We all want more time, energy, and skills in our busy lives. It takes a few hours more to create passive income sources or to have the energy and time to pursue your personal financial goals.
Many people are successful in their careers and manage multiple side hustles while living a fulfilled life. All this is done in 24 hours.
So, the real question is – how are some people better at achieving things than others?
The answer is simple – Leverage!
They harness the power and influence of leverage to create the life they desire.
Today I’ll share powerful tips to help you leverage your life and make it better. Continue reading!
What is leverage?
“Leverage” is a word that you would have come across multiple times if you spend even a little time scrolling through the internet. What exactly does leverage refer to?
Well, if we go by the Cambridge Dictionary, leverage means – “the action of using a lever.”[1]
As a verb, leverage also means, “the art of using something that you already possess to achieve something new and better.” Leverage is also the power to influence results and turn them in your favor.
Applying this definition to your everyday life will show you that leverage allows you to use your resources to achieve your goals. Leverage helps you to activate your dreams results and live the life of your dreams with less effort.
There are many types of leverage you can use in order to achieve your goals in life. Let’s have a look at the major types of leverage that can create a profound impact on your life.
1. Time Leverage
Time leverage is all about using other people’s time in the best way to accomplish your tasks. This allows you to use your time for other important tasks.
Technology can be used to automate manual tasks and delegate tasks, which is one of the best ways of increasing your time leverage.
2. Personal Life Leverage
Personal life leverage means using the power to leverage your relationships and personal life in order to reach your goals. You can achieve this by surrounding yourself with like-minded people and forging meaningful connections that will help you get things done.
3. Skill Leverage
Skill leverage means using your skills and energy to get more positive outcomes with less effort. Soft skills can be learned and added to. To open doors to new opportunities, you might learn copywriting or email marketing if you’re a writer.
Leveraging the power to leverage is an option if you lack the time, energy or skills that you need to live the life you desire. You can turn your dreams and goals into reality by using leverage without having to spend a lot of energy or time.
How does leverage work?
Leverage is the ability to turn little effort and time into big positive outcomes in life. It either multiplies your abilities or enables you to use other people’s abilities to achieve your goals.
A person can ask one of their friends to recommend them to their company if they are looking for work. If they are qualified enough, this allows them to be ahead of the rest and may even get the job. This person used their personal leverage to increase their chances of getting a job.
Think about an investor. Investors are able to leverage their financial assets. Investors have financial leverage. They can use their financial knowledge and investing skills to invest in stocks or other financial instruments.
They can earn year-on-year investment returns and multiply their wealth while they are at home. They just use their financial knowledge to put their money to good use. You can reap the rewards of small efforts.
Warren Buffett is an excellent example.[2] The well-known investor and businessman leveraged his financial expertise and skills to invest stocks. He went on to become the world’s most successful investor with a net worth of over 100 billion dollars!
This is how leverage works. This leverage works with something you already have (money, financial knowledge, and a connection to a company) and allows you to expand it into something more profitable (a new job/return of investment).
The Power of Leverage
After we’ve discussed the meaning and operation of leverage, you should now be able to see the immense power it can have. You can transform your life by using leverage in the right way. After all, that’s what most successful people do, right?
Most successful people use leverage to improve their skills, increase their networks, and get things done. This applies to everyone from CEOs of multi-billion-dollar businesses to politicians to CEOs of multinational companies. They have the ability to influence people and situations in a smart and productive manner.
The following are some ways that leverage can be used to your advantage:
Productivity Boost
Leveraging your time or that of others can help you get more done in a shorter time. You will increase your productivity by employing technology or people to accomplish your goals.
We can help you build wealth
Similar to Warren Buffett’s example, leveraging skills can help you maximize your investment returns. This knowledge can help you to build wealth.
You can help improve your personal growth
Leveraging can also help in personal growth, whether it’s through making meaningful connections or learning from past experience. It opens doors to possibilities that you didn’t know existed.
How to use leverage to live your best life
You can leverage different situations to help you live the life that you want. This can make your life more productive and fulfilling. However, before you start leveraging time or skill, or personal relationships, it is important to “read the room.”
Before you try to leverage a situation, it is important to assess how much power and influence you have. Every person is capable of leveraging life in a different way.
If you’re a business owner, for example, you can leverage the time of your employees in order to get things done quicker. But, if your intern job is not in your hands, it may be impossible. You will need to find another way to increase your success and growth in such cases.
When it comes to leveraging in life, one thing is certain – everyone can do so. If you aren’t able to leverage other people’s time or skills yet, you can leverage yours.
This section will provide you with some practical tips to help you live the life that you have always wanted.
1. Use your time and energy to your advantage
Most successful people leverage their time or that of others to achieve their goals.
Consider any business owner like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and others. They employ talented, competent employees who can use their time and skills for business goals. They assign tasks to them, and give them the freedom to make their own choices. This allows the business owners to concentrate on more important business matters.
Make sure that you only use your time and energy for the things you absolutely need when using leverage.
