Helpful Tips for Leaders
Virtually everyone has struggled at some point with holding someone accountable, with having difficult conversations.
It’s uncomfortable. Awkward. We worry we’ll hurt someone’s feelings or come across too harsh…or not harsh enough.
If you can relate, take a few minutes out of your busy day to read my top 5 strategies for how to have the conversation that you’d rather put off forever…
We all know that today's world can be a bit cold. That's not to say that it's actively negative in any way. People live fast-paced lives and therefore do not always pay the attention they want to themselves or their friends.
One of the easiest ways to keep ourselves happy and healthy is by striving to see more positivity in our daily lives.
Self-encouragement is a considerable part of one's character building and progressing in a competitive world.
It helps to realize your goals and stay on the right track to achieve them. It's also connected with creativity, learning, and much-deserved rest.
Here we aim to give you some ideas on using that to your advantage.
When you think about it, asking questions is extremely important - even as kids, this is one of the first things we learn.
And later in life, we often judge how much one has understood from a particular subject based on their questions.
Figuring out what you want to ask means you know what you need help with, so you can receive more specific advice.
Answering questions is just as valuable as it helps you create awareness, as well as helping you focus on the details you find interesting.
Integrating attention to both the question and the reason behind it will set you up for more lasting success.
Small things often go unnoticed in a fast-paced environment causing us to miss out on moments of positivity.
A compliment from a stranger or the way your coffee tastes just right today are really nothing special, yet they help you realize that the world can be a kind place and that there's often something you can appreciate. This question enables you to focus on these small things you have no control over yet are lovely nonetheless.
This works in favor of the idea "Give what you want to receive." Being a kind person to others makes you happier too, and it helps you create more win/win experiences.
The kinder people are to the others, the kinder the world is as a whole. So you can use this question as a motivation to do one generous, sweet or thoughtful thing for another human being each day.
This question allows you to focus on more significant aspects of your life. The ability to live in a place you enjoy and/or to have close friends is incredible when you think about how big the world is.
On a cosmic scale, it's even more incredible - millions and millions of years, and we can survive through doing what we love and have excellent connections regardless of distance.
If that's not something to be grateful for, I don't know what is! When answering this question, try looking at the world as a whole and why you are lucky to live exactly now and exactly here.
Here, the focus is your reasons for doing something - why you enjoy the work you do and how it makes you a better person.
Knowing why your goals bring you happiness helps you be persistent on your way to achieving them.
Also, suppose you continue asking yourself where you can find motivation or inspiration. In that case, the chances of eventually having more than one source are more prominent, allowing you never to be dependent solely on one thing.
Turning a negative into a positive is very important when changing your perspective. If you feel down, it's easy to focus on your mistakes. However, realizing that you can learn from each one assist in not beating yourself up too much.
Some people even go as far as to try and make some mistakes when learning something new, just to understand it better. Even if you don't get to this point, it would still help tremendously not to worry about messing up because we all make mistakes after all.
Building your character and striving to be a better person will help you make progress in life, and for that, you need to know what drives you.
Values, and what you feel makes up those values, evolve with you. As you have new experiences, you learn and grow, and your perceptions of yourself and the world around you change. Yet the progress you've made remains.
This question helps you find out which direction you want to take yourself based on the values you hold.
By answering it, you both acknowledge the work you've already done and where you want to put in even more effort.
This is a very specific question because many people tend to carry more regret and fear than they are aware of.
Feeling guilty for past events or being close to toxic people all fall in this category, and it's important to acknowledge it so that you can grow past it.
This is just the first step in a very long journey, yet it's the crucial one everyone can start with because things like these hold you back and stop your progress, and it is our choice whether or not to give them that power.
Here you can look at everything you want, big or small. Ranging from something like an upcoming event (going to your favorite coffee shop or a concert you've been waiting for) or a rite of passage in your life (moving to a different country or expanding your hobby). The more stuff you have to look forward to, the better your future outlook is.
Here the focus is both towards the outside world and the one within. Answering why you love someone is vital in creating a good relationship. It clarifies many questions you can have in your head about you and them.
Also, the people you love can be a tremendous inspiration!
