Maximise your success with effective goal setting

Are you bored with your current life and feel like you are just accepting the mediocrity of life? Do you know that you can achieve more but just don't know where to start?

Goal setting is key. It comes to this time of year and people start thinking that they will wait until the new year before they start to make any changes in life. In truth, by the time we have all recovered from Christmas and New Year, the reality is that we don't start making any changes until February, by which time you may feel like you have "failed" in some way and don't bother! Not too mention you have missed out on a QUARTER of a year to potentially make steps to achieve your goals NOW!!!

So my challenge for you, is get in early. Evaluate what you have achieved so far this year and what you want to achieve over the next 12 months. Read our newest article on effective goal setting and put it into action. You'll be amazed at how much you achieve in the next 3 months, leaving you SUPER motivated heading into 2010.

http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/Maximise%20your%20success%20with%20effective%20goal%20setting.pdf

Increase your job opportunities with successful networking

So there aren't as many jobs being advertised on the Internet or in the papers, yet we all know of people moving jobs and finding new opportunities at the minute. How are they doing it??

Many of my clients are telling me that our focus on networking has been key to their success. How can you network successfully? What are the do's and don'ts and how do you get results?

Read on for more information

http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/Successful%20Networking%20Preparation.pdf

Work life balance: What is it and how do you get it?

Work life balance has been a buzz word for the last 5 years, every body wants it and job adverts are increasingly focusing on it? However, what does it REALLY mean and how do you get it?

Read our newest article to find out more

http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/work%20life%20balance.pdf

Navigating the job market: Alternatives to using agencies and online job boards

Are you looking for a new job and getting frustrated that your efforts to seek work in the "usual" ways are not working? Are you spending hours trauling through online job boards with little or no success? Does the thought of sitting in yet another recruitment agency interview make you want to bang your head against the wall?

Read this article to find out some alternatives to navigating the market place and making it work for you!

Enjoy

http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/Navigating%20the%20job%20market%20Alternatives%20to%20recruitment%20agencies%20and%20online%20job%20boards.pdf

What's in a name?

When looking for a new job, what are the key factors that you look for? Is it the company? Is it the pay? Maybe the culture?

For too many people, the position title takes a huge importance in their decision making. But what does a position title actually mean?

Check out http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/Job%20Titles%20What's%20in%20a%20Name.pdf

Are you courageous or merely conforming?

Have you ever wondered what drives successful people? It's the courage to take calculated risks and learn from ALL their experiences.

“The opposite of courage in these days is not cowardice, it is conformity”
Anthony Robbins (May 2009)

How courageous are you? What can you do to increase your success in the current economic climate?

Find out here:

http://www.incitecoaching.com.au/articles/Courage%20Vs%20Conformity.pdf

Masterful Communication

Do you communicate what you actually want to? Do you get the responses that you desire when communicating with others?

Have you ever been in a situation where you've been so worried about getting the content of your communication just right, that you forget to look at the person that you are speaking to, wait for responses or even listen to what they are saying?

Quite often we get so caught up in what we are going to say to our boss, colleague or friend, that we put more focus on that than how we say it.

Scarily only 7% of our communication comes from the actual words we use....learn how to make the most of the other 93% and become a master communicator.

Read more......

Define your Direction

I can't emphasize enough the importance of goal setting. Do you know where you are headed?

It has been found that 90% of those people who have achieved great success had a vision or a goal. What is yours?

To maximise the effectiveness of your goal, ensure that is is concise and that you clearly know what the outcome will look like, sound like and how it will make you feel.

Write your goal in positive tense, so that it is as if it has already happened, and put a date on it so that you know when you will achieve it. If you always write "next month I will make enough for an overseas holiday," then guess what? It will always happen next month!

Invest time in creating compelling goals and go about making them happen. Enjoy the process.

The case for work life balance

Over recent years, numerous surveys have found that employees are wanting better work life balance, and it has consistently been in the top 4 requirements of employees looking for a new job.

We have seen some businesses embrace this requirement and offer more flexible working hours and others offering better maternity or paternity leave. How does this actually impact employees? Do they actually see the benefit of these new policies?

