David Ogilvy: 7 Marketing Quotes from the Father of Advertising

Marketing trailblazer David Ogilvy, has in many ways defined the business world as we know it today. Through his company Ogilvy & Mather, Ogilvy worked with countless well-known brands from Rolls Royce to Dove, crafting some of the most effective advertising campaigns ever created.

The following quotes from the father of advertising, are examples of his timeless approach to advertising and gives us a glimpse into the mind of the man himself:

1. “The more facts you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement’s chance for success invariably increases as the number of pertinent merchandise facts included in the advertisement increases.”

Ogilvy was a firm believer in providing the customer with the facts from the get-go. Of course, you’ve no doubt heard that benefits, should come before features, and Ogilvy agreed: “The key to success is to promise the consumer a benefit — like better flavour, whiter wash, more miles per gallon, a better complexion.”

But that doesn’t mean they should be substituted for the facts and features of a product or service. After all, how likely are you to buy something without having the faintest idea of what it does?

2. “Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.”

It’s always better to tell the truth, rather than relying on heavy-handed and misleading techniques. However, common-sense should prevail and compel you to forever remain faithful to the facts. Consumers aren’t stupid – particularly in this day and age – and if you’re bending the truth, at some point or another, you’ll come unstuck, which is a difficult position to come back from. Having said that, it doesn’t mean your truth needs to be boring, as the man himself said, make it fascinating. 

3. “Another profitable gambit is to give the reader helpful advice or service. It hooks about 75 per cent more readers than copy which deals entirely with the product.”

Ogilvy defines two kinds of helpfulness:

1. Helping a prospective customer understand the product
2. Offering the consumer valuable advice and information free of charge

The latter point is an early iteration of content marketing. By offering someone a thought or some words of advice, free of charge, they’re much more likely to return to you in the future. 

For example, Ogilvy suggested offering free recipes for companies in the food industry. This is a compelling idea, as it increases the chances of customer engagement, without focusing your marketing solely on the product itself.

4. “Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”

Whether you’re writing copy, designing a new website, or undertaking any form of marketing, it’s essential to be completely transparent about your objectives. As Ogilvy elaborates: “Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing. Their advertisements look like the minutes of a committee.”

5. “You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it.”

One of the cardinal sins of marketing, and many other walks of life, is being uninteresting. In order to grab engaged interest, you need to be charismatic; there is simply no way around it when you’re trying to sell something. No matter how niche your product or service is, there will always be competition in some form, so it’s important to steal a march on them.

In order to gain people’s attention, you need to understand who they are, what they want, what interests them, and what motivates their behaviour. By gaining this valuable insight into the customer, you’ve got an excellent opportunity to speak to them about something they hold an interest in, which makes what you have to say far more appealing.

6. “The consumer isn’t a moron, she is your wife.”

This idea brings all of the previous points together, and without it, nothing much is going to happen. If you don’t take the time to understand who your customer is, there will be no big idea, you won’t be able to provide all the facts, and you certainly won’t be capturing the right kind of interest in your product or service.

You need to demonstrate that you understand your customer’s thoughts and feelings, and you know exactly what they need. You can achieve this, in Olgivy’s words by: “…writing your copy in the colloquial language which your customers use in everyday conversation.”

7. “Golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a coherent image, and the stability to stick with it over a long period.”

Ogilvy was a big advocate of brand consistency, and his ideas on this subject are still steadfast to this day. Ogilvy understood that, in order to achieve brand consistency over the long-term, you must first define exactly what your brand is with a certain amount of discipline and restraint. Ogilvy says, “Most manufacturers are reluctant to accept any limitation on the image of their brand. They want it to be all things to all people … They generally end up with a brand which has no personality of any kind, a wishy-washy neuter. No capon ever rules the roost.”

Takeaways 

David Ogilvy based his career around 7 core principles that we’ve mentioned in this blog:

1. Give the Facts
2. Be Truthful
3. Be Helpful
4. Have a “Big Idea”
5. Don’t Be Boring 
6. Understand Your Customer 
7. Stay True to Your Brand

These were covered in his book, “Confessions of an Advertising Man”, released back in 1963. And although at the time of writing, these principles are 57 years old (in actual fact, they are probably older given Ogilvy started his agency in 1949), all 7 are still incredibly essential tools in the modern marketer’s arsenal, and you’d be foolish to dismiss them.