Here you can focus on both aspects, realizing why the people around you are unique and how they can inspire you to be better.
This question is fundamental - recognizing your inner value helps tremendously in keeping a positive view of yourself. It's much harder for a positive thing to grow out of a negative environment, and asking yourself what you love about yourself helps you give yourself that positive environment.
You can start big or small. You can answer about a different quality every day in detail or all of them simultaneously. Though make sure you ask yourself this question often, especially if you don't have a high opinion of yourself so you can begin building it.
Progress can only happen if it's been allowed to and loving yourself is essential in allowing yourself to be better.
By answering these questions weekly or daily, you are sure to get to know yourself more and realize what makes you truly happy.
Changing a bad mood isn't always easy. Yet, the world around you and the one inside are excellent sources of inspiration.
Having a clear perspective, progressing, and being grateful are essential to one's growth and inner peace.
With these questions, we aim to remind you that you and everything around you are incredible and that although change can be scary, everyone is strong enough to overcome that fear to be happier and make the world a better place.
Want some support using pattern recognition to help you take forward-focused action? Join us on our next Mental Fitness Intensive and learn how your current patterns are causing you to self-sabotage.
Learn more here: www.desiredeffectscoaching.com/workshops
Did you know that we are pattern seeking machines? It's one of the functions of our brain that we use the most and we don't even realize it.
In today's fast-changing environment the ability to make quick subconscious connections based on previous experiences is very useful.
Here we will explain what pattern seeking actually means in regard to our thought process and how we can use it to our advantage.
Let's start from the beginning - the term apophenia. The word itself means the search of connections of seemingly unrelated subjects - from finding faces in different items to having lucky numbers in a game of roulette.
However, if we get more complex a different example can be how our brains process information regarding complicated situations based on past experiences (think of the way master chess players develop strategies).
This is the type of superior pattern processing (SPP) a lot of scientists argue has made our species so advanced - we most likely owe our ability to understand language, have such vivid imagination and think of inventions to SPP.
We won’t get into medical terms, yet the most basic explanation is that the way our neurons are connected and how those connections are made and strengthened through time is what’s behind our complex way of thinking.
This is the foundation of all research connected to pattern seeking in our brains. Granted that this process is so important, bettering it in our daily lives must have a big impact.
Well, we already subconsciously do. With each recurring action we take we teach our brain how the action itself is connected to the effect.
Therefore, the more we reinforce our actions with explanations, the better our brain will find motivation to do them again.
For instance, try each time something makes you happy, big or small, to pause and explain to yourself how you got here.
If you pay a compliment to a stranger and see them smile, remind yourself that you enjoy seeing other people’s happiness, therefore your own is connected to that of others.
After you have that as an assured connection due to pattern seeking, you’ll end up both doing such acts of kindness more often AND finding more enjoyment in them.
A different idea is each time you tell a memory, try to remind yourself of how and why surrounding memories made you feel happy. If you’re telling a sad memory for example, try to remind yourself about a time or a place close to the event that was positive to you in some way - this is how you can actively teaching your brain that all bad comes with good, thus creating a more positive outlook on life in general.
These actions might seem small, and they take some time to work, yet once your brain has internalized them and made them into habits, it gets much easier.
You may have heard of Donald Hebb’s saying “neurons that fire together, wire together” - if the type of connection between the neurons is to seek a positive idea each time, a better, more positive way of thinking will be reinforced.
The other big reason why pattern seeking is useful is because it’s the easiest way to learn.
Using something our brains do effortlessly to remember new information is a smart technique. The way this method can be incorporated into studying is simple - if you have a given rule, try to gather the evidence supporting it yourself.
Think of it like figuring out yourself the Pythagorean theorem by mapping it all out - that way you remember the pattern itself and not just the numbers.
And this doesn’t work just for math, anything you learn from your own experience, finding it and proving it more than once in your active life (searching for a pattern to add to the list of proof) is much easier to remember, because it’s a much more vivid story that your brain can archive.
A different technique is to make connections between your own field of study and something which you already know - for instance explaining the way black holes work with a ball and a piece of fabric.
