Posts Tagged ‘success’

The turtle is often associated with slow processes so it may seem to be the opposite of what you want for your self development. When you are ready to make changes in your life and become happier and more successful, you want to see fast results. You want to turn your life around now, not at some point in the very distant future.

In an audio book titled The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson shows that a turtle’s pace could be exactly what you need to make permanent changes in your life. You may want fast changes that you can feel right now, but it is typically better to focus on smaller changes that will permanently impact your life for the better.

Think of it in terms of an obese person who needs to lose a hundred pounds. They desperately want the pounds to just melt off instantaneously, but no amount of starving themselves or binge dieting will work permanently. They start yo-yoing with their weight in an unhealthy manner and the weight loss goes nowhere in the end.

It is when the obese person starts taking smaller steps to live a healthier life overall that they really start to see the pounds melt away. They take these small steps in a consistent manner over time and before they know it they are a hundred pounds lighter living an active lifestyle they would have only dreamed of months before.

The process for self development and life change is very similar. Jeff Olson shows why making some very small changes can lead to huge changes over time. This approach to change is less radical and may seem too easy, but it is a proven strategy for long term change and personal success.

Olson also teaches you to put your habits under the microscope to determine if they are working for or against you. How else are you going to know what small changes need to be made?

Real change doesn’t occur in the dark. You have to open your eyes to the way you are living. Then you have to identify real differences between your lifestyle today and what your lifestyle would need to be in order to live out your dreams. Once you become conscious of these things, it becomes much easier to take turtle paced steps toward a better life.

Anyone can overcome obstacles and go on to be highly successful. If you aren’t successful today, you can learn from the habits and lifestyle choices of people who have already become great successes.

In The Slight Edge, Olson identifies real habits shared by some of the most successful people in the world. He breaks them down so you see how you can use those habits in your own life to be successful in your own way.

You don’t have to do anything dramatic to become successful when you follow Olson’s philosophy. You just have to be very clear about what choices you are making today and what choices you would have to make in order to be successful. Then you can take those turtle steps that will lead you to a future of success.

Imagine yourself a year from now. You are highly successful. You contemplate back to this very day and realize how far you have come in such a short period of time. That vision of your future self can come true!

Please visit The Personal Development Company if you would like to learn more about Slight Edge principles by Jeff Olson

The comfort zone is a warm, safe place where things don’t go wrong. It’s also a place where no progress is made and no growth is achieved. In order to be successful you have to get outside your comfort zone, push the envelope, try new things, and other tired (yet still true) cliches.

Here are some things that may help you take that next step:

• A big part of success is people – who you know and who you work with. If things don’t seem to be going well, try finding a new partner, a new client, or a new mentor.
• Find passion and enthusiasm in what you do. It’s okay to rely on those tactics that pump you up, even if they’re not directly related to what you’re doing.
• Is there something you’re worried about or afraid of? Get out of your comfort zone by tackling your fears.
• Even though the goal is to improve your business, trying something totally unrelated – even something weird – can help put you in the right mindset moving forward.
• Get some courage elsewhere, then channel that energy to your business. Do something you’re good at, build up the confidence, and then attack your business head on.
• Put more structure and form into your environment or make it more chaotic. In other words, shake things up a bit to see what happens.

It can be overwhelming to think about the unknown or the potential for failure. The comfort zone is comfortable, but it doesn’t bring success. Don’t ignore the fear or the frustration, but overcome it by breaking out.

Business owners are busy people. It takes a lot of work to succeed in running a company, and that often means schedules packed with conference calls, e-mails, business lunches and company meetings. All of those responsibilities add up to a lot of busy-ness, but too often thwart productivity.

Many people think that a full schedule is the same thing as productivity, but that’s rarely the case. Too often business owners and employees alike spend several busy hours putting out fires and responding to e-mails before ever getting to the first task on their to-do lists.

Even worse, many people don’t realize they are doing it. They assume that because they are busy they are being productive. They often go home feeling like they haven’t accomplished anything but can’t identify what they’re doing wrong. Here are a few tips for combating busy-ness and staying productive.

