The 10 Commitments for Excellence in Business Each day presents an opportunity for you to master skills and further goals. Success often comes down to having the right attitude and smart decision making.
By Sherrie Campbell Edited by Dan Bova
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Whether you're deeply invested in your career or starting a business, successful people commit to certain decisions that help shape them into elite businessmen and -women.
Choose to make every moment count. Each day is an open opportunity for mastering skills and furthering goals. Success often comes down to having the right attitude and smart decision making.
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1. See the good.
Find ways to love the career you're in. Jobs aren't perfect and some aspects of them you aren't going to enjoy. Therefore, focus on bending your personality to fit your work situation.
Make the mental commitment to focus on solutions not problems. Allow no space in your mind for thoughts about lack or negativity. When you think in terms of lack, you make decisions from a negative place. And these decisions will bring more lack.
Learn to respect the value of each aspect of your career, understanding that being accomplished in the small things makes room for bigger opportunities.
2. Risk failure.
Commit to letting fear be your motivator but don't let it become your captor when you approach career goals. If you give into fear, it will seduce you into shrinking from your dreams.
Encountering a fear can make it easy to quickly rationalize walking away from a great idea. To be successful, take a risk and be willing to see what the consequences of your decisions are.
Consequences are teachers and guides because they give you quick answers. If you never take any risk, you'll never light up these signposts to direct yourself and your business in the right direction.
View each "no" as a prompt for a new direction or opportunity.
Learn to speak up. To get what you want, you have to go for what you want.
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3. Work hard.
Make the choice to first measure your success by your work ethic. If your pursuit of success is solely about profit, be aware that wanting money focuses the mind on the lack of it and needing more.
Worry blocks opportunity and keeps you focused on how much you don't have. Money is less likely to materialize under this mental and emotional dynamic.
Commit to trusting that your hard work will generate profit. What you feverishly chase may elude you. For that reason, focus on the goals that this day or moment requires and get them done. It is from this mindset that the money will come.
4. Expand.
Make the commitment to thinking big and never being satisfied with the goals you have achieved. Be grateful for what you have accomplished but not satisfied. Set higher goals.
Understand that to be highly successful after you have achieved a certain level of accomplishment, know that you're not done. You are just beginning.
Always ask, "What is next?" in regard to business expansion. Agree to never to downsize your dreams. To succeed at high levels, commit your thoughts to anticipating more achievement.
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5. Be consistent.
Commit to working consistently without pause, taking steps toward your business goals. It is through consistent and diligent work, coupled with patience and flexibility, that you can climb the ladder of success.
And pledge to work hard even when you're not yet reaping the benefits. It's the last man standing who ends up winning the race.
6. Be passionate.
Decide to be passionate about what you do. Passion is the fuel that ignites your desire to work hard. Just like a car cannot run without gas, a business cannot succeed without passionate, focused, hardworking people.
When passion is present, success can result. And the more success you experience, the more you will increase your passion. In this way passion rewards itself. When passion is present, limits are virtually nonexistent.
7. Maintain self-respect.
When you have self-respect, you take pride in yourself and exude an aura of knowledgeable confidence. Choose to demonstrate self-respect in how you run your business and treat those you work with.
Take daily steps to refine who you are in an effort to be ready for all decisions that need integrity and forethought.
When you are self-respecting, you make the commitment to be at the top of your game. You refuse to live by the "I will do it later motto." You get things done today to ensure a successful tomorrow.
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8. Keep things in balance.
You cannot get where you want to go alone. Decide to delegate things. To know when and what to delegate, be aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
Choose to delegate tasks to others who are more skilled in your weaker areas or turn to people who have the time to do what you can't. The minute you think you can do it all on your own is when you open yourself up to failure.
9. Nurture relationships.
Make an effort to enter business relationships intelligently and nurture them deliberately. Decisions about whom to work with are as essential to building a successful career as is your knowledge, work ethic and passion.
Interview people smartly. Thus you are more likely to keep toxic people out of your business. When you find the right team members, intentionally nurture their success, individually and collectively, keeping morale high and infusing them with your passion, vision and purpose.
10. Seek feedback.
Commit to not being a know-it-all. Actively seek feedback to grow. Each piece of feedback is a mustard seed of knowledge, capable of furthering to expand you and your business. If you cannot expand as a person, you cannot expand your business. Feedback forces you to keep an open mind and be available to opportunities never an option before.
To be successful in business, commit to making self-aware, wise choices. Your success is a reflection of your decisions, attitude and thinking. If your business isn't where you want to it to be or you're ready to set higher goals, start making new decisions. To grow your business, you have to grow yourself.
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