Quantcast site statistics

Don’t be Distracted - Stay Focused on Your Goals!

General Issues, Self-Development, 0 3998

As electioneering heats up in Nigeria (if you are in Nigeria), coupled with the already crippling economic situation, it is possible for one to lose focus; to, as Yoruba people would say, get carried away by the “noise of the market”. The purpose of this writeup is to encourage you to stay focused. To remain proactive by concentrating your efforts on things you can do something about.

According to Stephen Covey in his book; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Proactive people focus their efforts in the circle of influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their circle of influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their circle of influence to shrink”.

The question for each one of us to ask himself or herself is; Am I being proactive or reactive? Am I focusing my efforts on my circle of influence or on my circle of concern? The answers to these questions will help greatly as you navigate your way into becoming the highly effective person you wish to become. The quote below summarizes the essence of this writeup.

“Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”           —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Truth be told, disturbing as global or local issues may be, there is very little you can do about them.  However, there are some things you can definitely influence - your career trajectory, the growth and sustenance of your immediate family and the determination of its role and place in the overall scheme of things, your health etc. These are things you can do something about, and the time to start doing something about them is NOW! 

To help you on this journey, we have put together all the available learning opportunities in the first quarter of 2023. In addition to search bars, we have also added two features to our website to make navigation easy and ensure you are able to follow our courses as we upload them. These features are the Sitemap Page – where you can easily find all our contents, and the RSS Feeds which allows you to subscribe to our feed.

Articles You may have missed

We have put together some great articles you may have missed. We feel they are still very much relevant and that you will find them useful.

Building a Great Personal Brand

Many people think personal branding is only associated with sports stars, celebrities and popular figures. The reality is that you are already a brand whether you know it or not. What you need to do is to be conscious of it and make it work in your best interests. In our present world, the way we are perceived influences the results we get. Now more than ever, it makes a lot of sense to invest in your personal brand and reap the accruing rewards.

The concept of branding appears to be vague to most people who often consider it as the way a product or company is perceived but branding goes beyond perception. Some even consider it to be a concept that is interchangeable with terms like impression or goodwill or reputation. Branding is so much more. A look at the Merriam Webster dictionary's definition of a brand still does not suffice. It defines it as a category of products that are made by a company and have a name.…. Read more

Accountability: Effective Managers go First

After attending one of my seminars, Jay Bertram, president of the Toronto office of TBWA, the global advertising agency, returned to his office and immediately asked all his people to evaluate their overall job satisfaction, their feelings about the office and (most critically) their overall rating of him as a manager.

Then he dropped the biggest bombshell: as I had recommended, he announced to all his staff that if he did not improve in their ratings across all three measures - by 20 percent within one year - he would resign! He later wrote to me: I was thoroughly moved by your passionate plea for senior management accountability. I want to thank you for encouraging me to be a better manager. It is because of you that I am making a real difference for my employees. I have never been happier and more productive. I have just ….  Read more

Thinking Through Problem Solving

Change hits hard, fast, and often. It shifts our focus, changes our direction, and alters our plans. Change leaves us stumped by questions we are not prepared to answer and searching for questions that we never thought to ask. Left on the road, between what we were once sure of and the indecision of which way to go; a problem waits to be solved.

Problems begin with one Unanswered Question!

Hearing the word problem, we automatically think of some catastrophic event requiring kick-off meetings, project teams, and an all-out hunt for the illustrious root cause. Usually, however, problems are much more subtle than that. They move in quietly, riding the coat-tails of change or they drag change along, bringing it to our doorsteps. Problems both follow and precede change. Most problems don’t need a grand introduction …. Read more

The Art of the Start

I use a top-ten list format for all my speeches, and I would love to begin this book with a top-ten list of the most important things an entrepreneur must accomplish. However, there aren't ten there are only five,

Great Ideas for Starting Things

  • Make Meaning. The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning - to create a product or service that makes the world a better place. So your first task is to decide how you can make meaning.
  • Make Mantra. Forget mission statements; they are long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever remember them - much less implement them. Instead, take your meaning and make a mantra out of it. This will set your entire team on the right course.
  • Get Going. Start creating and delivering your product or service. Think soldering irons, compilers, hammers, saws, and AutoCAD - whatever tools you use to build products and services. Do not focus on pitching, writing, and planning.....Read more

The Tenets of Career Planning

Only a handful of people truly experience satisfaction and fulfillment on their jobs. This is not unconnected with the challenge of career planning. Without good career planning, an individual will most likely miss out on many opportunities that his/her career has to offer. Career planning enables you to prepare yourself ahead for the challenges and opportunities that may come your way.

Career planning is a contentious issue in the human resource profession owing to the confusion as to who is responsible for it - the individual or the organization? Given that organizations are made up of people with very different career goals and aspirations, how do we ensure these goals do not conflict with those of the corporate entity? An ideal situation is for both the employee and employer to play their roles in the career planning process in varying degrees. This is because the outcome of the career planning process affects both parties. … Read more

For more of these articles, simply visit our articles page.

Best of Luck!

NST Team

Related Articles

0 Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Enter this Yj2y4uSG in the box below

Back to Top