How do you get out of a rut? Natural laws like inertia apply everywhere in the physical world. But the laws of inertia apply to our emotional and intellectual life as well. The trick is to exert enough consistent emotional effort to be able to overcome inertia and create lasting change.
Goals
Footsteps Along the Path to Success
You can learn a lot about life by hiking in the mountains and I am struck with the many similarities between a mountain hike and our journey to success. Here are a few simple lessons we can learn: plan ahead, pay attention, adjust for obstacles, don’t compare yourself to others, and keep going. Cultivate mental toughness to create your ideal future tomorrow.
Use Goals to Reach Your Dreams
Do you ever feel like Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s classic story, Alice in Wonderland? Do you feel like you are trying to get somewhere, but just don’t know exactly how to get there? Perhaps you have never actually harnessed the full power of goals. True goals, the ones that change your life, have six essential components. Leave one out, and the framework falls apart with it. Follow through on all six, and you can’t fail. Here they are…
A Strong Foundation
When I was a teenager, I visited the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis tower) in Chicago, Illinois. At that time, it was the tallest building in the world. In some ways, we are like a skyscraper. We work every day to achieve higher and higher levels of achievement. At the same time, we are susceptible to conditions that surround us. The foundation for the Sears tower is a massive cement structure that is 100 feet deep. If we are to stand strong, we too must have a solid foundation.
Get Crystal Clear
Before you can reach your goals, they have to become crystal clear in your mind. Ask yourself: What, How, Who, Where, When, and Why. The more clearly you define your objectives and the more frequently and intensely you review them, the faster they will be yours.
Jump In!
I’ll never forget the day our swim instructor said it was time to do the high dive. I immediately got at the back of the line, where I watched all of my class mates climb the stairs and jump off the high dive. Fear is a thief that robs us of enjoyable experiences and future success. Take a lesson from my swimming instructor and “Just jump in!” Do the thing you fear.
Take a Personal Inventory
Regularly schedule quiet time for a personal inventory where you can reflect on the highest priorities in your life and evaluate how well you are allocating your time and energy toward accomplishing them. Worthwhile goals will naturally flow from this type of introspection.
Controlling Interruptions
A short interruption actually costs in lost productivity as much as 10 times the amount of time it takes. Value your time enough to eliminate as many interruptions as you can by scheduling blocks of time to work without interruption and other blocks of time to handle those items that would have interrupted your work.
Disadvantaged Childhood? Succeed Anyway!
If you think that you had a disadvantaged childhood, listen to the story of Mario Andretti. Mario was born in Northern Italy the same year that World War II broke out. When the war finally ended, borders had shifted and his family found themselves in communist-controlled Yugoslavia. They decided to leave their homeland as refugees[Read More]
The Middle Class Myth
The middle class concept is failing millions of people because it is based on myths and formulas that worked for our parents but will no longer prove successful today. President Obama suggested, “the middle class is at a make or break point.” What he should be telling you is: the middle class has been failing its members for decades and this is not a new thing.
Keep on Learning
The difference between those who are educated and those who aren’t is not so much about their level of formal education. Truly educated people continue to learn every day. If you want to reach your full potential, keep on learning!
Attraction Requires Action
Recent popular trends in the self-improvement industry have had people focus primarily on their thinking and beliefs, visualizing their future success. This, some say, is the long lost secret to success.
Make Your Resolutions Stick with Daily Motivation
Tired of making New Years resolutions that don’t stick? Here is a tip that will elevate your New Year’s resolutions from wish lists to permanent changes.
5 Tips for Smarter Money – Without Sacrificing Lifestyle
A Wales man actually built a hobbit hole with nothing stronger than a chainsaw and lived in it… for $4,200. Further, it’s completely sustainable environmentally
Get Organized!
Get organized by creating a vision for your life, then arranging everything in your life to support and create that vision.
Making the Ball Bounce Your Way
Motivational article about how to turn negative events into positive outcomes.
Visualize Your Plan
If you will take the next step and visualize exactly how it will look, and feel, when you reach your goals–if you will describe in detail, in writing, how it will look, perhaps even make a detailed drawing or find a picture that reminds you of your goal–you will have taken a major step toward achieving your goals.
You Can’t Fail
As a college student, I worked part-time under a wise sales manager, Mark Benson. He often made the statement: “You cannot fail in this business! You can quit, but you cannot fail.”
Take Charge of Your Life
Today, millions of people walk around incarcerated in their own personal jails called addictions. These people are addicted to substances (such as alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, or even caffeine) or to behaviors (such as gambling, porn, overeating, or too much TV) which rob them of time, money, and control.
Clear Vision
As we age, our eyes tend to lose their flexibility, making it more difficult to see up close. This presents an interesting challenge for those of us who already have trouble seeing far away objects.
Pay Attention to the Small Things
All of us focus on the bigger things — and well we should. But oftentimes, the small details do not get the attention they deserve. After all, bit things are nothing more than the accumulation of small things. It stands to reason, therefore, that small details make big things happen.
Priorities: Your Life Compass
Use priorities to develop your own life compass that will become a scale by which you can measure everything you do. Beyond time management, this program will help you achieve more while giving you more peace of mind.
Meet the New YOU
If you woke up on January first this year, and realized, to your dismay, that you have taken the “old you” into the new year. I have good news: the “new you” is just around the corner, waiting to meet you.
Slow and Steady Wins
Remember the old story of the tortoise and the hare? The hare had more speed and ability than the tortoise could ever hope to have. His body was built for swiftness. Many of us find ourselves in a similar situation as the tortoise. Competitors, customers, or co-workers might be smarter, faster, or endowed with natural talents that you don’t possess. You may have personal burdens that you have to carry. Yet, you can still come out on top with consistent, steady effort.
Your Quest for Success
No one can give you success. No one can force you to achieve. No one can do the preparation, planning, and the work for you. If we are to achieve true excellence, we must take responsibility for our own success and do the work to make it happen. Here are four steps to help each of us in our quest for success: Plan, Prepare, Perform, Persist.
Get Ready. Get Set.
We all have opportunities that come our way. The question is whether you and I will be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities when they arise, or whether we will say, “I wish I had prepared better.” Here are four areas of preparation you can begin now
Renewal and New Beginnings
As the dead of winter gives way to the renewed life of spring, nature begins a new season of growth and prosperity. If you have experienced disappointments and heartache in your life, just remember that you too can begin again, the past is over and done with, you can make a fresh start and become a new creature — the one you were meant to be.
Retirement Will Kill You!!!!
I was on a plane with Academy award winning actor Ernest Borgnine, 93 years old, (202 movies to his credit) as he was on his way to Toronto to shoot a movie with Bruce Willis. We got into a conversation about work and retirement and he said, “retirement will kill you, work gives you purpose.”
My Way of Life
This information has been distilled from the most up-to-date and trustworthy sources in diet, nutrition, and weight loss. It’s my personal, long-term way of life, not a diet. The program promotes a balanced approach in three key areas: attitude & behavior modification, proper nutrition, and physical activity.
You Decide
William Ernest Henley wrote the poem “Invictus” which means unconquered. The essence of the message is that no matter what happens to you, you get to decide how you will respond and react. You get to decide what you will do tomorrow and the next day. You get to choose your attitude; you decide what your goals will be and whether you will continue to strive or give up. You are the master of your own fate.
