Set Goals, And Yet Not Successful?

Many people set goals for themselves but find it hard to achieve anything. Even simple to do lists for the day don’t get ticked off as often as they would like!

It is this lack of focus that is stopping many people from achieving success.

Common problem — people know they should be doing something productive to help themselves but they don’t do it. They get distracted too easily.

So for example, people don’t want to wait and build a business online, they want to succeed within the next 36 hours– in reality this does not happen.

The question is, how can we focus more?

I think you’ve already knew the answer — by setting out specific goals and having a clear vision of the outcome that we want to accomplish, and once we know why we are doing something, we will find it easier to stick to.

For example you want to make $500,000 this year from the internet. Therefore you know that every minute you spend at the computer has to be productive. Why? Because the more productive you are, the closer you will be to getting to you goal of making $500,000 this year.

Obviously, you know what you need to do. If you do get distracted you know you have the choice of continuing with the activity that is distracting you or going back to being productive and working towards your goal.

The trick is, in order to stay focused, you need sheer determination. These two go hand in hand because focus without determination is not going to let you move forward and determination without focus means you don’t have a direction to move towards. Do you see the connection now?

You must be determined to succeed. Many people begin very determined and then start to make excuses. Hey, focus!

Remember success can take time. Overnight success is a… well, a rarity. Research shows that you need to do something for 28 days (or is it 21?) in a row before it becomes a habit. So begin to work at being successful and keep doing it.

Keep the long term goal in mind for everything that you do. It’s very easy to get distracted in the short term but this distraction — watching TV, going for a drink, can have affects that reaches the long term goal.

By focusing on the long term goal, your determination will come in.

Does this mean that you can’t watch TV, go for drinks with friends or do other non-productive things? Of course not.

But there is a time for everything. Be as productive as you can with the time you have in a day but allow yourself the down time as well to enjoy yourself and relax. Get back on the horse after that and achieve the next milestone.

But sometimes, it’s not because lack of determination — it’s limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs are beliefs that you can’t do it, you can’t make a change, you will fail, only other people succeed and so on. The fact is, we have so many limiting beliefs and many people have an inner critic that tells them they can’t do things.

So before a person wanted to start, he has already loses his confident.

Here are more examples of what someone might think or say to himself if he wanted to quit his job to start a business:

* I might as well stay in my job, as it’s not so bad
* If my business fails, I will lose everything
* I can’t succeed online — it’s all a scam
* What if I try something and I don’t succeed… people will laugh at me
* I don’t have time to do it

The last excuse is probably the most often use and the most preposterous — however bear in mind that we ALL only have 24 hours in a day. Believe it or not, even the most successful people in the world only have the same amount of time.  It’s just how we use those hours that’s important.

So what happens is, you listen to this critic and never take action. Many people feel if they don’t try something then they can’t fail — yup, “weird” logic but people actually think unconsciously like this.

Stop and listen to yourself and see if you can recognize your “inner critic”, hear what it is saying to you. Many of us have one and it can really stop us succeeding! Take a few minutes and complete this simple exercise.

As yourself, “What’s my excuse?”

Write down all the “excuses” you make for not doing something.

Now go back to your list and write out fully why what you wrote above is actually a limiting believe — try to really prove why it is true. Be honest.

When you really examined these thoughts that you had, you will realize that they were excuses you were making.

So the next time you stop yourself from doing something, pause and take the time to examine your thoughts. Is the reality really like that or is it just your inner critic talking?

The secret to stop your inner critic — make yourself bigger than your excuses.

Written by Patric Chan

6 Ways to Beat Procrastination – on Big and Little Tasks

Ask almost anyone what holds them back from reaching their goals, or what bad habit they’d like to overcome, and there’s a good chance they’ll say “procrastination.”

All of us procrastinate, at least a little bit. We put off things that we feel we should do, and even things that we want to do: anything from doing the dishes to writing a book.

