by Angela Taffs | Dec 29, 2014 | Personal and Lifestyle
Are you aware that you choose your attitude can dictate how productive your day will be?
So it is Monday morning again. How many of you woke up this morning thinking on the lines of ‘Oh no, I have to get up again’ which then set your attitude for the day?
How many of you groaned at the thought of having to work again this morning? Did you consider your attitude when you got up or give no thought to it all? If this resonates with you, try this simple trick that someone taught me a while ago.
A simple trick to create the right attitude
Change your language.
When we use the word ‘have’, we feel like we are imprisoned and have no choice in the situation.
Change the word ‘have’ to ‘get’. So instead of ‘I have to get up again’, you say to yourself ‘ I get to get up again’ or ‘I get to go to work this morning’.
A subtle difference in words but a huge change in attitude.
Choose your attitude
When you realise you have the choice to be able to do something when thousands of people don’t, your mind set can change dramatically.
Consider how lucky you are that you get to go to work, rather than have to. So many are unemployed and struggling financially with limited options of being able to work to pay the bills.
Consider how lucky you are to get to jump out of bed on this Monday morning when so many don’t have this option whether through disability or illness.
Consider how lucky you are that you get to do the housework when there are so many homeless on the streets who would give anything to have a roof over their heads.
And the list goes on. Use this simple trick to create the right attitude and see what a difference it makes.
Let me know how you get on in the comments below.
by Angela Taffs | Dec 29, 2014 | Personal and Lifestyle
Anyone visiting me at my office may think I have gone mad!
I decided to once again try and find some exercises to counteract the fact that I am sitting down for most of the day in the office at the moment and my rear end is suffering from it.
This took me back to when I worked in previous employment and decided to come up with some office exercises. To start with, every time I visited the ladies’ room, I did 10 squats before sitting down on the toilet. After a few times and when my legs started to feel the pain, I made the mistake of sharing this sensitive information with one of my colleagues.
This had the knock-on effect of then creating as many exercises as we could during our day to day work.
We tried lifting the telephone received 10 times but it wasn’t heavy enough so that idea when out the window.
So we started doing lunges when walking through the office which got some very strange looks!
At the water cooler, there is always a spare bottle so we tried to lift one of those a few times before getting our drink
We actually tried doing an office circuit incorporating as many things as we could to try and retain some fitness and tone up our office arses! After initially being mocked, the majority of the office agreed to join in our lunchtime plank challenge.
So there you have it. Sometimes the silly ideas are the best and the small things can make a big change.
I am off to think up some more office exercises to do in my home office and hope the postman doesn’t pass the window whilst I am trying them out!
And if you’d like some more tips go and check out my article on self care when working from home
by Angela Taffs | Dec 29, 2014 | Personal and Lifestyle
Do you want to move forward with life?
If the answer to this is yes (and please seek professional help if the answer is no), then is wallowing in the past halting your forward movement?
If you are driving your car to a destination, what is the one most important thing to do? The obvious answer is to look forward and focus on what is in front of you and where you are going.
So why do so many of us in our lives, metaphorically, keep looking in the rear view mirror? If we continue to do this we are only going to go off track, slow down so much that we never get anywhere at all, or worst of all, crash.
We really do need to learn that to move forward with life and achieve new goals, we need to stop focusing on the past.
Yes, the past will have taught us many valuable lessons and these we need to take forward with us, but constantly having our eye in that rear view mirror can only lead to unhappiness and failure. By constantly looking in the rear view mirror, we may miss opportunities ahead and will most certainly miss the beauty of what is around us at the present time.
So next time you find yourself dwelling over something that has happened to you previously, try and imagine your life is a car journey. Look forward. Focus on the future journey and where you are going, not where you have been.
An odd glance in the rear view mirror can be useful at times to see how far we have come in our lives and to see what obstacles we have just missed or overcome, but the front view window to your future is so much more important.
I truly wish you all the best with whatever journey you are on to move forward with life. Keep looking forward.
Much love
Angie x
by Angela Taffs | Dec 29, 2014 | Sales and Marketing, Starting a Business
How do you know if your business offering is really good enough?
