Welcome to Motivational Mondays, your weekly PEP (Proactive,
Empowered, Performance) talk with Mark Kent.
Have you become more productive, since you have recognized and reconstructed
negative self defeating thoughts that have perpetuated procrastination in
your daily life?
Have you noticed patterns of thought that may cause negative moods, low
motivation and self sabotage?. Are you now aware of the relationship between
thoughts, emotions and behaviours.?
Can you now recognize specific thoughts and subsequent emotions that
contribute to avoidance behaviours, distractions, lacking self confidence
and drive to stay task focused?
When most people try to change and improve performance they tend to focus
solely upon behaviours while virtually ignoring thoughts and emotions.
However for long term behavioural change to take place it's necessary to
replace negative thought patterns and associated emotions with empowering
positive and proactive thoughts which will promote emotional resilience and
an enlightened spirit even for those tasks that you do not enjoy.
Ever notice how motivated you feel when you enjoy tasks or at least when
you take a more positive approach in completing them?
Learning to cultivate a positive attitude about daily mundane
responsibilities and plans is essential in ramping up the emotional
motivation to sustain task completion.
Learning to alter environmental cues and influences along with self
defeating thought processes to enhance behavioural closure, completes the
process for establishing long term change.
The determination to change self defeating habits requires the same
attention to detail as altering thought patterns.
Just as thoughts are often processed below the conscious radar, most
behaviours are habitual and not within conscious awareness unless we pay
close attention to our habits on a regular basis.
The ability to bring into awareness self sabotaging behavioural patterns is
crucial to breaking habits and relearning more productive self enhancing
habits.
I am sure you have heard the statement "out of site, out of mind," and this
is true especially when it comes to staying on task and completing daily
projects.
Even with the best intentions we can forget due to distractions,
disinterest,and multi-tasking.
In the course of a normal day you are required to make thousands of
decisions and choices which you are not aware of until the external universe
reminds you of just a fraction of the choices you have made.
Consequently procrastination can evolve by way of omission more than the
actual intent to avoid.
This week I will suggest specific effective techniques that will dramatically improve your ability to reduce errors of omission and help you to become more effective in completing tasks.
Here goes:
#1)MAKE A LIST OF PRIORITIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK AND BREAK THEM DOWN INTO BASIC CATEGORIES, I.E
A) PERSONAL,
B)FAMILY,
C)PROFESSIONAL.
#2)BREAK LARGER TASKS INTO 3 SMALLER DOABLE STEPS, IE BUILDING THE DECK,
a)get an estimate,
B)pick up supplies,
c)set specific day aside to start.
#3)POST YOUR LISTS IN A NON CLUTTERED PLACE THAT YOU FREQUENT, MAKE IT VISUAL.
#4) READ THE LIST OUT LOUD AND MAKE A VERBAL COMMITTMENT TO YOURSELF THAT YOU WILL COMPLETE THE TASK IN A SPECIFIC AMOUNT OF TIME.
#5)MAKE A SOCIAL COMMITMENT, VERBALIZE TO OTHERS WHAT YOUR PLANS AND INTENTIONS ARE.
#6)GIVE OTHERS THE PERMISSION TO PROMT, REMIND AND ENCOURAGE YOUR INTENTIONS TO COMPLETE GOALS. MAKE YOUSELF ACCOUNTABLE
#7)TILT THE SCALES BEFORE THE WEIGH IN, IN OTHER WORDS CREATE AN
ENVIRONMENT THAT IS CONDUCIVE TO COMPLETING THE GOALS WELL BEFORE YOU MUST COMPLETE IT.
#8)VISUALIZE YOURSELF COMPLETING THE GOALS, OVER AND OVER AGAIN
#9) ACCEPT AND PREPARE FOR OCASSIONAL CHANGES THAT WILL REQUIRE CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING AND FLEXIBILITY.
#10) PLAN TO REWARD YOURSELF FOR STAYING ON TASK AND COMPLETING A PROJECT, REGARDLESS HOW TRIVIAL IT MAY SEEM.
Although it is difficult to implement all of these suggestions at once, try
to start from the beginning and work through each technique building upon
the one before.
Next week I will expand upon these specific techniques which will help you
become more proficient in improving productivity and sustaining motivation.
If you have a friend or colleague you believe would enjoy Motivational
Mondays then just submit their email address and they will automatically
receive free information on what makes people tick. How awesome is that?
Again thanks for the opportunity to serve you.
To your productivity, empowerment and motivation.
Mark
