People are worried about being seen as average at work and in their personal lives. There are talk shows, self-help programs, magazine articles and many “reports” about how many people look to change themselves. No one wants to be stuck in the middle, looked over for lower-hanging fruit or passed by supercharged achievers.
However, how do you know someone is better than average? What are the key steps in moving from the perception of the catch-phrase good-to-great and actually being a better person? When do you get to the point where people look at you as having what it takes to be the role model for others? Where will we find this next generation of leaders?
An image posted on LinkedIn recently showed a graphic with eighteen ways people are strong. Social networks - even professionally-oriented ones like LinkedIn - have “stuff” shared with no explanative commentary. Or conversely, one business source will have several articles on the same topic that contradict one another. People are just sharing what they see rather than having thoughtful discussion even with close family and friends. We keep on posting pictures and moving along with silence forgetting discourse.
Why did this particular post image resonate with me? It had nothing to do with the person or their employer because it was a connection through another connection. What caught my attention was it failed in all the ways it was lacking to “get” the reasons behind networking - connecting with people. “Flash card” posts of someone else’s thoughts without sharing your own ideas isn’t networking; it’s a kiosk of advertisements.
Lists don’t help people.
You can’t just “check off” that you embrace change as if you grabbed milk at the store or made a donation to your favorite non-profit this month. People are hard-wired to follow instructions - yet when lists are transformed into “how-to” frameworks, then it really can help implement change one step at a time.
Using grade-school math, UC Berkeley has a listing of number of business days per month when removing federally recognized holidays. Taking those monthly numbers, you can find that the average (number in the middle of all numbers) is also the same as the mode (most frequently cited number): 22.
That’s a good place to start — the best way to focus your business day is by having a powerful positive mantra for each day you’re at work. With so much spaghetti-on-the-wall, we need a simple thought-provoking framework to address our twenty-two business days this month.
Combining what seems to top all the lists-of-lists, here are twenty-two focus areas for you to strengthen yourself mentally and know that you are better than average. Set one per day for the month of September and see how you improve! Even good people can do better, so raise the bar for yourself today.
Day 1. Let go of entitlement
Somehow, the work ethic went from “work for it” to “it’s rightfully yours.” No, it isn’t and we are seeing the next generation realize that those types of statements are false. This is a big day in the framework, but it’s one of the most important. You know that your life plans could be rerouted at any time. An average person lives with this fear, but a strong person, one of above-average stature, knows wasted effort regarding “destiny” (or whatever word you want to use for it) won’t bring improved outcomes. That only comes through hard work, so that’s what you do. This first step alone starts easing the climb to being above average.
Day 2. Tolerate, perhaps occasionally encourage, discomfort
Politics is not usually a good place to reflect on leadership for self-improvement, but every once in a while you can find some common sense. John F. Kennedy understood that people can become complacent, enjoying the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Think of your least favorite subject when you were in elementary school, and how uncomfortable you were while learning it. Perhaps it became the area of your expertise once the “light turned on” and you engaged in discovering even more. Without your initial discomfort, you would have ignored an area of opportunity. Think how many opportunities you may be missing when you only look at the “easy” things.
Day 3. Think productively and persistently
One of the classic Saturday Night Live skit characters is Debbie Downer and inevitably, laughter will erupt from one of the other characters (if not Debbie herself). Why? People don’t like downers. If you aren’t focusing on productivity (and I do NOT mean just looking busy or sending a bunch of emails to look like you are working), it brings other hard-working people down or enforces an “average” label on you. If you aren't persistently working at getting better, people will avoid you because we all want to surround ourselves with people focused on improvement. So today, focus on gears turning forward and not getting stuck in neutral or moving in reverse.
Day 4. Don’t linger on negative things
This is likely difficult for us as people generally always want to know “why” — just listen to a pre-schooler when someone responds to a question! Using our mental energy wisely allows us to not consider all the ways things can go wrong, but rather how we can move toward what’s right. If you have a glass of water and have two thirsty people, it’s easy to see the limitations. Regardless of our personality type, each person only has so much energy to use, so much water in a glass - so don’t be average by focusing on all the low possibilities. Reach for the high positive outcome topics and envision what great things are ahead.
Day 5. Evaluate your core beliefs and how they are reflected in your life
Some people may think this is having control over life, and influencing various projects, people or outcomes. But really, it’s knowing who you are, why you make decisions and what lets you have a sound sleep at night. No fitness monitoring device will report to you why you aren’t sleeping well, but it gives you a bunch of numbers to figure out the problem yourself. Consider what decisions make you uneasy or why you had a knee-jerk reaction to an event. If you don’t know your beliefs, you cannot possibly become above average. Question some of your assumptions (remembering what the first three letters are of that word), and look at how many things actually align in your life with your beliefs — start making changes to live what you believe.
