Deliberate Practice: 4 Ways to Immediately Change Behaviors

Individuals come to us because they want to build and maintain a reputation that communicates trustworthiness, confidence, knowledge, and most importantly, influence. The majority wants a quick fix, but nothing in life that leads us to success is a quick fix.

Being influential through every word you speak and every movement you make Monday to Monday takes practice.  That’s it…Practice.  You can’t read how-to’s in a book, attend a training session or rely on your title to be influential.  The hard truth is that being influential is a lifelong journey of practicing through day-to-day interactions.

Make a four-step commitment!

1. Clarity. To determine how much you need to practice, get clear on what you want. When you’re clear on what you want to achieve, you’ll be able to recognize when you’ve reached your desired outcome.
2. Feedback. It takes discipline to ask for feedback. Commit to asking for feedback every week.  Do what it takes to get motivated and focused so you can take action on the feedback, which will get you to your desired outcomes.

3. Take a look. If you’re not regularly seeing and hearing yourself through the eyes and ears of your listeners, you’re missing out on huge opportunities to improve. The only way you can clearly know how others perceive you is through video and audio recordings.  At your next meeting, simply press “record” on your tech gadget.  Audio record your phone conversations.

4. Recording yourself is useless without immediate playback. When you review your playback, do you come across the way you want?  What do you want to enhance or improve?  Trust what the video playback shows.  Nothing is more honest.

Check out Darren Hardy’s video on deliberate practice.

Drop me a note to share what you have done differently this week than other weeks to deliberately practice a communication skill or technique.  Tag me on my Facebook page.

Are you ready to maximize your effectiveness in client meetings and presentations? In “10 lies businesspeople believe about their influence,”  Download this resource now.