Procrastination? Get Passionate And Own The Process!

No Such Thing As Procrastination

Here I am on my band wagon again. I had a client ask me if I thought they were procrastinating. Why is it we have to have labels of who we are and what we do? What is my answer to the client? Well I said,” No”.

I mean, there is something stopping them from doing what they want to finish off. Most likely, when I run out of steam, I’ve lost my inspiration or sense of “flow” in what I was doing. OR I’m terrified of what will happen. Will I succeed or fail or worse, what if I don’t WANT to succeed. Reasons, reasons, reasons.

It’s what I do for a living. You know how you decide you want to move from Point A to Point B. There is a gap there. You fill it up with information, knowledge, skills tools, advice, and step by step procedure on how to fill that gap and walk over to the other side. I like to stir up that gap and let all those reasons float to the top.

If you have “bought into” or actually bought a product or service, you have if from the best authority that these steps of skills and tools are guaranteed to work. There are all sorts of testimonials saying it works. You are all excited because THIS is the moment. This is when you get to where you want to go. It doesn’t matter what Point A or Point B is.

It could be you’re overweight and you want to be slim. It could be your relationship is on a downward spiral and you want to get it back to where it was. It could even be you want your business to make more money, get more clients. It doesn’t really matter what it is. You have all this knowledge and you’re “procrastinating”.

I am more interested in how it feels. I’m more interested in how often you think about this. How committed are you to getting from point A to B. Because really, I don't have a clue what will work for you. I have nothing that follows a direct line from A to B with all the steps outlined for you.

I don’t have a plan of attack because I don’t know what works for you.

I assume you are an intelligent human being that is dissatisfied with something in your life. What I do know is your whole life is a set of experiences and events that have shaped the way your mind thinks and operates around your behavior. It’s how you perceive what is happening to your life.

So, if anything it’s not really procrastination that is stopping you.

More likely it’s just your brain misfiring. It gets all excited about taking new action but the steps, skills and tools just don’t click with how your mind thinks and works. Remember all those testimonials? Well that step by step process you just bought into worked for them because it fit in nicely with how their brain is hardwired.

It works for them and because their brain “likes” the whole process it allows that person to stay inspired, keep up the excitement and maintain the flow to reach their goal.

Your brain, on the other hand, just doesn’t work that way and it misfires. You come screaming to a halt. It immediately makes up all these reasons about why you can’t proceed or just plain old: don’t feel like it. Your brain doesn’t have a connection with the whole process. It just doesn’t ring true for you.

Where does the excitement come from? It comes back to that idea about perceptions. It could be a million things that get you excited. Your excitement is as unique to you as a fingerprint. But it isn’t sustainable.

However, a more immediate issue is, “What do I do now?. You’ve got this process you’re not excited about any more. If you’ve invested money, my best suggestion is to make the process your own.

If you have a way of doing things that really gets your juices flowing then do it. Does art bring things alive for you? Then do some drawing of how you want to work it out. Do you need to make short term goals and work towards them? Then set it up that way.

I’ve got tons of assessment tools that I try out myself before I suggest the use to a client. It is a rare occasion that I even suggest this. In every case I have changed how I use it. How do I know when I’m going to have to change it? Well my first clue is that it feels like someone is “telling me how to do something”.

I’m a relatively intelligent person and I don’t often need to be told HOW to do something. Its often reminds me of my parents telling me what I can and cannot do.

When I hear that voice I will allow a client to try it out but tell them to change it in any way that feels more comfortable to them.

An example would be a tool I use to determine “values”. What an overused word with a myriad of meanings. This again is another topic for a future article. I often tell people it really is just a tool to play around with to find out what they are passionate about. It really tells them the elements of their personality.

I go through an assessment and ask them how they think they would change that step of the process to reflect who they are and how they think and behave. By the time we are finished they have created a whole new tool and then they are excited about getting down to business.

The bottom line is to create your own process. It doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. There are many products and services that you can start with and many of them are free at your local library. Cut and paste away and create what works for YOUR mind.

by Maureen Miller B.Ed., C.U.G.,
Certified Teleclass Leader Coaching Personally
http://www.squidoo.com/ThinkingRevolution
http://THinkingREvolution.blogspot.com
Create a thinking revolution for yourself!

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Success Starts And Ends With A Positive Attitude (with a little "how to" inbetween)

Success Starts With Positive Attitude

Got attitude? A positive one?