Of the 7 quotes above, which one is your favorite and why? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/quotes/david-ogilvy-7-marketing-quotes-from-the-father-of-advertising/

The Problem Is Not Actually the Problem: Here’s Why

With my understanding of the Three Principles, which is deepening month-by-month, I’m becoming more curious about whether the ‘problem’ that we think we have, is really a problem. Not for one second am I dismissing a persons’ experience; I’m human after all and I encounter challenges and what I think are ‘problems’ just like the next person.

However, I know that when we get lost in our thinking, we can create problems that aren’t problems. If a problem was actually a problem, then we would all react to the ‘problem’ in the same way. However, it is our perception of our external reality, our thinking about what we perceive to be the problem. As we don’t all react to the ‘problem’ in the same way, the problem is not the problem. I’d like to explain this further, to help you see that this is the case.

I’ve worked with many people over time with such a broad range of presenting issues. I remember the heading ‘Presenting Problem’ being a prominent part of assessment tools that form part of the admission process across the range of mental health and addiction services.

Typical presenting problems have included:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Social isolation
• Work pressures
• Relationship difficulties
• Assault
• Progressive drug or alcohol use and possibly using substances via higher risk routes
• Homelessness
• A range of related physical health issues – DVT, Cancer, Diabetes, Asthma

I’d like to just briefly highlight some of the presenting problems that I’ve mentioned and show you that, through conversations that I’ve had with clients (respecting confidentiality of course), how we can learn quickly that the initial presentation is not the problem. Not only that, when the individual has realised this for themselves, it has changed their life.

Problem #1

‘Simon’ had a diagnosis of depression and was now starting to avoid social situations as he didn’t feel confident enough in groups. Through a conversation I learnt that Simon was just about holding down a full time job and was experiencing a lack of confidence in it – their boss was telling them that they need to improve their performance and was providing support systems in the workplace to do this.

We learnt together that Simon had once been told he ‘wasn’t good enough’ by his step-father and he carried that statement with him for almost 30 years. He’s generally been able to carry on with his life and feels confident most of the time.

Simon realised though, that the feedback from his boss had reminded him of being told he wasn’t good enough by his step-father many years ago. Simon gained an understanding that his feelings were as a result of his thinking in the moment, that he had carried an opinion from someone (which is not based on fact) over time and it had become part of his belief system. He had spent most of his life looking for confirmation to validate a statement made by one person.

This is why the comments from his boss (who he otherwise described as being very supportive) seemed to reinforce his step-father’s statement. He gained an insightful understanding that his experiences were actually coming from himself – his thinking.

I wonder if this is something you can relate to on any level?

Problem #2

Michelle was presented as suicidal and had recently experienced a miscarriage with what would have been her second child. Through a conversation, Michelle explained that she had become pregnant following a sexual assault. She had decided to keep the child, against the wishes of everyone in her family – including her husband. While they tried to be supportive, she felt they never really understood her and why she had wanted to keep the child.

Michelle realised that she had wanted to keep the child as a way to avoid ‘grieving’ following the sexual assault. She desperately wanted to have the child as a way of making something good out of the bad that had happened to her. She hadn’t had an opportunity to talk with someone who was listening impartially to her story. She felt that the miscarriage was now forcing her to grieve and she was scared of the feelings attached to the grieving.

Michelle gained a new perspective and realised that her feelings (all coming from her thinking associated with her situation) were natural and they were meant to be like that. She realised being fearful of the feelings were actually heightening her anxiety.

Problem #3

Peter presented with daily alcohol consumption and had recently started binging on cocaine on weekends. He was experiencing what he called a high level of stress and he felt the substances were helping him to cope with it.

During the conversation, Peter explained that he had inherited the family business following his fathers’ death. The business wasn’t new to him and he explained that he’d run the business for a long time whilst his father had been alive. The business had been in the family for over 40 years. 

Peter realised that the pressure was coming from himself to perform. He understood that he had been able to trust himself up until this point (he was now in his 50’s). Peter was able to see all the evidence, which pointed towards knowing that he can rely on himself. He had experience over many years running the business and didn’t want to let anybody down.

Through the insight, he found that his substance misuse behaviour totally changed and he became completely abstinent.

