Increase Your Enthusiasm

I truly believe few things in life are more important than enthusiasm. If we are able to maintain an enthusiastic attitude, and even better, pass that attitude on to others, we will greatly increase our happiness and success in life. Having enthusiasm no matter our circumstances will add incalculable value to our lives. So below are five easy ways to keep our spirits high with enthusiasm.

#1-Set Goals

Goals provide motivation and direction and make life worth living. Big goals stir the blood and excite and energize our mind. Goals inspire us to achieve impossibilities. As we set and strive to accomplish goals our enthusiasm for life will increase.

#2-Control Fear

Fear is crippling and can suck all the enthusiasm out of life. We must learn to control our fear, and use it as motivation to act for good. By controlling fear in our lives, we will be able to maintain our enthusiasm for life.

#3-Focus on People

I’ve learned the more I focus on others, the more enthusiastic I am about life. We must learn to look outside of ourselves and our own personal wants and needs and seek to satisfy the needs of others. Enthusiasm for life will increase by living for a cause rather than ourselves.

#4-Manage Time

The better we manage our time, the more enthusiastic about life we will feel. Life certainly is busy, and not managing our time appropriately can quickly bog us down and cause us to feel inadequate and overwhelmed. If we manage our time well, we are able to accomplish more-allowing us to feel excited about what we are able to do with our limited time.

#5-Seek Learning

Enthusiasm is often a direct result of learning. Regardless of our stage in life, we must strive to learn something new every day. Learning new things creates excitement and interest in life, resulting in an enthusiastic attitude.

Being enthusiastic as frequently as possible will help us cope with the normal stresses and uncertainties in life. As we develop enthusiasm for all that we do, we will certainly be happier and more successful in life. I challenge each of us to use these five techniques in our personal lives to help us maintain a high level of enthusiasm.

4 Tips to Effective Communication

Effective communication is so critical in all aspects of our lives, yet so many of us fail because of poor communication. Because communicating effectively is so vital to the success of any group, organization, and/or relationship, it is troubling how little time we spend improving our communications skills. Though many communication skills and techniques are obvious, so many of us fail to use and/or apply them. Below are strategies on how to improve our ability to effectively communicate with others to achieve better outcomes.

#1 Listen

Obviously listening is so critical to effective communication, yet still many of us fail to take the time to listen appropriately. By not listening, we hinder our ability to be effective and powerful communicators, because we ignore the feelings and thoughts of others. Not listening has a huge negative impact on any given situation, and it will most often lower our ability to have success. If nothing else, learning to listen more often and more sincerely will greatly improve our communication skills.

#2 Explain

One major obstacle to effective communication is the failure of many to state the benefits of action. Simply communicating a plan, idea, or strategy without tying it to how it will positively impact others is a common type of ineffective communication. Learning to tie your communication to the benefit's particular actions will greatly improve your ability to effectively communicate and persuade others. Don’t make people guess what you mean or why you feel a certain way about something. Instead, make sure they understand why they should do it!

#3 Desire

To effectively communicate, we must want to do it. Sounds simple, right? In truth, this is not very simple, because truly desiring to communicate effectively means we have to engage in uncomfortable and even “dangerous” communication. A true desire to communicate effectively means we share our true feelings, thoughts, and convictions always, to keep an open and honest relationship. Failing to be honest, to share opinions, and to engage in uncomfortable conversations will greatly hinder our ability to be effective communicators.

#4 Enthusiasm

If you want people to listen to you, you must communicate with energy and enthusiasm. Someone who is able to clearly communicate with excitement will capture the attention of his or her audience, and they will be more effective in getting the message across. People tune in when enthusiasm is a consistent part of our communication.

Constantly learning to improve our communication skills should be a part of each of our lives. As we learn to be more effective communicators, we will build stronger relationships and have greater results in life. Simply listening and explaining more, desiring to be better communicators by sharing our true thoughts and feelings, and by doing all these with enthusiasm will greatly improve our ability to communicate with others.

Changing Organizational Culture

A hot topic in the business world today is changing and enhancing organizational culture to maximize productivity and the bottom line. This means that companies are striving to create a work environment where people feel motivated and want to be at work. As our global economy continues to become increasingly competitive, I believe only those companies that are able to develop great cultures will succeed. So as leaders, how do we change our culture no matter the organization?

Our organizational culture is what our employees believe they must do to fit in and do a job well. In other words, it is the underlying beliefs, assumptions, and unwritten rules employees have about the places where they work. These beliefs have a tremendous impact on how the company operates and ultimately, how successful the company can be. Changing well defined unwritten rules within an organization can be a very difficult, but it not impossible—changing them is key to the success of improving the culture.

We can begin to change culture or these underlying beliefs within the organization by focusing on experiences. Experiences are crucial, because they are the reason for the type of culture any group of people has. Therefore, employees create an internal belief system about their employer based on the experiences they have at work. This belief system will in turn impact their actions at work, which will produce results. In companies with good organizational cultures, this belief system drives workers to do better, think smarter, and work harder; the opposite is true for companies with poor cultures. In good cultures, employees are engaged, and they want to contribute and be at work. They feel satisfied, involved, important, and fulfilled. As leaders, if we can create a positive underlying belief system based on positive experiences for our employees, then we will be well on our way to have a great culture and excellent results.