Sometimes, a certain level of putting-things-off is a smart move. After all, if you’ve got a bunch of tasks on your list, you’re much better off prioritizing the important ones and letting the others slide for a few days, instead of running yourself into the ground trying to get everything done.

Often, though, procrastination is simply a bad habit. If you constantly procrastinate over little tasks, to the extent that they cause problems, or if you never get round to tackling bigger tasks, even though you’d really love to complete some major projects … then read on.

Big Projects

If you’ve got a big project in mind – perhaps writing a book, taking a new qualification, or changing careers – then you probably feel that there’s never enough time. Maybe you’re waiting until you’re not quite so busy, or until you feel more motivated.

Often, the best way to get motivated is to get moving – and you may have to make time for your goals rather than find it. Here’s how:

#1: Set Yourself a Deadline

Let’s say you’re 30lbs overweight, and you want to get healthier. A sensible goal might be to lose those 30lbs within the next six – nine months. You might want to look for a particular milestone (like a vacation, your next birthday, or Christmas) to help you stay focused.

Goals often remain dreams until they have a firm timescale attached. Once you’ve set that deadline, you can work backwards and pick milestones to help you keep up a good rate of progress with your project.

#2: Make it a Priority in Your Day

Even if you’re not really a morning person, making time for a big project first thing can be very powerful – it gets your day off to the right start. If you wait until all your other tasks are done, you’ll often find that you simply run out of time, or don’t have the energy.

For personal projects, try setting your alarm 20 minutes early, and spending those 20 minutes making progress. That might mean reading a book related to your goal, doing some research, writing, exercising…

#3: Be Accountable to Others

If you find yourself hitting “snooze” on the alarm every day, and if your deadline is getting closer and closer without you taking any action, then you need an extra motivational boost. By making other people aware of your goal, you’re much less likely to procrastinate (even if you still feel like it sometimes!)

You could join a group or club to help you along (offline or online) and get the support of like-minded people. Alternatively, you could simply announce your goal to your friends and family on Facebook: even if they don’t fully understand what you’re trying to achieve, they’ll want to encourage and support you.

Small Tasks

If you find yourself putting off chores and other little tasks, you might think that this isn’t a problem – especially if you’re making good progress towards your goals. But all those incomplete tasks tend to mount up, and can lead to a lot of wasted time. (If you’ve ever lost one vital piece of paper in the chaos that is your workspace, you’ll know what I mean..!)

By finding time to take care of the little things, you’ll feel more relaxed and on top of life. Here’s how:

#4: Batch Similar Tasks Together

When you switch from one task to another, you tend to lose a bit of time – and concentration. For instance, if you answer one email, then file a few pieces of paper, then update your Facebook page, then answer another email, you make it very easy for procrastination to get the better of you.

Batching together similar tasks makes it much easier to stay focused and you work more efficiently. This might mean answering all your emails at once, then closing your inbox, or making several phone calls in a row.

#5: Set a Timer Going

However much you dislike a particular task, it’s on your to-do list for a reason. If you keep putting off the housework, your filing, or some other dreaded chore, try doing it for just 15 minutes. Set a timer going and work on that one task until the time’s up.

You can face just about anything for 15 minutes … and you may well find that, once you get going, it’s really not so bad as you thought.

#6: Create a Schedule

Perhaps you tend to procrastinate on some tasks because you simply forget about them – or remember them at completely the wrong time, like when you’re in the shower or driving to work.

If you have certain tasks that really should be done on a weekly or monthly basis, put them into your calendar. That way, you won’t have to worry about forgetting them – and you’ll have time set aside in order to get them done.

 Where in your life do you struggle with procrastination – on your big projects or your small tasks? Let us know your experience (and your tips!) in the comments

Written by Ali Luke

4 Little Steps to Greater Self-Confidence

Do you worry that a lack of self-confidence is holding you back in life? Perhaps you run a small business and you know you could get new clients by going to networking events … but you feel too shy. Maybe you want to switch careers to something different … but you know that would mean taking on something really challenging, like speaking in front of big groups.