What’s really the problem?

On each of the examples I’ve mentioned, I’ve only briefly broken the conversations down and with that, tried to help you to see that what we think is our problem, might not be. It could be a symptom of the problem and very likely will be the case.

It is not that we need to delve into the past and talk about those issues to heal the now. That’s not my message. It’s more a case that we can realise we’ve carried certain feelings – attached to thoughts, which aren’t true. Catching on to that understanding is life changing. It was for me and also those clients I have reflected on.

It’s also not about being a positive thinker, which of course is great, but that would sound quite judgmental towards someone if they are being negative thinkers. It’s more than that, it runs deeper. It’s within you – it always is, always has been, and always will be.

By our design, we are meant to feel a particular way in relation to certain things and quite often fearing how we’re feeling about the problem, can be the problem. 

Consider a stream of water as a useful metaphor – or our ‘stream of thought.’ The end of the stream, if you like, being the presenting problem. By moving further up the stream – through a heartfelt and correctly guided conversation, the further we go, the closer we are to finding where the stream starts (or where the problem really is). We might also find that the problem we thought we had is not a problem.

Actually, all we need to remember is that everything is created with a thought and we can choose to think about those thoughts in a different way in any given moment.

What about this article resonated most with you and why? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/the-problem-is-not-actually-the-problem-heres-why/

The Thing About Risks and Why We Love Our Heroes That Take Them

In light of Kobe Bryant’s death on January 26, 2020 from a helicopter tragedy, I am compelled to write about the risk profile that many of our heroes and industry titans must face and master on the path to success. The question I’m pondering is this: Do all successful people, by nature, become numb to risk-taking? Is a risk-taking tendency almost a prerequisite of success, regardless of industry? Are all successful people inherently delusional, as a prerequisite to pushing the boundaries required to excel in their lines of work?

Actor Will Smith said as much in a YouTube interview:“There’s a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have. You have to believe that something different than what has happened for the last 50 million years of history, you have to believe that something different can happen.”

In Bryant’s case, CNN reported minutes before the crash occurred, the pilot of the doomed helicopter had requested special permission to continue flying despite foggy weather conditions. The last thing heard from the pilot to air traffic control was that he was trying to avoid a cloud layer. It didn’t work.

Why had the pilot requested special visual flight rules clearance—which would allow a pilot to fly during poorer weather conditions than those allowed for normal visual flight rules? We don’t know what happened for sure on that flight, but it’s safe to say that risks were taken with the weather conditions—risks that may not have been taken under different circumstances, or with different passengers on board.

The truth is we will never know and the world is left mourning the loss of nine souls which left us too soon.

The Voice Inside

The journey to success is lonely. Those who have made it have learned to listen to their own inner voice rather than the voices on the sidelines telling them to quit or their goals are too lofty. This is a blessing and a curse, especially when it’s the inner voice that got you to the mountaintop.

It’s easy to think of other successful risk-takers whose stories ended prematurely. A recent example was pro racecar driver Jessi Combs, who was dubbed “the fastest woman on four wheels.” At age 39, Combs died trying to best her own record speed of 398 miles per hour, which she had recorded in 2013. She crashed in Oregon’s Alvord Desert.

Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs was known to push the envelope. He had been pushing the envelope his whole life. He tried to do the same thing with his cancer treatment and it didn’t work out. Live Science published a piece that explored, Did Alternative Medicine Kill Steve Jobs? 

The article notes, Jobs delayed the recommended medical treatment for pancreatic cancer for nine months. He attempted to treat his condition through alternative medicine and eating a special diet. It required surgically removing the tumor.

Not all risk-taking results in the uber-successful losing their life, but other things may be lost by “going all in.” Jim Carrey described “losing himself” while method acting as Andy Kaufman for the film “Man on the Moon.” An article by Josh Rottenberg for the Los Angeles Times described Carrey “plunging himself so deeply into the role that he was never the same again.”

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go.” – T.S. Eliot

Ripping the Envelope Open

Other successful risk-takers (who are still alive connected to their own identities, and continuing to reap big rewards from their risk-taking) are founder of Virgin Airlines Richard Branson, whose risk-taking exploits Alison Coleman writing for Forbes called “the stuff of legend.” “…as I’ve always said, no one ever reached for the stars from the comfort of their couch!” Branson said in Coleman’s Forbes interview.

