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THREE (3) REASONS WHY YOU PROBABLY FAIL TO COMPLETE A CHALLENGE

At the beginning of August, I excitedly set a challenge to write and post a 300-word article every day. Well, as you may guess correctly, I didn’t make it through the first week before giving up.

This is not the first time I have given up on a challenge at some point. On the other hand, I have successfully completed some challenges in the past.

After reflecting on the reason why I succeeded at some challenges and failed at some, I realized three key reasons why I didn’t make it through my August challenge and this are probably the same reasons why you don’t achieve your goals.

1. I focused on joining a trend – I set up the challenge spontaneously after reading articles of people who set up 30, 60, and even 100 days challenge. I got a temporary high and believed that this was the perfect push I needed to jumpstart developing a writing habit.

2. It was an unrealistic challenge – The challenge didn’t align with my current reality hence, it was difficult to keep up. If we want to keep up with a challenge, it is important to take your current schedule and other commitments into consideration. When you set up such unrealistic challenges, you will burnout in the shortest time.

3. I didn’t create room for flexibility – The most important thing about starting a new habit is to be flexible about it. Realize that there will always be days when you won’t be able to keep up the momentum. In such scenarios, having an alternative such as another time of the day to take on the challenge, would reduce the pressure of ‘keeping up with a specific time’ in the midst of a challenging period.

I have learnt that there is no hard and fast rule to starting a new habit or completing a challenge. It is good to be inspired by the goals of others and the fad taking place around us. However, the most important thing is to create a plan that suits you, identify the possible challenges that would stop you from achieving the goal, and determine your alternative plan beforehand.

© Temitayo Abiri

HOW TO DEVELOP GRIT

No matter how challenging a situation may be, you can push through to the end as long as you develop grit and resilience.

THREE ELEMENTS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Recently, I listened to a teaching about things that distract us from achieving our goals and personal vision. One major point that caught my attention is the fact that if we improve our level of competence without commensurate improvement in our character, we would be faced with challenges that hinder us from making progress.

This comment really struck me and got me thinking about what personal development really entails. It also got me wondering if my idea of personal development takes other elements into consideration in my quest for new levels of growth. After reflecting on this, I realized that embracing a lope sided process of personal development is a recipe for self-sabotage. If we only focus on acquiring new skills and fail to develop the emotional agility required to sustain our new levels of growth, we would find it difficult to achieve our long-term goals.

Personal development, as a concept, is a set of activities that a person undertakes in order to enhance the potentials of growth and skilfully manage the responsibilities that come with a new position. As a Young professional, it is easy to focus on achieving new competencies while ignoring the need to strengthen our character that would enhance our capacity. However, understanding how to manage new responsibilities is important and should not be overlooked.

Whenever you decide to embark on a personal development programme, ensure that you take the following elements into consideration;

1. CAPACITY – Improving your capacity in personal development means to expand beyond your current limits. It is important to understand that the human brain is elastic and as humans, we have the ability to learn new things. There is no limit to what we can learn therefore, improving our capacity during a personal development process helps us take on challenges with the view that we can achieve new skill sets that may seem difficult.

2. COMPETENCE – The competence element of personal development is the most common aspect of personal development. It is the process of improving our valuable skills by acquiring new knowledge and gaining new levels of competence on existing skillsets. It is important to strengthen our competence on a regular basis in order to remain relevant in the marketplace.

3. CHARACTER – Character development is an important factor in personal development. As we acquire new levels of growth, it is important to strengthen our character in order to sustain our new competence level. Improving on our character alongside competence and capacity would help us respond appropriately to challenging situation.

Every new level of growth requires a more refined or mature character to fulfil the requirements of the new role. When we pay attention to the three elements of personal development, it makes it easier for us to maintain a growth trajectory that aligns with our long-term goals. Improving our capacity, competence and character during a personal development process would enhance our value and also help us remain focused on our goals.

© Temitayo Abiri

WRITING FOR IMPACT – 3 Reasons Why You Should Sharpen Your Writing Skills

INTRODUCTION
Writing for Impact is a weekly series by HLC Resources posted on HLC Writing Services page. The series delivers simple but effective tips on how to clearly communicate your message to your audience. Through this series, you will learn how thriving career professionals and industry leaders leverage their writing skills to achieve results and career / business growth.

Writing, as a means of communication, is vital for career growth and successful business relationships. It helps in sales conversion, business promotion, product launches, networking communication, and business communications. It is also used for report writing, business proposals and research presentation.

REASONS
Here are three reasons why you should sharpen your writing skills;

#1: To Promote your Business – Businesses are promoted through email marketing and different forms of content creation. If your message is properly crafted, you will communicate effectively with your audience and deliver specific message that will promote your business.

