The hands-on blog for successful (and aspiring) top leaders

In my last blog I wrote about the year-end-rush and the number one (rather counterintuitive ) tip of how to deal with it differently. What I wrote is still true - while talking to my clients though I realized that it supports even more to have a list of various hands-on ways or measures to pick from. Those that help in your individual situation. Which I guess is different from mine. And the one of the person next door. 

So - here we go - 21 ways. 

Let me know what works/worked best for you - just drop me a quick line at [email protected] - I always love to hear back from anyone reading my blog.

1. Breathe – the cheapest and most effective form to calm your nervous system.
2. Watch your self-talk – as your thoughts create your emotions. So be careful what you think.
3. Know your needle movers – what tasks bring you closer to where you want to be?
4. Prioritize – and start a WON’T do list.
5. Recalibrate regularly and make space in the...

Waking up in the morning and reaching for the phone is really easy. Even easier to quickly check the e-mails and being immediately sucked in by all the demand coming from right, left and center.

Or reading something that immediately could ruin my day.

Been there, done that.

I used to stumble into my days like that.

Of course I planned and (almost) always had my "to-do" lists and made an effort to work through them. Most days though it did not work out. Too many distractions, too many things to do anyway.

Leaving me exhausted and dissatisfied….mostly with myself.

The rare days where everything went smoothly were great but the exception.

So I asked myself the question: What if more days could be smoother, go in the direction I'd like them to go and feel great at the end of it?

The power of INTENTION SETTING

Some years ago then  - during one of the courses I attended - I heard about intention setting.

Yeah - great.... another tool (how many "productivity tools do you...

We need to stop glamorizing overwork and busyness - please! 

It's nothing to be applauded. Particularly when the consequences are dire. And still too many people wear exhaustion, a fully packed calendar which does not leave any breathing space and even burnout as a badge of honour. 

Why? 

Well, there are a number of factors. Having to do with beliefs we grew up with in our society (and believe me - they are utterly unhelpful!) and because we live in a (working) world where demands are so high that - most of the time - they literally cannot be fulfilled. 

Sounds like a conundrum? Maybe.

You've got the power though - to change it. 

Listen in to this week's Monday thoughts to learn:

1. The two major beliefs that keep us stuck in overworking and busyness
2. The underlying reasons why it's so hard to say good bye to overwork
3. The 3 main strategies to get out of overwork and busyness and towards more joy and energy.

Got any questions or comments? Just drop me an...

Most people I talk to tell me that they have TONS to do. Not just at work, but generally in life...it looks like to-do-lists are endless for most of us and people play catch-up all the time. 

Becoming faster and better in getting through it - and often still don't achieve what they want to, as the days are too short. 

So why is that? In this short podcast I'll explain the major difference between efficient and effective and why we often mix this up. 

Too much to do (or so it seems) and too little time. A common disease which attacks me as well from time to time. Suddenly things seem to pile up and before we can blink, the day is over.

And the pressure increases.

And voila: we feel stressed, thoughts start racing in our head, we're urgently looking for solutions, start rushing and trying to be even more efficient than usual. 

More often than not with the result that we're even more stressed AND still not all things are being done, we start lagging behind, which boosts stress again.

A pretty damn horrible spiral. 

Thankfully there are some strategies that help us getting out of that. In this video I talk about the 3 I found really helpful and most effective (there are many more - still, got to start somewhere, right?).

No time to read or watch?

Well, that's exactly the trap we fall into when we got so much to do. Instead of hitting the brakes and changing something, we continue doing more of what we've done in the...

Are you rolling your eyes inwardly (another annoying person telling me how to do more!) and still getting drawn into the topic? “Wow, I know that there is so much to do that I have not done and I clearly did not achieve everything I really wanted” and “this headline really triggered me…and not in a good way”.

Well, now you are here you might just want to check out if there is anything NEW that you can do to actually achieve more, faster.

 In my last article in which you could score yourself where you are on the scale of  Personal Leadership, I gave you 9 questions to go through (in case you missed it go through the test and get your results right away – here we go). 

One of the them was, “how productive am I”? If we strive to live the life and have the career we desire, we have got to get things done. Otherwise there won’t be any progress. “Oh, I don’t want progress”, you might think now. In...

Quite honestly: 5 years ago I did not have a clue what Personal Leadership was. As I simply did not give it a thought. The definition that is.

Instinctively though I realized that there is something wrong with the way of how we learn to lead.

When I had just passed my mid-twenties and I worked for a start-up in the IT business (not that we called it like that 25 years ago) it was the first time that I managed a team. I had 3 people in a sales team to lead. And I failed miserably.

None of my team was in the slightest inspired by me and I had simply no idea what I was doing. Even when I read up about what I could do how and tested things out, it did only marginally get better. The second time around leading a team in a different organisation went better, still not great though.

Well, I could have assumed that I was simply a lousy leader. I realized later though, that I had started at the wrong end.

Start leadership at the right end 

What is the right end then?

Quite simple on one...

I bet that triggered your interest…what’s she talking about – would have done the trick for me :-).

So, I start with a spoiler and disclose the answer right away: A COACH.

In fact, at least one.

Of COURSE I would be saying that  - I'm a coach myself and just want to sell my stuff, right?

Before you let judgement settle in right away, bear with me for a second (well, probably a few minutes, unless you’re one of this super readers).

I have two

Coaches that is. Not seconds.

Not because I am particularly rich or…ehmm… incapable ;-).

I will explain why in a moment – let me tell you a little story first:

My idea of building up a different and new business came up about a year ago. Even a tad before that, come to think of it.

So, I made a plan (hey, after all I AM a business woman with decades of experience), decided what I had to learn (how to build lists, how to create a course, how to shoot an effing video….and how...

Have you ever wondered why some people just crush it and walk from one success to another, perform like crazy and seem to be even happier than the rest of us?

These people must have super powers, right? They were just lucky to be born like that.

Admittedly - we are all different - which is wonderful as it is. Have you ever felt a bit neglected or disadvantaged when it comes to the distribution of the good stuff? Or felt like this world is really unfair?

Let’s face it though, nobody is born with a bad or a good attitude or great skills or lousy ones. Or with being just positive or being negative.
Even if we are happy to state exactly that “Well, I’ve always been the half-glass-empty-person, can’t help it”. “I’m just not like that”, “I don’t have these powers other people have”. In fact you can, and you have - I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Some of us might even have gone through Myers Briggs...

Do you know the feeling: When you come into the office in the morning - despite your to-do list - you’re getting sidetracked more or less immediately?

By this colleague coming into your office with this super urgent request to come up with the latest numbers of sales for the last couple of weeks
Or you check your mails first thing in the morning (maybe even before you get out of bed?) and there is that urgent meeting and tons of mails from people demanding your attention
You get my gist.

What did you achieve today?

And when the day is over you’ve probably not finished half of what you had on your agenda.

Rather frustrating.

I almost bet you know the feeling. I did. And I am still struggling with it from time to time if I don't pay enough attention or let myself being distracted from my daily routines.

So just imagine you could actually get your important stuff done, you could work on your projects as planned and your overall productivity would sky rocket suddenly...

3 Top...