A few more examples:

• Dropbox’s Drew Houston—who was told by Steve Jobs that Apple’s iCloud service would take over the Dropbox market—took a big risk in not selling to Apple. Now Houston’s company is worth $12 billion.
• Oracle’s Larry Ellison—Oracle wasn’t always the most popular database company in the world. Ellison had to take many risks to propel the once struggling tech firm to domination, once even mortgaging his house to keep the business going via a credit line.
• Uber’s Travis Kalanick—Uber’s co-founder, who also co-founded the now bankrupt file sharing company Scour Exchange, was accused of copyright infringement. Kalanick didn’t let failure stop him, and overrode funding challenges and many competitors in the ridesharing app space to ultimately become the behemoth.
• Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann—Silbermann already had an enviable job at Google when he left to form Pinterest. It wasn’t an instant hit, with only 3,000 accounts. Silbermann stuck with it, running the site out of a small apartment for a while. Eventually, the app was launched on iOS and the rest is history. The company is now valued at $12.7 billion.

“You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

You don’t have to be famous to be a risk-taker to fit this profile. I know that even in my own business, I have practiced “the success delusion.” There have been many times when I have had to convince myself that things are better than they really are in an effort to keep moving forward.

One of the reasons we love our heroes is because they step into the unknown and gamble. We, as mere mortals, marvel at it. I know that it isn’t that these champions are free from fear but that they are not paralyzed by it. Every person on that helicopter on Jan. 26 was a hero and a risk taker. May we celebrate their lives and may their legacy inspire every one of us.

What do you think—are all successful people inherently a little delusional?

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-thing-about-risks-and-why-we-love-our-heroes-that-take-them/

5 Highly Effective Strategies to Staying Motivated as a Business Owner

Every business has its high and low periods. We all wish for our businesses to make a lot of money and succeed. Unfortunately, it can take new businesses a number of years before they finally see any major profits. As a business owner, you may feel discouraged at waiting for your business to take off because you’re working 12+ hours per day and seeing no results. This may make you want to give up and throw in the towel, right?

Do you believe in your business idea? If so, then you should not give up unless you have no other choice. If you have the financial stability to sustain your business and its operation, then keep it going for as long as possible. Some businesses take longer than others to get off the ground. You simply need to increase your motivation so that you’ll work harder toward making it a success.

The big question is how do you stay motivated as a business owner? Below are 5 highly effective strategies for staying motivated so that you don’t give up prematurely:

1. Create Goals

Business owners tend to lose their motivation whenever they fail to create goals for themselves. After all, if you don’t have any goals to work towards, then how will you ever get the motivation to do anything? You can’t expect your business to succeed if you don’t know what you want to accomplish with it.

There are three different types of goals to set. You can set short-term goals, mid-term goals, and long-term goals. Short-term goals take between 2 weeks and 2 months to complete. Mid-term goals take between 12 months and 24 months to complete. Long-term goals take over 24 months to accomplish.

For example, short-term goals could include purchasing supplies or leasing a building. Long-term goals could include expanding the business to a second storefront or achieving one million dollars in net revenue after 3 years. With goals like these, it is easy to stay motivated and push yourself to achieving them.

2. Avoid Things That Waste Your Time

It is so easy to waste time in the 21st century. We have access to smartphones, laptops, virtual reality devices, tablets, and smart “IoT’ technology that keeps us plugged into the internet. You can watch television and movies or listen to music with just a few clicks or taps. Unfortunately, this can limit the productivity of an undisciplined person.

If you find yourself watching too many pointless videos or browsing social media when you should be working, then do whatever you can to avoid visiting these time-wasting websites. When you wake up in the morning, you should immediately become productive and then continue that productivity until you go to sleep. If you must take breaks in between, then do so without subjecting yourself to a distraction. Read a book, eat your lunch, or anything that won’t make you lose track of time.

3. Keep Track of Your Achievements

Does it seem like you work endlessly without any reward? That is how running a business feels to many new entrepreneurs. Don’t let this feeling drain your motivation because there are little rewards you probably don’t notice. Keep track of your achievements no matter how big or small. When your business makes its first sale, write down the date and time in a journal. When you receive your first positive comment from a customer, write that down too. By keeping track of the smaller achievements, you will notice a pattern of accomplishment. This will fuel your motivation to achieve much bigger things.

