The Biggest Mistake You Can Make In Your Personal Development Journey (And What You Can Do To Get Fast Results)

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Do you read frequently?

Most people do not read much once they had graduated from school. If you are reading frequently, you are the minority that is in a much better position to excel in your life.

However, there is one big mistake that most people made when they read.

It is the lack of implementation.

Implementation Is What Truly Matters

Are you one of those people who seem to know everything but aren’t getting the results that you want?

A minority in the population read regularly to improve themselves. Out of these people, only a few of them implement what they read. You can read all day long but nothing will happen if all you are doing is reading.

Knowledge itself is not powerful.

Knowledge is just a piece of information in your brain. It isn’t anything unless you pick it out from your brain and starting implementing (taking action) on it.

Knowledge + Implementation = Results

You Know It But You Don’t Get It

There are thousands (or millions) of people reading personal development books or blogs. Yet, most of them are junkies. I have to admit that I don’t really apply everything that I picked up. It is not possible to do so. However, it will make a huge difference in our life if we are able to implement half of what we learned.

The ones that always produce successful stories to inspire others are people who consistently implement what they had learned.

They are the minority.

The majority simply fail to implement what they had learned. Most people know they have to take some sort of action in order to get the results that they want, but more often than not they don’t.

As what Seth Godin mentioned in his book, Lynchpin, there is a lizard brain in some part of our brain. This is the part where our primal instinct can be found.

This lizard brain protects us from dangers and it helps us to sense danger, avoid fear and change. It works perfectly well to help our ancestors to survive and keeping them away from the predators. However, letting the lizard brain control your life is going to ensure that you will dwell in mediocrity.

3 Steps To Start Implementing And Getting Results

1) Read And Listen

You need to read the books, blogs and listen to others for ideas that you can use in your life. This is the first step that you need to take. Your local library is a great place to start searching for books that you need. Anything that you are interested in improving can be found in the library. Many people had walked the path before you and their knowledge can be very beneficial to you.

Talk more to others who are expert or better than you in the subject that you wish to improve on. You will be surprised by how much more new knowledge you can pick up from them. This is also the reason why I conduct interviews (listen to these interviews by clicking here) over here at HealthMoneySuccess. We can usually pick up new and valuable information from these interviews.

2) Jot Notes

If you rely on your memory to help you keep track of new ideas, you will be disappointed. I don’t trust my memory because I can’t seem to find the great ideas that I had “collected” in my brain whenever I need them.

If you want to increase the chances of you implementing ideas from books or blogs that you read, the first thing you need to do is to jot them down. Keep a note book and write down all the personal excellence tips that you want to implement in your life. If you want to read a book about personal excellence, check out the Personal Excellence Handbook written by Celestine Chua. There are full of great ideas and tips that you can use to improve your life.

I always keep a note book around me so that I can jot down any ideas that pop out in my mind. Electronics gadgets such as smartphones (iPhone or any phone that is able to allow you to take notes) work well too. Try out which works best for you.

Note: Summarize your notes. Keep things simple and jot down the key ideas that you want to implement in your life.

3) Use A Checklist

A checklist will help you monitor whether you have implemented the ideas that you picked up. Organize your jotted notes write them into a checklist format. This will help to keep your ideas well organized.

Look through the list and start completing them one at a time. Subsequently, strike off the ideas that you had implemented.

Conclusion

If you read regularly, the amount of new ideas you will pick up will grow over time. These ideas will just remain as ideas unless action is taken to produce a result.

You can finish a book titled How To Make More Friends you are not going to make more friends if you don’t even bother to initiate (implement the ideas in the book) to talk to others.

Decide now that you will not be a personal development junkie anymore. Be one that will collect great ideas through your learning from seminars, audio books, blogs and books. Be one that act upon all these ideas that you collected and you will experience exponential growth and get fast results in your life.

Before I go, I want to thanks all the readers for reading and subscribing to my blog. If you like this article, help me up by subscribing to my blog by clicking here or go on to download your free copy of Unleash Your Maximum Potential.

That will be all today and once again thanks for the great support!

Vincent

Idris Jala’s 5 Principles Of Change

Dear all,

I found this article to be very interesting. On running a business, a leader must not only depend on his principles alone. Idris, in this article has this point said very well.

When Idris Jala was hired as CEO of a failing state-owned airline he had exactly three and-a-half months operating cash in which to turn it around—no bail out, no other options.

He succeeded well beyond expectations with a combination of laser focus on the P&L statement and his own view of leadership. Here are some of the more intriguing thoughts from a McKinsey interview with him.

Jala is one of the most pragmatic CEOs in action today.

“At a board meeting on my first day, I announced our business-turnaround blueprint. I’d never worked a single day at an airline before, but looking at the P&L it didn’t take more than an hour to figure out the solution. If you have to control costs, you just go and cut the costs. If your network’s inefficient, get rid of the routes that are bleeding cash. And if you have a problem with low yield, fix the yield. What else are you going to say?”

What else, indeed? But in an era of exotic plans and visions, focus on something as basic as P&L is as refreshing as it is unusual.

Jala also had an interesting view of leadership.

“If the leader doesn’t believe in the journey, then it cannot begin.”

I find that profound because so often I hear corporate leaders add a multitude of caveats to what they plan; explaining ahead of time all the reasons why success may not happen and if they don’t truly believe why should anyone else?

“The single biggest thing a leader brings to a turnaround is hope.”

Not fear and trepidation, but a real belief that the company can be saved through hard work. One of the ways that Jala accomplished this was through his total transparency.

“Publishing helped us build a winning coalition not only with the government but also with other stakeholders, like the unions, the staff, and the public. Being upfront about the P&L and making it all transparent were very important to bringing the coalition together.”

I know this sounds cynical, but not in my wildest dreams can I picture your typical corporate chieftain doing this. Maybe I’m naïve, but this kind of transparency requires the guy-in-charge to open himself to all kinds of input and criticism. The mind boggles at the thought of Robert Nardelli (Chrysler) or Rick Waggoner (GM) doing anything similar.

“But once results begin to appear and new leaders begin to learn, you must be ready to let go and empower them…The corporate graveyard is full of people who thought they were indispensable.”

Jala has a good handle on this powerful leadership attitude that too often does not see the light of day.

Idris Jala’s 5 + 1 Embedded Principles of Change

1. The game of the impossible;
2. anchoring everything on the P&L;
3. building a winning coalition;
4. discipline of action; and
5. situational leadership.

And the additional one…

“The final principle is a subject people don’t talk about in the corporate world: divine intervention. More than 50 percent of what happens to you in life, and in my case probably more than 60 percent, is outside your control. It is important for everyone in an organization, particularly the top leaders, to understand that. I can’t, for example, control oil prices, SARS, or other things like that.”

Rigorous practice of the first five balance the last one.