Some of my clients have told me that although their company releases new policies and says that they are working hard to offer improved work life balance, it can often be frowned upon when employees actually TRY to make the most of these benefits.

Other companies see work life balance as fluffy and not relevant to running the business. These companies are severely missing out on potentially making increased profits. Improved retention, motivation and performance as a result of better work life balance arrangements has been shown to increase organisational profits.

Freek Vermeulen has written an article in the Harvard Business Publishing to address such issues. It is a most interesting read and is a must for all Business owners and executives.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/vermeulen/2009/04/the-case-for-worklife-programs.html

For more information on how you can manage your work life balance visit our website or email Jennifer.

How can you manage redundancy and the current job market?

Smart Company cite today that job advertisements in Australia fell by 8.5% in March as unemployment rises to a four and a half year high of 5.5%

With these statistics being published daily, more and more employees are feeling increasingly uneasy about their job security.

So if you have been made redundant what can you do? How can you ensure that your job applications will be selected or even read? Recruiters and employers are now receiving a high number of applications for each position they advertise (in some cases over 100). In order to get through such volume, very tough "culling" activities are common.

With this in mind it is now more essential than ever to ensure that your resume and job applications are appealing to the recruiter. You will have approximately 3-5 seconds to grab the recruiters attention. What are you doing to grab their attention? How are you demonstrating that you are the BEST person for the job?

Read through Overcoming Resume Roadblocks to increase your job application to interview conversion rate.

For further advice on ensuring your career transition is as smooth as it can be visit Incite Coaching's Career Coaching Page.

Are you taking your chances?

I was playing solitaire today, waiting patiently for the aces to come out, moving over the remaining cards to eventually get out. I got out once out of, I don't know how many times, I lost count. I suddenly realised that the reason I was only winning 1 game every now and then was because I was just waiting for my opportunities to come to me. In the next game I started looking for my opportunities and sure enough I found them and I got out.

Economists are telling us that we are currently in the midst of one of the greatest financial downturns in history. We have seem a significant increase in job losses, people are becoming more conservative with their spending and some of the world's best know organisations are no longer. There are always people who prosper in times of financial difficulty, by seeing the opportunities which are available to them. John D. Rockefeller was able to make millions during the great depression to eventually become America's first billionaire.

Seeing and creating opportunities is critical at this time. What opportunities have passed you by? Can you create new opportunities to get you closer to your goals?

Focus on what you want, take advantage of everything you can and you'll soon see your cards coming out.

To find out how you can realise opportunities before waiting for them to appear, email info@incitecoaching.com.au to get your free report

Crack the Easter Egg Calories

Easter is a great time, you get to relax, catch up with friends and family, it is generally less pressure than at Christmas and you get to indulge in Easter eggs! Excellent!

Have you ever thought how much you are consuming? Are you feeling the pangs of Easter indulgence guilt? Do you feel sluggish?

Here's a bit of an after Easter reality check and some tips to cracking those unwanted calories.

Indulgence:
1 Cadbury's Creme egg
Calories: 170
Crack the Calories:
2.74km walk (approximately 33 minutes at a steady pace)
18 minutes jogging
20 minute playing singles tennis

Indulgence:
1 medium hollow chocolate bunny
Calories: 260
Crack the Calories:
4.19km walk (approximately 50 minutes at a steady pace)
29 minutes jogging
31 minute playing singles tennis

Indulgence:
1 large chocolate bunny
Calories: 1050
Crack the Calories:
16.93km walk (just under 4 hours at a steady pace)
1 hour 56 minutes jogging
2 hours 3 minutes playing singles tennis

How will you crack your calories? Can you get off the bus a stop early? Go to the gym before or after work? Go for a run in your lunch break? Organise some friends to go for a walk after work? Join a local sports team?

Exercise is a great way to release tensions or frustrations from work. The increase in endorphins in your body will leave you feeling great, motivates and will help both physical and mental wellbeing! Tell a friend or colleague of your plans to increase your accountability

Take action now, call a friend, make a decision or get up and go for a walk.

Back to work blues to Maximum Motivation

Well it’s back to work for some of us, after a great and well deserved long weekend, how do you feel? Are you excited about getting back or are you wishing you were still lying in and eating Easter eggs?