#2: To Convert Sales – Conversion of prospects to sales is as a result of effective communication. This is achieved when you are able to use your words to convince your prospects to become customers by emphasizing the importance of your product and/or service. This can be achieved through newsletters, social media content, and email marketing.

#3: To Maximize the Benefits of Networking – Networking communications is a skill that career professional leverage to connect with relevant professionals in their field. By sharpening your writing skills, you can network and communicate effectively with leaders on corporate and professional platforms such as LinkedIn. This is an effective way of achieving your career advancement goals, even if you are an introvert.

THE FREEDOM COMPASS AND THE FOUR ZONES OF PRODUCTIVITY

One of the tools of productivity introduced by Michael Hyatt in his book “Free To Focus” is the 4 Zones of Productivity. The Zones of Productivity are the key areas which we operate in based on the elements of passion and proficiency.

According to the author, one of the reasons why we are not effective with our output is because we do not separate tasks based on how passionate and proficient we are. We get caught up with tasks that we feel obligated to fulfil irrespective of our level of proficiency and passion. On the contrary, in order to produce more by doing less, we should focus on tasks within our desire zone while we delegate / outsource or eliminate tasks that fall within the other three zones of productivity.

ZONE 1: DESIRE ZONE – This zone comprises of tasks that we are passionate about and we are proficient in. The tasks in this zone give us ultimate satisfaction and they provide highest returns in our business and career.

ZONE 2: DISTRACTION ZONE – This zone comprises of tasks that we are passionate about but are not proficient in. As the name indicates, the tasks in this zone take us away from focusing on the activities we are better skilled at. To achieve productivity, it is best to outsource or delegate these tasks to people who are more proficient in them.

ZONE 3: DISINTEREST ZONE – This zone comprises of tasks that we are not passionate about but we are proficient in. While these tasks may be important for our business and career, it is advisable to delegate or outsource such tasks while we focus on others where we are most productive.

ZONE 4: DRUDGERY ZONE – This zone comprises of tasks that we are not passionate about and we have no proficiency for. These tasks are better left out of your routine so you can produce at your maximum.

Bonus Zone: Development Zone – This zone comprises of new skills are areas of competencies that you are building. They are skills you are working on to boost your productivity.

THE FREEDOM COMPASS

The Freedom Compass tool is used to help us categorize our tasks based on the productivity zones they fall in. A pictorial presentation of our regular tasks helps us see where we spend our energy most. It prompts us to decide how to deal with tasks that we are least proficient and passionate about.

REFERENCE

To get maximum benefit from these tools checkout FreeToFocus.com/tools for templates and guidelines on how to categorize and filter your tasks for more productivity.

FREE TO FOCUS by Michael Hyatt is a whole productivity system centred on the principle of doing less to achieve more.

The free-to-focus productivity system follows a 3-step approach of STOP, ACT & CUT. Each of these steps involves 3 actions to help to streamline your tasks to the most important that offers your best results.

The 9 actions derived from the 3-step approach of the book, offers practical tools and roadmaps to help you really improve your productivity game.

I find the book engaging and easy to read. The action plans are very practical and applicable. I will apply some of the action plans outlined in the book and share my outcomes in the next few weeks.

F.I.T FOR PURPOSE

What does the word ‘FIT’ mean to you? Does it naturally strike a nerve or has it become an everyday word that it doesn’t make sense anymore? Has it become a ‘cliché’ since fitness is the new rave in town?

Oxford dictionary describes the three letter word as something ‘of a suitable quality, standard or type to meet the required purpose’. To be fit for purpose, we must embrace intentional living. When we choose to live intentionally, we determine our outcomes through our actions.

To live intentionally is to live by design. The process of becoming or being fit for purpose is not a static one. To be fit means to put something into a better state than it formerly was, to improve the condition of a subject.

FIT is an acronym that embodies what the word means to me. To be FIT for purpose, you must go through a continuous process of Fine-tuning, Immersing, and Transforming.

FINE-TUNING – To fine-tune means to make small adjustments to something in order to achieve the desired best performance. Make necessary adjustments in order to meet the standard required for a purpose. To fine-tune also means to adjust, modify, tweak, perfect, hone, polish up, or make improvements.

IMMERSING – To ‘immerse’ means to be deeply involved in a particular activity. When you are deeply involved in a process that prepares you for your life’s purpose, your entire being is taken over. You become consumed by the realization of a new and finer phase of who you are. Getting immersed in a process that refines you and brings out the better version of who you are makes you become fit to carry out your assignment and deliver on our life’s purpose.

TRANSFORMING – To ‘transform’ means to shed off the old and allow the new to manifest. Transformation is a change process that involves either a gradual or a radical change in a person.

Every next level requires a better prepared person. As purpose evolves, the individual’s assigned to it must step up to the task by engaging in regular process of fitness. Every assignment is a divine calling and purpose that requires a fit person to properly deliver.

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