Smart Work, 2nd Edition

Next steps

Well done, you're still here. You may have flicked to the back, but most of you will have read through the whole book! Either way, what are you going to do next? Are you going to put this book down and go back to your overflowing inbox and business as usual, or are you going to make some changes?

Changing habits and embedded behaviours is never easy. It takes discipline and determination, but the rewards are worth the effort. I have worked with many thousands of people over the past decade, and have formed a view not only on the phases they tend to go through as they adopt the new system, but also on the key things that the successful ones do and don't do in the initial weeks and months after their training. I believe the framework I have developed from this experience, and have outlined in Smart Work, will be valuable to all who read this book and decide to put the system in place for themselves.

When we learn a skill, whether by reading a book, attending a course, or participating in coaching or mentoring, it takes time and effort to develop the set of habits needed to implement the skill in an ongoing way. Figure M (overleaf) outlines the four phases that I believe you will go through on your way to achieving mastery.

Figure M: the learning mastery curve

You will find you need to invest the greatest amount of effort in the first weeks after the initial learning ...