Tough organisations have a tendency to grind you down. The complexity, pressure, conflicting agendas, politics and bureaucracy all combine to make rapid progress extremely difficult. I don’t know what your reputational ambitions are; however, I’m pretty sure that they will be closely linked to your performance. If you are unable to make rapid progress in your work, you are unlikely to be able to advance your reputation very far.
Some people seem to have been born with tenacity, the rest of us need to keep working at it. If you want to develop your tenacity and persistence, work on these ideas religiously — and make sure you read to the end because these definitely apply to serious people working in tough organisations.
- Create Robust Habits: By definition tenacity is about repetition. Establish routines that ensure you keep reviewing what you’re doing to move forward, reminding yourself of your vision/goals. Doing these things daily, perhaps on the way to work, is the most likely way to establish a habit.
- Make it Visual: Perhaps the best reminders about your goals and vision are visual. If you can find some physical or visual representation of your goal, place it everywhere. Then, whenever you catch sight of it, pause a moment and think positively about what you are moving towards. A key benefit of a cue like this is others don’t need to know its significance to you.
- Cultivate Automatic Responses: There are lots of stimuli which can influence you quickly into places where you don’t want to go. For instance, someone may share a complaint with you and you begin to empathise with them, sharing the problems you are having. Before you know it you will be heading off down a dark negative road. Identify these triggers and begin to build safeguards into your responses. This is hard work and needs diligent effort. A great way to begin this is to ask different questions.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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- Keep it Simple: Once you’ve set your course, don’t keep rethinking it every time a challenge arrives. Plan in a regular (habitual) review every month which considers the serious questions about your strategy. Until then, just keep thinking of new ideas which will help you move towards your goals.
- Share It: This can be a tricky one, but carefully done, with the right people, sharing your goals and vision can provide a welcome boost when your energy begins to flag. Indeed, you might even decide to openly share the need to keep encouraging each other and staying positive — look out for each other’s motivation.
- Become Mr. Motivator: Not necessarily of others, but certainly yourself. Learn what makes you tick, what brings you down and what lifts you up. Make sure and become proficient at catching yourself doubting and turning this into positive motivation.
Finally, I know you are working in a tough organisation, and you may be wondering what the ideas above have to do with your serious world of work. Put simply, human motivation is emotional. You may like to believe that it can be rational too, and that is easy to argue. However, the rationale case is a means to satisfy more basic emotional need. Even if you are serious, inside, make sure and jazz it up a bit, have some fun and boost your energy to keep moving towards your goal.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
Ever felt overlooked, unheard, or stuck in office politics? You’re not alone. The Gautrey Influence Blog breaks down the real-world strategies behind leadership, influence, and power—giving you the tools to be heard, respected, and successful. Join 35,000+ professionals getting ahead the smart way—subscribe now..
💡 Benchmark your Influence: Take the Master of Influence Assessment (Free for Subscribers!)
👉 [Subscribe & Take the Assessment]