By: Bayou Trésors ​Staff

Have you recently set a life-changing goal? If you have, that’s admirable!
According to Psychology Today, when we want to change some major aspect of our lives, “the simple act of setting a goal makes it more likely that we will reach it.”
So, it’s healthy to set goals, these targets are the precursors to positive life changes.

But what if you find yourself setting goals that end up collecting dust? And every time you recall one such missed target you feel like a failure? If you find this happening in your life, rest assured that you are NOT a failure. What you might need to do is reassess the size of your goals.
For example, think of your favorite food.
For me, it’s strawberry cheesecake.
Every time I sit down to eat a slice of cheesecake, I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself.
You might feel the same way when you’re poised to eat one of your favorite foods.
But suppose I try to eat the ENTIRE slice of cheesecake in one bite? Will I be successful?
No. I will end up looking like a cheesecake covered mess, and that’s if I don’t end up choking to death.
You probably get the point I’m attempting to make.

I know that I can eat cheesecake, but I can’t eat too much all at once. The same principle applies to life and goals. Even if it’s something you love, you shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew. Otherwise, you’ll probably end up making a mess of things and feeling bad about yourself.
It’s much better to set reasonable, achievable goals. 

But how does one do this? The Psychology Today article mentioned at the outset of this article suggests the following steps:

• Create a list of major goals.
• Break each goal down into smaller steps.
• Brainstorm how you’ll overcome potential obstacles to your goals.
• Be kind to yourself as you work to achieve your goals.

So, perhaps your ultimate goal is to open a bakery. That’s an incredible goal, and you can definitely see it to fruition. To do so, you might break it down into smaller steps.
For example, you might begin by using Google to research ‘How to Start a Bakery.’ That would be step one. You could give yourself one week to carry out the research. The next step might be to speak with a person who owns a bakery and ask them what they did to open the business. You can give yourself another week to accomplish that goal. After that, you might use your research to create a business plan, which will likely take two or three weeks. Notice that you’re giving yourself plenty of time to accomplish each of the small steps that will lead to your ultimate goal. This way, you’re not overwhelming yourself with too many tasks.

Setting reasonable goals may be a slow process, but sometimes ‘slower yet persistent’ is better. In fact, it may be exactly what’s necessary to achieve major life-changing dreams.  ​

By: Bayou Trésors Staff ​

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As you build your business and your clientele grows, you’ll need more talent. This means you’ll need experienced team leaders, or managers, to help guide this new talent.

So, what qualities should you look for in a manager? The lists below address this.

Experience in the field.
The manager should have experience in the specific job that they’re hired to oversee. This means, if you’re hiring someone to oversee a group of office assistants, the candidate should have previous experience as an office assistant. Many new CEOs make the mistake of hiring managers from outside industries who have no hands-on knowledge in the field their meant to oversee. This means they’ll have a tough time relating to the team they’re assigned to guide. They won’t be able to relate to their specific challenges and day-to-day tasks. It can also lead to the manager making poor decisions on behalf of their staff. It’s much better to hire someone with years of on-the-job experience.

Poise under pressure.
Team leaders must often rally their staff to meet deadlines. This sort of pressure is not for everyone. Many skilled people suffer from anxiety, and they thrive in non-management roles. This is fine. Everyone’s different. And there is a place for these talented individuals in your company. However, when hiring a manager, you want to find someone who can work quickly, work with a clear head, and maintain poise in a high-pressure environment. This is crucial, because a manager who remains calm and effective under stress encourages their team to do the same. Similarly, someone who is not cut out for this sort of pressure will display extreme anxiety, which will negatively affect team morale.
  
Excellent communication skills
Proficient managers value communication and use it effectively. This means they understand that communication is a multifaceted skill. Presenting to a large audience is quite different from speaking to a person in a one-on-one setting or sending an email to a colleague. A good manager should be skilled in all aspects of communication. They know how to grasp the attention of a large audience by leveraging proper modulation, gestures, and word choice. They also utilize active listening, nonverbal communication skills, empathy, and appropriate social etiquette during conversations with individuals. In addition to this, emails, texts, and social media messaging platforms are also used properly and with good manners. This leads to a clear understanding of what’s expected from each team member. It also ensures that every member of the team feels respected and capable of producing good work.

