Two Important Questions
Before we get too far into our journey, we need to ask ourselves two very important questions. The first question is, What gives me energy at work? Specifically, what tasks that are on my to-do list do I really enjoy doing? If you love being on the front line and making things happen, why are you always at your desk? If you don't love talking to people, why did you take the task of handing out information to everyone? For me personally, I want to spend all of my time looking over information and then taking that information to the people to try and improve them. I want to have one on ones and discuss how everything is going. What I don't like doing is dealing with the product itself. I don't want to run a machine or fix a machine. I want to give everyone the tools so they can do that for themselves. Giving people the tools and the confidence so that they can do their job, that gives me energy. So again, what gives you energy? Also, find out what gives your teammates energy. The great news about being on a team is that everyone has different gifts. What gives me energy, may not give you energy, so let's share the tasks in a way that everyone feels energized. Now, this also means that we need to discuss low performers. If you have someone on your team who takes all of your energy away or maybe, they haven't found anything that gives them energy, I've got to be honest; they are getting my low energy tasks.
That brings me to question two, have you accomplished everything you can at your current job? If the answer is yes, then move on. That's hard to say, but if you show up to work every day bored because you have no challenges left, then it's time to go. What I am guessing for most of us, is that we are sitting at 80%. What I mean by that is that I think we have eighty percent figured out and that eighty percent is no longer a challenge. Here is the beauty of being at eighty percent, the last twenty percent are the hardest. The last twenty percent can push you and motivate you in ways that you have never had to do before. When you attack that last twenty percent, that is when you really start to feel that sense of accomplishment. The reward is in the last twenty percent! What do you have left to do? What have you been putting off because you wasted all of your energy on tasks that drained you?
This week is the start of a tough journey. This is the start of change. I'm going to work on my attitude, I'm going to work on things that energize me. I have a game plan to attack my twenty percent and I will accomplish my goals!!