A lot of my clients tell me that getting back into the swing of work after a holiday or long weekend is really hard. Finding your focus and motivation (and sometimes brain) after a few days off can seem so foreign.

How can you get yourself motivated to get back to work? Follow these 3 simple steps to get you on your way....

1. Know where you are heading - set an intention

When you analyse some of the key success strategies of leaders and influential people, more times than not you will find that they know exactly where they are headed and why.

Do you know what you are going to achieve today? Or are you returning to work, hoping that checking your emails and talking to colleagues and clients will give you some direction? Define what you are going to achieve at the beginning of the day to give you direction. Combine this with a short daily intention and you will find that your focus is significantly increased.

Intentions are 1-6 words that will quickly remind you of what you are to achieve today. Write it somewhere you will see it all day or share it with a friend, boss or colleague to increase accountability. I have an intention daily and it really helps, today my intention is to 'Be Creative.'

2.Success breeds success

Once you have defined what you are going to achieve today, think about what steps you need to take to get you there? What is the one thing that will make you the most profit? Get you closer to your goal? or save time? Do this one thing first and gain momentum as you tick off the most relevant tasks first. You will quickly see that success does actually breed success.

3. Reward yourself

It is hard to get back on track, so be sure to reward your successes. At the beginning of the day set milestone rewards for completing tasks (e.g. going out to get a coffee, or meeting a friend for lunch). Ensure that the rewards are something that you actually want to ensure that you are motivated to get them.

N.B. Spending hours organising your day and setting goals and intentions as this will totally defeat the object. Invest 10-15 minutes at the beginning of the day whilst having your coffee or breakfast.

What can you learn?

I started reading Richard Branson's 'Business Stripped Bare' last night and already I am hooked. It is an easy read, hilarious at times (that guy knows how to live and what his priorities are in life) and is packed with invaluable information, not only for business people, for everybody.

One point that has really stuck with me, is his idea of 'there is no reverse on this thing.' Richard uses it in the context of business. Once you have started to invest in a new business or venture, you can't put it into reverse and change what has happened. What you can do is use what you have learned from the experience, to ensure that that situation doesn't repeat itself.

I think we can all learn something from this, we will never step in the same part of the river twice. So what positive learnings can you take from your experiences? How can they empower you to make decisions or changes moving forward?

No doubt there will be more insightful learnings coming whilst I read 'Business Striped Bare' so stay tuned.

Relax and enjoy the process

Have you ever felt like you really 'must' do something or you 'need' to get a certain outcome?

You are not alone. I don't know about you, I recently found I was putting more and more pressure and deadlines on myself. Think of the tasks that you do on a weekly basis, work tasks, home commitments, social engagements, sporting commitments, child care responsibilities as well as trying to find time to look after yourself.

I soon realised that with all this running around and trying to get to my goal, I was no longer enjoying the process of actually working towards my goal. I was stressing myself out!

You are more likely to reach your goals if you enjoy what you do. This doesn't just apply to your work, it applies to all areas of life. For example, if you enjoy a certain sport, such as hockey, making time to play that sport will go higher up your list of priorities. You are more likely to play and receive the health, well being and cathartic benefits associated with playing the game.

If you enjoy your work, you will be increasingly motivated and focused whilst in the office and therefore achieve more, or reach your goals sooner.

If you are putting undue stress on yourself you are less likely to enjoy the process of completing the actual tasks that will help you reach your goal and this can lead to procrastination, panic, indifference as well as other states.

"Relax" I told myself "Enjoy the process and the results will surely follow" and they did. Within a week of relaxing and enjoying what I was doing, I realised that I had already moved closer to my goal, had met some amazing people to help me along the way and most importantly, had FUN!

Do you need to relax a little?

Articulate your message

What is the difference between a computer technician who does a re-install on your system and charges $50/hr and one who does exactly the same work and charges $200/hr?

You may think experience is the key, or how quickly they can do the job. Really it is the technicians ability to articulate their value and worth to you. If you perceive that you are getting good value for money then you will be more likely to pay the $200. However if you perceive the service to be expensive (even if it is the cheaper quote) then you will not pay.

