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Vitamins for the Soul -- March 17, 2005
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Yali Shi
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Mar 18, 2005 00:12 PST
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Vitamins for the Soul -- March 17, 2005
Five Steps to Shake Off Complacency
by Dave Anderson
In my workshops, whenever I talk about the dangers of becoming
complacent, everyone always thinks I'm talking about someone else and
not them. After all, no one wants to admit they're complacent, and most
people don't even realize it's happened until it's too late. But when a
leader becomes complacent it affects and infects the people and culture
around him or her. As a leader, you can't afford to become complacent
because when you let up a little, your people will let up a lot.
Leaders, regardless of how successful, are not immune from bouts of
complacency. The key is to be aware of its potential to sap the fun,
energy and passion from your job and overcome it with deliberate action.
Pretending that it's not happening or fooling yourself into thinking
complacency is for the "other guy" is to live in denial and to invite a
performance decline for you and your team. At your next meeting, discuss
and begin to focus on these five simple disciplines and they'll take you
far in your lifelong quest to overcome personal complacency in any and
all areas of your life. In fact, as you read through these five areas
you may get a sudden nudge and awareness that you have become complacent
in some areas of your life without even realizing it. This is a good
thing, because this gives you a chance to remedy the situation as the
key is to fix the problem, not to fix the blame.
Bite off more than you can chew. Most leaders set goals for themselves
that are outrageously safe and keep themselves within limits that are
embarrassing small. But it's hard to get complacent when you set
personal and business goals that stretch yourself. Evaluate your
personal and business goals now and determine if they bring out your
best or allow you to just get by.
Continue to upgrade your skills. Attend a workshop or seminar at least
twice per year. Invest in yourself. As long as you continue to learn you
will stay fresh, focused and energized. You'll want to share and apply
what you're learning with others and this will ward off complacency. But
when you go stale mentally you plant the first seeds for complacency in
every single area of your life. That's the great thing about [developing
yourself] in your field: they remind you of how much you still don't
know and this humbling, yet exciting experience stops you from becoming
complacent.
Stay physically fit. Mark Twain once said that staying healthy meant you
had to eat what you didn't want, drink what you didn't like and do what
you'd rather not. It's really not as bad as all that. But the fact is
that when you start to get sloppy and complacent physically, it begins
to affect your energy level overall and creates sloppiness and
complacency in many areas of your life. Staying physically fit doesn't
mean you have to eat salads three times per day and go to the gym five
days per week. But it does mean you do something at least 3-4 times per
week that gets your heart rate up for 20 minutes or so and that you stop
committing suicide with a fork every time you sit down to graze. This
discipline will keep you focused and the result of better health will
leave you energized and with higher self-esteem which will in turn
positively carry over into each area of your life, improving your
effectiveness and fending off complacency.
Associate with people who are more successful than you. If you've
outgrown everyone with whom you associate, you will let up and spend too
much time comparing yourself to them rather than to where you ought to
be. You can either associate with these people physically or by studying
their lives and, as success leaves clues, applying productive and
applicable principles to your own life. One reason successful managers
naturally spend so much time with under-performers is because they're no
threat; they're easy and they feel confident in the presence of these
people. But the problem is that doing so continually will stop you from
growing. Your sights will lower rather than stretch; you'll feel smug
about your own success rather than challenged to do even better and
you'll forget that the ultimate measure of your success is not that
you're more successful than these people but whether or not you are
better than you used to be. Associating with those more successful than
us keeps us humble, hungry and stretching.
Set daily goals and hold yourself accountable. This simple technique
works wonders for keeping you focused, motivated and energized every
single day. And as a result complacency has a tougher time getting
traction in your life. It's just a lot tougher to get complacent when
you have daily targets to attain. Many people set all their goals far
into the future because subconsciously, it takes the pressure off of
doing anything today. Remember that complacency creeps up on you; it
doesn't overwhelm you all at once. By developing the discipline to set
and attain daily objectives complacency will have to look elsewhere to
find a foothold as you'll prove to be an uncooperative host for its
purposes.
* * *
Best Regards,
Shi Yali
P.S. If you are interested in some of my latest photographs, please
visit my gallery at http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=5190
Thank you!
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