I will bet every one thinks that they have a positive attitude, and unfortunately the same amount of folks have never taken a course in it.

Eighty to 100 percent of one's success is dependent on their positive attitude, yet most have had no formal training. You can start by reading and studying these four books:

1. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
3. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Norman Vincent Peale
4. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

If you want wealth, first build a wealth of knowledge. I also recommend that you enroll in the nearest Dale Carnegie program. Carnegie courses are timeless and will provide a great attitude foundation.

Here are 21 other attitude gems that I have picked up along the way that I recommend you read, cut out, copy, share with others, post on you wall and study:

1. Change your input to change your attitude. If you seek a positive mind, you must expose yourself to positive information and hang around positive people.

2. You were born to win, but you must plan and prepare to win. Then you can expect to win (a famous Zig Ziglar quote).

3. The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win. (Vince Lombardi, famous coach.)

4. You will get whatever you want if you help enough people get whatever they want.

5. Make every day as productive as the day before you go on vacation – a day EVERYTHING gets done.

6. Ignore people who tell you you can’t (except your boss). People will try to rain on your parade because they have no parade of their own.

7. If you have nothing nice to say about someone, say nothing.

8. Do not dwell on (or whine about) the problem, concentrate on the solution. Resolve how you can, not lament why you cannot.

9. Forgive and go forward. Grudge blocks positive. Until you clear the past, you are destined to repeat it.

10. Self-talk equals self-performance.

11. What is the picture you have of yourself? That is what you will become. Spend 15 minutes a day focusing on a positive picture.

12. You will hear the word ‘NO’ 116,000 times in your lifetime. Try converting just 1,000 of them to a “YES,” and the world is your oyster.

13. What you do off the job determines what you are likely to do on the job. (Uh oh!)

14. Strengthen your weaknesses and strengthen your strengths at the same time. Combine positive with negative for better personal development results.

15. Failure is an event, not a person.

16. It is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you. Attitude manifests itself in your response to events.

17. Every obstacle presents an opportunity, if you are looking for it. “Revel” and “lament” are choices.

18. Hard work makes luck. Nothing affects positive circumstance and results more than hard work.

19. How many of your problems are cured with 10 grand? If money makes your problems go away, attitude makes them go away as well.

20. It is not what you say - it is how you say it. The tone of your verbiage determines the atmosphere of your environment.

21. Resign your position as general manager of the universe. Do not try to solve other people’s problems, until you are problem-free.

Years ago I was riding down the road listening to a tape by Earl Nightingale (one of the founding fathers of personal development). On tape 4 of his legendary series “Direct Line” the topic was enthusiasm. “Enthusiasm,” he said, “comes from the Greek ‘entheos’ meaning the God within.”

All of a sudden all the other quotes and advice made sense. The strength of self-belief is within your own spirit, it you hunger for the feeling.

by Janae Wentworth
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Want To Make Massive Progress? Be Unreasonable!

7 Ways To Be Unreasonable

Most people look to what they know they CAN do as a guide to what they WILL do; I think to get anything important done in the world, you have to look towards what you WANT to do, and then figure out how to do it.

When most people think about what they are committed to, they consider where they can build a bridge to from where they already are. What would happen if you chose where you wanted to go without considering your current circumstances and then worried about how to build that bridge?

There is nothing wrong with being reasonable, except that "what is reasonable" is a poor guide to action when designing actions to push the future. Being reasonable will help you feel safe in the sense of knowing that your actions will turn out pretty much the way you expect them to. But it is dangerous in that same sense of producing predictable results; what is predictable has, by definition, been done before. And what has been done before is unlikely to make much of a difference in the future.

Seven ways to be unreasonable.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adopt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.” - Rita Mae Brown

“So what else is new?” - Paul Lemberg

Being reasonable

My dictionary defines being reasonable as being rational. Rational, it says, means being reasonable. A vicious circle: I know I'm in trouble already. Going further, reasonable also means being governed by reason; which in turn means explanations, justifications, underlying facts, good judgment, normalcy, plus the capacity for logic and analytic thought. Further, being reasonable means being within the bounds of common sense, as in arriving home at a reasonable hour, and lastly it means not excessive or extreme.

I'm all for logic and analytic thought, but does following the dictum "be reasonable" sound like a good way to build a breakthrough business?

