Acquiring these skills will take time, all the same the payoff is worth it. By encouraging a good team dynamic and demonstrating good listening techniques, a thriving business can be accomplished.

“Leaders are born, not made.” Right? Let me ask you a question: do you believe that?

I’ll give you mine: I *don’t* believe it.

AND HERE’S WHY…

Reason Number One: Look Around You

Look at the military, businesses, schools and other organizations. They are hiring people who they feel can make a difference. They say, in effect, “Join us. Listen to us. Practice what we teach… and we will help you to make a difference with us.”

They look for – and find – difference makers.

Reason Number Two: Look At The People You Know — I’ll make you a bet.

I’ll bet you know some folks who have *become* leaders – people who influence others and make a difference in the world – through the time honored principles I mentioned above: (1) good, hard study; and (2) applying what they have learned.

Reason Number Three: Take A Look At Me

Yep, you read that right. You may not know me very well, but I kinda think I do LOL!

And…

I’ll tell you this. If you were one of those proverbial “flies on the wall” who was “there” throughout the various stages of my life, you would have noticed a few things.

I didn’t act much like a born leader.

I didn’t even look much like a born leader. (Yes, I know that’s a perfect lead in for those of you who know me know. Keep those remarks to yourself for the time being!)

I didn’t accomplish a lot of “born leader stuff.”

But I *did* do this…

I took a good, hard look at certain types of people. You know them. The “big guys” and the “little guys” who stand out above crowd in terms of their impact.

I looked.

I learned.

I acted.

DID YOU GET THAT?

One more time.

I found the right people and then…

I looked.

I learned.

I acted.

HAVE YOU NOTICED?

Most folks don’t think of themselves as a born leader.

Chances are *you* don’t.

But…

You *can* become a person who positively impacts the lives of all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. And *that* is what I want you to hear. You can. You really can.

And if Josh Hinds can, YOU can.

CAUTION AHEAD

Remember, though…

Don’t compare in a non-productive manner.

Don’t expect too much too soon.

Don’t expect a free ride with no obstacles.

But above all…

Don’t sell yourself short.

Don’t give up on your dreams.

Don’t stop believing in your potential.

And don’t quit looking, learning and taking consistent actions in the right direction.

Growing in leadership potential together,

Josh Hinds

(c) 2004

About The Author

Written by Josh Hinds of http://www.GetMotivation.com

Sign up for my ezine at http://www.GetMotivation.com/ezines.html

Josh is also the co-founder of http://www.AudioMotivation.com – which includes an abundance of self-improvement resources as well as exclusive audio interviews with leading experts in the areas of motivation and personal development.

Purpose: Learn immediately if you are fostering leadership or ignoring it. Discover the power of nurturing your people.

It was an enormous redwood tree. And due to regulations the forest service had to go to incredible trouble and expense in order to cut it down. The cutting team had to start by climbing to the branches and removing them one at a time from the lowest to the highest. Once at the top they could cut two foot lengths off of the trunk at a time until they reached the ground. It seems absurd to us that they started with the branches and then disassembled the trunk, a process that took hundreds of thousands of motions instead of just cutting at the base of the trunk, which of course, would have affected the entire tree. Recognizing that the efficiencies of working with the trunk in order to influence the rest of the tree holds true when we wish it to live and thrive, we have the choice to take a different approach – yet, many are attempting to grow branches before the trunk.

Leadership is the trunk. Strategic initiatives are the branches. Benefits are the fruit. This is not philosophy; it is a simple statement of the truth.

- Trunk = Leadership

- Branches = Lean Systems, Sustainability, Decentralization, Agility, Customer care, More.

- Fruit = Profit, Market share, Efficiencies, Quality, Environment, Innovation, Compliance, Low turnover, Prestige, Influence, More.

Are you starting at the right place?

There is no other place to start. An idea in action means people in action. The very second someone exposes their desire for the accomplishment of an objective; the idea is in motion through people. The exposure of the idea is leadership in itself, then the actions of people, whether guided by proper principles or not, is leadership.

There is a misconception that leadership is always positive. It is not. Leadership is setting the example. That example can be good or bad. Either way, that example will be followed. In their book, Built to Last, Jim Colllins and Jerry Porras say, “Top management will have an impact on an organization – in most cases, a significant impact. The question is, will it have the right kind of impact?” A manager sitting in his office all day, not interacting, not supervising, not inspecting, not involved, is setting the example for others. And yet, even if there is a low level use of positive leadership principles, there will still be a certain amount of good fruit.