Here’s how you can do that:
Delegate tasks
You can speed up the process by delegating large tasks to employees, family members, or assistants. This will allow you to get more done and save time.
Your employees and subordinates will also benefit from delegation. It improves their productivity as well as the efficiency of your business. This will allow you to focus your attention on the things that are most important to your skills and abilities. This helps to reduce the risk of burnout, and allows you to enjoy a work-life harmony.
Technology and Automation should be used more
The best way to make your time more productive and get things done quicker is by using technology. Research shows that 70% of business leaders admit they spend 45 to 3 hours on repetitive tasks.[3] Automation of manual tasks can help save significant time.
You can automate your emails by using email automation software. It allows you to set up automatic posting and schedules them. Applications can be used to increase productivity and accomplish more work in a shorter time.
Develop clear guidelines and future plans
A great way to maximize time is to create a guideline or set goals and plans for the next month.
Managers and business owners can create a handbook that covers all aspects of the daily tasks and procedures. This handbook can be used by the entire team to guide them and help them perform their tasks. It not only saves you time, but it also assists your team in completing their tasks efficiently.
Virgin America’s front-line employees are empowered to solve customer issues within the framework of their managers. This is the main reason why the airline is always being rated as one of passengers’ favorites.
Clear guidelines and goals allow team members to work together and take responsibility for their own decisions, without having to rely on their manager.
Further, it ensures you and your team stay focused on the necessary things and don’t end up procrastinating or doing things that aren’t necessary.
2. Learn to use your knowledge and skills
It is a great way to succeed in both your personal and professional life. Talent leverage, also known as skill, knowledge or talent, is about finding your most valuable and distinctive skills and improving them.
Here’s how you can leverage skills and knowledge:
Learn soft skills that can be applied in different areas
A study found that[4] For 85% of workplace success, having good soft skills is key. Soft skills such as decision-making, communication, emotional intelligence, and leadership are highly sought after and can help you excel at many aspects of your life.
There are many soft skills that will help you get more success in a shorter amount of time. You can, for instance, learn new communication skills and persuasion techniques to convince your customers and gain more success in a short time.
Apply Your Knowledge to Different Scenarios
Learn how to apply your knowledge to different situations and you can have leverage in your life.
Think about how you can use your knowledge to improve your workplace. What are some other scenarios in which you could use your knowledge to earn fame, money, or prestige?
Social media influencers who are successful use knowledge to live their best lives. Here’s a real example.
Jamie Oliver – a popular chef – has used his culinary knowledge to become an Instagram star. He is a published author, has worked with several brands and lives an amazing life.
He used his expertise to create a second career, and is now thriving in it. You can do it too!
3. Take advantage of past achievements and experiences
Last but not least, you can leverage your past achievements and experiences to help you achieve the life you desire. Let me demonstrate:
Make the most of your past mistakes and experiences
Learning from your mistakes can be difficult. It’s not fun to make mistakes, is it? Making mistakes is inevitable. It is best to learn from your mistakes and use them as a learning experience.
This will allow you to learn and avoid making the same mistakes again in the future. Here are some real-life examples that show how people can leverage their past failures or painful experiences to make a difference in their lives.
- Steve Jobs was fired by the company he had built with his blood and sweat. Apple fired Jobs in 1985 because of a disagreement with its CEO. But this didn’t deter him from working for his dream. He also started several other projects and returned to Apple to be its CEO.
- J. K. Rowling’s pitch for Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers. J. K. Rowling learned from her painful experiences and improved her pitches. She also continued to meet with new publishers. Today, she is a well-known and successful author.
Learn how to leverage your achievements
Leveraging achievements means using your win in various areas of your lives. This is what celebrities and sports stars do. Lionel Messi is a great football player and has signed endorsement deals with companies like Adidas, Pepsi, OrCam and Pepsi. His brand deals have a value of more than $130million per year.
Conclusion
All of us have limited time, energy, or skills. And there’s only so much that you can do and achieve with them. Leveraging the power of leverage can help you achieve your goals and live your best life.
These are my top tips for you:
- It is important to have the right strategies in place and establish meaningful relationships to leverage the power of lean.
- Keep learning and focusing on the most important things. You can do the rest by delegating, automating and using more technology to accomplish more in a short time.
- Your past mistakes can be used to improve your future thinking.
- Use your knowledge to improve your daily life in various areas
- Your achievements can be leveraged. You can negotiate a higher salary if your award has been won.
You will see the positive effects of these tips in both your professional and personal lives.
Vadym Alyekseyenko, unsplash.com, is the featured photo credit
Refer to
| [1] | ^ | Cambridge Dictionary: Leverage |
| [2] | ^ | Harvard Business Review: Lessons from Warren Buffett |
| [3] | ^ | KRC Research: 2020 Work Market Report |
| [4] | ^ | National Skills Association The Soft Skills Disconnected |
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Lifehack’s first article, The Power of Leverage to Lead the Life You Desire appeared on Lifehack.