The very idea of "being reasonable," prescribes something restrictive. It exhorts us to remain "within the box," to do what sensible people would do: not to over commit ourselves, to be cautious, to avoid risks, to hold our trump cards.

What is the alternative?

To be unreasonable, of course. Being unreasonable, like it's more cautious cousin, suggests multiple meanings. Here are seven applications of being unreasonable.

1. Think beyond what is normal, proper, and appropriate.
Typically, one of the first things prospective clients say to me is, "But you're not from our industry. How can you understand our problems, much less provide solutions?" My response is always the same: "That's the last thing you need. You already have plenty of people thinking similar and over-used ideas." What you need is thinking un-bounded by the traditional logic of your industry; ideas that can bring an un-reasoning perspective.

2. Eliminate the reasons why.
There are reasons why we have to do things a certain way. There are reasons why certain approaches to business are going to work and others will not. There are reasons why things should be the way they are and not some other way. Challenge the reasons why and ask people to set them aside. Ask, "Well, what if we did. What would happen then? Would that work? What would work better? What would really rock you?"

3. No more excuses.
When someone in your company doesn't produce the desired results--results to which they have committed, perhaps promised themselves and their departments--they usually have a reason why not. Looking at it this way, you always have one or the other: desired results or reasons why you don't. People act as if those reasons are almost as good as the results. How do I know this? Because they always say something like, "Well, it didn't work, but here's why not," or "We didn't get 'it' done, because..." Or, worse still, " We didn't even try because..."

Remove people's option to resort to reasons why not. Take away their option to resort to excuses. I think the entire working world would shift if there was no recourse to the "excuse" option--if all you could do was produce the desired result, or try another way to get the desired result, or try another way, and so on.

4. Set unreasonable expectations.
Ask people to go beyond what they think is reasonable or normal, Ask them to go beyond cautious commitments that hedge their bets, to make risky pronouncements that exhilarate them but might threaten the natural order of things.

Place big giant stakes in the ground--then figure out how to deliver. Figure out how to turn those unreasonable expectations into reality. Taking this approach will dramatically increase effectiveness and productivity--and ultimately cash flow, if it works nicely--in any business. Why should you settle--why should your customers settle--for what is reasonable and predictable? Why accept the norm, the average, the median? Apply unreasonable thinking. Set unreasonable expectations.

5. Make unreasonable requests.
This approach will aid every executive when working with vendors, contractors and employees. Remember "Just say no?" Try "Just ask for more." Keep asking for more, better, sooner. Up the ante. Ask people to perform beyond their best.

This is not a negotiating tactic. It is not "nibbling." It is asking people to perform beyond their own sense of what is reasonable. Sometimes people will fail to meet these unreasonable commitments--don't beat them up for it. Sometimes you will get stellar results you wouldn't have dreamed of previously.

6. Make unreasonable plans.
Does this sound like an oxymoron? Most companies plan to achieve reasonable results relative to past successes and failures, or even worse, relative to questionable industry lore. Insteadof setting these kind of goals, begin with a more profound question: what would make a really big difference? What would cause a breakthrough for the company? What would dramatically increase shareholder value or profits? What would be "worth doing?" The answers may not be reasonable; they may instead take you down a path towards huge success.

7. Forecast unreasonable futures.
Most businesses forecast their results--revenues, growth rates and so on, based on prior year's results. They call this reasonable, and similarly they assume industry norms and consider them reasonable. But in the twenty-first century, driven by the incredible rate of change in all aspects of our: culture, industry, customer's businesses, our workforce, available technology--to think that anything dating from last year remains the same in this one--this isn't just not reasonable, it might be totally ridiculous.

Take into account all the factors--bring everything you know about the situation up-to-date, add to it all the future changes you predict--and use that to forecast unreasonable results and make unreasonable plans.

So what to do?

Should you give up all pretense of rationality and logic? Should you step outside the norms and ignore the accumulated wisdom of your industry? "That would be great if it works out," you say, "but if it doesn't my job is on the line." Right? Well, yes, but...

Unreasonable thinking does not mean un-thinking. Unreasonable thinking is about exploring. Pushing the envelope. Cross pollinating. Intuitive inventing. It may be that the line separating unreasonable ideas from ridiculous ideas lies where thinking is left behind. Or perhaps the line lies only in hindsight.

