Before you delegate a task to someone else it is a good idea to setup what you are going to do. Think about how you will do this so that the other person sees how it will be an advantage to them. Agree beforehand that you are going to delegate some of your work, how this will happen and what the benefits will be to the other person as well as yourself. Follow the four steps of effective delegation (Set Frame, Agree Outcome, Check Understanding, Agree Controls).

STEP 1

• Set the frame – Explain why you are delegating. Refer back to your previous conversation.

STEP 2

• Agree the outcome – Clearly define the outcome to be achieved.
• Explain the purpose of the outcome.
• Agree when the outcome is to be reached.
• Explore the evidence of success. How will you both know that they have been successful?
• Identify the resources available.
• Agree an action plan.

STEP 3

• Check Understanding – Ask them to explain the outcome back to you.

STEP 4

• Agree Controls – Agree the checkpoints for you to assess progress and provide guidance.
• Monitor and encourage their progress, providing support and direction where needed.

Re-define the way you live.

Factors that affect and alter our state.

Our state is affected by the things that are happening around us on the outside, and the things that are going on inside (our thoughts). Actually it’s more to do with what’s going on inside our mind, it’s not what happens to us but how we think about what happens to us that will ultimately determine our state. For example two people could experience being told that they don’t have the capability to achieve a goal. One of them may feel demotivated by this and not put much effort into achieving this goal, whereas the other person may feel a positive challenge and be driven to prove that they can do it. Because thoughts are not constant things will affect us differently on different days.

So what’s really going on? What we describe as our thoughts are a stream of ‘pictures’ and ‘sounds’ that lead to feelings of some kind. The pictures have qualities such as a movie or a still image, colour or black and white, life size or larger, sometimes we will see ourselves in the picture and sometimes it will be like seeing it through our own eyes. The pictures may be things we remember, that we have actually experienced, or they may be imagined experiences we have made up. The ‘sounds’ are not actually sounds they are a construct of our imagination, for example we could be remembering what someone said to us or what we said to someone else. We could also be talking to ourselves – ‘internal dialogue’. For example as I am writing this I am constructing the sentences and ‘hearing’ myself saying it as I type. As you are reading this you may also be doing something similar. The important thing here is that it is all in our mind – we are making it up. Now sometimes this can be useful, for solving problems, for thinking things through, and sometimes this is a pain in the arse! especially when we verbally beat ourselves up and generally give ourselves a hard time and making ourselves feel bad.

There are some situations where our state can change almost immediately when something happens to trigger a particular response.

Developing your awareness.

1. Notice how your state changes and when your state changes throughout the day.
2. Become more aware of what affects you and how you are affected, by this I mean what happens e.g: I notice this, this image comes up, I hear this, I say this to my self, etc… find out the strategy your mind is using.
3. Notice what the patterns are, e.g. When [x] I imagine [y] and this leads to the state of [z]. There may be several patterns you can follow.

Practice and play with this for a few days, be easy on yourself, be curious when you are thinking about it. Do each step thoroughly before moving on. Keep your curiosity going for as long as you can rather than drawing up any conclusions too quickly. The more you are able to notice, the more control you will have later. In the next article I will give you some ways of taking control of your state so you can feel good more of the time.

It’s true that we all have busy lives; we have so much to do and so many demands on our time. There are things that we keep putting off and some don’t even get on our ‘to do list’ such as going to the gym, spending time with our friends and family, reading that business book and developing our knowledge. So why should we take time to sit and think about our future when we are already so busy? If we truly want to create a great life and focus more on the things we want to achieve, then we need to take a little time to think about what that is and have a way of achieving it. When we spend more of our time focusing on the things that will move us forward not only do we achieve more, we feel better about life and have more energy to do more.

You can get started right now by following 5 simple steps that will help you stay focused on creating a great life. You don’t need to use will power; this is about using the natural mechanisms of your unconscious and conscious mind to work for you. This will create a sense of passion in your life and help you maintain a balance while creating the life you want and deserve. You will find that you have more time to do the things you want to do and you will be more successful in every area of your life, both at work and at home. This may seem like a big claim however it works. Just follow the 5 steps to a great life and see for yourself; you have nothing to lose.

