Leadership guru John Maxwell writes (in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership) that momentum is the leader’s best friend. That’s not just a law of leadership – it’s a law of life!
Life is good when you’re on a roll, and it is therefore very much in your interest to get on a roll and to keep rolling. Today I’ll share a baker’s dozen great strategies for building and maintaining your momentum at work and in the rest of your life.
Strategy #1 – Have a Big Why…
Gary Williams, founder of Keller Williams Realty and author of a number of excellent books on growing a business, says that to be successful in the real estate world you can’t be in it just for the money – you have to have what he calls a “Big Why” that gets you out of bed every morning with a passion for that day’s work. This is another law that applies to every dimension of life. The first step to moving that stone in the photo above is having an absolutely compelling reason for wanting to move it in the first place.
Strategy #2 – Make your commitment public…
At a growing number of organizations across the country, small groups meet for one minute each morning to recite together that day’s promise from The Self-Empowerment Pledge. Making a public statement of intent and commitment helps propel them back to work with a renewed sense of Responsibility, Accountability, Determination, or whatever that day’s promise happens to be.
The principle of public commitment catalyzes people in support groups, health clubs, and voluntary causes – and it can help you achieve a higher degree of motivation to move toward the achievement of your own goals.
Strategy #3 – Use double bookkeeping on your to-do list…
I hope you start each day with a review of your to-do list (TDL). I frankly don’t know how anyone can productively get through a day without a to-do list, but suggest that you go one step farther and make two lists. The first is the one you already have – that lange of urgent priorities, dreaded duties, and good intentions that constitute the typical TDL.
The second is restricted to your Big Ticket Items (BTI) – things like starting your own business, building a house, writing the book that’s been burrowing into your soul, spending the winter in Fiji. Then every morning, look at your routine TDL.
If you are like me and almost everyone else, not one item that gets crossed off of the TDL has anything to do with completing your application to the Harvard School of Anthropology (or whatever your BTI happens to be). This awareness will help you focus your time, money, and energy on more of those things that Covey famously calls Quadrant II – important but not urgent.
Strategy #4 – Break down BTIs to be TDL friendly…
By definition, a BTI is bigger than bite-sized. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you won’t write the Great American Novel over the weekend. Mapping out specific actions required to achieve a BTI allows you to plug them into your daily TDL in a planned and logical sequence. Do that long enough and the dream house of today becomes the family home of tomorrow.
Strategy #5 – Be a 20-Mile-Marcher…
In Jim Collins’ new book Great by Choice (with Morten Hansen), the authors say that one of the key definers of companies that prosper through the most challenging of times is that they set aggressively doable goals and commit to hitting those goals, day in and day out, no excuses allowed.
They call this the 20-Mile-March commitment because it was by such a strategy that Amundsen reached the South Pole and returned to tell about it while his rival Scott, who trended toward 40 miles on easy days and never got out of the tent on hard days, never left the Antarctic alive.
In a world where almost everything is beyond your control, Collins says, having that tangible goal of 20 miles per day helps keep you and the team pressing ahead through the fog (or snow).
Strategy #6 – Do important things twice…
Doing something in your head first makes it easier to do with your body, a principle that is used by every successful athlete. They know that running the track, or playing the game, in their minds makes it certain that they will run faster and play harder when the real competition begins.
You can do the same thing – visualize yourself racing through the grocery store at double-time, shaving off 30 minutes to do things that contribute to your BTIs – an extra hour or two a week for reading, exercising, working on a business plan.
Strategy #7 – Do trivial things last – if at all…
I have a sign in my office that reads “The One Big YES Requires Lots of Little NO’s. If you want to write the Great American Novel, you don’t have 3-4 hours a night to have the boob tube transform your beautiful mind into butterscotch pudding.
Strategy #8 – Change gears frequently…
Winston Churchill, who knew a thing or two about being productive, said that a change is better than a rest. The minute you find yourself getting bogged down, get up and start moving. It will reinvigorate your energy and your drive.
Strategy #9 – Practice the 4-Get It Formula…
Whenever you have a chore to do – say going for groceries – practice the 4-Get It Formula: Get in, Get it done, Get out, Get on with life.
Strategy #10 – Have mixed motives…
Someone once asked Chuck Colson (founder of Prison Ministries Fellowship) what motivated him. He replied that while his mission work was certainly a motivator, he’d be lying if he didn’t also say that he was motivated by other things, like book royalty checks and public recognition.
Having mixed motives like that, he said, assured that if one wasn’t working another would kick in (for example, on a day when you’re sick of seeing people but the rent is past due – money will motivate where recognition won’t).
Strategy #11 – Practice Neuro-Attitudinal Positivity…
I am a big believer in this one. When you run into the proverbial brick wall and your mind seems to have completely shut down, take some time to exercise Neuro-Attitudinal-Positivity, which in the field is known by its acronym NAP.
Some of history’s most successful people were committed NAPpers, including Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. Churchill said of his daily NAP: “Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.”
Waking refreshed from a nap gives you renewed stamina to attack the brick wall, fire-breathing dragon, or other barriers that stand between you and the completion of your work.
Strategy #12 – Choose your battles…
It is a fundamental maxim of military strategy that the commander should at all costs avoid fighting simultaneously on multiple fronts. Doing so spelled the end for Napoleon and for Hitler, while the Europe First policy of the Allies was decisive in winning WWII.
Our battles today are more often emotional and psychological. Every time you catch yourself complaining and whining, you are – perhaps unwittingly – starting a mental battle that you don’t need to fight. Toxic Emotional Negativity (TEN) is like psychological quicksand – it bogs you down. Read the article below for more ideas on how to keep a positive mental attitude in challenging times.
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Joe Tye is America’s Values Coach. He is also the author of several books and audio programs on personal, career, and business success, and a popular motivational speaker. Visit www.JoeTye.com