We are all in some form of sales. Whether it is selling yourself at an interview, selling an idea for a night out to friends or selling that it is time to go to bed to your children. We are salesmen/women all day without even realising it!

Learn how to articulate your message well to start getting what you really want!

Is your glass overflowing or in need of a top up?

Life is busy, we run around trying to manage career, our family, seeing friends, keeping fit, the list goes on. Sometimes we run around so much that we forget to stop and think about ourselves, where am I going? How do I feel? What do I want?

Think of your life as a glass and your energy levels as the water (or wine, whichever you prefer). If you are continuously giving all your energy to others and forgetting to top it up, it will eventually run out. This is typically when you burn out, or just have that burning desire to hibernate and not see anyone or do anything for a few hours or days, so that you can recharge.

If you are constantly filling your glass up, so that it is always overflowing you will never run out, and you will always have some to share with others. If you want to give to others and be the best friend, parent or family member you can be, you need to invest in yourself first.

Set aside time for you! It may be doing some exercise taking a bath or even reading a book. Whatever it is that makes you feel revived and energised again.

How will you fill you glass up?

Conversations are under-rated

The electronic era has taken us by storm. There is email, Internet as well as land line phones, mobiles, answer machines (for each one), blackberries, i-phones, i-pods and electronic every things all designed to make our life easier and faster.

Do they? Do they save us time? With the emergence of all these tools, not to mention all the social networking (twitter, blogs, Facebook etc) its easy to find yourself constantly checking all these different modes of communication and not actually get any work done. This is where those who don't procrastinate differ to procrastinators and time wasters. They set aside a certain amount of time to spend on all their favourite electronic gadgets and GET THINGS DONE the rest of the time. Set time aside to complete tasks and see how you'll fly through your to do list.

There is however a far more sinister side to all this electronic-gadgetry. They stop us from doing the one thing that most people want...TALK. We send emails and notes too confirm things and organise events/meetings that we could have done by picking up the phone or walking around to the other person's office. People like to talk. Especially about themselves. So if you are in business and want to build relationships and grow business in this slightly tougher period.....TALK to your clients. You'll be amazed.

Are you ready?

I was reading an article this morning that I wanted to share with you all. We seem to be hearing a lot of doom and gloom stories at the minute, jobs being lost and yo-yoing economies. However rather than focus on this negative, what re we doing to prepare for an upturn?

John Baldoni, Leadership Consultant and Coach, writes in the Harvard Business Publishing that now is exactly the time we should be focusing on development of our staff (and ourselves) and focusing on preparing for the upturn.

John suggests, mastering your operations (knowing your strengths and areas for improvement); using the downturn wisely (by planning and preparing) and investing in your people (providing extra training required t0 turn the areas for improvement into strengths).

If you aren't preparing now you'll be left behind. What action are you taking.

Read John's full article here:
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/baldoni/2009/02/prepare_your_people_for_the_up.html

Is your lack of motivation causing you stress?

Motivation is key if we are to succeed and achieve our goals. Without motivation, we will not take action, and no action = no outcome. So learning how to sustain motivation is key if you want to succeed.

We all have those days when we just don't feel as motivated to do the tasks that we should be doing. If this happens sparingly, it may not be such an issue. It may be your body's way of telling you to take some time out. However, if your lack of motivation is cutting into your day and weeks go by without you feeling like you have really achieved anything, then you do have an issue on your hands and this can lead to stress, as a result.

So how do you control your motivation rather than it control you?

There are 2 major types of motivation:

1. Motivation that is towards your goal (e.g. I am going to achieve this goal so that I can get my promotion at work)


2. Motivation that is away from your goal (e.g. I had better get this goal so that I don't get sacked).

Away from motivation is associated with a negative feeling and although it can give you the initial motivation to take action, generally produces inconsistent results. With away from motivation, you are only propelled to take action when things get bad and stress increases. This causes a lot more stress than if you were to use toward motivation which would elicit more consistent action and therefore results.

Think about your goals, are the towards or away from your goal. If they are away from motivation, write them down and ask yourself, how can I make this into a more positive goal? What positive reasons are there for me to achieve this goal? Associate the goal with something you love/enjoy to get even more motivation to take action.