I think the fear of failing, the fear of jeopardizing your future, is the biggest obstacle to creating great results. Yet the only way to create big giant breakthrough results is to take the road less traveled--to create ideas and programs that are unreasonable--and going for it. If you fail people will--with perfect hindsight--call your idea ridiculous. But if you succeed... wow!
Visit www.paullemberg.com/toolsandtips.html to download a simple worksheet for aiding your practice of making unreasonable requests.

By Paul Lemberg

Paul Lemberg is the president of Quantum Growth Coaching, the world's only fully systemized business coaching program guaranteed to help entrepreneurs rapidly create More Profits and More Life™. To get your copy of our free special report with detailed steps on how to grow your business at least 40% faster, even when you aren’t sure what to do next, go to Paul's business coaching website.

Click here if you are interested in Quantum's Business Coaching Franchise opportunities.

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Why Do Most People Fail to Meet Their Goals and Objectives?

Why Do Most People Fail to Meet Their Goals and Objectives?

While there are probably no firm statistics on the subject, I think most of us would agree that the majority of people never achieve their goals and objectives. In fact, the same reasons for this failure can also be the reasons why many never really have any objectives in the first place.

To set objectives, someone needs to have ambitions, but not all people have any ambition at all. They may be either content, resigned, or are brainwashed into believing that they have a fixed role in a vast machine, from which there is no escape.

Some, too, have probably never even thought about it. They have just done what they have done, and will do what they will do, as if they were an end product of a factory production line; products with no independent thought or purpose, just a spare part to be fixed to a larger product, which itself may be fixed to an even larger product.

The Odds Against Achieving Objectives

For those who do have any sort of ambition, objectives, and dreams, the odds can be stacked against them. There are many reasons for this:

1. The education systems of most Western countries do not train young people to think for themselves. Social pressures are therefore in favour of perpetuating the production line of subservient workers, the proverbial small cogs in large wheels. The politicians and their political parties who govern these countries have no reason to upset the status quo. The last thing politicians want is a generation of students who are powerful and independent in the use of their minds.

2. From the student days to the early days of a career, the vast majority just follow the trodden path of their parents and peers. If their parents and friends are not independent achievers, then the chances are they will not be either. To even set personal objectives at all, whether formally written down or loosely in their mind, would probably set them apart from the majority. But even then, it is like wading through mud to break free from the norm and achieve ambitious goals.

3. The best time to establish a pattern of setting goals and reaching them is while young. Young people, of course, are more easily distracted than their older counterparts. Whether it is through a volatile love life or an excess of parties and other social activities, achievement can easily take a back seat in their lives.

Try to step outside of that norm, and they may well feel peer pressure forcing them to conform. The fact is, most people, of any age, cannot deal with being different from everyone else. To set ambitious objectives and achieve them needs a firm degree of independence, both in action and thought.

4. To set and achieve personal goals requires a lot of motivation, and that is not something that is in plentiful supply. For many in the material West, motivation equates to money, but money itself is not a competent motivator. Why go to the trouble of setting goals and working flat out to achieve success and get that money? That is something of a scenic route; there is, after all, a direct line to money in the West, in the UK and US in particular, and that is the Credit Line. The credit disease is itself can demotivate when it comes to actually doing something that will earn you money.

5. By and large, people are lazy, and cannot be motivated to work hard for themselves and set themselves apart. Once in a job or career, it is so easy to slip into an auto pilot life, pivoted around a large mortgage, cars you cannot really afford, a daily grind of commuting to a job where you have no independence and can be fired at the drop of a hat. But, it's your life and you keep it that way until forced to do otherwise.

6. Achievement in most fields involves set backs along the way. Most people are impatient and unrealistic, and if success is not a smooth path or instant, they soon give up and retreat to their safe, humdrum, non independent existence. They may never then wake from their slumber, until one day they wake up to find themselves near to retirement, made redundant, heavily in debt, and with no savings or investment. That is a common path for those not determined to achieve true independence, both financial and in thought.

Achieving worthwhile goals, which you really desire and will bring you long term financial freedom and wealth, requires vision, determination, an ability to bounce back from set backs, persistence and a lot of self belief and confidence.

It also means ignoring the doubters, who one day look upon you with admiration and envy, but for now are making you look small with their flash credit driven car and 110% mortgaged house which they will never really own.

For those who can overcome all those obstacles to achievement, life can eventually become very sweet indeed, and the negative influences, the doubters, will fade into the distant past.

