Quote(s) for Friday January 20, 2012

"Success doesn't come to you?you go to it."Marva Collins 

Success Tips: 12 Actions to Build Momentum By Joe Tye

Leadership guru John Maxwell writes (in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership) that momentum is the leader’s best friend. That’s not just a law of leadership – it’s a law of life!

Life is good when you’re on a roll, and it is therefore very much in your interest to get on a roll and to keep rolling. Today I’ll share a baker’s dozen great strategies for building and maintaining your momentum at work and in the rest of your life.

Strategy #1 – Have a Big Why…
Gary Williams, founder of Keller Williams Realty and author of a number of excellent books on growing a business, says that to be successful in the real estate world you can’t be in it just for the money – you have to have what he calls a “Big Why” that gets you out of bed every morning with a passion for that day’s work. This is another law that applies to every dimension of life. The first step to moving that stone in the photo above is having an absolutely compelling reason for wanting to move it in the first place.

Strategy #2 – Make your commitment public…
At a growing number of organizations across the country, small groups meet for one minute each morning to recite together that day’s promise from The Self-Empowerment Pledge. Making a public statement of intent and commitment helps propel them back to work with a renewed sense of Responsibility, Accountability, Determination, or whatever that day’s promise happens to be.

The principle of public commitment catalyzes people in support groups, health clubs, and voluntary causes – and it can help you achieve a higher degree of motivation to move toward the achievement of your own goals.

Strategy #3 – Use double bookkeeping on your to-do list…
I hope you start each day with a review of your to-do list (TDL). I frankly don’t know how anyone can productively get through a day without a to-do list, but suggest that you go one step farther and make two lists. The first is the one you already have – that mélange of urgent priorities, dreaded duties, and good intentions that constitute the typical TDL.

The second is restricted to your Big Ticket Items (BTI) – things like starting your own business, building a house, writing the book that’s been burrowing into your soul, spending the winter in Fiji. Then every morning, look at your routine TDL.

If you are like me and almost everyone else, not one item that gets crossed off of the TDL has anything to do with completing your application to the Harvard School of Anthropology (or whatever your BTI happens to be). This awareness will help you focus your time, money, and energy on more of those things that Covey famously calls Quadrant II – important but not urgent.

Strategy #4 – Break down BTIs to be TDL friendly…
By definition, a BTI is bigger than bite-sized. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you won’t write the Great American Novel over the weekend. Mapping out specific actions required to achieve a BTI allows you to plug them into your daily TDL in a planned and logical sequence. Do that long enough and the dream house of today becomes the family home of tomorrow.

Strategy #5 – Be a 20-Mile-Marcher…
In Jim Collins’ new book Great by Choice (with Morten Hansen), the authors say that one of the key definers of companies that prosper through the most challenging of times is that they set aggressively doable goals and commit to hitting those goals, day in and day out, no excuses allowed.

They call this the 20-Mile-March commitment because it was by such a strategy that Amundsen reached the South Pole and returned to tell about it while his rival Scott, who trended toward 40 miles on easy days and never got out of the tent on hard days, never left the Antarctic alive.

In a world where almost everything is beyond your control, Collins says, having that tangible goal of 20 miles per day helps keep you and the team pressing ahead through the fog (or snow).

Strategy #6 – Do important things twice…
Doing something in your head first makes it easier to do with your body, a principle that is used by every successful athlete. They know that running the track, or playing the game, in their minds makes it certain that they will run faster and play harder when the real competition begins.

You can do the same thing – visualize yourself racing through the grocery store at double-time, shaving off 30 minutes to do things that contribute to your BTIs – an extra hour or two a week for reading, exercising, working on a business plan.

Strategy #7 – Do trivial things last – if at all…
I have a sign in my office that reads “The One Big YES Requires Lots of Little NO’s. If you want to write the Great American Novel, you don’t have 3-4 hours a night to have the boob tube transform your beautiful mind into butterscotch pudding.

Strategy #8 – Change gears frequently…
Winston Churchill, who knew a thing or two about being productive, said that a change is better than a rest. The minute you find yourself getting bogged down, get up and start moving. It will reinvigorate your energy and your drive.

Strategy #9 – Practice the 4-Get It Formula…
Whenever you have a chore to do – say going for groceries – practice the 4-Get It Formula: Get in, Get it done, Get out, Get on with life.

Strategy #10 – Have mixed motives…
Someone once asked Chuck Colson (founder of Prison Ministries Fellowship) what motivated him. He replied that while his mission work was certainly a motivator, he’d be lying if he didn’t also say that he was motivated by other things, like book royalty checks and public recognition.

Having mixed motives like that, he said, assured that if one wasn’t working another would kick in (for example, on a day when you’re sick of seeing people but the rent is past due – money will motivate where recognition won’t).

Strategy #11 – Practice Neuro-Attitudinal Positivity…
I am a big believer in this one. When you run into the proverbial brick wall and your mind seems to have completely shut down, take some time to exercise Neuro-Attitudinal-Positivity, which in the field is known by its acronym NAP.

Some of history’s most successful people were committed NAPpers, including Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. Churchill said of his daily NAP: “Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.”

Waking refreshed from a nap gives you renewed stamina to attack the brick wall, fire-breathing dragon, or other barriers that stand between you and the completion of your work.

Strategy #12 – Choose your battles…
It is a fundamental maxim of military strategy that the commander should at all costs avoid fighting simultaneously on multiple fronts. Doing so spelled the end for Napoleon and for Hitler, while the Europe First policy of the Allies was decisive in winning WWII.

Our battles today are more often emotional and psychological. Every time you catch yourself complaining and whining, you are – perhaps unwittingly – starting a mental battle that you don’t need to fight. Toxic Emotional Negativity (TEN) is like psychological quicksand – it bogs you down. Read the article below for more ideas on how to keep a positive mental attitude in challenging times.