Day 6. Generate staying power
A friend in a shipping job once told me that if you contribute to the bottom line of the company, you have staying power. I wasn’t in manufacturing or something that I thought delivered ROI. But, when I considered her statement, I realized that my strategic planning discussions with the 500 sales reps with whom I worked increased our sales margins. Once the team got to know me and what I knew, I started literally flying all over the place to help them, to teach and coach them, to explain in the customer’s terms what was important - not repeat what our sales training told them to say. Of course, this generated more work and the VP directing my team to kick up a few million extra in sales each quarter to cover for the lower-producing divisions… but it was recognized that the difference was my time and effort contributing to the team goal, not just my own pen-to-paper deliverable. Figure out how you can stay relevant (not necessarily lime-light) in your career and reframe how you deliver your tasks to improve performance, which leads right into…
Day 7. Focus on your own performance
No one liked the tattle-tale in grade school, whose motivation was watching what everyone else was doing and yapping about it. If you are focused on what everyone else is doing, using your energy to watch them instead of “do you” (your project, your hobby, your family time), what is really succeeding here? It won’t be you. To know you are above average, focus on your projects and the outcomes you want, even right down to the details of how you want something to look. Imagery is said to improve performance - so that automatically gets you above average. Here are some ways to check your own performance.
Day 8. Enjoy time alone
In this world of hyper-connectivity, when do you sit in silence? Do you even feel as if you can sit in silence? So many rules say never eat a lunch alone, always talk to the person next to you on a flight, make one new connection a day… blah blah blah. What about you? While you may be on deadlines so that you don’t have time to read a new fun book (that means non-work related!!!), you can wake up ten minutes earlier to have your cup of coffee on the porch before leaving for work. You don’t always need to be on the phone, reading email or talking to someone. How can you hear your own great ideas if it’s never quiet enough to hear yourself think?
Day 9. Be willing to fail
Richard Branson said, “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” Michael Jordan estimated he missed more than 900 shots and lost nearly 300 games. A meme on the internet right now shows a baby learning to walk, noting that they fall down fifty times but never think about not walking. Reaching your goal is never not an option. Babies may crawl backwards first; they may hold onto others or grab onto furniture as a guide. The point is babies try different techniques before they know how to get where they are going, even when there’s no endpoint in mind! Whether you’ve been at your job a long time or have a new project assigned, be willing to have you and your team try something new even if you need to try it again to achieve different results.
Day 10. Move on
While day three considered being productive and persistent, this day focuses on recognizing that you don’t control everything. You can’t forecast all outcomes. You won’t know how the story always ends. And you let it go. The Serenity Prayer is a good one to remember when focusing on letting go, wherein the last line says, “and the wisdom to know the difference.” Like the childhood rhyme that takes children on a bear hunt, while they are looking for the bear in the woods they come upon an obstacle. Can’t go over it… can’t go under it… can’t go through it… gotta go around it. Realize when it’s time to turn around and walk away from something (or someone).
Day 11. Embrace change
This may seem like a cheating item on the framework to move above average, but what people don’t tell you about this topic is that you cannot embrace change by pestering others about change, kidnapping face-time with one of the “change agent” leaders or by not actually changing. This whole framework article for raising the bar actually explains how to get through the typical worries about changing yourself; so in this day’s topic, mind your manners and start believing in yourself! That’s the best way to embrace and apply change. You dont’t need to run towards it, just ensure you aren’t shying away from it.
Day 12. Be specific
Have you ever been asked for a hint on a birthday present, but when you got that gift it was so far afield of your thought that you wondered what possibly went wrong? Being specific in requests helps reduce errors. Errors are things made by everyone, but more often they are made by average people. To rise above being average, reduce your error rate. Define what you want in a project (outcomes or methodology or whatever) and allow others the freedom to get you there. Sometimes, people want SMART outcomes - and smart is above average, right???
Day 13. Be accountable
No one likes working with someone who is always pushing off “fault” to another person on the team… especially when it’s documented that actually they have been making mistakes for months. People would rather come to the “go-to” staffer, the one who says realistically what they can or cannot achieve in a given timeframe. People like others who are accountable for their deliverables. Be one of those people - take ownership of your role and the projects you are assigned. Don’t shy away from saying something went wrong, either - refresh yourself with a mild dose of day nine and help yourself by working with tomorrow’s mantra, too.