Some people are naturally self-confident, but most of us have at least some fears and doubts at times. (And a lot of people who come across as self-confident are quaking inside!) The good news is that your self-confidence level isn’t set in stone. You can deliberately become more confident and take on new adventures.

Here are four little steps to take. As you read them, decide on one or two that you could do this week.

Step #1: Consider Times When You ARE Confident

Most people lack self-confidence in some areas of their life (perhaps their career) but they’re confident in others. Think of something that you’re always confident about. You might have to spend a few minutes on this, because it may seem something that’s “no big deal” to you.

Here are a few examples:

• Cooking a nice meal for your family / friends
• Setting up a website
• Writing an essay or article
• Taking care of children
• Going to the gym and working out

All of these are things that some people find really easy and others are terrified of doing.

Write down a few things that you’re confident about (you can pick any that apply from the list above, or come up with your own). What do they have in common? There’s a good chance that you’ve been doing them for a while – perhaps you were scared of doing something wrong when you first had kids, for instance, but now parenting is second nature.

Step #2: Remember That the First Few Times are Just Practice

When you were a kid, did you ever play group games where the first round or two were “practice”? That gave you and the others a chance to get used to the rules and the way the game worked, without worrying about being “out”.

Life is just the same! It’s really very rare that you can screw something up so badly that you cause serious damage to your career or life prospects. So next time you have to do something scary, tell yourself it’s a practice round.

Let’s say you’ve started a new business and you want to get the word out in your local area. You decide to write a press release, and it’s the first time you’ve done that. You don’t have any media contacts. You may well not feel very confident at all … but if you tell yourself this is “just practice” for when you’ve got something even bigger to announce to the world, that helps take the pressure off.

Step #3: Build Up Your Successes

The best way to grow your self-confidence is with a string of victories. That means that it’s not a great idea to fling yourself headlong into the biggest challenge you can think of. Sure, it might go fantastically well … but even if it does, you might find the whole process horribly stressful. And if it goes badly, you may feel even less confident.

Public speaking always ranks highly in people’s fears, but it’s a great skill to have. If you want to get good at public speaking, you obviously don’t need to begin by aiming to present in front of an audience of hundreds (even if that’s your eventual goal).

Your first few steps could look like this:

• Attend a Toastmaster meeting and listen to some speeches (without participating)
• Take on a small speaking task at work (e.g. presenting to a small group of colleagues in a meeting)
• Speak in front of a larger group in a voluntary context (e.g. in a local community group)

…and so on.

Each step will feel a little scary… but each time you successfully take a new step, you’ll feel more confident. You’ll know that you can do it.

Step #4: Keep Track of What You Achieve

To keep your motivation up, and to continue to grow your confidence, keep track of your achievements. That might mean listing the different steps you took, and even recording how you felt (e.g. “really nervous beforehand but great once I’d done it”).

Over time, you can see your abilities growing and your comfort zone expanding. If you write down your achievements on a monthly basis, you might find that something which terrified you in January was OK by March and actually enjoyable by June.

When you see this pattern repeating in different areas of your life – little steps gradually leading you to greater self-confidence, and greater achievements – it helps you to face new situations. Over the years, I’ve learned that I always feel timid and anxious when faced with something new, but once I get going, it becomes much easier and I feel far more confident.

 What step could you take today? Choose one idea from the list above, and tell us what you’re going to do in the comments.

Post written by Ali Luke

The Three Rules to Midlife Happiness

Rule 1: Be happy in your own Time

Some people find it hard to accept that they are growing older, they seek perpetual youth.

Some have facelifts, botox injections, boob jobs, bum lifts and other cosmetic surgery to try to keep the ravages of time at bay. This may look very attractive for a time but often ends with the person looking a parody of his or her previous self. ‘Trout pout’ anyone?

