Self Management

“In addi­tion to self-​​awareness, imag­i­na­tion and con­science, it is the fourth human endow­ment, inde­pen­dent will, that really makes effec­tive self-​​management pos­si­ble. It is the abil­ity to make deci­sions and choices and to act in accor­dance with them. It is the abil­ity to act rather than to be acted upon, to proac­tively carry out the pro­gram we have devel­oped through the other three endow­ments. Empow­er­ment comes from learn­ing how to use this great endow­ment in the deci­sions we make every day.“
– Stephen Covey

“Moti­va­tion,” the author of The Psy­chol­ogy Of Win­ning Dr. Den­nis Wait­ley wrote, “comes from within and not from with­out; all moti­va­tion is self-​​motivation.” You can not find moti­va­tion out­side of you but can develop moti­va­tion inside of you. Often­times, it is sleep­ing within you. Peo­ple can get pepped up, enthused, encour­aged, or even inspired by oth­ers, but they can never get moti­vated by them.

Effec­tive per­sonal man­agers are effi­cient, sat­is­fied, moti­vated, and hap­pier. They have higher self-​​esteem, are more likely to get pro­moted, and find more and bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties in life.

All great achiev­ing men and women are effec­tive self-​​managers. They mas­ter their lives instead of man­age their time. In fact, they do so almost instinc­tively with­out it being a goal in itself. On the flip side, how­ever, inef­fec­tive per­sonal man­age­ment leads to pro­cras­ti­na­tion and under-​​achievement.

It’s like the typ­i­cal worka­holic who man­ages to accom­plish many tasks in an expe­di­ent fash­ion but must work long hours in order to do so or falls “sick” more days in the year than the aver­age. Usu­ally, an inef­fec­tive per­sonal man­ager is moody, rest­less, sleep­less, stressed, irri­tated, or sick. These are some of the nat­ural side-​​effects of work­ing with­out a sense of purpose.

For instance, if a sales­per­son is excel­lent in sell­ing, he can close on a larger num­ber of pre­sen­ta­tions than the norm. But if he is a poor self-​​manager, he only finds poor qual­ity prospects or sells using uneth­i­cal tactics.

There­fore, he will have to work harder in order to find more peo­ple in order to meet his sales goals. Addi­tion­ally, he will com­pro­mise his peace of mind that will ulti­mately affect his pre­sen­ta­tions and the rela­tion­ships with his clients.

If he works very hard, meets a lot of poten­tial cus­tomers, man­ages his time well, and accom­plishes many tasks effi­ciently, but works on lower pri­or­ity activ­i­ties or on low pri­or­ity val­ues, it will cost him pre­cious sell­ing opportunities.

He is lim­it­ing him­self as a result.

Truly suc­cess­ful peo­ple live in a way con­sis­tent with their per­sonal val­ues. They also know how to reach their goals with­out hav­ing to work them­selves into the ground. Remem­ber that what is urgent is sel­dom impor­tant and what is impor­tant is sel­dom urgent. Hav­ing goals that are aligned with one’s pri­or­i­ties will cause a per­son to do what is impor­tant and not nec­es­sar­ily urgent.

How­ever, the beauty of fol­low­ing such a process is that it will help to cre­ate a sense of urgency with what is impor­tant. It may not nec­es­sar­ily be urgent, but it is to that per­son. That per­son will pos­i­tively procrastinate.

In other words, he will delay that which is not impor­tant to him and urgently attend to that which is. He will focus on qual­ity of life rather than quan­tity of time. He will drop his goals and man­age his life.

Jim Rohn once said, “With­out a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” In essence, activ­i­ties that fol­low one’s upper­most val­ues become pri­or­i­ties as well. The things that are really impor­tant in one’s life are given a sense of urgency rather than left on the back burner.

Nev­er­the­less, if you say “I wish some­one would come by and moti­vate me,” what hap­pens if he doesn’t show up? As Jim Rohn said, “You’ve got to have a bet­ter plan for your life.” You have to become an effec­tive self-​​manager. You have to man­age your life and not your time.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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