These results, though limited, will usually follow from the power and validity of the idea, the existing infrastructure and manpower, and the mandate from the boss. The compulsory need to interact with others to accomplish a goal for mutual benefit means that a certain level of leadership capability exists and is needed in every person. The trunk of your business is leadership. Your company’s leadership, with its latent capacity, will piggyback the initiative and produce fruit.

In normal conditions of competition and growth, this present level of leadership is sufficient to produce enough fruit to keep everyone happy and focused on marginal periodic improvements. Due to the fact that the ability to produce quantum leaps in leadership capabilities has escaped corporate America, the incremental improvements created through books, seminars and tapes have sufficed.

Ignore leadership development at your own peril – Apply common sense

We have settled for the less involved leadership development approach and the nebulous results because we feel the need to do something without expending the resources that would then demand a measurement of ROI. In a Society for Organizational Learning supported survey, it was identified that one of the current challenges to leadership is that the “pressure is on for leaders to deliver and sustain measurable results and deliver results through others. (however) Focus of results is ROI, yet there is no measurement of ROI for leadership.” Though there is ample evidence to support the positive affects of properly principled leadership, many organizations are unmoved unless they have internal numbers to justify the expense. The cost of getting the numbers, however, is a barrier in itself and leads to an abandonment of a serious program and reliance on the marginal results of “what everyone is doing.”

Are you fixated on line items and task lists?

Our concentration, therefore, moves to the power of the ideal. Sustainability and Lean Manufacturing are the way to go, or it is our ability to be responsive to the market that is important, or by decentralizing we will produce the fruit we want. No matter the complexity of the strategic initiative it lends itself to a task list and line items. We can assign a person; put it in a pert chart and schedule meetings six months in advance. This black and white constitutes our corporate comfort zone.

We are darn good at it, and it predictably produces results – though marginal. We are spending time on the branches, squatting at the end waiting to see the fruit. We are lavishing attention on the branches, pruning, watering and talking to them. If a leaf sprouts, we know it. If a leaf falls, we know it. We mark it in black or red and continue to stroke the bark and fluff the leaves. All the while, the trunk is left to nature for its water, sun and soil.

The growth of the trunk is out of our comfort zone. Dean Hohl, the President of Leading Concepts Inc. explains that, “The objectives associated with leadership, teamwork, and communication, don’t lend themselves to task lists and line items.” They are nearly impossible to quantify and track. It is easy to rest on our experience that the trunk was here when we arrived and it will be here when we leave. We’ve build hundreds of branches, but never a trunk. We then rely on the latent soft-skills of our people to implement the ideals.

Today we find ourselves in an unanticipated predicament, which is pressing us from several different directions and threatening our viability. Foreign competition, new technologies, and ideals that require a shift in corporate culture all seem hard to keep up with and out of our control.

Acknowledging that we can have minimal impact on our competitors, especially those overseas, and that new technologies are something that are requisite for all to grasp, our greatest opportunity for advantage comes from a superior ability to implement the reigning corporate ideals. Many strategic initiatives, particularly sustainability and lean manufacturing, have drawn us in with promises of incredible fruit and their adaptability to black and white. However much these initiatives look like branches, they are actually part of the trunk.

These initiatives necessitate a sea change in corporate culture. Successful implementation requires the buy-in of nearly everyone in the company, which demands a purposeful approach to changing people’s values; a soft subject. The objective of changing people’s behaviors forces us to enter an arena parallel to that of soft-skill development. Our situation demands that we get out of our comfort zone and figure out how to effectively nurture the trunk.

In order to best control the situation our focus must go back to influencing people’s values. Along with helping people understand and value the power of the continuous improvement of lean thinking or the financial impact of sustainability, we have the complimentary opportunity to develop the soft-skills of teamwork, leadership and communication. If we are going to legitimately jump into this arena and do it correctly, not only is leadership complimentary, it is an imperative.

Leadership is the trunk. Implementation of these strategic initiatives cannot be successful with the existing level of leadership. We’ve reached a point of necessity, which compels us to develop the ability to achieve quantum advances in leadership capability. As necessity is the mother of invention, and invention at this level will be dramatically different, prepare for a method that is as different from standard “leadership and teamwork” development as the telephone is from the telegraph.

Jamie Flinchbaugh, an expert in lean manufacturing transformation, questioned, “How is it that such a low percentage of companies that know about lean can turn it into a success?” His answer was, “because the leadership, cultural, organization and implementation challenges are bigger than most people anticipate.” I will reinforce his message by saying that in order to achieve ideal results you have to put ideal resources towards their accomplishment. Don’t try to put out a house fire with a garden hose.