Technically patterns are everywhere, so explaining them with something not as abstract and finding out why they are similar helps you learn the more complex and not tangible theories. Pattern seeking is a natural benefit we have so using it to expand our knowledge is extremely easy once you know its benefits.
Pattern recognition has been embedded in our brains as a way of survival ever since we started evolving as a separate species.
This means that, looking at the present, we have had enough time to perfect it as a process and to build on top of it.
The more we use patterns to better our learning, to ask more questions and to improve our outlook on life the easier it gets.
So, with that in mind, give these ideas a try and see how far you can go!
Want some support using pattern recognition to help you take forward-focused action? Join us on our next Mental Fitness Intensive and learn how your current patterns are causing you to self-sabotage.
Learn more here: www.desiredeffectscoaching.com/workshops
As exciting as it is to start your first business, it’s also extremely intimidating. You are faced with so many tasks on your plate, so much responsibility on your shoulders, and so much conflicting advice about how to manage it all. It can feel almost impossible to sort the tried and true methods from all the other noise.
Fortunately, Desired Effects Coaching is here to help.
We’ve broken down some of the most simple — but entirely effective — techniques you can use to make your business shine. These practices will give your business a strong foundation, allowing it to reach its fullest potential.
Let’s get started:
One of the most important parts of business ownership is learning how to delegate tasks to others. Your team will help you manage the everyday work of your business, and they’ll offer the insight and direction you need to discover what your business can do and where it’s going. Your team can make or break your business’s success, so work hard to let them know you value them.
Technology drives so much change in business that businesses can show they value their employees by starting a tuition-reimbursement program. Accredited online colleges provide online business degrees you can encourage your employees to pursue: you get the added tax benefits of paying for tuition as a business expense and enhancing your employees’ skills that add value to your business.
As more and more companies compete for a dwindling pool of workers, your ability to take on workers who have the right learning mindset but not necessarily a college degree will help you retain workers. Employees can be hired at a lower rate while their tuition reimbursement benefits increase their value; as the company grows, you can increase their pay as they bring more value to the bottom line.
While talking about the need for you to value your employees by educating them, don’t neglect your own education. Desired Effects Coaching has training programs in individual leadership coaching as well as programs about how you can more effectively grow your business and manage time and resources within your business to be more effective.
Business owners often get lost in dreams of the big picture. Although that grand vision may be what drives you in the long run (and we’ll touch on this more in a moment), the day-to-day details are arguably more important. After all, every big goal is built by little steps along the way. Learning how to bring a project-management mindset to the table each and every day can make a big difference for your business’s future.
One way to do this is to use a project management app that streamlines your business’s daily processes. Having something you and your employees check in with every day can take a lot of the memory work out of project management. Plus, the information will sync across users to make collaboration simpler and more effective, even from a distance. This can be an invaluable asset when it comes to getting the everyday work done consistently and efficiently.
Finally, every business owner can benefit from building and nurturing their professional network. Join networking events and groups, such as your local chamber of commerce. These organizations can help you build relationships with industry pros and local business owners, meaning you have access to more advice and experience. Plus, connections can pay off in more ways than you might imagine.
For example, at some point down the line, you might decide you want to hire a financial advisor. Having a strong professional network can be a huge asset here. You can talk to other business owners to see who they’ve worked with in the past, which means you can get honest, unfiltered reviews of various advisors in your area. This same principle applies in the other direction when it comes to getting you clients — your professional network can sing your praises when someone is looking for your business or service.
Bringing a company from an idea to a full-fledged business is a huge undertaking, but these practices can help. If you’re up to the task, you can use these techniques to give your business a strong start. From there, it’s a matter of committing every day so you can reach your goals.
Photo credit: Pexels
To help eliminate a rocky path forward, connect with Desired Effects Coaching to help enhance your leadership and communication skills. We can help you unpack the challenges you faced previously, and provide you with a toolbox so you can successfully move forward. Connect with us today to find out more.
Gloria Martinez loves sharing her business expertise and hopes to inspire other women to start their own businesses and seek promotions in the workplace. She created WomenLed.org to spotlight and celebrate women’s achievements.
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