Let the e-mails pile up. Busy people answer e-mails immediately; productive people answer them consistently. Keeping up on e-mail is an essential part of the work day, and you should definitely be prompt in your responses, but you don’t have to be a slave to your inbox. Let the e-mails roll in while you’re working on your tasks, then take time for e-mails every day at the same time. This will prevent e-mails from distracting you as you work on long-term tasks.

Eliminate distractions. This is more easily said than done, but distractions can cost you hours of productivity. If you find yourself falling behind on your tasks, take some interruption-free time. Your co-workers will respect your wishes if you close your office door and put off conversation for a few hours to get caught up, and it will feel good to have lingering tasks completed.

Simplify. Busy people complicate tasks until they spend hours on something with little to show for it. Productive workers put the necessary effort into projects but make ideas simpler and concepts easier to implement. While a busy person might spend several hours working on the intricate details of a project, productive people focus on perfecting core concepts. Focusing on the essential and letting other things go will help you stop being busy and start being productive.

Setting goals is good, but reaching them is even better. Goals help you achieve greatness and leave you better than you were when you set them. Reaching goals brings a sense of accomplishment that is reward enough for the effort involved.

Accomplish your goals by doing one thing every day that will bring you closer to them. Some days, that might mean taking a large portion of time and making good progress. Other times it might only involve a few minutes of Internet research. But whatever you have to do, be sure to set aside time every day for your goals. Here are some ways you can spend that time:

1. Work on the goal directly. If you are training for a marathon, for example, this would include running. Most days, this is the type of work you will be doing on your goal – the sometimes mundane tasks that you need to be consistent in if you are serious about reaching your goals. As you begin to make progress and show improvements, this part of the process can be the most rewarding.
2. Take care of logistics. This type of work takes less time and is a good way to work on your goals on particularly busy days. If you have a goal to write a book, you’ll need to look into possible publishers and find an editor. Getting these things taken care of is an important part of reaching your goals and allows you to work toward your goals even when you’re not doing so directly.
3. Evaluate and adjust. In order for you to be productive in your efforts, your work needs to be well-planned. Take some time every once in a while to evaluate your progress and make adjustments. See if you’ve reached milestones and determine if you need to speed up or slow down. Maybe you need to set your sights a bit higher or give yourself more time. Periodically re-evaluating your goals helps you stay on track and ensure you’re making progress.

You probably started 2011 with a nice crisp sheet of paper outlining all your goals for the coming year. New Year’s resolutions encapsulate everything that is exciting about January 1 – the chance to start over, to be better, to be more productive and (of course) to meet new goals.

But even for the most successful business owners, those well-intended resolutions often fizzle by the time February rolls around. Especially if you get sick or suffer an injury, your goals might be difficult (or impossible) to pick up again. Here are a few ways to stick with your goals even when you have a strike or two against you.

1. Reevaluate. In all the excitement of setting New Year’s resolutions, you might have set your sights a little too high. Goals need to be realistic and attainable even when things don’t go according to plan. If you set a goal to expand your retail company to four locations by June, an unexpected surgery in March can set you weeks behind and make meeting your deadline impossible. When this happens, try reworking your goal. Decide to focus on opening one location or give yourself more time. This will help you keep your motivation and keep your goals in sight.
2. Put your goals out in the open. Many goals fade away simply because you don’t remember what they are. Write your goals on index cards and put them in prominent places, like your bathroom mirror or on the refrigerator door. As you recover from your injury or sickness, your goals will remain in sight – literally. You might not be able to work toward your goals every day, but keeping them in mind can help you accomplish them after you recover.
3. Enlist help. If you have business partners or employees, share your business goals with them. Ask for their help as you work to make your vision a reality. If you share the load with others, they can help you accomplish your goals even when you are out of commission.

Too often, we associate getting an education with attending a formal school or academy. While many great educational experiences occur in places like this, they are hardly exclusive domain. Well-educated individuals know that there are always daily opportunities to learn. Unlike a rigid classroom experience, where assignments are mandated, these real world lessons are left up to our own initiative. If we don’t choose to seek them, they won’t be forced upon us. 