We no longer have the latitude to rely on an as-is trunk of leadership. We cannot expect that branches of revolutionary strategies can be managed and implemented with existing leadership capabilities. Decorating the leaves will not pass for results. We have to purposefully move the values of people, help them change their behaviors, and work together with them to grow the desired fruit.

By altering our concentration from the branches to the trunk, we are enhancing every ability of our organization. A healthier trunk, means the capacity for, and increased health of, our branches, which in turn produces a greater quantity and quality of fruit.

Now that we are focused on the trunk, we can begin to look at the opportunity of taking quantum leaps forward in the soft-skills of our people. The solution lays in immersion leadership training.

To learn more about how immersion team building and leadership training can help you visit: http://www.leadingconcepts.com

Copyright 2005 Brace E. Barber

Brace E. Barber works extensively with Leading Concepts, Inc. (http://www.leadingconcepts.com) in the field of immersion soft-skill training with a focus is on how to develop leaders, who are prepared for and can succeed under stressful circumstances. He is the author of the book No Excuse Leadership. (http://www.noexcuseleadership.com)

SEE INTO THE FUTURE CREATIVELY AND PRACTICALITY: Planning day-to-day is obviously important, but a good leader must be able to see the long-range picture, to know the history of the organization and have a sense of the direction in which it is traveling. Effective leaders always have the long-range picture in mind as they plan laterally.

RECOGNIZE THE VALUE OF STAFF TRAINING: Like a convoy, you are only as fast as your slowest ship. Unless your slowest team members are brought up to speed, you run the risk of losing them, along with the momentum of your group. Therefore, sharing the whole picture with team members and providing them with whatever training, supervision, and support they require pays off in the long run. High initial input pays high returns with human investment. A successful manager makes sure that the team members have the tools they need to handle a job most efficiently and with a minimum of stress.

BE A HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT PERSON: Show a commitment to your team member’s personal and professional development. It pays to care and to be supportive of the human needs of a team. Work is not accomplished through task orientation alone. A good leader fosters esprit de corps, which keep employees motivated. Team members are happy when they feel that their leader appreciates them as individuals, and when team members are happy, work goes smoothly. As an additional benefit, loyal team members become very protective of a leader or an organization over a hump.

Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium

CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.

Have you ever noticed that ships operate essentially the same way people ought to, but so few do? Maybe you’ve never given it much thought, but at any given moment, a ship has a direction and a destination. That is, either she’s sailing to a predetermined port of call, or she’s in port, getting ready to sail to another one. You can ask the captain of any big, far-sailing ship where they’re going, and they can tell you instantly – and in one sentence.

How many people do you know who can do the same thing? It seems that most people want too many different things – or at leasy they think they want them – they’re unable to focus their efforts, their minds, and their hearts on anything specific. And all this leads to is doubt and confusion. They’re like the guy who jumped on a horse and rode off in all directions at once. They don’t recognize how vital it is to pick one port that’s important, then sail to it, rest and refit for a little while, and then sail to another port. In this way, in not so many years, a person can set and reach their goals, one by one, until finally they have a tremendous pile of accomplishments in which to take pride – they have all the things they want, just because they had the sense enough to realize they could do well with only one thing at a time.

There’s another analogy that fits here, and maybe it makes the most important point of all. If a ship tied to a dock for some reason had no place to go, she would stay there until she fell apart from rust and disuse. A ship’s engine isn’t started until she has some place to go. Here again, it’s the same with people. This is why it’s so important that each of us has a port of call we want to reach – a goal – a place to get to where we feel will be better than the place in which we now find ourselves. If we don’t, we might never cast off. We might never start our engines and know the thrill of sailing a charted course to a place we can’t see for fully 99 percent of the journey. But we know it’s there, and we know that if we keep sailing toward it, we’ll reach it.

If someone came up to you today and asked you what your next port of call is – that is, where you are going – could you answer him in one sentence, as could the captain on the bridge of their ship? If not, maybe you’d like to give that some thought.

A clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Ari Kiev writes, “In my practice as a psychiatrist, I have found that helping people to develop personal goals has proven to be the most effective way to help them cope with problems. Observing the lives of people who have mastered adversity, I have noticed,” he writes, “that they have established goals and sought with all their effort to achieve them. From the moment they decided to concentrate all their energies on a specific objective, they began to surmount the most difficult odds.”