Now, the most critical experiences are those of a new employee. Experiences a new employee has when working within an organization will define his or her underlying belief system about the organization almost immediately. New employees are critical, because they come to work with only a few perceptions and ideas of how the company really works and operates. Thus, new employees are very impressionable as they begin work, thus it becomes extremely important for employers to create great experiences for new comers. Doing this will go a long way in enhancing the overall culture. For this same reason, a huge focus in the business world has been on effectively “onboarding” new employees so they have good experiences and are productive from day one of employment. Again, these first days are so important to the success of developing a good culture and thus bottom line results.

As we focus on developing good experiences for all employees, our culture will begin to change. The more positive experiences an employee has, the more positive beliefs the employee will have about the company--thus creating a better organizational culture. As leaders, we must focus on creating wonderful experiences for our employees in every aspect of their job to improve our culture.

So to review, an organizational culture begins with the experiences employees have at work. These experiences lead to beliefs. These beliefs turn into actions at work, and actions turn into results. If we want to change, improve, or create great cultures, we must focus on providing positive experiences for our employees. As leaders, developing our organizational culture will be critical to our success, and by focusing on experiences we can positively influence any organization we are a part of.

Prioritizing Our Time

In our hectic and often overly scheduled world, how do we prioritize our activities to maximize our time? And then in turn, how do we use our time on what is most important? This is a common challenge of our day, yet we can learn to be equal to the task and maximize our time.

Most of us in our busy lives have more things expected of us than what we can possibly do. Thus, each day becomes challenging as we face choices of what we will and won’t do based on our limited time. To come out on top, we must learn to effectively prioritize and do those things that matter most.

An important part of effectively prioritizing is realizing that spending our time doing something that is good, is not always the best option. For example, it may be a good idea to work longer hours today to complete an important project. However it may be better to escape the stress of work life to clear your head and regroup before completing the project by taking a hike up your favorite trail, or perhaps the best option at the time is to hurry home and spend time with your child who is having a rough time adjusting to a new school year. Each of these options is good, but depending on the circumstances, one will be best and better than the other two.

Personally deciding what is most important to us in our lives will help us utilize our time wisely. Now, let me reiterate again, just because something is good, does not make it worth doing, as the number of good things we can do far exceeds our time available. For that reason, we have to determine those things that are better than good to ensure the most important things are commanding our attention. When viewing our limited time, deciding to do something good is usually not good enough.

Now, rather than spending our whole lives debating what our best choice is at any given time, there are certain steps we must take to make our decision making easy and almost automatic. These steps include developing a well defined personal mission statement and value system for our lives, and then setting and monitoring goals to achieve them. Our personal mission, values, and goals will help guide us as we face choices on how to spend our time. And having these items well defined in our lives will help clearly steer us to the best use of our time.

Truly learning to utilize our time effectively is a major challenge for all of us and often hinders our success and happiness in life. As each of us learns and works at overcoming this challenge by prioritizing our time effectively, we will maximize our full potential and live a rewarding life. Let’s decide now to strive to consistently make the best choices possible so that we can come out on top. We can do it!

A Secret To Motivating Others

Too often we spend our time correcting the bad in others while ignoring the good. In fact, a common misconception is that pointing out flaws or mistakes will improve the performance of an individual--thus producing better results. At the same time, many people then fail to recognize good behavior, because it is expected. Espousing this thought process is detrimental to the success of any leader or organization.

One secret to truly motivating others is to point out and dwell on the good, rather than the bad. This does not mean we need to always ignore things that are done incorrectly, but it simply means we do NOT ignore the good. When someone does something right, make sure to let them know. Good behavior needs just as much attention as bad—if not more!!

Being enthusiastic and sincere about pointing out the good others do will make us more effective and influential leaders. People want to perform well for leaders who make them feel good. Besides, most people already know their weaknesses and faults, and they may just need support on how to minimize them. As leaders, if we focus on the good, our ability to influence and persuade others will be greatly enhanced, and we will see better results.

To take a step further, at times it is wise to make a very big deal about something that is done correctly—even if it is something small. Every once in awhile, acting like someone just won the lottery when they do something that is good creates a personal feeling of victory and accomplishment, and it will strongly reinforce the behavior in them and others. Showing this sincere enthusiasm and great emotion will most likely cause the individual to do more good to get similar reactions and more positive attention and feedback.

Reinforcing good behavior and providing encouragement fosters progression and improvement. As you reassure people in their progress by noticing it and recognizing it, people will respond. Compliments, sincere discussion, and simple recognition of the good will go a long way in improving the performance and result of a team or individual.

Lastly, it is always important to express appreciation. People are free to do whatever they choose. If they choose to do something that is right, thank them for it, don’t ignore it. As we frequently express gratitude for what others are doing, we will motivate them to be better.

In conclusion, let’s try to focus on the good in people. Each individual has special and unique talents, abilities, and skills—so let’s recognize them for it! As we do, we will motivate them to be their best, and our own fire within us will burn.