One of the worst situations I have to deal with when working with businesses is that of visiting a client who truly believes their product or service is far superior to the reality.
This is an incredibly difficult situation to deal with as I would never want to crush someone’s dream and self confidence, but at the same time it would not be fair of me to continue to lead them into a world of self delusion.
So how can you be sure your own product or service is really good enough?
First and foremost, if you are already trading, your sales and repeat business along with client testimonials should give you an indication of how good you are.
If you are starting up though, this will be more difficult to determine.
Market research is critical. And please oh please, do not rely on friends and family when undertaking any research. In my experience, friends and family will tell you want to hear for fear of hurting you and will rarely give you an unbiased opinion.
You need to do some test marketing and get feedback from real customers, and making sure these customers are from your future target market base. There is no point at all in asking a group of teenagers to try out a product aimed at the over 50’s market.
When asking for honest feedback, you need to be quite thick skinned as it may feel like a personal attack if any criticism is forthcoming. However, I truly believe far more can be learned from critical feedback, or critique, rather than purely positive feedback. Yes, praise is needed and we should celebrate our successes but if we do not hear what is wrong with our product or service, then how can we ever improve and stay ahead of the competition.
As the saying goes:
Praise makes you feel good but critique makes you better
If you do not feel strong enough to take the hit at this early stage, then get someone else to gain the feedback for you and create an overall report. This can be someone you know who is wholly unbiased (once again not friends and family please) or you can engage with a professional company to do this for you (at a charge of course).
It is far better to get honest feedback in the early days than to find out later down the line why repeat sales are not forthcoming and perhaps a poor reputation has already been gained.
It can be quite a painful process to go through, and yes, I have been through it myself, but it can also be one of the most worthwhile.
And remember, many of the best products out there came from hundreds of knock backs and years of rejection so you are not alone. Just think of:
- James Dyson (Dyson vacuums)
- Colonel Sanders (Kentucky fried chicken) and
- Thomas Eddison (the lightbulb)
All the above went through countless rejections and criticisms but who all did not give up and used any criticism in a constrictive manner to help them improve their products and become market leaders.
What’s the best critique you have had for your business and how did it help you? Leave your comments below.
by Angela Taffs | Dec 29, 2014 | Personal and Lifestyle
Do you want to overcome the fear of failure?
We have all heard about the fear of failure but personally, I feel it is never so evident as when you are running your own business, especially in the early years.
When employed by someone else and pitching for business clients, if the potential client says no, the rejection can be offset against the company you are working for. We can all sit back and blame the company for not having the full range of products or services the client demands,or for setting out the pricing structure incorrectly.
But when it is your own business and the products and pricing have been set by you, the rejection lies firmly with the decisions you have made when setting up the business.
Or does it?
There can be so many underlying reasons why your business is not suitable for a prospective client and that is altogether another subject matter in itself.
But what is so sad, and so frustrating to see, is when a business owner has everything they need in place for a successful business, yet they hide behind their office door as they are so afraid of the potential rejection on the other side.
How to overcome fear
Starting a business on your own takes a great deal of courage and a variety of skills. And none so more than that of being able to be thick skinned and to throw off any rejection as a wrong person, wrong place, wrong time.
Yes, we need to be aware of our offerings and to review lost client feedback. First and foremost though, we need to be brave enough to put ourselves out there. We need to believe in ourselves enough to have the courage to present our business with confidence and flair.
After all, if we don’t believe in ourselves, then why would anybody else.
So if you find yourself running shy of promoting your business at every given opportunity, stop reading the business books. Start working on building your own self-confidence and embracing potential rejection as a way to learn how to succeed. The transformation of a business can be quite incredible when the owner can stand up and be proud and confident about what they do and not afraid to share it with everyone.
And yes, you will get it wrong at times. But learn from these mistakes. Thank anyone for pointing out any mistakes or flaws and let them know you will take their feedback on board and be in touch in the future when you have addressed their point.
Failure can be deemed as a prerequisite for success
As James Dyson said:
“I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution.”
Winston Churchill was initially thought of as a political failure as he was defeated in every election for public office until he finally became the Prime Minister at the age of 62.
So overcome your fear of failure. Get up, get out there and promote your business with confidence and pride.
