How can you achieve Personal effectiveness? 7 Principles to know

How can you achieve personal effectiveness? A difficult question for many people to answer.

Many would rather blame others for the snail-speed progress in their lives than try to find ways to address the apparent disorder in their lives or underperformances at the workplace. 

Well, in the article, you’ll learn 

• What is Personal effectiveness?
• How you can achieve personal effectiveness
• 7 principles of personal effectiveness

What is Personal effectiveness?

Personal effectiveness is the ability of a person to use his/her skills and knowledge to have a positive influence on others in their quest to attain individual and corporate goals.

When you say a person portrays personal effectiveness, such a fellow maximizes their abilities, skills, and every resource at their disposal (including their time). 

In other words, people with good personal effectiveness are not wasteful. They produce results with what they have. That’s talking about their competencies, skills, and resources.

Some of the hallmarks people will observe when you’ve learned how to achieve personal effectiveness

You can learn personal effectiveness skills like any other skill. And when learned and duly applied, here are some of the traits and byproducts people will observe in you:

• Delivering high-quality work
• Causing positive influence on people
• Immense boost in your self-confidence 
• Ability to establish and maintain successful relationships
• Attainment of career advancement
• Earn the respect of others (including your colleagues), even as an expert in your area of specialty

How can you achieve personal effectiveness?

Everybody wants to exhibit personal effectiveness in their personal and professional life. But the fact remains that some things would have to get settled FIRST… for that to be possible. 

And that’s being clear about your values, goals, and priorities. When you have clarity on these matters, you’ll avoid the terrible state Peter Drucker talked about when he said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Also, knowing your values and priorities will help you set goals and equip you with the courage to follow these goals, regardless of what people say.

Little wonder, Steve Job once quoted:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

How can you achieve personal effectiveness? Practical Tips on improving your productivity 

1. Create and maintain a positive self-image

As said earlier, becoming efficient personally requires one to develop a good self-perception. And that means having a good self-concept regardless of what others think about you. 

You can learn how to build powerful self-esteem by being deliberate about it. However, remember, as a man thinks, so he is. 

2. Setting SMART goals is an important tip on how can you achieve personal effectiveness

Many find it hard to attain personal effectiveness because they allow themselves to get overwhelmed by busyness and ambiguous goals. In the real sense, productivity is not equal to being busy. 

That’s why you must learn how to set SMART goals. Yes, by SMART goals, we mean goals that have these five attributes:

• Specific
• Measurable.
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound 

3. Cherish your energy like gold

Have you seen how a possessor of gold protects his gold before? If you’ve not seen one, you should have an idea he’d cherish his precious metals– especially if they’re in large quantities. 

That’s exactly how you should value your energy– your strength– as it relates to time. Not wasting it on engagements that don’t matter is a practical tip you must observe in your quest to learn how to improve personal effectiveness.

4. Never allow yourself to get stuck in clusters of things

Getting stuck in a cluster of things can hinder you from portraying personal effectiveness at a peak level. As a result, you need to learn how to focus on a specific goal at a time. 

Because trying to achieve many things at a time will not only get you distracted and overwhelmed. But it will lead to real burnout.

5. Learn to be proactive through planning 

Personal effectiveness demands planning. As the saying goes, “he who fails to plan has planned to fail.”

Similarly, you must learn to plan because it helps you stay coordinated and organized in your dealings. Whether in your personal life, at work, or home. 

6. In learning how can you achieve Personal effectiveness, you need to know how to set deadlines

Your goals help your deadlines. And the deadlines keep you focused on the essence of the goal. But beyond that, it stretches you above distractions and the limitations they lose. 

For example, say you’re a self-published author, and you’ve written down on your to-do list for September that you want to publish a book in the next 30 days. Setting such a deadline keeps you focused and obliged to your goals 

7. Keep learning and collaborating with others

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence,” says Abigail Adams

Many are not showing personal effectiveness at work because of ignorance– not knowing what to do and how to do it. And that calls for continuous learning, coupled with networking with others in the community you engage with— either physical or online.

7 Principles of Personal Effectiveness

Aside from the tips on improving personal effectiveness, which we’ve considered above, here are the seven principles of personal effectiveness:

1. Clarity  

Understanding the place of clarity in both your intra and interpersonal relationships will help achieve personal effectiveness. 

It will affect how you communicate with yourself when setting goals and how you relate with others. Be it colleagues at work, friends, or family members. 

2. Agility and Learning 

Agility here refers to the enthusiasm with which you concentrate on what you do and have to do. And what keeps you agile on the right track is learning. One who’s not learning is as good as being dead. 

3. Discipline 

It’s not enough to make a commitment on paper— in writing. But you need the DISCIPLINE gut that many lack to execute whatever they’ve scribbled out in notepads, diaries, journals, or as the case may be.  

It helps you establish consistency in your actions and your communication– both verbal and nonverbal communication.

4. . Delegation of authority

To achieve personal effectiveness, you must admit that you need people to succeed– and that you can’t achieve all your goals by yourself. Therefore, you must learn how to delegate tasks, especially those you may consider time wasters. 

5. Refuse to overwork 

This principle shows concern for your health and the need to cushion the effect of stress inherent at the workplace or in life generally. By dedicating time for resting and relaxation. And that’s because only healthy people can be efficient with and through their lives.

6. Eliminate distraction

Here’s another essential principle of personal effectiveness: getting rid of distraction. That’s because distractions will always pop up in the quest to achieve your goals– and even personal effectiveness. 

7. Ownership

Ownership here refers to a person’s ability and willingness to own things that happen in one’s life, and not leave anything to chance. Thus, as a worker or business owner, you own the responsibility of growing in your job through proper execution of your job, according to predetermined standards.

Final thought 

The essence of personal effectiveness is to live a productive life as an individual. Whether at work or home. That’s why, in this post, we discussed personal effectiveness principles and tips. 

If you have any questions, you can use the comment section below.