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Law of Success Simplified – 5 :Execution


Nothing happens until you act. All the vision, all the planning all the strategies are useless if they are not executed and executed properly.  After your planning, and strategy is done, it’s time to put your dreams and plans to action. Execution is action.  You’ve set goals to lead you to your destination. You developed strategies for attaining your goals. You’ve acquired the motivation. It’s time to go.

The time to act is now. You can’t start tomorrow and you can’t’ start “someday”. Take your action plan, look at your first goal, analyze your strategy for reaching it, and begin the execution.  Action doesn’t mean blind action. You should have fairly good idea where you intend to direct your action and effort. What is required to see them to completion?

It’s always a good idea to consult who “had been there done that.”  In fact it could be part of the strategy, it’s not a linear rout in execution, its spiral and at times it’s “if-then” decision flow chart. There are many “go-backs”, “refine and redefine” moves. But despite all those changed paths and detours the time-schedule should be strictly adhered to.  

Look for motivation and small successes in the path of execution. You will not accomplish everything and reach at your goal in one go. The path could be long and winding. There might be hiccups, bottlenecks, hurdles, disappointments and failures.

 Why can even the most brilliant strategies and excellent plans go haywire in the execution and implementation phase? As per Gordon Woodfall,  former president and general manager of Thermo Fischer Scientific,  “When things haven’t gone as planned, it’s often because the process wasn’t well defined, we missed a step, or we didn’t follow a specific sequence”

Concentrating on opportunities and exploiting even the smallest one will help make you headway. Don’t waste your time and energy in dealing with petty problems, rather think creative, out of the box to circumvent them. Being proactive will help you identify them at the beginning stage where they are still manageable and before they become crises.  

We do need people and support to help us achieve success. Hence, it’s very important to identify the situations and tasks which can be off loaded or delegated to someone. The delegation would help you concentrate on more important tasks.

Be a team player, inculcate people skill; everyone needs help from time to time. Create mutually beneficial relationships with others. Making yourself available to help others when your talents and expertise are needed and seeking their help when you need it.

Asking for help is not a bad thing. Don’t shy from seeking people’s support and help. You will be surprised there are more people willing and eager to support and help you than you would have anticipated.

Sincerity and dedication don’t have any substitute. Howsoever small or insignificant a task may look, never approach a task tentatively or casually. The casual approach may cost you more in terms of time, effort and money, because a small screw which was tightened properly might bring down a huge machine causing lot of damage and unnecessary cost and drain on your resources.
Having a plan B is always a good idea, but it should not compromise the goal which you expected to reach using Plan A.  

While working towards achieving your goal there would be lot of tangles, and mess of unfinished things. Rid yourself of this debris. You should avoid the tendency of getting emotionally attached to the unfinished tasks and projects. If during the course of your work, you identify certain tasks or projects which are not contributing to your vision and have become irrelevant, jettison them instantly to save your ship.
With each endeavor you start as a novice, you learn from your mistakes. They are productive mistakes. All successful people have learnt from their productive mistakes. As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps, 1000 productive mistakes.

Interestingly today’s (12th March,2018)  google doodle honors a Chemist Sir William Henry Perkin, who accidently  discovered the purple aniline dye mauveine while trying to synthesize an anti-malarial drug, an excellent example of productive mistake.

The more actions you take the more productive failure you’ll experience. The more productive failures you experience, the more you will learn.

Turn your mistakes into learning opportunities by having measurable goals, always having learning attitude, never shy from seeking feedback – positive or negative. Keep on evolving and enriching your decision making system.

Happy learning, happy achieving, keep learning, keep failing, keep winning, achieve success.







KK

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