This setting and achieving personal objectives article was written by Roy Thomsitt.

More of Roy's articles on aspects of self improvement can be found on the Routes to Self Improvement web site.

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A Low Tech Solution For Time Management

I found a great post over at Dave Navarro's Million Dollar Leverage Blog today. For those of you who are having trouble creating a habit of managing your time and being productive in the most time leveraging manner, check it out. I think it will surprise you how little it costs to be more effective, low tech style.

Here is a little taster and then head on over to Dave's for the rest.

Why High-Tech Solutions Don’t Help With Time Management
by Dave Navarro

When people decide to “get better at time management,” one of the first things they do is buy themselves one or more expensive, high-tech items to make the job easier. Maybe it’s a Palm device or a Blackberry. Maybe it’s a smartphone or a swanky, leather-bound planner. Or maybe it’s some piece of incredible software that promised to manage it all for you.

It doesn’t matter what it is. What does matter is that a lot of these high-tech solutions aren’t going to work. Not because the solution itself doesn’t work, but because if you haven’t established the underlying habit you’ll need to make use of it, you’re hosed! And that habit, specifically, is the discipline of using that tool daily. You’ve probably experienced this already if you’ve got a time management tool you bought but never used. Or some books you’ve bought but never read. Or a gym membership you haven’t used . . . Read further

The Secret Of Motivation - Knowing What Gets You Motivated And Stimulated!

The Secret to Motivation: Knowing What Gets You Motivated and Stimulated! By Shawn Doyle

If you owned an expensive racehorse (by the way if you do, congratulations!) you would make every effort to determine under what conditions your horse performed at its best. When it won a race, you would try to monitor what it ate and when, the pre-race preparation, the environment, the trainer. You would want to know exactly what your horse did right before the race. Then you would try to replicate those conditions to the very best of your ability, in order to increase the chance of your horse succeeding.

Well, the good news is you are your own horse! You need to determine what gets you motivated and stimulated. If for some reason you are down or tired and had a rough day, the methods that you have identified, will get your horse up and running again.

One day my teenage daughter and I were driving down the road and she said “Guess my favorite movie?” After nineteen guesses, which were all completely wrong, I finally gave up. I said, “I don’t know I give up” and was ready to hear some obscure movie answer. My daughter then told me her favorite movie was Rocky starring Sylvester Stallone.

This would be the last answer I would expect from a very pretty and feminine girl. The movie is a tough gritty story of a loser who rises from obscurity to box his way to the top. It is a movie that is dark, bloody and violent. So I asked her why she liked that movie. Her answer? “It gets me pumped!” The movie, for my daughter isn’t about boxing, it’s about inspiration!

Identifying Your Rocket Fuel

I have found like anyone, that there are certain books, magazines, music and people that really motivate me. I have also found certain books, people, music and magazines to be very draining and de- motivating, They “ rain on my parade” if you will.

What are some of the motivational tools and influences that can keep you going?

•Books

Have you ever read the story of someone who despite all the obstacles that they faced, were able to succeed beyond their wildest dreams? Weren’t you amazed and inspired? There are many books that I have read over the years that have inspired me. A biography, self help, historical, psychology books and even at times fiction has inspired me. You need to identify a list of books that have inspired other people and then find the ones that do the same for you. Then you will have them available, when they are needed.

What is great about some books is the fact that they are timeless. The classic books, because they are based on simple truths really don’t lose their relevance. I recently read Mans Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. The book was written just after world war two, but the principles are timeless and just as relevant today.

Once you locate books, which are the ones that motivate you buy them. I know it is less expensive to get books at the library, but owning the books is a better solution, because they are there for reference when you need them. Invest in yourself!

•Movies/Videos/DVD’s

Have you ever thought about movies that inspire you? I have several that really get me pumped. The Elephant Man starring John Hurt is a remarkable film about the triumph of the human spirit. I also love Dead Poets Society, Tucker: A man and his Dreams, Rocky and several others. Identify the movies you like and add them to your library.

•Magazines and Trade Journals

There are several magazines and journals on the market that are about motivation or success, or that you would find motivational. If your dream is to someday own a yacht, then a yachting magazine might be motivational for you to read. A good magazine should, in my opinion be entertaining, motivating and a potential resource for ideas. I can pick up a magazine and read one article, which can be well worth the price of the magazine. I once picked up Fast Company and read an article by Tom Peters that keep my wheels spinning for days! I was so impressed; I subscribed to the magazine and read it every month.

