The Comfort, Clarity And Class Approach

by mike on July 14th in Articles From The Positive Encourager's Book

This approach involves focusing on the specific activities where you feel comfortable. This can also mean stretching yourself and expanding this zone. It is then to focus on clarity and delivering top class work. Let’s explore these themes.

Comfort

Great workers often put themselves into places where they feel comfortable. They feel confident that they can play to their strengths, pursue strategies that work and do their best to deliver success.

Such workers pursue the activities where they are in their element – at ease and yet able to excel. They also have the following qualities;

They have the competence to do fine work;

They have the ability to deal with crowdedness – many different things happening at once;

They have the desire to focus on continuous improvement.

Different people do this in different activities. They may be helping troubled people, fixing technical problems, playing a sport or performing on stage. They may be climbing mountains, doing surgery, solving conflicts or doing another activity.

Such people give different reasons for feeling comfortable when pursuing their chosen activity. They may describe it as being in their sweet spot. They may say, for example:

“I feel at home there … I feel stimulated when looking forward to the activity … I feel alive when doing the work … I love to stretch myself and deliver success.”

People who take this approach often start by exploring the activities that give them positive energy. After a while, however, they may focus on the activity where they can move from 7/10 towards 10/10.

A musician may begin by playing many instruments. They may then find the one where they feel most at ease and in their element. They may then aim to become the best kind of performer they can be with that instrument.

A psychologist may begin by exploring many ways of working with people. They may come a point, however, when they decide to do in-depth work on positive psychology, helping people recover from trauma in another niche area. They then aim to keep improving in that field.

A management consultant may be in a major consultancy firm and work with many different clients. They may eventually realise they work best with entrepreneurs, for example, rather than people in big organisations. They may then set up their own business working with such entrepreneurs.

Great workers also highlight one of the key themes regarding feeling comfortable when doing their chosen work.

They only feel comfortable when they are doing their best and continuing to develop;

They don’t feel comfortable when they are not doing their best or not developing.

Great workers can develop by expanding their comfort zone. But we need to be clear on what this means. Many people urge others to behave in a certain way by saying the cliche:

“You need to get out of your comfort zone.”

This sounds okay but it ignores the approach taken by many people who do superb work.

They only feel comfortable when:

They are following their principles … They are doing their best … They are delivering high quality work … They helping people to succeed … They are continuing to improve.

Great workers would feel uncomfortable not doing these things. They may aim to continue developing, however, by setting stimulating goals, stretching themselves and working to achieve success. They may then expand their comfort zone.

Imagine that such a worker has put themselves into a place where they feel comfortable and continue to develop. They then move on to the next theme.

Clarity

Great workers go into a situation in which they excel and quickly gather information. They may then do some of the following things to establish clarity.

Imagine that a person has clarified the strategies they aim to follow to give themselves the greatest chance of success. This takes us to the next theme.

Class

Great workers aim to translate their strategies into action. They sometimes do this by focusing on consistency, creative and class. Let’s explore these themes.

Consistency

Such workers aim to deliver consistently high standards. They aim to do this whether performing at the Village Hall or the Carnegie Hall. They may even enjoy doing aspects of the grunt work as well as doing the good work and the great work.

Every person has their own preferred working style when aiming to deliver consistency. One person expressed this in the following way.

“I love following a certain rhythm when doing the work. This involves rehearsing ahead of time, setting achievable goals and following my ritual for moving into action. I then aim to do superb work and achieve success.”

Creativity

Great workers may beyond delivering consistently high standards. They may also apply the right kind of creativity at the right time to get the right results. Creativity comes in many different forms.

Such workers often have great personal radar in their chosen field. They quickly see patterns and see the potential picture of success. They seem to know what will happen before it happens.

They also keep expanding their repertoire of skills for doing fine work and tackling challenges. Bearing in mind the results they want to achieve, they dip into their repertoire to find creative solutions and deliver success.

Class

Great workers aim to maintain consistently high standards and, when appropriate, be creative. They then do their best to deliver top class work.

Some people reach their goals by adding that touch of class. Sometimes this can be spectacular. Sometimes it can be a simple act of kindness. Sometimes it can be something that gives people a positive memory for life.

Mark Emberton, a professor of urology, did this when treating me for prostate cancer. He aims to make every patient feel special. I saw this in action when waiting for my first appointment with him.

Mark has his own office upstairs and, whilst he has an incredibly busy schedule, he makes a point of coming down to escort each patient to his office. He has the personal touch.

Showing the patient their x-rays, he explains in a clear way the situation and the possible ways forward. Mark does this in a kind, honest and yet realistic way.

People leave his office feeling that they have been treated with respect and also given a full picture. They talk about how such a famous oncologist made them feel the centre of his world. Plus they have a realistic picture of the possible way forwards. He is a class act.

Let’s return to your own work. Looking ahead can you think of a specific activity where you may want to follow elements of the comfort, clarity and class approach? How can you do this in your own way?