Some wear clothes that would look much better on their children (rule 1a – If you are old enough to have worn it when it was in fashion last time around, don’t wear it this time!).

Some people in midlife decide to start again with a younger partner – ‘Cougar’ women take a toyboy, midlife men might opt for a 20 something female with long legs. Whilst this might seem attractive in the short term, once the initial excitement has died down, the couple find themselves living together with little in common. They watched different TV programmes when they were children, they grew up listening to different music and they wore different styles of clothes – they come from different ‘times’ and unless they are very fortunate, they are very unlikely to feel comfortable with each other in the long term.

Rule 2: Be happy in your own Skin

We are all born with the hand of cards that we are given. Some will grow up as beautiful people, others won’t. Some will become thought leaders in their spheres, most won’t.

‘Show me the boy and I will show you the man’, a popular saying that rings very true. Most of us don’t change greatly as we get older, we play the hand that we were dealt.

Many people, though, are not happy with the cards that they were dealt and call ‘foul’. Most women (and quite a few men) are not happy with some aspects of their looks. Some go to great lengths to change their appearance. This goes far beyond trying to keep their youth (see Rule 1) and is an attempt to change their looks, to give themselves characteristics that they wished they’d been born with.

Whilst some attempts at remodelling your looks can be beneficial, particularly for self-esteem and confidence, it is important to draw the line.

A midlife crisis is often triggered by a person not being able to come to terms with living in their own skin.

Rule 3: Be happy in your own Life

Many people feel that they need to ‘fit in’, that they need to conform to a norm with which they aren’t really comfortable. Teenagers, in particular, feel that they must be part of a crowd and fall victim to peer pressure. Their friends all have tattoos, so they feel that they should have tattoos, even if they don’t like them (and will regret having them in later life, particularly if they include someone’s name!)

Midlifers are less inclined to worry about peer pressure but the ‘green-eyed monster’ of jealousy is a very real part of the life of many people in midlife. We all lead different lives and however happy we are, however well off we are, there will always be people who seem to be doing better than us. Some of them will indeed be doing better than us, either because they were dealt a better hand at birth (see Rule 2) or because they work harder than we do (often both).

The grass always seems greener in somebody else’s life. However, when the green-eyed monster rears its head, take a few moments to consider the other aspects of the person’s life – these may not be quite so rosy. Your rich friend may be doing very nicely in the big house, driving the expensive car but behind closed doors their relationship may be falling apart. Their kids might be taking drugs and mixing with the wrong ‘friends’.

Don’t try to ‘keep up with the Jones’ out of jealousy, to make yourself look better or more acceptable to your friends. You may find yourself deeply in debt if you overstretch yourself unnecessarily.

To be happy in your life, accept what you have – but don’t let that stop you from striving to achieve greatness. There is a difference between making the most of your life and trying to live your life imitating someone else.

Written by http://midlifeop.blogspot.co.uk

Embracing Ourselves at Fifty

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night jolted by the fact that I am now 50 years old. For a brief moment, I think it’s all just a big mistake, a cosmic joke, and that I am really still only 35.

I seem to be able to see my former selves so clearly at 3am…there I am at 22, rushing towards my first job, at 30, clueless and having my first child, and at 45, stumbling into midlife. I begin to wonder if I’ve wasted years, lost opportunities, missed beauty, missed the point, and I almost move into panic when an unexpected calm arrives and I suddenly know for certain that it’s all been grist for the mill, it’s all really been about growth.

My own growth is what I take with me into these golden years, it is the constant that I get to keep as time passes and youth fades. In the middle of the night, it becomes clear that I was right where I needed to be at each decade. I needed to be driven in my twenties to know how to relax at 50, to be surprised by the challenges of motherhood in my thirties, so that I could rise to the occasion and meet them, to wrestle with midlife so that I could learn to let go of one stage of life and enter another.

