Andrea Kay
Create an In-Your-Face System
Do you stuff your brilliant ideas away?
Do you hold back your insights?
Do you just do what’s expected?
Do you complain to others rather than confronting a co-worker who has annoyed you?
Do you hesitate to try new things that are a little risky?
These bad habits are stifling your potential. In order to develop habits that inspire great work you need to be aware when you engage in them. Stick reminders in front of your face that make you stop and notice. It could be a Post-it note you stick on the calendar you carry with you or it could be a reminder word you use as a password on your Blackberry. Pick some code that reminds you of what you want to watch out for.
Start with daily reminders and evaluate how well you did at the end of the day. As you improve and notice your behavior changing, you can use them less frequently. Mark your calendar so that at the end of each month you review how the month went. See how that works?!
Have a Brush with Greatness
April 2010
When people take on a new job, at first they brim with lots of ideas. Then, so as not to rock the boat, they slowly begin to make compromises by keeping their heads down, holding back their ideas, and not challenging the status quo. Eventually they do only what they have to just to keep their job. And before you know it, they’ve given up their greatness. Does this sound familiar?
Now you’re probably not going to like this, but if you’re not doing the best work you’re capable of because you’re afraid of what might happen or what others will think, that’s your choice. No one else can make you do bad work. So start being powerful by becoming aware of your un-great-like behavior and the opportunities you have to turn any given moment into a great moment.
Be prepared to pay the price.
Greatness takes nerve and a little sacrifice. You need to be capable of enduring and thinking under pressure, able to evaluate yourself independent of the world’s evaluation of you, and able to take a position different from others, especially when others are out of line. The people at work are going to do what they’re going to do. Find a way to do excellent work despite them and accept the cost that may come with that.
Be here now, please.
Can you think of a moment when you were totally absorbed in something? When your attention was right there in front of you and nowhere else? To do great work you have to be there in mind, body, and spirit. When you aren’t present in each moment, you miss out on contributing what you have to share, which can help lead you to what you really want. How can you come close to sharing your best insight when you’re busy trying to mentally check another thing off your to-do list?
Be a “terminator”.
Not completing something is a form of procrastination, which often has to do with perfectionism. You feel you have to do everything perfectly and put off something until you can do it just right. Part of doing good work and feeling personal satisfaction is deciding how much time you’re willing to invest in something, then following through and finishing what you wanted in the first place.
Take notice.
One of the biggest obstacles to your doing your greatest work is not even being aware of what you’re doing to stop it. If you want to start noticing what you do that might be preventing you from doing great work, you need to stick reminders smack-dab in front of your face. (see sidebar, at right)
Stop acting like a potted plant.
Houseplants just sit there, relying on others to make sure they thrive. Stop conducting your career waiting for someone else to come around to your desk and tell you what problems need to be solved and how to do it. Don’t wait to be asked what needs to be done. Excellence is yours to give—not the organization’s to take.
Adapted from Work’s a Bitch and then You Make It Work: 6 Steps to Go from Pissed off to Powerful, by Andrea Kay. Published by Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, an Imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.