Quote(s) for Friday January 13, 2012

"The great successful men of the world have used their imagination?they think ahead and create their mental picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building - steadily building." Robert Collier 

Daily Disciplines for Effortless Success By Jack Canfield

Hand’s down, one of the most popular questions I’m asked by students is this… “Jack, what are your most important daily actions that you correlate with your success.”

In fact, Oprah Winfrey asked me a similar question just days before appearing on her show. She asked me to come up with some easy-to-apply steps for her viewers to start applying The Law of Attraction in their lives.

One of the basic first steps is to determine, write down and talk about what you do want, not what you don’t want. Be as specific as possible. Once you have clarified what you want, do the following each and every day.

1. Morning Intention, Visualization and Releasing

As soon as you wake up in the morning, take about 5 minutes to focus your mind on your desires, goals and intentions. Start by sitting in a comfortable position, closing your eyes and visualizing your desires and goals as already being fulfilled. Spend 30 seconds to a minute on each of your core desires and goals. You can also take a few moments to visualize your day going exactly as you would like it to.

When you do this, you will often find negative limiting beliefs that are the result of negative programming from your childhood will come up. You may hear thoughts like “I could never afford that,”there’s no way I’ll ever get that,” or “who am I kidding?” coming up. If you do, release the negative thought. Don’t fight or argue with the thought; just release it.

Remember to also spend several moments feeling the feelings you would feel if you had already manifested your desire in your life. The intensity of the feeling is what fuels the intensity of the attraction.

2. Use External Images to Keep you Focused on Your Desires and Goals

Keep yourself focused on what you want to manifest by surrounding yourself with visual images of the things and experiences you want to create in your life. There are many tools you can use for this, including creating a Vision Book from our Vision Board Collection.

Cut out pictures of the things you wish to own (like your ideal car or home) and pictures that represent the experiences you want to have (like the perfect relationship, your ideal job, perfect health, being at your ideal weight, more joy, inner peace or balance in your life) to remind yourself of how you want it to be. Put them somewhere where you will see them every day—on the mirror, the refrigerator, or in your Vision Book.

For even greater impact, combine your pictures with words that reflect your desired outcome, such as abundance, romance, fun, vitality, etc. I think you get the picture. When you look at any of these pictures, do what Bob Doyle, who is featured in The Secret teaches— think the thought, “THIS IS MINE NOW! THIS IS WHO I AM!”

3. Think a Better Feeling Thought

Start paying attention to the many times during the day that you have emotional responses (to other people, experiences, or your own thoughts) that are not in alignment with having or producing your desires. Pay special attention to when you feel disappointment, resentment, frustration or anger about your experiences and circumstances.

Remember, it’s your feelings (which are created by your thoughts, opinions, and beliefs) that are creating your current circumstances. You must make a shift by changing your thoughts to ones that make you feel better (i.e., raise your vibration). Remember that you must become a vibrational match for the things and experiences that you want to attract into your life.

It is especially important to focus your thoughts and behaviors on things that cause you to feel joy. Focus your thoughts on thoughts that bring you joy (your lover, your best friend, your grandchildren, your favorite vacation spot) and your actions on doing the things you love to do (pet your cat, work in your garden, listen to your favorite music).

4. Have an Attitude of Gratitude

It is critical to take time each and every day to focus on what you are grateful for! Some people do this in the morning before or after they visualize their desires; others prefer to do it in the evening. Focus on all of the things in your life (most of which you take for granted) that you are grateful for—your health, your children, your job, the nice weather, electricity, running water, a nice stereo system, your flower garden, your pets, your friends).

No matter what your situation, there are always things to be grateful for. The more you focus on what you are grateful for, the more things and experiences you will attract to be grateful for. You may wish to carry a “gratitude rock” like the one Lee Brower talks about in “The Secret”, or log your findings in a Gratitude Journal.

5. Take Action

There are two kinds of actions you can take. Obvious actions are things like, if you want a better car, going to test drive all of the models you are interested in and choosing the exact car you want to have, and saving 10% of your income in a “car account.” If you want to be a doctor, apply to medical school.

There is also what I call “inspired actions.” Once you begin to do the things described above, the universe will start responding by sending people, resources and opportunities you need to manifest your desired result. You are going to find that you have inspired ideas; you must act on them. You must follow those gentle proddings from the universe. Often these intuitive impulses will have no seeming connection to achieving your goal, but if you follow them, they will lead you down a path of wonderful fulfillment.

Here’s a quick way to know if the actions you’re taking are taking you closer to the fulfillment of your dreams and desires.

If you are feeling joy while you are doing them, then you are on the right path. Remember, joy is your internal guidance system, just like the GPS system in a car, telling you you are taking the right actions. Follow your joy.

6. Acknowledge That it’s Working

If you start to see something change for the better, acknowledge that it is happening. Appreciate it. When you find the perfect parking space, acknowledge it. When you get the table you want in the restaurant, acknowledge it. When you receive unexpected income, acknowledge it. When you meet someone who can help you achieve your goal, acknowledge that Law of Attraction is working. The more you acknowledge that it’s working, the more it will work. It’s that simple.

If you are attracting things into your life that you don’t want, remember that the Law of Attraction is still working. Instead of thinking or saying, “It’s not working,” ask your self, “What am I focusing on, thinking about, talking about, feeling or doing that is bringing this into my life?”

If you want to know what you are thinking about, notice the results you are producing in your life. To change those results, you will first have to change your vibration by changing your thoughts and feelings.

When you make a commitment to take these actions each day, you’ll start to move forward, with confidence, in the direction of your dreams. Believe that they are not only possible, but that they are already in progress.