By David Henzel, co-founder of TaskDrive—we support sales and marketing teams with personalized lead research and outbound campaigns.
We all weather tough storms both in our professional and personal lives, and being emotionally resilient, physically and mentally fit and overall content with life can go a long way in helping us navigate through the good and bad times. While many CEOs may feel they are at the top of their game professionally, I would venture a guess that a number of them believe it has come with sacrifice in their personal and familial lives.
As CEOs, we all know the principles we need to uphold for our professional success, yet for some reason, many tend to not apply the same guidelines to the other roles in their lives. But as the saying goes, “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” and therefore, if we aren’t playing our A-game in every area of our lives then we will not be at our peak performance professionally.
Even if we believe we are living our best lives overall, there is always more to be learned and room for further improvement. Adopting the CEO mindset and applying business principles to achieve growth in all areas of our lives seems like a no-brainer, yet so many of us tend to set aside the notion when it comes to our personal lives.
What is the CEO mindset?
The CEO mindset refers to the perspective and qualities commonly associated with the chief executive officer of a company. From being forward-thinking and seeing the big picture to having a strategic and result-oriented approach, most CEOs know how to get the job done. They set ambitious goals, develop action plans and measure performance by tracking key metrics because they are well aware that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. CEOs have a growth mindset and actively seek knowledge and feedback, which makes them open to new ideas and perspectives. They are skilled at effective communication and resolving conflict, and are emotionally resilient and adaptable when faced with challenges. But most importantly, they have a long-term perspective that is focused on a vision, mission and values that they use as a filter for decision-making and a road map to guide operations.
So how do these characteristics apply to our personal lives? I think the real question we need to be asking is “Why don’t these same principles serve as the baseline for everything in our lives?” The bottom line is that applying the CEO mindset allows us to take a more strategic and focused approach to decision-making, habits and achieving our goals. Even the concept of kaizen—the Japanese term for the business objective of consistent and gradual improvement on all fronts—is mostly applied from a professional aspect, but we all have areas in our lives that we can improve upon, and it just makes good sense to take a structured approach in order to do so.
How can we use the CEO mindset to optimize our personal lives?
First and foremost, the best way to find meaning and purpose in every role in our lives is to establish a vision and mission for each area, as well as define the core values we choose to live by. This process makes it much easier to identify the areas in our lives that could stand for improvement. It could be working on our overall health, getting sufficient sleep or simply drinking enough water. Or this approach could be applied on a grander scale such as how we function with our families and community.
The next step is to set clear goals just like a CEO would set a target for their business. But in this case, the objectives are in the other areas of our life such as health, relationships and self-growth. Once you know what you want to achieve, then it is time to define a strategic plan to obtain it. This strategy should include actionable steps—challenging but not overwhelming—and a system to measure progress. Once in motion, the plan should then be revisited regularly and adjusted as needed to ensure momentum, consistency and long-term success.
Many of us are also well aware that our personal and professional lives are interconnected, yet so many of us do not prioritize personal mastery. However, as any successful CEO will likely tell you, it is vital to have all areas of our lives function like clockwork to maximize our contribution to our careers. The bottom line is the more effort we put into maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the more energy we will have to engage in our professional lives. Therefore, it is also important to delegate as many tasks as possible both at work and at home in order to conserve the energy we would prefer to exert on what truly matters most to us, as defined by our vision and mission.
Embrace accountability and build a support network by sharing your goals and celebrating achievements with others while also using the opportunity to face up to and learn from setbacks or failures. As the saying goes, much of who we are is dependent on the five people we spend the most time with. Use this as a catalyst to create strong social connections that are aligned with your goals. This doesn’t necessarily mean changing your friends, rather it’s about altering how you interact with people and possibly even influencing them to also live their best life.
The CEO mindset is about taking ownership of your choices, being proactive and continuously learning and adapting along the way. As our personal and professional lives are interconnected, adopting a strategic, goal-oriented and continuous-growth approach to all areas of life can give meaning and purpose to everything you embark on.
