Do You Have What It Takes To Persevere? Develop Persistence.

Perseverance - How To Quit Quitting

** The Definition Of Perseverance

From a dictionary: "Persisting in or remaining constant to a purpose, idea or task in spite of obstacles." Notice it doesn't start, "Wisely persisting..." Perseverance can clearly be a both a good thing and a bad thing. Remember that when you find yourself wanting to quit something. Quitting might be the wisest choice.

Of course, the problem with the idea that you should quit when something isn't worth the effort, is that it's often used as a rationalization. It comes to mind when the effort is difficult, but really is worthwhile. It's confusing at times, so how do you wisely persevere? There are three important aspects to consider.

Keys To Wise Perseverance

1. Self awareness: Notice when you look for excuses, rather than truth. Are you letting fear or laziness cause you to quit or procrastinate? If honestly watching yourself is difficult, explain your reasoning to a friend. Close friends may be more likely than you to know when you're rationalizing. (Think about it from the other direction and you'll see this can be true.)

2. Costs and benefits: To wisely persevere, you need to see the costs and benefits of what you are doing. If moving to Hollywood to become a star is going to cost you your business or family life, you have to see that clearly before you decide. An honest and good decision requires honest and good information.

3. Motivation: Once you've made a decision, and you're sure you made it for the right reasons, you have to motivate yourself. In fact, perseverance requires that you regularly re-motivate yourself. Write goals down, do daily affirmations, and whatever else you have to do.

Habit is the most powerful secret of success. Practice watching yourself to make self-awareness a habit. Practice analyzing costs and benefits objectively, and practice motivating yourself. By the way, there are many good motivation techniques, so if what you're doing doesn't work - go read up on them and try something else. That's perseverance.

By Steven Gillman

Steve Gillman writes on many topics including brainpower, weight loss, meditation, habits of mind, creative problem solving, generating luck and anything related to self improvement. Learn more and get free e-courses at http://www.SelfImprovementNow.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com

The Importance Of Money - To Have Or Not To Have . . .

"Money is one of the most important subjects of your entire life.

Some of life's greatest enjoyments and most of life's greatest disappointments stem from your decisions about money.

Whether you experience great peace of mind or constant anxiety will depend on getting your finances under control."

— Robert G. Allen: Financial adviser, author

Procrastination Buster - Make It Social!

How To Get Yourself To Take Action, OR . . .

How To Get Yourself To Do The Things You Need To Do - When You Need To Do Them, In Order To Get What You Want To Get - When You Want To Get It! Notice that there is no 'if' anywhere in this title.
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Make it Social. - This really works for me. When I even think of putting off something important, I start thinking of who I can bring in to help me. Generate the momentum of getting things done, not the inertia of putting stuff off.

If you are having trouble getting yourself to do something, then try it with someone else who is interested in the same things. We are social beings and many of us prefer doing things when we have company.

Pick one thing that you need to do but up until now just haven't made any progress on.

Think about the task you are putting off. Is it fear that prevents you from taking action? Is it because you don't like to do whatever it is? Have you habitually let yourself get away without taking action on it?

Just the idea of doing this turns on your negative self talk? But . . . you know that you need to do it or it will hold you back. It has turned into the bottleneck that slows down all other goals progress.

Is this something that you can do with someone else? Usually there is always a way we can bring a friend in on it. Pick up the phone and call someone who supports you on your goals journey. Talk it over with them.

If it is health, or exercise related, start teaming up with others with the same interests. Get your schedules together. If it is work or business related, set up a mastermind group and practice it with them.

There is huge momentum in social outings that moves you forward when you are having trouble. Power is created by the several minds that are moving in tandem, and it keeps you motivated to continue when you may stall by yourself.

This is not weakness to need others, it is quite the other way around. This is when we have the most power; we are capable of so much more when we allow others to share our journey.

Make it social. You will immediately feel the extra power generated by having other people at your side. Start doing some things with kindred spirits today.

See you later.

All Blame Is A Waste Of Time - Quote

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you.

The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration.

You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy."

-- Wayne Dyer, Teacher

5 Simple Success Lessons From The Tortoise

I was reading in my journal today (yes I have once again started to make entries), and I ran across a favorite entry of mine from long ago. Remember the old fable or story about the hare and the Tortoise?

The story where they raced each other and everyone expected the Hare to win because he was faster than the Tortoise. The moral of the story was slow and steady wins the race.