So writes Dr. Kiev in his book, A Strategy for Daily Living, “The establishment of a goal is the key to successful living. And the most important step toward achieving an objective is first to define it.” I’m sure you have at least 30 minutes a day in which to list your thoughts about possible goals. Set aside such a period each day for a month. At the end of the time, choose from the possible objectives you have listed, the one that seems most important, and record it separately on a single card. Carry this card with you at all times. Think about this objective every day. Create concrete mental images of the goal, as if you’ve already accomplished it.

The doctor points out, “You can determine your special talents or strengths in a number of ways, ranging from psychological tests to any analysis of the unexpressed wishes in your dreams. No one method works for everyone.” You might start, for example, by clipping and saving magazine and newspaper articles that interest you for 30 days. After which, look for the pervasive trend or trends suggestive of your deep-seated interests and natural strengths. Whenever you discover a strength or talent, think of five possible ways to develop it. Write these strengths down on your card as well, and check it periodically to keep them fresh in your mind.

If possible, have your card laminated and place it on your bathroom mirror so that it is the first and last thoughts of your day. Then focus your day’s energy on this goal and on activities that utilize these natural strengths.

Dr. Kiev continues, “Focus on one objective at a time. Like a microchip, the brain, set on a target, will call into play those mental processes that will bring your efforts to fruition. Your actions will conform to your expectations, thereby bringing about the event. If you believe that you will reach your objective, you will continue to work at a task until you have accomplished it.”

So, take the advice of the psychiatrist Dr. Ari Kiev and don’t be afraid of failure. As Herodotus wrote, “It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.”

Sit down and make a list of everything you want in life. When you do this, you will make some surprising discoveries. You might find that you have already managed to get many of the things you have wanted seriously. Or, if you don’t have most or all of them, chances are you are now in the process of getting them.If your list contains some items you want very much but do not have, you might ask yourself why you have failed to get them. Chances are that you have not tried very hard. Or perhaps you felt, for one reason or another, that these things are completely beyond your ability to achieve. These wants make very worthwhile goals.

It’s a good idea to have two lists of things you want. The first list would include those bigger goals that relate to your career or the overall good of your life or your family. These might include the position and/or income you are working toward, perhaps a higher educational degree, a certain amount of money in savings, a goal of height of business success, or that beautiful home you have had your eye on.

The other list could be a fun list. It might include the car you want for no good reason except it’s the car you happen to want, redecorating your house, getting new furniture, traveling to some special place perhaps abroad or buying a new wardrobe. This is a list of things you want just because you want them.

You should have long-range goals. These should be on your number one list, and each of them should be numbered in the order of importance to you. These are goals that might take five years or longer to achieve. They’re extremely worthwhile, and you should be working toward them daily. These are the goals that give meaning and direction and substance to your life.

But you also need short-range goals. These are the goals that add zest and interest to your life and break up the monotony of the long haul for the long-range goals.

If you’re honest with yourself about the things you want – not idle wishes that change from day to day but things you are serious about – you’ll find that they all can be yours, and in a surprisingly short time, if they are taken one at a time.

It’s been said, “People can have anything they want. The trouble is that they don’t know what they want.” Get off by yourself for a quiet hour or two, and make up your card and your two lists. It is a fun and rewarding exercise and will prove to be the first step toward living the life you most desire.

Earl Nightingale co-founded Nightingale Conant an audio publishing company and world leader in personal development with over 2 million loyal customers. In addition to Earl’s audio programs, Lead the Field and The Strangest Secret, Nightingale Conant publishes authors such as Wayne Dyer, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and many, many more.

Towards the end of every year, most people reflect on the previous 12 months. Thoughts about what could have been and what actually happened enter their minds. Sadly, for some the gap between the two is considerable, and this reflection can become a reason to beat yourself up. Even worse, pretending it didn’t happen and hope the coming year will be different.

The reality is that if you want things to change, you will have to change.

If you didn’t get the results you wanted in your business, then you need to ask yourself some questions. If you didn’t meet the goals you had for your life personally, then you will also need to figure out why. If you think hard enough, then you will discover what it was that distracted or prevented you from meeting your goals, so you can plan to handle them in the future.

The Basic Recipe
With any goal planning activity, the approach is relatively simple. By using this ‘recipe’ for success, you will guarantee that every year you are changing and improving on the previous year’s performance, getting closer to realizing your dreams.

Here is the recipe:
* Reflect on the past year – what you did and didn’t do/achieve, etc
* Find out where the gaps were – between what you wanted and what you got
* Plan to fill these gaps next year – what steps must you take to get what you want

It isn’t any more difficult than that. Some may already have a process that helps to analyze their results and make the necessary changes. Whether you use your own method, or this suggested one, the result should be that you are better prepared for the coming year.

