Realize You are Closer than You Think

People who are successful in any path in life – family, fundraising, leadership – know the power of their minds in their success. The challenge is controlling your thoughts and monitoring what you place into your brain. That’s the tricky part. We’ve been addressing this in each of my 4-part “Skip Steps to Success” series.

Success (and money) LOVES decision and action! How do we get smarter about raising major gifts faster to enjoy the success we want sooner? How do we find a rich life balance? Can we skip some steps along the way? How do we intentionally incorporate experiences into life to leapfrog over some of the rough parts as well as move through the learning more quickly?

Here are Four Steps you need to take to Skip Steps to Success!

1. Figure out what’s important to you – professionally and personally.
2. Focus on BOTH components of success – the thought process and the specific techniques.
3. Seek out all types of mentors and educational experiences.
4. Realize you are closer than you think.

Appreciate your progress and accomplishments and all you DO and Do RIGHT!

Here are my TOP 5 Tips to Appreciating YOU!

1. Note Successes and Celebrate daily – in fact, several times daily.

In our haste to scramble through our endless “To Do” lists, we cross off and continue with lightening speed. Take a pause, a breath, a minute to appreciate a completed task. “Good, I have that phone call done.” “Perfect, the letter of agreement is to Donor A” “Wonderful, I have taken the next step in getting the holiday cards out.” Some shops circulate a quick email sharing a gift that has come in and recognizing all the folks (admin to the Top Dog) who played a role in it. My favorite is to sing, “TA DA” when I have a “To Do” done. This is so important I even created pads just for you to do this….note the far right check off box is labeled, “Ta Da!”

2. Do NOT multitask.

When your mind is divided across multiple tasks you are not in the moment. You really ARE accomplishing some amazing things, but by doing two things (or more) at once, you don’t fully feel the progress. You don’t fully enjoy the satisfaction of the people or accomplishments. Turn off the email as you type a donor letter. LISTEN on the phone with your entire focus. The person on the other end knows when you aren’t fully engaged. If you ask, “Where did this day go?” you are not present. You missed it. This leads to feeling like you are not making progress. LIVE your life! Show up and be there 100%.

3. FINISH.

Do you find emails you wrote at 8 am still open and unsent at 4 pm? Do you dig through a pile to find the project someone is asking you about now….with the contents of the rest of the pile all shouting at you for your attention? Chain yourself down to your chair and set the timer. Do not move until you have invested the time you committed or it is done. Block off time and get it DONE. Create steps in a big project and get the step done. This is really about not disappointing yourself when the project stays on the To Do list instead of the Ta Da list.

4. Five Minute Surge.

Do you get ‘stuck’ before ‘start?’ You have 5 minutes. Use them to make quite notes, collect the pieces, whatever gets you to BEGIN. Release the notion that 5 minutes isn’t enough time to really do anything so I’ll just jump in Facebook or email (and stay there for 20 minutes). STARTING will help you process the real magnitude of a task. “I have to see 42 people before November 30. How will I ever do that?” becomes “What options do I have to touch 42 folks prior to the end of November? Hmmm, I’ll use 5 minutes to make a list of ideas. Well, I could group these 3, I could see this one at the musical program we both attend, I could visit these 4 perhaps in one day as they are all in the same area of town.” Now you have started. It really isn’t important how the plans change – you are taking action on them and you are closer than you think.

5. Visualize What Success Looks Like and Live it!

I recently heard a program by internet marketer, Diane Conklin, about Goal setting. Her definition of Goals is the perfect close to this message. Realize you are closer than you think to accomplishing your goals by defining ‘goals’ as a reflection of how you are doing your work and living your life – not by some cumbersome process.

For this 3rd quarter and throughout the year, CELEBRATE EACH STEP and BE GRATEFUL FOR THE CHANCE TO TAKE IT! FINISH STRONG!

Invest in JOY!