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Showing posts with the label performance

Behavior is contagious

Have you ever noticed that behavior is contagious? If someone is yelling at you, it's easy to start yelling back. Conversely, if someone smiles at you, it's likely that you'll smile in return. Behavior is contagious. Character thought takes more work and more development. Building the type of character strengths that you want helps you decide what behaviors you'll show. If pettiness is not part of your character, you're less likely to act in a petty manner, no matter how misbehaved someone is around you. You never need to make someone else's character flaws your own. Just build your strengths, remember that no one around you will ever be perfect, and manage your emotions.  How do you manage your emotions? What do you do to keep contagious negative behaviors from infecting you?  -- doug smith

Being Professional

What makes someone a professional? Many factors, you might say: - certifications - education - peer recognition - ability - attitude and while the list is long, here's what I think: When you behave like a professional, professional status will emerge. Because if you change how you approach your work to be focused on being as professional as you can be, by serving your customers to the fullest, by committing to only top quality -- when you change and form habits that reinforce your personal belief that you ARE a professional -- your results, and your reactions, change. Act like a professional -- why would you ever do anything else? -- doug smith

Create Enough Positive Energy...

What do you do when you feel doubt? It could be doubt in your abilities, or doubt about your capacity, or even doubt about your mission. We all have doubts sometimes. Those nagging feelings are there to protect us from danger. That's useful. But sometimes those nagging feelings just hold us back.  To achieve your goals you must create enough positive energy to overcome the naturally forming negative notions. There's nothing magic about positive energy. It won't ever be enough all by itself. But, we go farther faster when we power up with the positives no matter how many doubts wander our way.  Create enough positive energy, back it up with work, and your results are bound to improve. Improving performance is everybody's job, isn't it? -- doug smith

Moving Forward

When people criticize you it probably is connected to their performance. Maybe you didn't do what they expected. Maybe they think they can do it better. Maybe you just never agreed on what the performance would be. I've learned to listen, process, frame, and move forward. When I learn how to fix the past, I'll get busy doing that, but in the meantime, what comes next matters so much more. -- doug smith

Performance

Somewhere someone just like you is working hard to do what you do, only better than you. What will you do about that? -- doug smith

Raise Your Expectations

Have you peaked yet? Truthfully, you've likely peaked many times. Reaching the peak need not be the end, but rather the start of even better performance. When I first set a goal to walk 10,000 steps a day it seems hard. That's a lot of walking. How would I ever get anything done? And for a while I hovered between 6,000 and 8,000 steps. Better, but not my goal. Then, I started (with lots of effort) reaching 10,000 steps on a daily basis. It got to be routine. I figured out how to keep moving enough to achieve my goal. And you do know what you've earned once you've achieved a goal, right? A bigger goal! I've leveled up my goal to 12,000 steps a day, and on most days I do get it. I'm still humble about it though, because some people have told me how they routinely exceed 20,000 and even 30,000 steps. That's a lot of walking! I raised my expectations, and my goal improved. It may not last forever, but if it lasts long enough to reach excellence in y