At the end of any school year, it is important to talk about diligence. I believe this is even more necessary during this strange end to this school year. Typically, we see some drop off in productivity as students start to burn out from the length of the school year. This is normal. You can observe this behavior in business as well. Generally, there is a drop off in Q4 of productivity amongst employees, and then everyone takes off time for the holidays and comes back ready to take on a new year. 

Right now, the students are experiencing this feeling of racing towards a finish line while in isolation. They are not benefiting from the energy of their fellow students. They do not have the typical end of year events to get excited about. Many of our older students experience depression and anxiety, and these feelings are heightened while sheltering at home. This is why it is important to stay diligent. Grades in the last two weeks of the school year still count. There are still things to accomplish, and we all need to stay diligent to finish the year right. 

As a leader, it is important to be diligent. When people can expect diligence from you, they grow to trust you with more and more responsibility. You gain a reputation for being a reliable, hardworking individual when you are diligent with your work. This will make people more comfortable with giving you additional responsibilities and projects. Ultimately, being diligent makes you a more indispensable employee. 

We have talked about several characteristics that can help you climb the ladder towards leadership. Diligence is a very important trait to master to become promotable. People love consistent, good work. Establishing consistency and a reliable work ethic will do a lot to make you stand out from other employees and candidates. These traits make you the person that gets his or her name mentioned when directors meet to discuss which employees deserve a promotion or raise. 

Outside of the workplace, it is important to be diligent in your personal life. This consistency and commitment are necessary to accomplish your goals inside and outside of the workplace. If you have ever tried to lose weight, or quit a bad habit, or learn a new skill, you will understand that tasks of this nature require diligence. Like many of the other skills we have discussed, diligence is something that you can work on if that is not your personality naturally. 

Diligence will help you in every aspect of your life. If you do not consider yourself to be a diligent person, start working on honing these skills. A lack of diligence could be holding you back in ways that you do not even realize. Train yourself to be more diligent. Diligence is habitual, and you can establish a habit by putting in the work initially. Forcing yourself to regularly contribute towards a goal can start to develop diligence. You might even have to set an alarm or calendar reminder to do something towards a specific goal daily, weekly, or bi-weekly. This will help keep the task top of mind for you and will discourage procrastination. Whatever you can do to build diligence in your personality, starting doing it. This is the time to work on your goals. Stay sharp, remain focused, and be diligent. These efforts will take you far.

-        Bria