From Good to Great with Skillfuness in 7 Ways

Our achievement-oriented society is always crazy about skills and certification: the more skilled you are, the higher would be your income. However, we do know that in the longer term, having more skills without being skillful will not sustain your success.  You need to be both skilled and skillful to enjoy sustainable growth.  

By the way, skillful means being careful, mindful, considerate and most importantly, having good intention with wholesome thoughts.  Wholesome thoughts include love, kindness, equanimity, empathy and joy.  For example, if I am a skillful driver, I would be very considerate and would not want to cause traffic jams unnecessary by driving too slow during peak hours.  A skilled driver may not be as skillful as me unless he has the same state of mind as me. 

At the end of the day, what matters are always moments: it is not what you do but what you do in that moment that makes the difference.  Accidents are usually caused not by people with poor skills but by people that are not skillful as they miss a moment of attention in that critical moment. 

There are 7 ways that you too can become more skillful:

1. Begin with the end in mind: what do you want your completed picture to look like?  What do you want people to say when you're lying in that box?
2. Pay attention: nothing is for free, and the biggest payment you have to make in this world is pay attention (click here for article)
3. Do things from a Human Angle, not just from a Efficiency angle.  You may be efficient, but if you miss the human touch, you are simply not skillful. 
4. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  Once you have good understanding, your perspective will be better and your action in speech body and mind will be skillful.
5. Harbour wholesome thoughts, not unwholesome thoughts.  Take wholesome mental foods on a daily basis.  Think high, not low. (read here for details on wholesome thoughts)
6. Work hard and make your work your play and you'll never have to work another day.  When you are into the flow of things, work becomes a joy and you'll naturally be skillful, regardless of your skill level.
7. Systematize work like McDonald's, where you can pay peanuts and hire ordinary people to produce extra-ordinary work.  With systematization, work quality is predictable and we can focus our efforts to make a difference, like connecting with people. That will definitely lead to skillful work. 

By Andy Ng, Chief Trainer at Asia Trainers, details of courses at here. Related articles:

1. The biggest payment in the world is still pay attention
2. Have you taken wholesome food today?
3. 20 ways to use mindfulness in your sales
4. More pay for less work is not a dream when you are skillful
5. As successful as a successful movie
6. Aspire to be rich by working hard
7. How skillful trainees make the difference in training programs
8. The Sun Tzu way to be skillful using foreknowledge and deception