•People

I really believe that the quality of your life is greatly affected by the kind of people that you associate with on a daily basis. You can and must pick your associations. Try to surround yourself with positive, motivated and upbeat people. Limit your contact with people who are continually negative, pessimistic or mean. You may say at this point “well, I can’t pick my friends and associations.” That is what you have decided to believe, but it is not the truth. The truth of the matter, is that you decide every day who to make friends with and to keep that friend who has driven you crazy for years!

What about your family? You can’t pick your family; they are the cards that you have been dealt in life. Most families have some jokers! However if you have members of the family, that are negative and continuously difficult, limit your contact to the proverbial thanksgiving dinner and pass the gravy.

I want you to think of negative people as “energy vampires” they just sneak up from behind and suck the positive energy and motivation right out before you even realize it! My best friend is a gentleman named Dave. Unfortunately we live in different states. When I call Dave, he is always positive, upbeat and supportive. At the end of a call with Dave, I always feel better than before the call started.

Friends should be the people who support and motivate you. Will there be times when you feel less motivated? Times that you are down? Sure! The key in those times is to have a friend that you can call, to help bring you back up and give you a positive perspective when you are in a “funk”. Not the friend who will say will say, “Well let me tell you what happened to me,” and tell a sad tale of woe. If you surround yourself with positive upbeat people, you cannot fail!

•Exercise

No, this is not a misprint! I said exercise. Exercise is a superb tool to get you motivated and keep you motivated. If you want to be pumped, get in a great workout! In my mind there are two keys to exercise being a motivational activity: 1)Knowing that you have a long-term goal. (see chapter 1) 2) You need to find an exercise program that you enjoy and find rewarding. If it isn’t enjoyable and rewarding it won’t last long!

Here is another compelling reason to exercise. Aside from the fact that you will live a longer and healthier life, in surveys that have been done, only 16% of the people asked said they work out on a regular basis. That means that if you exercise, you will immediately separate yourself from 74% of people that you may be competing against. That is a competitive edge!

Exercise, as you have probably heard many times releases many chemicals such as endorphins, which are “natural highs”. I find that exercise gives me more energy and more confidence. Try it you will like it. If you don’t like it, try some other form of exercise until you find one that you really like.

•Music

Imagine the great movies of our age without music. Can you imagine Jaws with out music? Gone with the Wind? Star Wars? This proves that music can have a powerful impact on people, and it can have a powerful effect on you! When ever you are feeling “down” or feeling less than motivated, use music as a tool to help you get back up.

Find out what kind of music gets you going. It may be music from a soundtrack, from a movie, or a play. It may be a specific kind of music like rock, country or rap. Here is the key guideline; it has to work for you.

•Role Models

It is a useful technique to identify people from the past and present that you admire, that you can use for role models. Reading and studying about other people, who have been highly successful, can help you become more motivated. I am a big fan of Walt Disney, and whenever I read about him and all that he achieved; I just get completely fired up. When I read about all of the adversity he overcame and succeeded in overcoming, in spite of everyone’s predications, it makes me want to work even harder at achieving my goals.

•Theatrical Shows

I think one of the reasons why Broadway shows are so popular, is that great musicals have always been inspiring. Maybe it is because I am of Irish descent, but whenever I see the show Riverdance my heart soars! Find what kind of shows get you going, whether it is musicals dramas or operas.

The Power of Other Environments

Find out what other kinds of environment get you going and get your wheels spinning. To get motivated, maybe a visit to your local museum, a visit to a certain store or a trip to your favorite coffee shop. Perhaps a nice walk in your favorite park, or a visit to the local luxury car dealer, to look at the car you are going to own!

The bottom line in this chapter is to really understand yourself well enough, to know what the keys are to your motivational lock. It is important to know the activities that get you motivated, keep you motivated and to be in an “up” mood instead of a “low” mood. Don’t get me wrong everybody gets down on occasion and that is ok. What isn’t O.K. is to stay there! I don’t think someone in a foul mood has ever accomplished any thing productive. One proven method to get out of a down mood or frame of mind is to do something, call a friend, go for a walk, but do something!

If you work at identifying the activities that really help bring you up, then like a doctor, you write your own prescription to solve the problem.

