All this week, I have discussed what clients should expect from their attorneys and what attorneys should expect from their clients. Today, I conclude this series with suggestions that can make both lawyers and their clients more successful:
- Get Specific :: When you set a goal, try to be as specific as possible, because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal.
- Seize The Moment To Act On Your Goals :: Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of opportunities to act on a goal before they slip through your fingers. To seize the moment, decide in advance when and where you will take each action you want to take and be as specific as possible.
- Know Exactly How Far You Have Left To Go :: Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently.
- Be A Realistic Optimist :: When you are setting a goal, engage in positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. However, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal, as most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort and persistence.
- Focus On Getting Better Rather Than Being Good :: Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
- Have Grit :: Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals and to persist in the face of difficulty. If you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. Effort, planning, persistence and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.
- Build Your Willpower Muscle :: To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother – don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur. It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.
- Don’t Tempt Fate :: No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it, you will temporarily run out of steam. Many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.
- Focus On What You Will Do, Not What You Won’t Do :: Plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior; by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken. If you want change your ways, ask yourself, "What will I do instead?"
Source: "9 Things Successful People Do Differently" by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., published at The Huffington Post.