4. Set Deadlines

You must set a deadline for everything you want to accomplish. It is not enough to create goals if you don’t have a deadline for them. Otherwise, they’ll just be looming in the air without knowing when you’ll complete them. A deadline helps avoid procrastination and encourages motivation so that you can get more work done. This not only applies to you, but everyone else who works under you too.

5. Maintain a Positive Environment

Negativity is the killer of motivation. You cannot stay motivated and grow as a person if you have negative people in your environment. This applies to both your home and work environments, but especially in business. If you have employees who are not committed to the job, then get rid of them immediately. A positive environment makes you feel more enthusiastic so you’ll try harder. That is what you should strive to achieve within your organization.

from
https://addicted2success.com/motivation/5-highly-effective-strategies-to-staying-motivated-as-a-business-owner/

The Top 5 Ways to Improve Self Growth While Managing a Business

You cannot grow your business unless you grow yourself too. Personal growth is often ignored by aspiring entrepreneurs because they assume all their research and learning takes place before they start their businesses. They are wrong. What you must understand is that personal growth is an ongoing task. As you continue to run your business and its operations, you will need a continuing education to experience your own personal and professional growth. Without this growth, you will lack the knowledge and skills needed to improve your business.

Many professional people require a continuing education, including doctors, lawyers, and real estate brokers. When there are changes in technology, consumer demand, and competition, you must master the art of self-growth in order to keep up with these changes. Otherwise, you and your business will fall behind and fail.

Do you need help improving your self-growth while managing a business? If so, here are 5 ways to do so:

1. Increase Social Interactions with Team Members

Isolation impedes self-growth. People are naturally social creatures, which allows them to work harder when they confide in their colleagues. Do not try to do everything yourself or else you’ll become stagnant and unmotivated. The benefit of a team environment is that you can rely on your employees and team members for knowledge and support. They can help you grow just as much as you can help them grow.

2. Take a Break

New startup businesses are very time consuming to run. Business owners are so busy setting up their operation and putting everything together that they don’t have much time for themselves. There is nothing wrong with being a workaholic as long as you know your limitations. Sometimes prolonged overworking can decrease productivity in the workplace.

Devote at least one or two days per week to yourself. If you have employees or family members to help you run your business, then let them do so. This will give you time to reenergize yourself and develop a better train of thought on how your business is doing. When you come back to work, your cognitive state will be restored. That will allow you to perform better on the job.

3. Learn One New Thing Each Day

You must break the habit of thinking that you know everything. That is why you should go out of your way to learn one new thing each day. Take online lessons that teach you a new skill or simply watch educational videos for free on YouTube.

The internet gives you access to unlimited amounts of information. Most people abuse this privilege by wasting time watching cat videos and other things that mean nothing. There is no better way to expand your personal growth than through learning and education. Even if what you learn has no direct impact on your business right now, it may have an impact in the future.

4. Accept Failure and Learn

The reason so many people fail to grow is they are afraid of failure. Can you see the irony here? People do not attempt new things because they are afraid of failing at them. So, they hold themselves back from doing anything that will advance themselves and their businesses. That is the ultimate failure in the end.

It may take some mental discipline, but you must learn to accept failure and treat it as a gift rather than a curse. When you attempt something and fail, you have the opportunity to learn from that failure. That is a piece of personal education which cannot be taught in books or videos. Once you learn from that failure, you can take steps to prevent yourself from doing it again.

5. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Do you tend to stay in your comfort zone? If so, get out of your comfort zone immediately. How can you grow in business or as a person if you keep yourself in a comfortable place? When some business owners make a little bit of profit and things are looking good but stable, they tend to keep it that way. They don’t take any more risks to increase their profit margin because of the chance it could backfire.

In the end, you have no choice but to get out of your comfort zone. That is the only way self-growth and personal development are possible.  

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/the-top-5-ways-to-improve-self-growth-while-managing-a-business/

How to Create Your Own Measures of Success

Get a college degree, find a high paying job, meet your soulmate, buy a house, get married and have kids. The exact order of events which seems to greatly measure how successful or unsuccessful a person is. Skip one or get the order mixed up and you run the risk of not being seen as the perfect example of a successful person. But what is success anyway?

