Thursday 29 December 2011

Accept full responsibility for your achievements (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Accept full responsibility for your achievements" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?
Ensure that you understand how you contributed to every achievement in your life. Know that you are in full control: every time you have achieved anything, it is because of actions that you took, regardless of who provided the opportunity or gave you a little nudge in the right direction in the first place. It was you that took the action to make it happen and it will be down to you every time you make an achievement in the future.

Why?
If you are to be successful, you must believe that you have the power to make your life a success. Your achievements did not just happen by accident, it was not just luck.

Even if you were fortunate to have a particular opportunity, it is highly likely that you played some part in creating that opportunity, even if you didn’t mean to or did not realise it at the time: for example, it could have been a brief conversation that you had, which you thought was completely unrelated but led someone to suggest you as a person to help with something.

Likewise, if you had not taken action once the opportunity had arose, you would not have converted that opportunity into the achievement that it became.

Know that you are responsible for your achievements, you are in control and you are the person that will accomplish all of your future achievements as well.

How?
Every time you achieve anything, make sure that you give yourself a silent pat on the back to congratulate yourself on the achievement and think about what you did to get there. This is not the same thing as being cocky or boasting – it is a positive attitude that helps you to grow in confidence and to keep building successes on successes. By reflecting on each success you can also look for patterns and key actions that you may repeat in the future that will lead to further achievements. It will also help you to identify things that you might want to avoid doing or improve on when working on similar opportunities.

An example
There have been many times in my life when I have been called “lucky” , but when I have looked back over the events that led to my “luck”, I can identify various things that I have done to lead there. Some of the things that I have done may have been extremely small – such as conversations that I had in passing that turned out to be more significant than I thought, or minor changes that I made to my LinkedIn profile or online CV that led to a significant new opportunity.

Many of the new jobs that I have landed and successful deliveries that I have been responsible for have been due to not only the focused efforts on those opportunities themselves, but also due to my consistent behaviour from day to day, to the way that I have dealt with situations and responded to questions and to proactive action that I have taken on even minor tasks that have led to far greater things than I could have imagined.

The important point with this influence tool is to recognise that these opportunities and successes were not just down to luck. They may not have been fully intentional, but were influenced by me and were due to my actions.

The same is true for you. You are in control of the way that you behave and respond to events in your life. Do not allow people to tell you that you were “lucky” for you successes – take credit for them, use them to build your confidence and give you the motivation to continue to work and live in line with your values, to the utmost of your ability. Believe in your own successes and not only will you be happier, but you will find that it leads for more and more successes in everything you do.

An exercise
  1. Think of a great thing that happened in your life that you were involved in but at the time you did not think that you played any real part in making it happen.
  2. Now go back to how the opportunity arose. Who was involved? How did they come up with the idea? Why did they ask you to be involved in the way that you were? Did anyone ask you at all or did you just volunteer or take action without being asked?
  3. Really try to think about everything that could have led you to that point.
  4. Then think about what you did to help translate the opportunity into an achievement. What did you do? Who did you talk to? How did people react to the success? Who got credit for it? (Again, this is not about you taking credit for other people’s achievements, it is about recognising what part you played and realising that you were responsible for at least part of its success).
  5. Now think forwards. What opportunities are you currently aware of or are currently working on. Now that you know how influential you are, what might you do differently today, in the next few days, weeks and months to accelerate or improve your personal achievements and to play an even more significant part in the achievements of others?
       

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