Motivation directly affects how much you are able to achieve in a day. It also affects your mood, focus, and persistence in the face of setbacks. Managing your motivation, and knowing what to do when motivation levels are low, is therefore an essential life skill. It is also a skill which is frequently underappreciated. People […]
Category: Motivation
One of the key challenges of succeeding in business is finding the motivation to do the work necessary to achieve audacious goals. Since there is no shortage of motivational speakers, self help gurus, visionary CEOs, and spiritual leaders, it would seem odd that motivation can sometimes be hard to come by. Part of the reason […]
It sounds cliché to repeat it again just like a mom’s tip to kids “Don’t be afraid of challenges and changes, my darling”, but there are probably some good reasons for us to revisit this motherhood statement. This year has been tough and challenging for many of us. The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically changed people’s […]
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How Are You Spending YOUR Time?
Your internship was just rescinded. Your work has died down recently. You were furloughed. You decided to push back your applications for an MBA program. Unexpected events are happening to each and every one of us. And these unexpected events will undoubtedly have had consequences. While you can’t control whether Lady Fortuna brings good luck […]
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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Wishing you a happy holiday season! Thank you for being a reader of the Consulting Blog. We look forward to sharing with you more insights on consulting, strategy, and innovation during 2020. Christmas is a time of year to eat, drink, and be merry! Hopefully you will be able to take a break from your […]
How do you keep people motivated enough to perform well and work for long hours in a high-pressure environment? It is a crucial question for management consultancies (and other professional service firms), which are – by definition of their core competence – dependent on good performers and dedicated employees. The key to keeping people motivated […]
I’m currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow, a wonderful book written by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. The book begins with a description of two different styles of thinking. The first method of thinking (which Kahneman calls System 1) is intuitive, easy, automatic, and emotional. This is what Kahneman means by […]
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Perfection
“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” ~ Salvador Dali Image: Twistedsifter
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Excellence
Three excellent quotes on excellence: “Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.” “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” “We must learn to honor excellence in every socially-acceptable human activity—and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. […]
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Celebrate, Motivate, Get Passionate
Three ideas for the new year. 1. Plan a Celebration It is common at the turn of a new year to set “resolutions” for things you want to do, change, or achieve in your life. The problem with new year’s resolutions is that, if they had been really important to you, you would have set […]
Being boss doesn’t mean you get to demand results – it means creating the conditions for those results to be achieved. If you’re running your own business and are responsible for a team, you’ve probably cast a judgmental eye over some of the trendy quirks and gimmicks that your contemporaries in some of the better-known […]
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Hope
“Hope is like a path in the countryside: originally there was no path, but once people begin to pass, a way appears.” ~ Lu Xun, Chinese author (Image Source: Flickr)
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Brevity
“Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.” ~ George Orwell (slight mis-quote) [Diminutive is a synonym for “small”.]
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The Gift of Giving
Merry Christmas to you, dear reader! This is a special time of year when people give gifts and send messages of happiness, peace and good will to family and friends. Christmas is a unique and valuable tradition because the practice of gift giving reminds us what life is all about. As social animals, our identity, survival and prosperity depends on being part […]
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The Perpetual Motivation Machine
Motivation is about being in the moment, and being fully present; in that state, deciding what you want and then taking steps towards it tend to happen naturally. How often do you hear of a baby that failed to learn to walk? The strange thing about motivation though is that it can often feel illusive. Why […]
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It didn’t work out
And that’s okay. What did you learn? And what do you plan to do next?
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Love People and Use Things
Don’t do the opposite (Source: Flickr)
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Success Is Possible
Not overnight. Not without hard work and creativity. Not without moments of doubt. Not inevitable. But possible. Possible for you. Success, for you, is possible.
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Carrying out a good resolution
Happy new year, and best wishes for a prosperous and productive 2015. Cavett Robert, founder of America’s National Speakers Association, once said that “character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” May you have the character and conviction to persevere with your plans for the year […]
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Overcoming Hopelessness
Changing obstacles into opportunities – be thankful for what you have, if you don’t get a miracle you can be a miracle for someone else
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Boldness
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.” ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
What can we learn from the life of such a man? NELSON Mandela passed away last Thursday at the age of 95. He was a man amongst men who fought and won the battle against Apartheid in South Africa. As the world continues to mourn his loss and reminds itself of Mandela’s heroic leadership and […]
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Brick Walls
Giving you a chance to show how badly you really want it ARE you experiencing unexpected difficulties? Has your progress stalled? Have you hit a wall? You may feel irritated, angry and frustrated, but be thankful. Brick walls are there for a reason. They are there to stop your competition, to challenge and test you, […]
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To Whom It May Inspire: Persist
There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does DANIEL Pink puts forward the idea that there is currently a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. Pink presents the Candle Problem, an experiment invented in 1945 by Karl Duncker. The experiment works as follows: I bring you into a room […]