Foresight that helps them make wise decisions
A solid and dependable manager makes wise choices. This is because they are teachable. They use previous events and insightful guidance from others to predict various outcomes. Then, they make decisions that lead to the outcome that is best for the team. Instead of making reactive decisions based purely on emotion, they rely on foresight to lay out plans that lead to positive results.
                                                                                       *****

While studying each candidate’s application and observing them during the interview process, look for:

How they communicate with you
Are they prone to talk over you? Do they overshare? Are they able to maintain appropriate eye contact with you? When interacting with you and with other members of your staff, such as your receptionist or personal assistant, are they polite? How well do they listen?

Their level of anxiety during the interview
It’s understandable if the applicant is a bit nervous. That’s only natural. Take a moment to observe how much their nerves affect their performance during the interview. Are they able to answer your questions coherently? Are they poised? Do they have the wherewithal to ask you insightful questions? Are they noticeably fidgety or demonstrating other symptoms of anxiety?

What do their references say?
Do their references say they manifest leadership qualities? Do their previous employers say they seemed more personally ambitious or more of a team player? Do their previous employers say they maintained positive relationships with their colleagues? Or were they known as a bit of a hothead? Were they ever accused of racist or sexist behavior?

Study their previous body of work
Is their work innovative? Is their work a good fit for your company and its vision?

                                                                                         *****

Listed below are a few questions you might pose during the interview process.

• What aspects of your previous job did you enjoy most?
• What would you have changed about your previous job?
• Let’s say your supervisor gives you a directive that, though not illegal, feels morally wrong. What do you do? And why?
• Tell me about a time when you solved a problem on the job.
• One of the employees under your supervision has a disability that is getting worse and affecting their performance. Though they’re working as hard as they can, they continue to underperform. How do you handle this?
• In your opinion, which quality is more important in a leader and why: empathy or determination.

The correct answer to each of the above questions depends on the type of culture you aim to promote in your company.

But if you want to hire a manager for the long haul, who will have a lasting positive influence on the company, you’ll want to look for an experienced and skilled communicator who is humble enough to make wise decisions and who leads with empathy. 

By: Bayou Trésors Staff

-Charlie Chaplin

The path to success can be long and full of obstacles. But when you finally reach your goal, the feeling of accomplishment you experience is so powerful that it makes you realize every step of the arduous journey was worth the effort.

Anticipatory reflection on that soon-to-be-realized moment of joy can push us through the toughest parts of the journey.

But what if, instead of lingering in daydreams of success and accomplishment, our thoughts veer towards nightmares about failure?

What can happen in that case?

One possibility is that we become so afraid of failure that we stop moving forward and give up on the journey.

This can lead to living with regrets and later looking back on some of the biggest opportunities we were offered with sadness as we ask ourselves, “Why did I pass that up?”

There’s nothing strange about finding failure frightening. It’s completely understandable. But living the life you deserve and finding happiness in reaching your goals requires learning how to overcome a fear of failure.

One thing that can help is to try and replace the word “failure” and its negative connotations with phrases like “learning experiences” and “life lessons.”

The point is to think of every experience in your life as a chance to learn and grow.

So often, we’re trained to view situations as competitions in which we can either be “the winner” or “a loser.” But this isn’t how life actually works in the grand scheme of things.

Every day, there are moment-to-moment lessons that can redefine our path forward, if we have the courage and humility it takes to learn from each lesson.

Life is not a competition, it’s a classroom. Viewing it this way, just may help to dismiss a fear of failure.

Psych Central has additional advice that you might find helpful. It suggests the following five tips.

1. See all the possibilities.
People who take risks know they may fail, but think it’s worth doing anyway. They also know they might succeed.

2. Visualize success.
Close your eyes and use your senses to paint a detailed picture of yourself successfully achieving your goal. Do this several times every day.

3. Redefine success and failure. Create your own definition of success and failure based on your personal values and goals. Success for someone might be a salary of $100 K and someone else might define success as a strong, happy marriage. Is not getting hired for a job failure or just a setback? You have a choice in how you think about these things.

4. Write it down.
Write down your successes every day and read over your list regularly.

5. Progress not perfection.
Even when you’re not perfect, you’re making progress towards your goals.

​Hopefully, those suggestions will come in handy as you courageously move forward with your goals and keep your focus the successful outcome that you’re going to celebrate as you near the finish line!