One thing I can guarantee, it is almost impossible to stay down when you are doing one of your “mood lifter” activities. There are so many people who seem helpless, trapped in dull boring lives, that are “in a rut”. I think it is tragic, for if they only understood they are the ones who control the quality of the life they live. Don’t live “a life of quiet desperation!” Decide that you are going to lead an exciting productive life of motivation!

Shawn Doyle is the President of New Light Learning and Development (http://www.newlightlearning.com/) a company specializing in Leadership Development and motivation. He is a sought after motivational speaker and coach and he has also authored five books on leadership sales and motivation. His latest book The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Training has just been published by HRD Press. Sldoyle1@aol.com

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Finding Your True Calling

Finding Your True Calling

In my courses on time management, I point out that the very worst use of time in life is to stay at a job for months and years for which you are completely unsuited. There are a great number of people who spend their whole lives doing something during the week so that they can somehow find something enjoyable to do on the weekends.

In every case, these are men and women with very little future before them. They look upon their jobs as a form of drudgery, a penance they have to pay in order to enjoy the rest of their lives. And because of this attitude, they will seldom advance or be promoted. They will stay pretty much at the level they are, moving from job to job, and always wondering why other people seem to be living the good life while they feel like they are living lives of quiet desperation.

People who are not successful and happy in their work are those who have not taken the time to sit down and deal honestly and openly with themselves. They have not looked deep within themselves to find the inner treasures of talent and ability that they have demonstrated throughout their lives. They are content to do work that other people design and to achieve goals that other people have set.

Over time, people who are not following their true callings begin to feel helpless. They feel that there is nothing they can do to change things. Their income only rises enough to meet their expenditures, and they worry about money all the time. The future looks to them to be very much the same as the past. But this is not for you.

Your aim in life is to become everything you are capable of becoming, to enjoy full self- expression of your talents and abilities. Your job is to develop yourself to the point where every day is a source of joy and satisfaction, and you have so many interesting things to do that you do not have enough time to do them. Your job is to continually hold up a mirror to yourself and refuse to work at anything that is not an expression of everything that is good and capable within you.

Success comes from being excellent at what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance and below-average rewards and insecurity for below-average performance.

But excellence is a journey, not a destination. You never really get there. You can never relax. The market is always changing and what constitutes excellence today will be different tomorrow and very different next year and the year after.

All really successful and happy people know in their hearts that they are very good at what they do. If you are doing what you really love and enjoy, if you are following your true calling, you will know because of your attitude toward excellence.

When you have found your true calling, nothing but the best will do for you, and you will go any distance, pay any price, overcome any obstacle to develop yourself to the point where you are really good at your occupation.

When you find your true calling, you will have a continuous desire to learn more about it. People who are not driven to learn more about their fields are people who are in the wrong jobs. And if a person is in the wrong job and not constantly learning and growing in their field, their value and their employability is diminishing with each passing day.

When you find your true calling, you will be determined to join the top 10 percent of people in your field. You will be willing to pay any price that is necessary to rise to the top. You will be willing to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. You will take additional courses on the evenings and weekends. You will see technology as an opportunity to do your job better. You will be interested in the various learning programs that you can install on your computer that can help you learn better and faster. You will be hungry for new knowledge in your quest to move upward in your chosen field.

A simple test as to whether or not you are in your true calling is this: If you are doing the job that is meant for you, that uses your unique talents and abilities, you will automatically admire those who are at the top of your field. You will look up to them and want to be like them. They will be your role models and you will pattern your work and activities after them. You will want to meet them, talk to them, read their books, and listen to their talks. The very best people in your chosen field will become the examples that give you guidance, both spoken and unspoken, on your upward journey.

Throughout the years, I have been continually asked by people what they can do to be more successful. In almost every case, they are working in jobs that they don’t like, for bosses they don’t particularly respect, producing or selling products or services to customers they don’t care about. And many of them think that if they just hang in there long enough, the clouds will part and everything will get better.

But the fact is that you are where you are and who you are because you have chosen to be there. Nobody can help you or change your situation for you. The economic goal of your company is to hire people at the very lowest cost so that they can serve customers at the very lowest cost in a competitive market. For this reason, no one has any obligation to pay you any more than you are getting. If possible, they would like to pay you less.

The one thing I tell people over and over again is that they must become very good at doing what they are doing if they want to move up. And if they don’t have the inner desire to be very good at their jobs, it means they are probably in the wrong jobs.

