Can You Become A "Better You?"

By: Elaine Romberg
Date: 5/1/2008

Each of us, or at least most of us, is always trying to do better, trying to exceed goals we set for ourselves, trying to become better recruiters, managers, owners, and so forth. How we can continue to grow and become better at what we do is the big question.

The following suggestions or ideas are things for you to consider, and if you feel the desire, to begin implementing in your life.

TIME is a big thing! We all have the same amount of time, the same amount of hours, days, weeks, months and minutes in a day. How we use TIME is the secret. Management of TIME is critical to becoming successful at what you do - whether it is recruiting, which is the business we are in, or whether it be temporary staffing, or any other occupation.

Here is a question for you that I read about some time ago... if you have 2 $100 bills and 98 $1 bills, and they blew away in the wind, how would you go about retrieving them? Would you pick up the ones closest to you, or would you look for the $100 bills? If you decided to go after the closest bills, you would be efficiency minded, but if you decided to go directly after the $100 bills, you would be considered to be effective-minded.

The fact is most of us are not inefficient, we are just efficient at the wrong things...to be efficient at something is to do something well - become effective at doing the right thing well.

So if you are making a decision to become a "better you," you will need to evaluate how you are doing things - efficiently or effectively...because we all know there is not enough TIME for everything we want to do. The key is to spend time on the really valuable things and become effective at it.

Another good example to think about is how much you can accomplish BEFORE you go on vacation...and if you were not going on vacation, honestly ask yourself if you would have accomplished everything you did in a shorter period of time than if you were not going on vacation.

Using TIME effectively is really the secret...if you manage TIME effectively, you will find you have more free time...you will have learned how to get rid of paper-work faster, how to avoid interruptions, how to reduce you need for more sleep, how to avoid interruptions, how to delegate effectively, how to ignore some things that really do use up your time, and maybe even group some tasks together resulting in saving time.

"Becoming a better you," will allow you to stay focused - you will put distractions aside always looking toward the end result or goal.

You will have set deadlines (just like the vacation) and will have met them on time.

You will ask for help if you need to...sometimes we cannot do everything by ourselves.

You will prioritize - you will do the most important things first.

You will make a commitment and probably do the most important and most difficult first. You will have organized your work space - so you are not distracted.

You will learn to be consistent and assertive and at the same time stay motivated not letting anything deter you from what you are trying to accomplish.

"Becoming a better you," allows you to become happier, more productive and more creative...we don't lose our enthusiasm for what we are doing...we do not become bored...we seek ways to be creative - to make a job more fun or easier to do.

When we continually work at improving ourselves through our performance and understanding of other people, we grow as an individual. In today's world it almost seems as if basic compassion and sincere friendships are old-fashioned...but the fact is through our relationships with other individuals when we show our sincerity, our concern for them, the way we communicate with them, and the fact that we truly care, we are not only becoming a better person, but we are building strong relationships that will result in successes we may never have dreamed possible.

This brings another thought to my mind and that is what appears in today's world to be a "power struggle..." that there is a certain feeling that in order to attain success one needs to have that level of power over other people. This truly is not the case... people succeed when they have developed relationships and serve people consistently. Serving in whatever way we can is a key to becoming a better person. It was Henry David Thoreau who said, "We have but to move in the direction of our dreams to meet with success unexpected in common hours." Think about his quote...if you really commit to making as much of yourself as you can - you will probably accomplish that which you want to in this life.

Accentuate the positives in yourself...this will also help you to become a better you. Focusing on your positives - even to the point of writing down on a piece of paper all the positives you can think of about yourself is positive! Negative thinking wastes your energy, and you'll find most people you come in contact with do not like being around the "gloom and doom" negative-thinking person.

There are many, many ways to "become a better you," but it all begins with YOU and your attitude.

Attitude is another topic - watch for it in the next issue of RSSM.

Elaine Romberg is the President of Inter-City Personnel Associates (IPA). She can be contacted at 920-720-5323, or by email at ipa@athenet.net