Daily Habits of Successful People: It's All About Routine

Programming your mind for success

Great example of what most of us do and what we need to stop teaching our children.

How to become more confident

Discover 7 easy ways to help you achieve your goals

Everyone knows that goals are supposed to be the way to help you get what you want in life, set a goal and achieve more. 

Why do so many people fail to achieve their goals though? It seems so simple; think about what you want, have an intention to achieve it and hopefully your life will change. 

There are many reasons why you might not be achieving your goals. 

 

Unfortunately, thinking alone will not get you anywhere, neither will simply having a good intention without being prepared for challenges, or not having clarity where to start, or sometimes not even knowing what you want. The real difference lies  in how effectively you set your goals and how much support you give yourself to achieve them after you set them. What I want to do is show you some things you can do to help you boost your success in achieving your goals.

Get clear on your goals – Decide what you want and get clear on your goal as well as
-your deadline
-how you will measure your goal
-what you need to do to achieve it
-what resources you have and what you will need
-your obstacles and how you will overcome them
-what action steps you need to take

Plan effectively – You need to look at your end goal and determine what steps you need to take to achieve your goal. Then you need to include these steps and schedule them into your diary/calendar. 
 Remember to only plan 75% of your time, take routine tasks into consideration, batch where possible and also plan according to your energy levels.

Do something – Take action. Planning but then giving into procrastination is not going to get you any results. Most of the time we have a good intention to achieve our goals, and then we hit resistance when taking further action. Preparing for your obstacles and also working through them when they arise are key to achieving your goals. You will come up against resistance often, everybody does, this is called homeostasis, a natural resistance to change. The key is to take action and have plans to keep you moving forward.

Keep your goal at the top of your mind – Motivation is pivotal to achieving your goal. Motivation gives you that boost you need to keep going when you feel like giving up. Everyday looking at your goal, reaffirm it to yourself, visualize it before you go to bed. Make it part of your daily routine, feel it.

Keep focused – Always stay focused on your thoughts and what you are feeling. Are you focusing on what you want to happen or what you are scared will happen? Focus on what you want and not on what you don’t want. Review your goals and progress regularly as well.

Commit and Persevere – To achieve any goal, you must be committed and persevere, even when you feel like giving up. Some days will be easier than others but to achieve any goal, you must persevere until you obtain it. Too many people have given up just before they finally achieved success.

Act as if – Always believe and have faith that you will achieve your goal and take confident action. To believe in only those things which you can see is not belief at all. If you don’t believe it will happen, it won’t happen. Whatever you believe, you are right. Act as if and expect the best to happen.

Journey, not destination – Lastly, stay present, enjoy it, it is about the journey and not the destination. Don’t feel like everything will be fine only once you reach your goal. Find the things that you can be grateful and happy for now and remember that reaching your goal will just make things much better, but don’t have the mindset of ‘when…I will…’

If you have a burning desire to achieve more than you currently are but you feel lost and stuck, remember, it is better to work through those emotions now than to give up on your dreams forever.

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Want to sound like a leader? Start by saying your name right

The Most Successful Leaders Do 15 Things Automatically, Every Day

 

Leadership is learned behavior that becomes unconscious and automatic over time. For example, leaders can make several important decisions about an issue in the time it takes others to understand the question. Many people wonder how leaders know how to make the best decisions, often under immense pressure. The process of making these decisions comes from an accumulation of experiences and encounters with a multitude of difference circumstances, personality types and unforeseen failures.   More so, the decision making process is an acute understanding of being familiar with the cause and effect of behavioral and circumstantial patterns;  knowing the intelligence and interconnection points of the variables involved in these patterns allows a leader to confidently make decisions and project the probability of their desired outcomes.   The most successful leaders are instinctual decision makers.  Having done it so many times throughout their careers, they become immune to the pressure associated with decision making and extremely intuitive about the process of making the most strategic and best decisions. This is why most senior executives will tell you they depend strongly upon their “gut-feel” when making difficult decisions at a moment’s notice. Beyond decision making, successful leadership across all areas becomes learned and instinctual over a period of time. Successful leaders have learned the mastery of anticipating business patterns, finding opportunities in pressure situations, serving the people they lead and overcoming hardships.   No wonder the best CEOs are paid so much money.   In 2011, salaries for the 200 top-paid CEOs rose 5 percent to a median $14.5 million per year, according to a study by compensation-data company Equilar for The New York Times.
If you are looking to advance your career into a leadership capacity and / or already assume leadership responsibilities – here are 15 things you must do automatically, every day, to be a successful leader in the workplace:


1.  Make Others Feel Safe to Speak-Up
Many times leaders intimidate their colleagues with their title and power when they walk into a room.   Successful leaders deflect attention away from themselves and encourage others to voice their opinions.  They are experts at making others feel safe to speak-up and confidently share their perspectives and points of view.   They use their executive presence to create an approachable environment.

