Lack of Time
You have a job, bills to pay, a family to feed, and children to raise. Perhaps you are involved in your community, volunteering, fundraising, and helping others. How in the midst of all these responsibilities and commitments can you possibly find time to develop the skill of influencing others?
Like anything in life that is worthwhile having or that you desperately want to accomplish, you can and will find the time. You will MAKE the time.
Making the time to develop your influencing skills will save you grief and time in the long run. It might take time now to make it happen, but once you have developed your skills and you can effectively influence the people around you, at home, at work, and in your community, you can operate more effectively. You will have the ability to get people onboard, decreasing the amount of time it takes to get something done. You will reduce your level of stress at home and in the workplace and life will move more smoothly. In the end, you will save far more time and effort than you spent developing your skills.
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Lack of Commitment
Commitment is intimately linked to finding time. You can have all the time in the world, but if you are not committed, then you will not succeed. What does commitment mean? It means determining why you want to do it and creating a plan to get it done. Commitment is about priority. If something is a big enough priority in your life, then you will commit to it.
Reflection: Make a list of the priorities in your life and put them in order of highest priority to lowest priority. Now take a moment to decide where in that list of priorities your goal of becoming a more influential person is. What can you change in your list of priorities? Does it have enough priority in your life to become a commitment?
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Lack of Incentive
Perhaps you work in a job in which you are not in a leadership position or perhaps you don’t have children. Maybe you work at a call center and live alone. I guarantee you still can have influence in your environment at work, personal life and community. But first you have to determine what is important to you. Is there something at work that you would like to see change? Is there something in your neighborhood that could be improved? Is there someone you see potential in?
Reflection: Make a list of things at home, at work, and in your community that you think needs to be changed or improved. You can split your list into those three categories—home, work, and community—and fill in at least one example in each. Now choose one that you can work on.
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Lack of Mentors
You might feel overwhelmed and confused at the idea of starting this journey and that is okay. But there are mentors all around you, if you look. A mentor is someone who has experience in what you want to accomplish. You just have to look for one.
Reflection: Consider the people in your life and make a list of those who have been a real influence for you. Make another list of people who you think are influential or are good leaders. Perhaps you will feel comfortable approaching one or more of these people to talk about how they do what they do, either now or as you work through this book.
I can act as a mentor for you through this book. Someone who has been a real influence in your life, such as a parent, a teacher, or a coach, can be a mentor. Someone at work who is an obvious leader, such as your supervisor, can be a mentor. Someone in your community, such as a member of your church or someone with a volunteer organization, can be a mentor. You just have to find someone you admire and with whom you feel comfortable and ask them to mentor you. If you don’t want to be quite that forward or formal, you can ask if they will sit down and talk with you about how they successfully lead and influence others.
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