5 Ways to Feel Successful at the End of Your Day
It’s late afternoon. Your energy is low. Your motivation is drained. There is so much left undone. Do you feel successful right now? Not so much.
If you carry that negative energy out the door, you’re in big trouble. When you finish your day on a low-energy note you end up:
- Feeling deflated and negative
- Burdened by guilt
- Carrying negative energy home
- Worrying about tomorrow
- Dreading the thought of going back
Who wants to live their life like that?
On the other hand, if you finish the day feeling successful you end up:
- Proud
- Satisfied
- Confident
- Positive
- Ready to carry that positive energy home with you
Sounds better, doesn’t it?
Here are five ways to end the day feeling successful.
1. Set an Exit Time Target
Determine what time you’ll be heading out of the office, and commit to an all-out assault effort up until that time. Make your last hour your best hour and you will go home feeling successful.
It’s all about intentionality. If you take a moment and program your brain to push through to the end, you can do amazing things.
Think about a runner nearing the finish line of a race. Great runners commit to an all-out burst of speed at the end. The result? The great satisfaction of success!
Set the time target. Put your head down. GO!
2. Blitz the Little Stuff
You don’t want leave the office with nagging, two-bit tasks weighing on your mind. There is great satisfaction in knocking out the small things in one burst of productivity.
Follow the two-minute rule. If it’s a two-minute task, do it. If not, defer it or delegate it. (Better yet – delete it!)
3. Define Three Key Priorities for Tomorrow
We tend to play this nasty game with ourselves. We put fifteen things on our to-do list at the beginning of the day, even though we know there is no way we can get them all accomplished. The bottom line is we lose the game even though we make the rules. And then we wonder why we don’t feel successful.
On the other hand, if I start my day by choosing three key priorities, I’ll be focused on things that really matter. And I’ll feel energized and successful.
Here’s the irony. If I have fifteen things on my list and only accomplish nine I feel like a loser. But if my list has just three objectives, and I accomplish six, I feel like a winner.
4. Take a Victory Lap
Before you leave work ask yourself, “What was the very best thing that happened today?” This habit will help you end the day on a successful note.
You might end up saying something like, “You know, a lot of things went wrong today and I really wouldn’t want to live this day over again, but dang it – I did this!”
Celebrating your victories brings satisfaction, confidence and an overall sense of being successful in your work.
5. Take on a New Role
You’re off work! And that means you can leave it all behind. The best way to do that is to change your role.
I was a salesperson; now I’m a father. I was a manager; now I’m a friend. I was a consultant; now I’m a volunteer worker.
The more fully immersed you are in your new role, the easier it is to leave your old role behind.
You have it in you to end your day feeling successful, but it takes intentional effort on your part.
Do it right, and you’ll be fired up and ready to get back at it the next day, feeling refreshed, confident, and successful.
