"You’re so disciplined, you’re so focused, how do you do it?"
These are all the comments I hear all the time and the truth is, I am not disciplined, not focused, and I am actually quite lazy…
I like to spend most of my time at home, with my family, reading books, doing Tai Chi and playing my bass clarinet and when I am not doing that I’m watching re-runs of I love Lucy, Golden Girls and Bewitched...IN THAT ORDER mind you... ;-) and when I am “working” I work only with the people that I love!
So, how does one who is obviously sooooo lazy become so successful? Well, I will tell you - it’s actually quite easy and is made of an eight-step-process.
1. Utilize your talents, skills, and abilities first! We all tend to take our own abilities for granted and give them away, however talents, skills and abilities have not been doled out equally. Get paid for what you are already good at!
2. Define success on your own terms. The other day I was having a conversation with a client of mine and we got to talking about the choices we have made that have prevented us from becoming gazillionaires...and we both determined we would not have changed our experience one inch in any direction. Many people continue to define success based on other people’s benchmarks which cause a great deal of stress and often a great deal of self-reproach. One of my fellow coaches calls me a slacker (a term of endearment) in which we mutually tease our respective laziness. This is particularly true for solo-preneurs. People who are starting or running their own business or practice and don’t have the measures they would if they were in a job where all the metrics were pre-determined.
3. Vision: A vision has the potential of super-charging your motivation and can help energize you when you feel low in the motivation department.
4. Personal and professional mission statements. These are personal standards that you set for yourself.
5. Define and rank order your values. Values are your operating system that ultimately determine your choices in life. Your values are an important aspect of self-knowledge that should not be overlooked. You are always working off of your values, whether they are conscious or not. Once you know what they are, you may want to update them or keep them and apply them more consciously
6. Plan the time to plan, plan and then follow your plan. This particular habit makes a huge difference in your life in terms of knowing what you will do and when you will do it. It’s not about discipline, it's about habit and regularity.
7. Watch the money honey. Keeping your eyes on what comes in and what goes out and evaluating it on a regular basis and aligning your choices based on your vision, mission, and values makes it all very simple.
8. Delegate, don’t abdicate! Create buffer zones around you so that you are not dealing with each and every detail of everything.
So that’s it in a nutshell. The basics to achieve success for those of us who are allergic to hard work!
And if you are really lazy, come join a group of kindred spirits and get the ground work done!
