Recently, I had an epiphany; a euphoric moment of clarity that I’d like to share with you all.

Let’s take a quick look at our lives. You go to work and then you go home. Let’s divide the two and call one your professional life and the other your personal life. At home, just like at work, we have goals. They may involve your partner or children but they are milestones that you’d like to see achieved. Perhaps you would like to buy a home or see your children attend prestigious university, whatever it is, you have goals at home just like you do at work.

I’ve observed both business and personal tactics that boast the ability to improve your output but one thing remains true; people hit their goals in their personal lives more often than they do in their professional lives. Why?

Examine your family. You didn’t pick your uncle or brother, nor did you pick your kids or mother, you were just born into them. The only people you get to pick are your friends! Friends are a mutual agreement and I take pleasure in telling my friends how much I appreciate them.

However, when it comes to our professional lives, we do have a great deal of choice. We can choose who we want to work for and with. We can choose what kind of industry we want to be a part of and what role we want to fill within that industry.

So in your personal life, you don’t get many choices but you’re hitting your goals. In your professional life, you have many choices but are not performing as powerfully as you’d like.

Why?

Start to think of the things that happen at work that don’t happen at home. At work, we have policies and procedures to instruct, guide and provide us with an outline of how we should act and perform at the workplace. Do you have a policy and procedure manual at home for your partner and kids? No? Than how are you hitting your goals?

On one side, you pick your team and put into place policies and procedures and don’t hit your goals? The other, there’s little to no choice of family members and no polices and procedures, yet you are hitting your goals.

What gives? Something is missing.

Think about this hypothetical situation. You are the new person on an amazing marketing team. Towards the end of your first day you are handed a manual filled with policies and procedures. It instructs you, in detail, when you can take time off, what to do if you feel ill, how you can dress when at work and typically what you can and cannot do at work.

Now imagine you just got married. It was a beautiful wedding mostly filled with people you didn’t choose to be there, but it was a great time. After walking through your homes threshold for the first time as husband and wife, you present your partner with a manual filled with policies and procedures.

That’s ridiculous! There’s no way I’d do that to my new partner! You may be shouting at the screen right now.

Why not? How are they going to know what to do? They have access to your banking, health and other highly sensitive information. They could destroy your entire world in only a few moments but you don’t subject them to policies and procedures. Yet, you’re still hitting your goals. I wonder why?

Stay tuned on Thursday, June 27th as we release Part Two of our “Dump Your Policies” blog.

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