1.        First, write down your three targets for the following day before you go to bed at night.  Call your daily outcomes ‘targets’, not ‘goals’.  The world ‘goal’ in sports seems too broad, such as in soccer or football.  The word ‘target’ in sports is much more precise, such as in archery or rifle shooting.  Make them precise and specific.  Ask yourself this question:  ‘If I achieved only three things tomorrow but would still call it a good day, what would those three things be?’  Just by doing this small act every day you will see an immediate improvement in your performance.  (NOTE:  To get a copy of my weekly target sheet to manage your own performance or the performance of recruiters in your office, visit the free downloads section of my site at this link: www.recruitingmastery.com/freedownloads.html.
 

2.       Read every day.  When I first got into speaking and training five years ago, my friend and sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer and his staff helped me get started.  He wrote the foreword to my first book, gave me tours of his offices, and even had his staff videotape some of my presentations.  I’ll never forget what Jeffrey said one night at a speakers meeting:  “Read every day.  Read just two pages.”  Only two pages?  Why not set a target of reading two or three chapters every day?  I took his advice and found that by setting a daily target of reading only two pages from a business or a sales book, I ended up reading about three or four chapters every day.  But by setting such an achievable target, I was reading every day. It wasn’t just on the weekends, but it was every single day of the week.  Reading personal development and sales books is critical to improving.  But most people won’t do it because they say they don’t have time.  But everyone has time to read two pages a day.  It’s not how much you read that’s as important as creating the habit of personal improvement.  By setting this as a daily target, you’ll develop a disciplined habit of personal development and it will carry over into other areas on your desk.
 

3.       Each morning, choose to win.  When you wake up in the morning, you are given a choice.  Are you going to have a good day or a bad day?  Success isn’t earned, it’s taken. You take success by declaring your victory before you engage, and then you back it up with action.  The problem with this, the simple concept of choosing to win, is that most people will think that it’s so simplistic and they’ll overlook it.  But every day when you drive to work, say this to yourself:  “Today is going to be the most exciting and productive day of my life.”  If you think that sounds weird and is too simple, then test it.  Test it on yourself.  Say that to yourself every day for a week and if it doesn’t make a difference, then don’t do it anymore.  But if it does, then you have just unlocked one of the most overlooked secrets to achievement, and you can use this small daily discipline to give you better odds of success.
 You don’t have to attend a military school to lead a disciplined life.  If you can integrate these small daily disciplines of achievement into your personal life, then you’ll see big dividends at work as you become a more disciplined recruiter.


Copyright (c) 2008 Scott Love
Scott Love improves recruiter performance by getting recruiters to think at a higher level, to develop a better strategy, to master recruiting tactics, and to develop better work habits. He has created a simple step-by-step system of recruiting success that is replicable. Nearly 2,500 search firms and staffing agencies from sixteen countries have invested in his training tools. Visit his website for free videos, training tools, free downloads, and articles at www.GreatRecruiterTraining.com