Motivation And Leadership At Work
Previously, back in the call centre where I worked, we had to deal with complaint cases on a daily basis. We had about five cases a day and a typical complaint could take 1-2 hours to follow up and close. I once had an assistant team leader, a supervisor who used to come to the office and tell everyone, "Today I'm going to get some cases done". However, at the end of each day, cases were incomplete and not tended to for a few days following, while emails were not responded.
The service level was so bad that I had to take immediate action, or risk getting more complaints. So when I came to the office the following day, I asked him, "There are about 15 cases pending in your queue yet to be closed, so how many are you going to close today?" He looked at me blankly and replied "I am going to clear off a few cases today". I asked again, "How many is a few?" Slightly irritated, I gave him an ultimatum before he had the chance to respond, "You are going to clear 15 cases today. And at the end of the day, you are going to write me a report on each of the cases". Period. At the end of that day, he cleared the 15 cases and even furnished me with a report. Amazing, isn't it?
Guys, the point is this: if you close your eyes and aim your shot towards a target, how can you hit it without knowing where it is? The concept is the same with goals. To achieve anything in life, be it in your relationship with your loved ones, your career, your personal development, you must have a set of specific goals which are measurable and achievable.
In this post, I'm going to share with you the magic of setting empowering goals, and how you can achieve these goals in just four simple steps. What do you want?
Sometimes, in order to do well and be ahead of others, we must do things differently. We have to realize that being different may not necessarily be a bad thing.
One of the greatest athletes of all time and a living legend, Michael Johnson, prides himself in doing things that have never been done before. He has smashed countless world records in the track and field world and remained unbeaten in his field for one whole year! That is a staggering achievement by any standard! Not only that, as of today, his 400 m record is still standing and yet to be broken.
Here is a man who ran differently, with an unusual style that many people weren't accustomed to. He defied science, and ran with a unique posture that many so called experts claimed to be unsuitable and would only slow him down. When quizzed on his unique-running style, he simply replied, "If I had run the same way like the rest of them, I would be back there with them".
When we were at school, we often wanted to be part of a crowd, a group of peers that had common interests and ideas. If we had a new and different idea which was far from the norm, it would simply be shrugged off or people would simply retort back, "but this is the way it has been done all this while". Some may have even regarded us as freaks. Over time, our confidence diminished and we ended up "just like the rest of them".
That's why it's extremely important to know clearly what you truly want. When you're specific enough to know your desires, your goals, what people think will not matter as much. The criticism that you receive is just a small hiccup compared to what you know you can achieve. You'll have the last laugh. Persevere and have the right belief system and you will be able to stay on track. And remember to never let anybody belittle your dreams because those who do, have no dreams of their own.
It's imperative that you know exactly what you want from life. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to be in one year's time? Two years'? Five? Ten? Many times it's not what you want, but what you are willing to accept that matters. A distraught wife hopes that her husband mends his philandering ways, but is willing to accept them as long as he provides food on the table, and she will stick by him.
An average student hopes to get a distinction but will accept a general pass. The office executive hopes for a higher salary but is willing to accept a 10% annual increase in salary. Get the point? Are your goals and aspirations an absolute must, that you would do absolutely anything you can conjure up? Or are they merely something you desire and hope you will attain as time goes on? In the past, when you set up certain goals, were you truly committed to making absolutely sure that you achieved those goals no matter what it took? If what you want is merely a want or a dream, without any concrete plan of achieving it, a dream is what it will remain… To find out more, you can check out Motivation And Leadership At Work.
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