1. Create a vision

Create a clear and compelling vision for each area of your life. It’s difficult to stay focused when you don’t know what direction you are heading in and what you want to focus on. A compelling vision is a powerful description of how you want your life to be. Each of us has several roles in life that we fulfill, for example someone may be a husband, a father, a tennis player, a football coach, a salesman and a leader. When you define your role, rather than simply naming it use an adjective to describe its quality, for example ‘husband’ could be ‘loving husband’, ‘salesman’ could be ‘top salesman’, ‘leader’ could be ‘charismatic leader’. Creating a compelling vision for each of your roles will help you to focus on improving that area of your life and help you to maintain balance in your life.

When you write your compelling vision, imagine what it will be like when you are completely satisfied with each of your roles and everything is running the way you want it to. Write it in the current tense and describe any achievements in the past tense. Be as creative as you can be, the richer the description and the more exciting you make it, the more motivating and easier it will be for you to achieve it. The purpose of this is to naturally focus your mind. Your vision doesn’t need to be long, it can be just a short paragraph. To begin with, all you need is just enough of a description for you to feel excited and passionate. You will probably want to go back and refine your vision when you notice how this is working for you.

2. Plan your route

Once you have a clear vision for each area, think about the big goals: the outcomes you want or need to achieve on the way to fulfilling your vision. I call these ‘Vision Level Outcomes’. They may be short, medium or long term, however they will all be big and exciting achievements. Decide what date you want to have achieved these outcomes by and schedule them into your plan for the next few years.

Outcomes should be described in the positive. Describe what you will see, hear and feel when you achieve the outcome. Ask yourself, “What result do I want?” and “How will I know I have achieved it?”. This will help you to stay focused on the direction you want to go in rather than where you don’t want to end up. When you read your outcome you should feel a sense of excitement and determination.

3. Set your intention

Now it’s time to fill in the details and make a plan towards achieving your ultimate success. At the start of each week take some time to plan your week. Think about the areas you want to focus on. Rather than try to focus on all areas each week, focus on a few areas at a time changing them from week to week to maintain balance.

For each area you choose to work on pick one or two of the Vision Level Outcomes to work towards. Think about what will drive you towards your vision and what outcomes and actions will make the biggest difference? Set your intention on achieving these outcomes this week and schedule them into your diary, visualising yourself successfully achieving each one. Make a commitment to yourself and take the first step, no matter how small.

4. Focus your attention

Keep your attention on achieving your desired outcomes for the week by looking at your outcomes several times a day. Simply read through each one and allow your mind to focus all of your attention on it for a moment.
When the time comes to work on your scheduled outcome, if you need to motivate yourself read your Compelling Vision and Vision Level Outcome. This will help you to get into a resourceful state and to stay focused even if things get tough.

5. Track your progress

At the end of the week review your progress. Think about your success and take the time to feel good about yourself, congratulating yourself for the things you did well. If there are areas where you didn’t succeed, think about what you could have done differently. Learn from the experience, and rather than thinking that you failed, realise that you have just learned how not to do it next time. Repeat step 3 and feed this forward into the plan for next week. This feed-forward and feedback loop will help you to detect the necessary adjustments you need to make in order to stay on track.

Motivating yourself is a strategy that you do instinctively and much of the time unconsciously. This can be to varying degrees of success depending on the circumstances and conditions. Think of this strategy as a series of thoughts (and sometimes actions) that generate a feeling or a state of being motivated. You could measure the intensity of this state on an imaginary scale of 0 to 100.

A motivation strategy is like a computer programme that can run in the background. It has an input in the form of an idea. This idea may come from your own desire to do something, or it could be triggered by a request from someone else. There are a set of variables: the images, sounds and feelings relating to the idea. There is some form of process where you are thinking about the activity. There may be several loops within this process. Eventually the programme finishes, resulting in an output: the action you take.

When we are thinking about doing something, we run a movie in our mind. We imagine what we think it will be like to do that activity, we may have some internal dialogue about it, or imagine what people will say. Someone who is motivated to go for a bike ride on a summer day, may imagine what it will be like riding their bike in the sunshine and feeling the wind on their face. They may imagine stopping for lunch, meeting friends and enjoying exercising. They will generate a pleasurable state that drives them to make the effort.

