Playing Your Game
by Colle Davis, Executive Coach
You’ve chosen your game, and you have enough information and guts to at least play the game. So, now what? If you’re committed to success, commit to the game that you have chosen with your time, energy, heart, soul, and mind, and be willing to do whatever it takes until you become so good at your chosen Game, it’s what you live and breathe to do.
This process also means you will adhere to the ethics and guidelines of conduct expected within the game you’ve chosen, or the Game will eat you alive. Finally, becoming skillful at the Game also affects the balance in your life so you and your family can enjoy your success. You get to fail in one of these areas; choose wisely.
The first few rounds of the Game require practice, and as you make mistakes and faux pas, you become more polished. The critical part of your success is learning what works well and acknowledging what doesn’t work as well as you planned. Each mistake or blunder makes you better at your Game. Be willing to ask for help and take advice even if the new perspectives sound counterintuitive.
Play to win. There is no reason for you to take up your time, or anyone else’s time if you are not adding value to the lives of everyone you touch. Winners add value. Successful people love to associate with other winners. Winners like being around other winners, and they seek each other out. If you want to be around them, you must also be a winner.
Decide how you want the world to reward you for your efforts. This step is vital to fuel your success. These landmarks are essential for the feeding and protection of your subconscious. They fuel the super-power within you that produces all of your results. Teach the child part of yourself to expect rewards and expect things to go your way in the Game. The more you use your new skills to play the Game, the easier the Game becomes for you to enlist more of your resources: the more relevant the rewards, the more influential the incentive to succeed.
Seek out the best players and talk to them about what they see as the next step to more significant rewards. If you find you are competing with one of the best players in your field, reward yourself for being in their league, and then set your sights higher. For example, look at taking your boss’ boss’ place within two or three years. You can already take your boss’ position, aim higher.
When you reach the level where others see you as one of the best, you set your specific game’s standard. That level is a nice reward and often a significant milestone used to designate the epitome of success.
The key to winning the game is your ability to focus. If a request for your time or expertise does not further your career or improve your game, say ‘no’ to the request and go on to the next item, which may help your Game.
• Ask yourself this question each time you face a decision, “What do I want for an outcome?”
• Then, to set a higher standard, ask yourself a ‘magic bullet question’ regarding your game today, “What is in it for me?”
The answer to these two questions will keep those rewards coming and your excitement fresh as you travel the road called The Game. Knowing where you are going is the most crucial career-enhancing detail you possess. Taking on any task that does not further your game requires you divert time and energy away from what you say you hold near and dear. So be very careful not to squander your time because you will resent these distractions later in life.
Play to win, stay focused, reward yourself and others well, accept mistakes as part of the process, love what you do, only do what furthers your career, be the best you can be at what you do all the time, and have fun. These are the Game’s rules. Well, not really, the Game has no rules. But you have the outline and the playbook, become world known as the best in your field.
Let The Game begin.
For more hints, tips, and pressure to win, contact Colle Davis cdavis@mycoach.com or 804-467-1536 (EDT)
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PERCEPTION
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
– John Lubbock
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HABITS
What you do when you don’t have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it.
– Rudyard Kipling
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PLANNING
A man who does not plan for long ahead will find trouble right at his door.
– Confucius