Many leaders and motivators have used the word “change” in different circumstances, to predicate on the transformation of our thoughts, notions and actions that are useful or beneficial to us. With each passing day, there are repeated efforts to make things better. Leaders have a larger agenda of looking at a “big picture” and determining what they can add to conditions to make them work better. For politicians who have political power, the agenda often involves healthcare, security, economy and general welfare of the people in a community, city or country. Business leaders seek to reengineer their operations and see what adjustments they can make that would lead to smoother activity and more profitable ventures in the future of their business.
On a personal and rather individual level, what we need to do as frequently as possible is to ask ourselves some critical questions: What basic changes should we make in our lifestyle, spending habits and relationships that could impact our lives beneficially? Now that is as big proposition! Change demands that we cease doing things the way we are used to doing them, and take on new schemes or habits that will help us become better. Human beings are creatures of habit. Sudden and uncoordinated change could be a challenging scheme for us. Therefore, we must understand that real change can only come if it is implemented gradually, with consistency and conscious effort. When habits are ingrained in our general activity, they contribute to culture. Cultured habits thereby become a way of life, such that we find ourselves doing certain things instinctively, sometimes even subconsciously. The activity becomes routine and almost second nature to us such that we find ourselves going through the motions without even thinking about what we are doing! Let us enumerate: Your morning prayers or mediation, brushing your teeth before or after bed, making a cup of coffee to give you a boost for the work morning, frying an omelette for breakfast with various ingredients. Whenever we engage in each or any of these tasks we do them without paying much attention to detail. We are on automation, going through the motions without even taking cognisance of what we are really doing.
For things to change for you, you have to change. Or else, they aren’t going to change.
Sometimes this automated process is applied in more complex tasks like driving to work; drawing up minutes for a meeting; scheduling money for procurement process; talking to a client in the course of business activity or even listening to a spouse or a child at home in the knack of resolving conflicts. Routine is good when it achieves our purpose, but what about when it doesn’t? There are often blind spots in our character: a way of speaking or relating, faulty work processes, which are detrimental to our improvement or our results.
Blindspots are logically things we do, but do not see. The best performers are focused on outcomes and not activities. We need to focus on what matters most in our lives. We categorize these from the standpoint of family life, work life, social life etc. We have to stop majoring in minor activities. Some people spend hours on end discussing the wrong things: football, movies, amorous affairs and dancing via social media online. Now, if you are not a sports journalist, movie critic or entertainment aficionado who earns a living off that activity, why are you tied up in it? There is a distribution of achievement: 95% of people, research shows, are bogged down by the trivial, irrelevant and insignificant things that have no bearing on their lives most of their time. What that means is, they spend most of their time being engaged in activity that can lead to no benefit for them! Resign from the insignificant club and join the relevant.
Change is imminent. We must refocus our priorities. Our income will never exceed our personal development. We must seek to add to our skills, capabilities and functional attitude for progress in life. Family life, work life and social life can always do with improvement and adjustment. For instance, in work life, you get paid for value not time. So find a way to add value. Can you become twice or thrice or four times as valuable to your work place as you were before? What about family life? How do your children, your spouse or relatives find association with you? Are they free to state their feelings, requirements or points of view? Or do they find you oppressive, overbearing and somewhat dictatorial?
For things to change for you, you have to change. Or else, they aren’t going to change. Life, business and relationships get better not by chance, but by change. Don’t say, I hope things will get better. Hope is not a strategy! Strive to make them better. Ask yourself consciously: How can I make it better? One thing you must bear in mind is you cannot change what is around you. You cannot change the politics, the economy or the larger society unless you are president of your country. If you are not, then that is not your calling. But you can change you!
Become more confident of who you are and what you do. Confidence is not arrogance. We are not saying walking around with a pumped up demeanour, thinking you are wiser and better than others! That is haugtiness. The word “confident” has its root in “confide” or to take it deeper “fidelity”. We must seek a level activity and performance that rises to each occasion every time. It all begins with how we think and what we push forward in our relationships. Confidence is 20 per cent inwards and 80 per cent outwards. Your striving to make things better begins within and is later driven outwards by how we function in the activity that we are called to do and how we relate with people around us. So from now on, resolve to get better. The 80 per cent outward activity is what people see. They do not see your thoughts and so they will judge you based on what they see about you.
Beyond improving our relationships we must begin to take charge of our lives. Do things more deliberately. We can begin with an elaborate goal setting process which would make us more accountable to ourselves. We can start with four questions. It has been established that if we ask ourselves the right questions the answers we get will serve as a guideline for us to meet our objectives in life. So, beginning from today, ask yourself: What do I want to do? What do I want to be? What do I want to see? What do I want to have? Where do I want to go? and finally With whom do I want to share?
Become more confident of who you are and what you do. Confidence is not arrogance. We are not saying walking around with a pumped up demeanour, thinking you are wiser and better than others! That is haugtiness.
Top achievers subconsciously have all these questions on their minds and they push them into action. Don’t be deceived by the elaboration in the use of the personal pronoun “I”. You are not being egocentric, you are merely drawing up an elaborate plan of action for the remaining time you have on this planet. Once you have drawn up the answers to all of these questions, set time frames to achieve the answer of each one of them. Mark my words, some of them might take weeks, months or even years to achieve. But we must not be deterred. What we can do to make the process more achievable is to break all the activity down to smaller objectives. Let us illustrate: suppose in answering the question: What do I want to do? I come to the overwhelming conclusion that I want to build a multi media business online. I neither have the funds for equipment nor the personnel to back me up. I can start with what I do have. We should never be afraid to start small. Perhaps I could begin with a page on twitter, facebook or instagram. I could grow my followership through attractive and useful content and begin to earn some form of income based on the number of followers I have and how frequently my page is viewed. If I can continue along that trajectory for a number of years, chances are I could keep building and expanding till I reach the ultimate goal I have in mind.
In my relationships, perhaps I am consistently on a conflict curve with people at home or at my work place. If I consciously examine the reasons for this conflict and see what adjustments can be made, chances are I will get better at relating with the people in these environments. Do I have constant hiccups in social life? People are different when it comes to social skills. But everyone can relate at a certain level. Saying hello to friends and neighbours; asking a few questions about their welfare and progress. A cheerful “good morning!” often draws a happy response from people. We must make an effort if we want change to happen for the better. A small effort can yield great results. Instead of hoping things will get better around you, why not try harder today?
*Ogundadegbe is a renowned management consultant. He trains managers and executives in the arts of Customer Service, Human Resources Management and Management strategy ([email protected]).