It’s so easy, here at middle age, to begin to pine for our youth, to have regrets, to think we missed the mark, to beat up on our younger selves.  While there is loss, and necessary grief for things past, maybe something bigger is also going on… maybe life is always moving us towards something and aging is that movement along a giant learning curve.

Maybe we get to learn compassion for those younger selves who were doing the best that they could and bringing us to where we are right now. Maybe 50 is a grand culmination of all of those selves who fought so hard to get here. And maybe I can wake up in the middle of the night with relief that I have made it to 50 and am not 35 anymore.

Written by Amy Ruhlin

10 Inspirational Tips to Give Yourself a Boost

Most of us can use a little push, from time to time, to help us shift our mood and lift our spirits when we’re bored, drained, and sluggish.

While your energy level might be low and you feel unmotivated, you don’t have to stay that way!

Here are some easy tips you can follow  to give yourself a boost to inspire, encourage and rejuvenate your mind, body and spirit:

1. Start a gratitude journal. Write down 5 things you are grateful for each day.  Showing appreciation for the things you already have keeps you from dwelling on lack and scarcity.
2. Try out a new hairdo – nothing perks you up like a new “do” to uplift your spirits
3. Listen to some up-tempo music – this is not the time for ballads and blues – you want inspiration, not something to put you down in the dumps.
4. Visit a walk-in salon and get a manicure, pedicure or facial to rejuvenate you.
5. Re-connect with a friend or neighbor to enjoy a cup of coffee or soothing up of tea.
6. Put on your dancing shoes – go dancing with someone who likes to dance. A salsa or Zumba class is a great activity to get you moving and at the same time have some fun.
7. Go to your local library – select a good inspirational book, sit quietly and read for an hour or borrow a comedic video to enjoy at home in your favorite chair with your feet up.
8. Take a walk around your neighborhood – Carry a camera with you as you walk around your neighborhood to capture memorable moments.  You might be pleasantly surprised at the things you miss while driving.
9. Write down your thoughts, ideas and musings in an attractive journal so you’ll have a record of all the great ideas you come up with.
10. Browse your bookshelf or magazine rack – There just might be a book or magazine there you’ve been meaning to read. Select one and immerse yourself in it for an hour.

Written by Gladys Anderson

What Comes First, Prioritization or Planning?

If you have a long list of to-dos and at times you feel like 24 hours is not enough, then setting priorities for your life is crucial if you want to get things done. Prioritization means to arrange (items to be attended to) in order of their relative importance. The more projects you are involved in and the more you do for your business and personal life, the more you need to prioritize your activities. Creating priorities is a bit different from planning your day.  What comes first, that wagon or the horse? In this case, what should you do first, plan, or prioritize?

You need to be clear on what is most important to you before you begin to plan your day. If you plan your day based on everything that needs to get done vs. planning your day according to importance, you may end up “doing” things but not accomplishing much. Here are three super simple things you can do prioritize your day before you plan:

1. What is most important for you today? Priorities can shift based on previous days, mood, etc. Before you begin your day, be clear on your intention and what you want to accomplish. If nothing else happens today, what must take place? Identify what you want to achieve and set your priority and intention for today based on that only. If you manage to accomplish others things, great! If not, you have accomplished what you set out to do, which is very powerful!
2. Limit your priorities. If everything that needs to get done seems to be of high importance to you, you must then use the ABCs of prioritization. After making your list, place an A next to things of super duper high importance that must get done today. Place a B next to things that should get done today but won’t stop you from moving forward if it doesn’t get done. Place a C next to the things that will only get done after everything else and won’t cause panic if they are not done.
3. Evaluate your progress. At the end of your day, look at what you accomplished and evaluate your efforts. If there is area for improvement, then note what went wrong and try again tomorrow. By taking a closer look at the way you handle your priorities will help you create a better success for each day that follows.

Prioritization is a learned skill and it gets better and better with time. Take time before beginning your day to get organized, prioritize, and then plan for your success! I’d love to hear how you organize your day and what has worked! Share your comments below!