This popular word seems to denote a person who is on top of the world – but what that top represents might vary from person to person. The point is that only you can create your own measures of success because by blindly following the mold, you might find yourself less than happy at the end of the day. 

There are stories of people who have built three businesses before graduating from college and whose lives are completely filled up with happiness due to this achievement. But there are others who find little to no happiness in career-related achievements. And that’s okay. The whole point of happiness lies in figuring out what makes you feel good and sticking to it no matter the times. Here are some tips to help you in such an endeavor.

5 ways to create your own measures of success:

1. What matters to you? 

The first step to success is figuring out what the meaning of life is for you. Think about what makes you happy. Is it your significant other? Do you rejoice by the mere image of yourself surrounded by five kids? Or do you feel that the only way you can be happy is by climbing the corporate ladder all the way to the top? It doesn’t matter where you are going – it just matters that you are happy while doing it.

It’s also very important to stop comparing yourself to others. People are different. Just because you might be ready to move to a new place and your best friend isn’t does not mean that he/she is less competent or resilient than you. It just means that you are two different people with two very different goals in life. Focus on your goals and where you want to be ten years from now. 

2. Inner fulfillment should prevail over material things

Having a lot of money, designer clothes and a lavish home might sound like a matter of prestige, but it’s inner fulfillment that will bring about true happiness. So don’t focus on accumulating material wealth, thinking that it somehow measures how successful you are. 

Instead, work on finding your true calling in life or your passion. Whether that’s helping others through life or saving different animal species from extinction. Don’t find your dream to be too big. If you can dream it, you can certainly achieve it – all with a bit of effort. 

“Life is an echo. What you send out, comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give you get. What you see in others exists in you.” – Zig Ziglar

3. Set goals and commit yourself to the journey 

Have you figured out what would make you happy in life? If you were to achieve it down the line, you would feel like the most successful person that has walked the Earth? The epiphany that uncovered your hopes and dreams won’t mean much unless you figure out a way to turn your dreams into reality. To do that, you need a plan – one that would include all the steps separating you from your version of a fulfilled life. 

Bear in mind that setting goals is the easy part – it’s actually working towards achieving them that’s a challenge. Focus on every step of your success journey and don’t skip any steps. All of them will lead you towards your version of happiness – the only version that should matter to you. 

4. Always do more than the day before

Not every day will be the best day of your life. There will be moments when the best you can give is 20% of your maximum capacity, and that is perfectly fine. But you should never give up on yourself – even if it feels like you haven’t been reaching your goals as planned. There will come a time when you will feel more rested and enthusiastic about the journey, and that’s when you should give it all you got. 

Commit yourself to giving just a little bit more than you were willing to give yesterday and a little bit less than you will give tomorrow. That will bring you closer to your ultimate goal of success and the feeling of progress will almost be tangible. And that’s when you will really start to feel like you have set the right measures of success for yourself. 

“The only thing that has kept me around is my effort.” – Ray Lewis

5. Be ready for setbacks

The road to success and happiness is rarely a smooth one. If there’s one thing you can definitely count on it’s that there will be roadblocks as you go about your way. It might seem like the world is working against you at some point, but this is why you need to develop some resilience and not be discouraged. Instead, learn from the things that went wrong and focus on fixing the error of your ways.

Ultimately, mistakes won’t be the only thing stopping you from complete happiness. Other people will too. As you start to create your own measures of success and happiness, you’ll most likely notice that other people have their own idea of what success is. Since, naturally, every person believes their approach is the right one, you might be faced with some backlash and judgmental questions from others.

Your job is not to pay attention to them and never let them waver you. Once you stumble upon a person with completely different measures of success, don’t repeat their mistakes. Instead, work towards helping the other person achieve their version of success. Remember – that will help you fulfill your inner being, which is even more important than material wealth. If by helping others you also help yourself, there’s no reason not to make it a part of your daily rituals.

What does success mean to you? Share your thoughts and ideas with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/how-to-create-your-own-measures-of-success/

5 Things You Can Do to Fend off Boredom and Stay Focused

Curiosity is human nature and it’s only natural that humans will lose interest in a topic after a while. This has been a topic that has been extensively explored among children, teenagers and adults by a psychologist with similar results being reported from each of the categories. Human’s minds are therefore prone to boredom, making it important for each professional to spend some time to understand the factors that drive boredom and strategies the individuals needs to use to overcome boredom and focus on their profession and development.