Many of the top entrepreneurs in the world lack a college degree. Rather, they sought opportunities to learn from established leaders in the business world. By working with mentors, they were able to learn the strategies of success. Other business leaders attended institutions of higher learning, but augmented their classroom studies with real world application. In this way, they learn how to utilize their knowledge in the most efficient way. They also see the occasional errors of business theory and rectify them with hands on immediacy. 

Don’t let a misguided definition of education prevent you from learning. You don’t have to be officially enrolled at a school to learn. You don’t have to be reading from a textbook to study. Rather, seek out opportunities to learn from those around you. Study the success of others. Ask for their advice. The most successful entrepreneurs in the world got where they are because they asked the right people the right questions.

Most adults have an infinite amount of errands to be done. If we put off the things we want to do until we get everything done, the things that are important to us will never happen. This statement refers to the activities that help us unwind and recharge our batteries, like running, reading, quilting, swimming, napping, playing tennis or going for evening walks. 

We often feel so beholden to our schedules that we are willing to trudge through a never ending amount of tedious tasks without ever doing what we enjoy. This sad routine prevents us from gleaning enjoyment from our days and actually decreases productivity. It may sound counterintuitive to think that focusing on a long list of tasks would make us less productive, but it’s true. With nothing special to anticipate and work toward, we lose our ability to work efficiently. For example, if you schedule a two-hour block of time each day for yoga, you will most likely work harder and smarter the rest of the day to accomplish your remaining tasks in the abridged amount of time. 

Don’t feel guilty about taking the time to do what you love. As long as you maintain a balance in your life, you are making the right decision. Your favorite activities keep you healthy, happy and productive. So as you plan your schedule, treat your time equally. Don’t forsake the things you love just because they don’t fit on a typical “To Do” list.

May this New Year bring you many opportunities to explore the joys of life. And may your resolutions for the days ahead stay firm, turning your efforts into achievements and your dreams into reality.

According to some people, work’s dirty secret is that it requires effort. They view the exertion required by work as a terrible deterrent and would prefer to avoid any activity that requires concerted brain power and might result in sweat. Yet the majority of these same people want success. In fact, many of them actually expect it. They feel a sense of entitlement and want results delivered to them.

The idea that we will be successful merely because we are “due” is ridiculous. There is no timeframe for unearned success. It doesn’t come by default merely because it hasn’t been enjoyed in the past. You can be unsuccessful in your 50s just as easily as you were in your 20s, because there’s nothing inevitable about it. If anything, a protracted lack of success makes future success less likely. We are more adept at what we are comfortable with, so if we’ve spent years in a malaise, that’s what comes naturally. More effort will likely be required in order to reap rewards. 

By sincerely seeking success, opposed to agitatedly waiting for it, we put ourselves in the perfect position for results. We are actively engaged in the process and are learning the skills that will help us extend our success. And that’s the problem with fluky success that might strike a lucky and lazy individual. While this does happen once in a great while, the individual has little hope of making it last. They will lack the contextual skills necessary to develop the success and extend it into the future. Their ineptitude ensures that it will go down as a true “one-hit wonder.”

Not only is earned success more likely to last, it’s also more satisfying. There is a cause and effect relationship between work and accomplishment, making the process a familiar one to those who know what it takes and are willing to commit to their dreams. The rewards of focused work are immense and they don’t diminish with time.

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”

–James Joyce 

Mistakes are inevitable in life, but learning from them is not. We must dedicate ourselves to improvement if we wish to make the most of these opportunities for growth. Rather than quickly sweeping a mistake under the rug, we should take the time to understanding what was done wrong and how it could be done better in the future. 

Many of history’s greatest figures have spoken on this subject. Albert Einstein, the legendary scientist, suggested that anyone who doesn’t make mistakes isn’t trying anything new. Truly, mistakes are a sign of growth and development. They serve as mile markers as we leave our comfort zone and push into new territory. 

By accepting mistakes as a necessary byproduct of life, we can use them constructively. Each error should be examined and used as a “portal of discovery.” This thoughtful approach to improvement will ensure a life full of accomplishment and worth.