The great tragedy is the number of people who do their job in an average or mediocre fashion with the idea that, when the right job comes along, they will really put their heads down and do a good job. But for some reason, the right job never comes along. They are always passed over for promotion and advancement. They are always the last ones hired and the first ones laid off.

If you’re still not sure about your true calling, ask the people the closest to you. Ask them, “What do you think I would be the very best at doing with my life?” It is absolutely amazing how people around you, including your spouse, your best friends, and your parents can see clearly what you should be doing when often you cannot see it yourself.

Remember, you are put on this earth to do something wonderful with your life. You have within you talents and abilities so vast that you could never use them all if you lived to be a thousand. You have the natural skills and talents that can enable you to overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself.

There are no limits on what you can be, have, or do if you can find your true calling, and then throw your whole heart into doing what you are made to do in an excellent fashion.

by Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a leading authority on personal and business success. As Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, he is the best-selling author of 17 books and over 300 audio and video learning programs. Join Brian's Free Email Newsletters.Copyright © 2001 Brian Tracy International. All Rights Reserved.

A Great Master Ambition - Do You Have One?

The Power of Purpose

What does it take to be a success? We've all heard that it takes lots of hard work, but now there's actually research to back that up. Recently, researchers have shown you don't have to have talent to succeed. Just the ability to apply "deliberate practice". This type of practice still requires the long hours, but they are focused hours designed to improve performance and provide feedback on results.

Wow - that's a mouthful! It's what separates the "greats" from the "not-so-greats". Actually, it generally takes around ten years of this "deliberate practice" before "greatness" or "success" is accomplished.

Even though we now know that we don't necessarily have to have an innate ability to succeed, how can we develop the persistence and focus it requires to go through years of "deliberate practice"

That's where purpose and passion come in. Every potent life must have a great master ambition which takes precedence over all other motives. The person with a vigorous ambition is a positive, constructive, creative force.

No one can be resourceful, inventive, original or creative without potent concentration; and the complete focusing of the mind is only possible along the line of ambition, the life purpose. We cannot focus the mind upon a thing we are not interested in and enthusiastic about.

There is an infinite distance between the wishers and the doers. Most of us go to work every day and we may like our jobs favorably enough but we know in our hearts it is not our life's calling or passion. We are only loosely connected to our work and usually can't wait to go home. That's hardly a passion, is it?

There is great power in a resolution that has no reservation in it — a strong, persistent, tenacious purpose which burns all bridges behind it, clears all obstacles from its path, and arrives at its goal, no matter how long it may take, no matter what the sacrifice or the cost.

The inspiration of a great, positive ambition transforms the life. When the awakening power of a new ambition is born in a man, he is a new creature. He sees everything in a novel light. The doubts, the fears, the apathy, the vicious temptations which dogged his steps only yesterday, the stagnation which had blighted his past life, all vanish as if by magic. They are dispelled by the breath of a novel purpose.

This new feeling is comparable to the feeling you had when you first fell in love. Remember how all of a sudden the world was brighter, kinder and more beautiful? That's the feeling you want to strive for. When an inspiration comes to you, do something about it. Write a note or do some small act to remind you about the thought.

Otherwise, you may think about it for a while and then it will gradually fade away. The habit of postponing kills even the strongest inspiration. These thoughts don't always come at the most opportune time, but take action when you get them.

Remember at the beginning of this article, I pointed out that almost all of the successful people in the world got there from 'deliberate" practice over years of time? Here's some examples:

Tiger Woods - many say his "natural ability" for golf makes it look effortless. But he started playing at 18 months and had 15 years of practice before he won his first major tournament.

Michael Jordan - if his "talent" for basketball was so innate, why did he get cut from his high school basketball team?

Jerry Rice - one of the all-time foremost football receivers, was passed up by 15 teams because he was considered too slow.

Now that you feel inspired and you know that you can accomplish anything without a "God-given" ability, where do you go from here? It's not enough to merely desire something or "wish" you could do it. You must say, "I am going to prepare myself for the great life work. I have faith in my future. I have made a vow to succeed and I am going to do so with a plan of action."

There are various tools and resources to help you with your plan. Keep reading and learning! One amazing tool I have found that helps you create, focus and attain your goals doesn't cost a dime! Read below for more information.

by GiGi Konwin

Get the plan for your success started today. To discover the free tool to help you plan your life's dreams go to: Planning for Success

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