What is boredom and who is prone to it?

Boredom refers to a situation where an individual has continually done the same or similar task leading them to lose interest in the task. Boredom is bound to occur amongst each person but there are various factors which influence boredom making it important to research and understand them.

Every person is prone to boredom while performing tasks, making it critical to review your routine and develop alternative tasks that counter it. This is important as you may have to do a task continuously or repeatedly due to it being your responsibility, routine or profession.

In this situation, you cannot simply abandon the task but need to identify activities that will divert your attention and refresh your mind. This helps refresh your thoughts allowing you to refocus attention to the task and complete it. Failing to develop alternative interest will surely result in you losing your focus which will lead to serious errors that you would be answerable and accountable for.

How can overcome boredom?

Boredom leads to anxiety and stress, due to the individual simply losing interest with the task of the job role. There are various strategies to overcome boredom that have been discussed below. Each one targets a different stakeholder thus helping create awareness on the overall topic.

“Focus on the possibilities for success, not on the potential for failure.” – Napoleon Hill

1. Be curious and inquisitive

Curiosity killed the cat is a proverb we learn at school to help prevent mind diversion and focus on a single topic but in real life, it pays to be curious and inquisitive as you gain more knowledge relating to various topics, thus helping broaden your subject understanding. Curiosity allows an individual to explore various subjects which is important towards diverting the mind and helping them retain interest with a task.

This is especially important while performing long and laborious tasks which can be mentally exhausting over long periods. If you have a curiosity towards a different task, you can keep checking for updates or techniques that will help you divert the bored mind and then return to the task after a few minutes.

2. Keep learning new tasks

Learning never ends and you must never stop learning if you hope to overcome boredom. Being able to take up challenges is an important learning curb that will help you eliminate boredom as you work. If you are a regular writer but also have a keen interest in HTML coding, you can set up a small HTML code project that you work on while writing.

This allows you to perform your regular task but also allows you to continue learning or testing your skills when boredom spasms affect you. It is important to make sure you do not overindulge in your learning or hobby as it could affect your performance targets. Also, make sure you inform your employer or team lead regarding your work strategy to avoid conflict at a later stage.

3. Take a break and clear your mind

Boredom is bound to occur while participating on a regular task every day. You can also adopt a strategy of taking short breaks and moving away from your workstation to help clear and divert your mind. Walks help you change your mindset and attention which eradicates boredom. 

Breaks are effective towards diverting the mind but is time consuming thus making this boredom eradication strategy less effective for working professionals who are expected to fulfil their work targets.

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee

4. Change roles and responsibilities

Boredom is a reality. In fact every regular employee understands its effect on performance and can choose to develop mitigation strategies. One effective strategy that helps overcome boredom in the workplace is changing staff roles and responsibilities altogether. Doing the same task daily is bound to lead to boredom so the management must have effective mitigation strategies in place to address it. 

An effective strategy to retain interest and focus in the workplace is swapping job roles. This helps divert individual attention from routine to new task which will help improve performance.

5. Consider a power nap

Power naps are discouraged by most organisations but studies performed on humans reveal that allowing staff to take a power nap will relax the mind and help improve concentration thus automatically reducing boredom. Power naps refer to taking a short nap/ sleep, especially after lunch.

This is important as people tend to fall very sleepy and tire between 2 and 4 PM due to them having consumed their lunch and most of their blood concentrated in their stomach. It is natural for people to feel sleepy and lose concentration after lunch which automatically affects their performance. Power naps allow the individual’s body to rest after lunch, thus allowing them to focus more on their work once awake.

Focus remains as being vital to performance but one which is often overlooked in the pursuit to meet targets. Over the long term perspective, the lack of concentration and focus will result in reduced productivity, which will negatively impact the individuals or organisations performance. It is therefore important for all stakeholders to recognize this concern as it impacts the performance irrespective of strict measures being put in place to address the issue.

What strategies do you use to stay focused? Share your thoughts with us below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/life/5-things-you-can-do-to-fend-off-boredom-and-stay-focused/