You, Only Better: Find Your Strengths, Be the Best and Change Your Life

By Nicholas Bate

If you want to be happy, fulfilled and energised its probably best not to obsess over being THE best. Why not focus on doing YOUR best? You don't need to completely transform yourself and become a shining beacon of wonderment and astonishing success—you should remain you . . . just a better version. You, Only Better is all about discovering what you're good at and focusing on that. It's about deciding what it is you really want from life and learning how to reach your full potential. Packed with the author's hand-drawn illustrations, helpful quotes, mini-case studies and Q&As you'll learn how to change your mindset for the better and think positively, take action to achieve your goals, fight against fatigue and get motivated and achieve long lasting happiness and contentment.

You, Only Better offers techniques and methods for:

• Gaining energy and focus
• Managing your time effectively
• Setting your goals
• Honing your thinking and mindset
• Dealing with pressure and stress
• Making smart decisions
• Thinking creatively to solve problems
• Actually taking action and keeping up the momentum

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Oct 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857084712

Nicholas Bate

Nicholas Bate runs Strategic Edge Ltd, a consultancy that enables individuals to realise and release their full potential. He works extensively with individuals and teams in organisations as similar and different as Microsoft, Marks & Spencer, Philips Electronics and Hudson Global, Intel, as well as many non-corporate organisations.

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Title page

© 2013 Nicholas Bate

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bate, Nicholas.

You, only better / Nicholas Bate.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-85708-472-9 (pbk.)

1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Self-realization. I. Title.

BF637.S4B3844 2013

158.1–dc23

2013027654

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-857-08472-9 (pbk) ISBN 978-0-857-08471-2 (ebk) ISBN 978-0-857-08469-9 (ebk)

Cover design by Mackerel ltd

Original illustrations by Nicholas Bate

Page design by Touchmedia (www.touchmedia.uk.net)

Introduction

You've noticed it and it's marvellous: that version of you which is you at your best: clear focus, bags of energy and a sense of humour. Creative, able to solve any challenge and brilliant at working with others. Confident but not arrogant, happy to say ‘no’ and go home on time and able to switch off easily at the weekend. Working on some exciting long-term plans, not worrying about money and yet keeping all the background stuff flowing well, too.

Yes, there is a version of you which is amazing. Unfortunately, for many of us, it is not only transient – appearing and disappearing apparently at whim – we have no idea how to access it.

There is a You, Only Better.

This book will show you how to find the best version of you and hang on to him or her. He/she is not as elusive as you think: a few simple shifts, perhaps a bit of additional knowledge and one or two fresh ways of thinking and you'll have that even better version of you.

Each chapter covers a major strand of the quest, e.g. being at your best. It'll give you easily implemented ideas, answer your toughest questions and share how someone else tackled the same problem. The book is eminently practical: we'll keep coming back to the challenges of being busy and of needing to squeeze change into an already busy lifestyle. There'll be nothing weird or that will require expenditure. You, Only Better is just a few simple ideas and shifts away.

Read on …

Section 1

Do What You Are Best At

How do you create the Perfect Life? In many ways of course: that's what this book is about. But at the heart of it all is to do what you are best at. And although on some days and in some moods it seems a no-brainer, it's worth just thinking about why …

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1. Whatever you are best at tends – for you, not necessarily for everybody else – to be really enjoyable. And that reduces stress, makes it easier to leap out of bed in the morning and means you can maintain the highest standards of what you deliver.

2. If it's what you are best at, then you'll likely be better at it than most: you will be good at it and that means you can charge a sensible price for your skill.

3. When you are really good at something you tend only to get better. And that's good because you get more enjoyment out of it, you pull further ahead of the crowd and that protects your career.

4. If it's what you are best at, it will seem less like work and all those work/life balance issues which many people talk about will simply disappear for you.

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But hang on a minute, you say. I'm best at five-a-side football, she's awesome at accounts and book-keeping and he just loves chatting to people and I think he could sell anything! So, what are we ‘best at’? Football, accounts and selling respectively? I mean, maybe the latter two will work but I'm never going to get a job as a professional footballer. Never. And don't you dare give me any of that ‘positive thinking’ stuff. You see, I just don't get it. Not everybody can do what they are best at. There are already too many coffee shops and for that matter, too many management consultants. I could go on. So?

You make a good point and I'm glad you made it now because doing what you are ‘best at’ is not always obvious. No not at all. And I'm with you: it's certainly not as simplistic as ‘positive thinking’ yourself into a job as a TV chef simply because you make a mean lasagne. Surprisingly it's not necessarily as simple as doing what you are good at, doing what you can do easily, or even doing what people admire. So let's step back a bit and get some clarity.

What do we really, really mean by ‘best at’?

‘Best at’ is a subtle mix of three things:

1. Firstly, you have a definite pull, a definite attraction to that skill, that activity and that way of spending your time: it's at the core of who you are. You feel you ‘have’ to do it. Football, solving problems, fiddling with technology, playing with ideas, knowing what's going on in the world of politics, drawing, inspiring people, writing … you name it, it's your thing. You feel very comfortable with it and curiously you are far less aware of time passing when you are ‘doing that thing’.

2. Secondly, it is potentially marketable: it's a skill out of which you can make money. Note: maybe you couldn't at the moment, but there is the possibility. This might initially seem to put a damper on your love and timeless enjoyment of knitting and sewing. Not at all. The market for hand-produced unique garments is growing all the time, you simply need to multiply this love with a few easily learnt marketing and pricing skills to identify your target market.

3. And thirdly, you know this is your thing and not just because everybody else is doing it or because it's the latest fad. Nobody has told you: no parent, no careers adviser. This is your thing. Fancy a bit of jargon? You are internally referenced rather than externally referenced. This latter point is important because the only person who is going to make this plan come together is you. If it's simply what your mum wants, it'll fall down at some point. But if you are internally referenced, i.e. it is driven by you, it has a high likelihood of success. And this frustrates you because you don't really know. You know what you don't want to do. You are like most of us, then. But get on the path and you will know.

‘Best at’, therefore, is not always obvious at first glance. It is not always what you initially seem to be good at. It may surprisingly even be something you don't know that you are skilled at. Yet. It may have to evolve over time.

Doing what you are best at is just as much the path as the destination.

So – even though everybody rates Tim as one of the best five-a-siders on the planet, are you saying that may not be his thing? But surely Emille is OK; after all everybody needs book-keeping and accounts, don't they? And Firdou: well he could sell sand to the … well, you know.

Yep, I am saying that. I'm saying that finding what you're best at and creating your own personal marketable skill is the winning strategy. But I am also saying it is not obvious and it is not easy. Absolutely possible and open to all of us. But it's not some quick-fix positive think strategy. Which is actually why most people don't really get to this stage. Not that they haven't got a personal best marketable skill, but they haven't given it the consideration that it justifies. After all: getting on a quest for doing what you are best at has got to be worth it!

How do I find out what that is for me?

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Alright then, I sort of get it. But how do I find out what my personal best marketable skill is if it's not as simple as ‘what I enjoy’ or ‘what I am good at’? How does anyone?

It needs a bit of work and a bit of reflection and digging. Not much, but a little. And of course it is really worth it. There are three simple steps. Why don't