Today is the International Day of Peace and there are people dedicated to peace who are sharing wonderful resources for promoting peace.
Peace One Day has activities all day from presentations to films about peace.
When I speak about peace, I am referring to individual peace. When I can experience peace inside myself, I am feeling connected to who I really am.
We often seek peace and contentment through outer experiences. But true peace is within us and all we need to do is find the way to re-connect with ourselves and that feeling of peace that already exists.
Today and everyday, I invite you to discover and celebrate the peace you already have and encourage others to do the same.
Change the world one person at a time beginning with yourself.
There are four key areas of responsibilities that every employee needs to assume to perform at their best. Employees need to understand this, and it needs to be communicated by management.
It is the manager’s responsibility to make sure employees understand these responsibilities and are properly trained to assume them.
The four areas are
Performing tasks to define standards
Teamwork
Initiative
Communication with management
Performing tasks to standards
Employees need to know what tasks they are expected to perform and to what standards. This means the quantities, the due dates, and the levels of quality. This is especially important for the top 20% of tasks that the employee needs to do.
The manager is responsible to make sure this is clear and to provide feedback on a regular basis. The employee needs to clarify their understanding and if unclear, approach the manager to discuss and come to agreement.
Teamwork
Today especially teamwork is an essential responsibility of each employee. This means developing the skills to collaborate with others to get the job done and achieve departmental goals.
The manager’s responsibility is to train and coach team members on working within a team. The manager must be familiar with the skills needed for teamwork and how to coach employees on developing those skills.
Each team member needs to be aware of the skills required of them for teamwork and look for ways to develop those skills whether it’s within the resources provided by the employer or from outside.
Initiative
Taking initiative is an important aspect of performance. People who take initiative regularly come up with ways to improve the way their work is done and find solutions to problems that impede productivity.
The manager needs to communicate that initiative is an important responsibility of each team member and coach team members according to their skill level and style of work. Some people are more prone to taking initiative as there is an element of risk involved, while others may not enjoy change and taking risk. But everyone can learn to improve themselves in taking initiative to make improvements.
Communicating with management
Team members need to be able to communicate their ideas to management concisely. The more people take initiative and have ideas for improvement, the better they need to be to state their case as often these ideas or improvements need management approval.
Writing out a proposal on one page is a good way for management to understand what’s involved and the benefits so they can take a good decision to support the recommendation. To summarize, employees need to understand that their responsibilities for performance go beyond just doing the tasks. And managers need to understand that their role is to make sure employees know this and to train and coach them on those responsibilities.
Tracking and measuring your new habit towards achieving a goal is essential. In my last article and video I talked about my new habit to improve personal productivity. It is based on what I learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
I must say that my first week using his system has gone extremely well and I have accomplished more in the first few days than I had in the last two or three months. That is because I am doing what needs to be done without distractions. I am also very motivated because I have set up a reward for myself once I complete my work.
To track my new habit, I am using a daily record form where each day I check off if I have done the work. This way I can see if I am being consistent as consistency is essential for habit formation. The days that I don’t plan to do the morning work, such as on weekends, I simply put an X on those days.
You can also measure the quality of the work by scoring yourself on a scale of 1-10. Rather than just checking off the square for that day you put your score in the square.
Tracking and measuring an activity needs to be simple so it is easy to do. I printed this form and keep it on my desk. I do get satisfaction when I finish my scheduled time and check off the day on the form. I see my progress accelerating and that feels great.
Some goals like to lose weight are difficult as it requires important habit change and a new way of looking at oneself. The weight loss might not show because it needs to happen over time so weighing oneself daily along with tracking activities is important to see the change and stay motivated to do the work.
I realize more now that to achieve a goal I need to examine my habits and work on modifying an existing habit or removing a bad old habit. Whichever strategy works tracking and measuring needs to be included in the process. You can download the daily record tracking form through this link.
Books on personal development, leadership, and motivation are plentiful. Book stores and libraries are filled with a slew of topics on these subjects. A search on Amazon for personal development books brought up 60,000 results.
Surely there is a lot to learn from these books and yet if most people were applying ideas from the books, we would be more evolved and have a better world.
So, what holds us back from making the changes put forth in these books? Real learning only happens when we apply what we have learned or understood.
I recently went on a three-week road trip for my summer vacation and listened to the audio book by James Clear, Atomic Habits. I was very impressed by the ideas proposed by James and the principles on which he bases his system to change habits.
We all know that habit change is quite difficult, and James Clear says that it is not because we are not motivated to change but because we do not have a clear system to follow.
I am a proponent of goal setting and yet I have struggled like most people with achieving certain goals due to self-restraints and fighting engrained habits. That is why I find his system intriguing and sensible.
I got back to work this morning and immediately applied his system to create a new habit. I have a project to develop and market a new online coaching program and had written down a goal and plan of action.
But I was struggling with setting aside the time to progress on the project and I felt frustrated with my lack of headway.
The new habit I am creating is to wake up early and start work right after my morning meditation. Normally I would eat breakfast and catch up on current affairs while I ate. This is quite pleasurable for me but does take time as I like to prepare fresh food every morning and of course enjoy the foodie experience while reading.
The shift is to put the work before pleasure but also to focus only on my project and not read emails, social media, or any other distraction.
My reward then is to have my breakfast and reading time once I complete the focused work on my project. It worked wonderfully this morning and it also felt great, so the reward was both physically satisfying and mentally and emotionally fulfilling.
Here is my process for making the change.
Have a goal; complete my course creation and marketing material by September 30.
Create a habit of waking up early every morning and put in two hours of focused work on my project.
Reward myself with a freshly prepared breakfast and reading of current affairs.
Recognize my accomplishments and feel good about myself.
Track and measure my habit so I know I am doing what I committed to.
Repeat this every day of the week.
Get back on track if I miss a day.
I know this is only day one, but I can see this working well for this project and other habits I wish to create.
Of course, the book covers much more than what I have written here but for me this is a great start, although I do plan to review the principles set forth in the book to help me progress and stay on track. I will write more articles about this subject and provide updates on the progress of creating this new habit and others.