I tried to find out where I first found it so I could give proper credit but I was not successful. So, here is the piece I wrote down anyway because it touched me at that particular time in my life.

If anyone knows who wrote it, let me know so I can link to the credits. Thanks.

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Success Lessons From The Tortoise And The Hare

Here are 5 Simple Lessons of Success:

1. In Life, we may have our own limitations like not being able to run as fast as others, but even though we have our own limitations, we do have all we need to finish the game of life, that is to finish the race.

2.In Life, we may also be the underdog against the opposition, but there is always a potential in us to win and to succeed against the opposition.

3.In Life, when we start our race, our goals, our ambitions . . . as long as we don't stop, give up or quit and we just keep going, we just keep plodding along, we will get to the finish line and we will succeed. Consistency is the key, stay the course no matter what.

4.In Life, you don't have to be someone "gifted", you just have to be yourself to succeed.

5.In Life, the moment we think we are better than others or have a superior advantage, we become arrogant and it will hinder our success.

* END OF EXCERPT*
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Just a reminder that all we need in life to win is already within us. We are perfect just as we are and have unlimited potential. So . . . Go For Your Dreams! Yes. Go For It Now!

See you next time.

Time Log Benefits Revisited

One thing I have found to be of great benefit is a time log. I will monitor how I am spending my time regularly. It becomes a real time saver.

The time I take compiling it is more than made up by the time I save, the effectiveness, and the increased productivity I create by analyzing it.

When you use a time log periodically, you stay on top of your game, you are more apt to stay on track and mimize distractions. You can measure and manage one of your key resources to squeeze maximum results in.

How can you map out a strategy to do more if you don't know where you are? If you don't know the as is situation, how can you measure improvement gains?

Once you know what you want, that is to say once you have commited to your goal, to your course of action, the time log opens your eyes to opportunities to do more, to be more effective, to get more mileage out of the time you do have.

If you have never used a time log, then I encourage you to try it. Measure how effective you are and then adjust yourself accordingly. A tool is only as useful as the person is practiced in using it.

It will open your eyes to any time leakage in your days. Measurement is always key to management, and that applies across the board to all your goals.

Are you really investing yourself appropriately in order to achieve your most important goals on time? For more goal setting info, try our Power Of Setting Goals.

More info on the success habit of Time Management can be found posted here.

See you next time.

Quick Tip On Positive Motivation

How To Create Positive Motivation by Jason Gracia
(from The Motivated Mind)

Desire (Motivation), consists of two elements viewed from four different angles. Positive Motivation is created when the two elements, Pleasure of Action and the Pain of Inaction outweigh the elements of Pleasure of Inaction and the Pain of Action.

Here is the simple equation:

IF
pleasure of action + pain of inaction > pleasure of inaction + pain of action
THEN
Positive Motivation results

Success depends on how well and how consistently you are able to alter each factor of your desire. And this is totally within your control.

(from The Motivated Mind)

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When we focus on the pleasure we will get from our goals attainment and the pain of regret from not achieving it, we will crank up our desire and create positive motivation towards what we want.

This equation applied backwards also works in reverse to create negative motivation, procrastination and stagnation.

So concentrate on the positive aspects. Your mind can only hold one thought at a time so make it productive thought.

No Doubts Allowed. Just Do It, Get Off Your Buts!

Lately I have been reading the book "Do It! Let's Get Off Our Buts" by Peter McWilliams and ran across this quote below today.

It reminded me that sometimes we just have to be courageous and have faith in our abilities to persevere and win through even if we are uncertain of the outcome.

Sometimes we just have to Do It!

"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the heck, leap!"
-- Cynthia Heimel

So, until next time, Go For It!

Realgoalgetter Website Changes

The Realgoalgetter Website is still undergoing some changes. We are now just a few months shy of our 5th birthday coming up, November 2008.

The Realgoalgetter Ezine is four years old as of a few days ago, April 1st. The Realgoalgetter Blog itself was actually started in May 2004, so it is also almost 4 years old. We lost the initial blog information through some difficult technical problems and restarted in January 2005. C'est la vie.

Over these few months, we will present a new look and format, as well as an increase in goals and goal setting related information offered on site. We are presently testing different formats and themes.

We are still in the middle of deciding how best to go about these changes.

Hopefully we will be able to affect this with minimal disruption to the site itself. I apologize if some of the links get messed up during this period of time.

Please bear with us while we improve our site's resources, and thanks in advance for your patience.

Al Smith, Realgoalgetter.com