Experiment

There are somethings that you are easily motivated to do, such as going out to dinner, playing a sport or going away for a weekend break. Think of something now that you are looking forward to doing in the next few days. When you think about it, what do you notice? What images come to mind? Do you imagine yourself doing it? Do you imagine what it will be like to have done it? What feelings do you associate with this activity? Are they uncomfortable feelings or pleasant feelings? Perhaps feelings of anticipation, excitement, satisfaction or something else? How intense are they? Did you notice the more you thought about this activity the stronger the feelings became?

Now think of something that you are having trouble motivating yourself to do. Perhaps it is something you want to do or think that you should do, but just can’t seem to get yourself motivated. What do you notice when you think about having to do it? What images come to mind? What feelings do you associate with this task?

Now compare the two activities. What were the differences in the way you thought about each activity? How are the images different? Is there a difference in the content of each movie? Are you running the movie all the way to the end where you completed the activity in each case? Was your internal dialogue different? How were your feelings different in each case? You may notice that your feelings about the first activity were stronger.

The mechanics of motivation

The process of motivating ourselves has two distinct drivers. We are all naturally motivated towards pleasure and away from pain. This basic mechanism is a key component that drives the feeling of being motivated to do something or not.

Make a list of three things that you are easily motivated to do and three things that you are finding it difficult to motivate yourself to do. In each case, think about how you are motivating yourself. Are you driven by pain or by pleasure? Very often it will be a portion of both. Notice how your motivation strategy is working in each case.

Procrastination

There are some things that you know you have to do but you really don’t want to and you procrastinate. You put off doing them for as long as you can. For example, some people complete their tax return as soon as possible while others procrastinate. They will leave it until the very last minute, as they associate doing the tax return with something that is painful. It gets to the stage where if they don’t do something about it, they won’t get it in on time and there will be a fine to pay, which is more pain! They only take action when they get to the point where the pain of not doing it is greater than the pain of sitting down and sorting it out.

Good strategies

Some people find it easy to motivate themselves and they achieve most of the outcomes they desire. These people have a good strategy for building a strong motivating state. Even though each of us has our own unique way of motivating ourselves, there are some common components in good motivation strategies.

The way you think about a task will have a strong effect on how you feel about it and therefore how motivated you are. You will tend to find it easier to motivate yourself when you think you will be able to complete it successfully.  This is because we generally associate success with pleasure and failure with pain. You will also find it more motivating when you think you will enjoy doing it or you think the result is worth it.

You will also find it more motivating when you imagine what it will be like to have been successful. If you are thinking about what could go wrong, use this as a way to plan for a contingency rather than a way to make yourself feel bad. Think about the aspects that you will enjoy or that will make you feel good in some way. What pleasure will you get from doing this? What will having done this give you? When you imagine yourself doing well, imagine watching this movie on a 3D iMax screen with surround sound and intensify the good feelings. You may need to also think about the consequences. What pain will you feel by not doing it? Run this as a movie and intensify the painful feelings just enough to give you some extra propulsion. Think about what you say to yourself and the tonality you use for your internal dialogue. Some people refer to this as their inner coach. If you were trying to encourage someone else or a child, would this be the best way?

However you are motivating yourself, it is a good idea to review your strategy from time to time and refine it where necessary. Remember that motivation is not a thing, it is a process. It is something you are doing consciously and unconsciously. When it comes to motivating others, how you present ideas will influence how they think and feel about the things you are asking them to do.

What do you mean by eye contact?

When I asked this presenter “What do you mean by eye contact?”, he thought for a moment and responded “well you have to make eye contact with the audience, you have to look at them”. I have seen some presenters looking out into the audience just for the sake of it, perhaps because they were told they should have eye contact. Some presenters seem to have that wide eyed look I have seen so many times when people are nervous about public speaking.

Next I asked him “What are you looking for?”, he responded “To build an emotional connection with the audience.”. Although I had heard people say this before, I could see by his response that he hadn’t thought it through, in fact he didn’t really know why he was doing it, and he didn’t know what he was looking for.

What are you looking for?

When I look out into an audience, I am looking to calibrate their response. I want to know how they are responding to me, and how they are responding to what I am saying. Whenever you are presenting, remember that the audience are responding to you, they are responding to what you are saying and how you are saying it.

When you are able to notice how your audience are responding, you can take control and start to adapt and adjust your presentation in order to achieve the desired outcome of your presentation. You can change the direction of your presentation based on how the audience are responding.

Public speaking and presenting is an art and science, there are certain techniques that when used in a skillful way can consistently produce the results you desire.

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