Several books and articles have recently appeared offering advice on how to achieve excellence. Others suggest that they will help you succeed in life.

My goal is more limited. I just want to give you a way to improve performance in an area that matters to you.

I do not offer something that takes no effort and magically produces success. No such magic exists. And I do not offer you a rigorous improvement program that will absorb the majority of your energy and attention.

What I do offer is something that’s worked for me, for many of my friends, and for many of my coaching clients. It’s a simple process that goes like this.

Decide what you want to improve. Make it something specific like communications skills.

Work on one thing at a time. Don’t dilute your effort or divide your attention.

Decide how you’re going to measure performance. Some things can be counted. Others can be easily observed. Some require subjective evaluation.

Now pick a specific behavior that you want to improve. If you want to improve your overall communication skills you might decide to work on the specific skill of giving directions, or listening, or checking to see if you’re understood.

Have a way to record your performance. I like a small notebook that you can carry with you.

Before each event, think about what you want to do. That will help you concentrate.

After each event, evaluate how you did. Make notes.

Give yourself feedback or get feedback from others. Then decide how you’ll do things differently next time. Review your notes from time to time.

Keep planning, acting, recording, and critiquing until it’s time to work on something else. Then repeat the process.

There’s no magic here. This takes attention and effort. But it can pay off with significant improvement in areas that matter to you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.