Day 14. Take calculated risks
I once had a boss that told me to attend an internal company meeting and listen to everything that was said about the other products. Seemed normal right until she said “I’m not saying to spy, but…” Huh? Only years later did I realize that she meant to say that we can take the best from our partners and see how we could make our own product line better; we don’t need to make the same mistakes others have made. It’s a calculated risk when we know we aren’t on that tree limb alone and we can see how it can improve what we offer to clients. Spying was her way of relaying don’t go nuts and keep your cool, but see what else there is that we could be doing. Spy your way above average (but don’t claim other people’s ideas as your own; that goes against these things that are to help you move forward).
Day 15. Invest energy in the present
You know you will not please everyone. You also know you can’t just please yourself. In every task, know that you have some level of control and it’s always over your own actions. If you struggle with the tasks assigned sometimes, look for the one good thing that either directly comes from your project or consider the downstream effects. Actuaries help ensure prices are more accurate for health insurance products so inflation is reduced and forklift drivers move product onto trucks that deliver rebuilding supplies to flooded areas. See the bigger picture in every task you accomplish.
Day 16. Find a mentor
This can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be your absolute role model. Instead, look for someone who does something well and where you’d like to improve. Find a person that can be a sounding board. Usually friends can listen to you vent, but don’t make the best “advisor” in your industry. You can approach someone (in person or through a polite business email) and ask them if you could buy them a cup of coffee in exchange for some coaching on a particular subject. When you train-up and listen to the mentor, you nearly always rise up the learning curve and away from the “average” stair.
Day 17. Celebrate other people’s success
One way to dispel notions of someone else putting a “knife in your back to get ahead” is get to know people for real - and what really is important in their life. I used to coordinate “cake for breakfast” for one team (totally ignoring day nineteen), and sometimes it was for a birthday whereas other times it was for a team member buying a house, a journal article published, one passed the bar exam — you get the point. Have a life outside of work and share a wee bit with those around you. It puts life into perspective in the workplace.
Day 18. Say no
Setting boundaries is an important part of life for successful people. They don’t do all things for all people — they do some things for some people. Being more than average takes guts to say no, but it’s all the way in which you deliver the message. Perhaps the “no” is around the deadline or scope of work rather than a flat no to the whole deal. When you have worked on day five and know your strengths, make sure every project where you contribute uses some of your talents and expertise so it’s bound to show how much above average you truly are.
Day 19. Go exercise
Most people realize by now that you need to move it! When your heart is healthier physically, your body is healthier mentally. Maybe you aren’t playing tennis six days a week or hiking with a pup through the woods, but the scientific research on stress-reducing hormones as well as the general need to reduce your blood pressure after a stressful day at work should be all the motivation you need (not to mention not snapping at your loved ones when you walk in the door). A break between work and home and help reset realistic life expectations and give you the break from the job you deserve (and count as a little day eight reminder, too).
Day 20. Tune out static
We all have experienced that hectic day when someone else’s emergency is portrayed as your crisis. Frequently, you can get sucked into a quagmire of this other’s person’s poor planning because that persons has missed a beat or two and wants you to clean up their mess. The important thing is what you know about yourself and not what other people think about you. You may be the problem-solver at the office, but by improving your self-esteem you won’t get unnecessarily pulled into OPP - other people’s problems by tuning them out. (Note: If you can’t “un-hear” all about the recent episode of whatever the yapper is saying in the next cube and music in earbuds isn’t your thing, you can always literally put on static as it’s a great filter against things you don’t want to hear.)
Day 21. Focus on learning
Four hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci believed, “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” Average people know an average amount about an average number of things. If you pick a topic that is interesting to you (personally or professionally), not only are you learning, but you can teach others. When you know enough to teach someone else, you have learned a valuable lesson. Be willing to share those lessons; it modifies people’s perception of you very quickly and well-beyond being an average person.
Day 22. Understand it’s not about winning
One professional sports coach said winning is the only thing while another recognized a champion has motivation beyond winning. There is so much more grace in being a champion and a leader than just a winner of some trophy. Attitude, accountability, responsibility and other traits are marks of those members at the top of their class. When you succeed for the right reasons, you have staying power — that is the best way to ensure you are well-above average.
By setting your goal to improve and always be building strengths above average, you establish a baseline for constant growth. You don’t get tied down to defining what your success means. Instead, you improve the foundation upon you build success after success. Focus your energy on how to be better, consistently work on it every day. You will be better and everyone around you will see you in a more positive light.
Heather M. Hilliard is Principal and Chief Strategist for R. Roan Enterprises, LLC, a professional services consulting firm supporting businesses in pointed areas of expertise as well as with individuals for targeted projects or career development. For more articles like these, visit her posts on LinkedIn or on G+.