What happened in your Business?
In order to know where you are going, you need to know where you have come from. This means that you need to understand what has happened, so you can adapt and evolve your business into the success you want it to be.

Have a go at answering these questions:
* How many new customers did I want to have this year? How many did I actually get?
* What revenue did I want to make this year? What did I actually make?
* What was my customer solicitation like this year? How did I get my new customers?
* How did I promote my services/products?
* What was I like to my staff/co-workers?
* What was my attitude like at work?
* What did I do differently to other businesses? Were they more or less successful?

The answers to these questions will tell you what you wanted to achieve, and help you reflect on how you performed in your business. Next, write down those things that you want to achieve in 2006.

Set your goals for 2006
As you write down your goals for next year, it is important to also write them down in such a way as to convince your sub-conscious mind that you really do want these things. To do this, you must phrase your goal is the following way (developed by Jack Canfield in The Success Principles):

I am __________, by ______________

So, if your goal is to have 100 new customers next year, the goal would be written this way:

I am enthusiastically securing 100 new customers by December 31st 2006

This written goal contains three important elements:
* A doing/descriptive word/phrase about the goal
* The target
* The date to achieve it by

As another point, by stating that you have (or I am) in the goal says to your mind that it is already a reality, If you write down I will, then the brain doesn’t take you seriously.

I know it sounds a bit ‘out there’, but seriously, it’s true.

Use these techniques to develop 100 goals for yourself next year. It can be a combination of business and personal goals, and ideally it should contain goals across the 7 key areas of your life. To find out about these areas, read our articles on Balancing Your Life at our web site.

2006 can and should be the year that your business dreams become a reality. Get out there and make it happen.

Matthew Tibble is passionate about helping small businesses achieve online business success. With 10 years experience in sales and marketing, he has developed an enlightened approach to business that combines proven philosophies with practical implementation. For more information, email articleinfo@businessplanningmadeeasy.com, or visit http://www.businessplanningmadeeasy.com/

One simple tip for staying on track towards your goals is to write your weekly goals on a marker board in your office. This isn’t a to do list. It’s a list of the important items you expect to have accomplished by the end of the week. On the left side I write my primary goals for the week (maximum of 3), and on the right side I list my secondary goals (this week I have 9 of those). I setup my primary goals such that achieving even one of them is better than achieving all the secondary goals combined.

Whenever you achieve one of your weekly goals, just draw a line through it. Don’t erase anything. Then at the end of the week, your marker board contains your accountability record for the week. You can see which goals you achieved and which you didn’t, and then you can think about how you can improve next week. Maybe you tried to do too much. Maybe you succumbed to too many distractions. Maybe you achieved most of your secondary goals but none of your primaries. Or maybe you achieved all your goals and believe you can push yourself a bit more next week.

I keep most of my planning docs and lists on my PC and then print them out on paper periodically, but I like using the marker board in my office for posting my weekly goals. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the actions of the day and not be able to see the forest for the trees, and when you look at your long-term goals, they may seem very distant. So I like having these weekly mini-milestones, since there’s a natural rhythm to a week, and when I do my weekly review and update all my planning docs, a quick glance at my marker board helps me set new mini-goals for the coming week.

I also like that whenever I see my marker board, I see my goals for the week, and this reminds me of where I want to be by the weekend. Again, these are goals outcomes not just tasks.

For example, this week my top two primary goals involve sticking with a new exercise program. The first goal was to do my new morning exercise routine every day this week, and the second goal was for the evening routine. This split routine takes about 120 minutes per day, most of it doubled-up with reading or listening to audio programs. My third primary goal was to complete the outline for my first info product. I’m on track to achieve the first two goals (haven’t missed a day), and I’ll complete the second goal today. I know some people wouldn’t place a new exercise program as their primary goal, but based on my goals for the year, it’s the most important thing for me. In fact, my #1 goal for the year is actually a health/fitness goal, not a business one. So your primary and secondary goals need to be based around what’s most important to you, whether they’re personal or business related.

Instead of using a marker board, you could post your weekly goals in other ways, but I like the simplicity of the marker board. And there’s just something so satisfying about drawing a line through one of the goals that’s been achieved, much more satisfying than erasing it. It may be because when you erase your completed goals, you only see what you have left to do. But when you see some items crossed off, you can still read them and recall, “Hey, I finished that one.” So there may be a hidden self-esteem boost that comes from reinforcing the message that you’re getting things done. At the end of a week, I don’t just want to see a list of what I didn’t get done. I also like seeing what I actually did accomplish.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.