2.  Make Decisions
Successful leaders are expert decision makers.    They either facilitate the dialogue to empower their colleagues to reach a strategic conclusion or they do it themselves.  They focus on “making things happen” at all times – decision making activities that sustain progress.   Successful leaders have mastered the art of politicking and thus don’t waste their time on issues that disrupt momentum.  They know how to make 30 decisions in 30 minutes.

3.  Communicate Expectations
Successful leaders are great communicators, and this is especially true when it comes to “performance expectations.”   In doing so, they remind their colleagues of the organization’s core values and mission statement – ensuring that their vision is properly translated and actionable objectives are properly executed.
I had a boss that managed the team by reminding us of the expectations that she had of the group.   She made it easy for the team to stay focused and on track.  The protocol she implemented – by clearly communicating expectations – increased performance and helped to identify those on the team that could not keep up with the standards she expected from us.


4.  Challenge People to Think
The most successful leaders understand their colleagues’ mindsets, capabilities and areas for improvement.  They use this knowledge/insight to challenge their teams to think and stretch them to reach for more.   These types of leaders excel in keeping their people on their toes, never allowing them to get comfortable and enabling them with the tools to grow.
If you are not thinking, you’re not learning new things.  If you’re not learning, you’re not growing – and over time becoming irrelevant in your work.



5.  Be Accountable to Others
Successful leaders allow their colleagues to manage them.  This doesn’t mean they are allowing others to control them – but rather becoming accountable to assure they are being proactive to their colleagues needs.
Beyond just mentoring and sponsoring selected employees, being accountable to others is a sign that your leader is focused more on your success than just their own.


6.  Lead by Example
Leading by example sounds easy, but few leaders are consistent with this one.   Successful leaders practice what they preach and are mindful of their actions. They know everyone is watching them and therefore are incredibly intuitive about detecting those who are observing their every move, waiting to detect a performance shortfall.


7.  Measure & Reward Performance
Great leaders always have a strong “pulse” on business performance and those people who are the performance champions. Not only do they review the numbers and measure performance ROI, they are active in acknowledging hard work and efforts (no matter the result).    Successful leaders never take consistent performers for granted and are mindful of rewarding them. 

 

8.  Provide Continuous Feedback

Employees want their leaders to know that they are paying attention to them and they appreciate any insights along the way.  Successful leaders always provide feedback and they welcome reciprocal feedback by creating trustworthy relationships with their colleagues..   They understand the power of perspective and have learned the importance of feedback early on in their career as it has served them to enable workplace advancement. 

9.  Properly Allocate and Deploy Talent

Successful leaders know their talent pool and how to use it.  They are experts at activating the capabilities of their colleagues and knowing when to deploy their unique skill sets given the circumstances at hand.  

10.  Ask Questions, Seek Counsel

Successful leaders ask questions and seek counsel all the time.  From the outside, they appear to know-it-all – yet on the inside, they have a deep thirst for knowledge and constantly are on the look-out to learn new things because of their commitment to making themselves better through the wisdom of others.

11.  Problem Solve; Avoid Procrastination

Successful leaders tackle issues head-on and know how to discover the heart of the matter at hand.    They don’t procrastinate and thus become incredibly proficient at problem solving; they learn from and don’t avoid uncomfortable circumstances (they welcome them).

Getting ahead in life is about doing the things that most people don’t like doing.

12.  Positive Energy & Attitude

Successful leaders create a positive and inspiring workplace culture.  They know how to set the tone and bring an attitude that motivates their colleagues to take action.   As such, they are likeable, respected and strong willed.  They don’t allow failures to disrupt momentum.

13.  Be a Great Teacher

Many employees in the workplace will tell you that their leaders have stopped being teachers.   Successful leaders never stop teaching because they are so self-motivated to learn themselves.  They use teaching to keep their colleagues well-informed and knowledgeable through statistics, trends, and other newsworthy items.

Successful leaders take the time to mentor their colleagues and make the investment to sponsor those who have proven they are able and eager to advance.

14.  Invest in Relationships

Successful leaders don’t focus on protecting their domain – instead they expand it by investing in mutually beneficial relationships. Successful leaders associate themselves with “lifters and other leaders” – the types of people that can broaden their sphere of influence.  Not only for their own advancement, but that of others.

Leaders share the harvest of their success to help build momentum for those around them. 

15.  Genuinely Enjoy Responsibilities

Successful leaders love being leaders – not for the sake of power but for the meaningful and purposeful impact they can create.   When you have reached a senior level of leadership – it’s about your ability to serve others and this can’t be accomplished unless you genuinely enjoy what you do.

In the end, successful leaders are able to sustain their success because these 15 things ultimately allow them to increase the value of their organization’s brand – while at the same time minimize the operating risk profile.   They serve as the enablers of talent, culture and results.

Source

THE RICHEST MAN IN BABYLON BY GEORGE CLASON BOOK REVIEW

5 Steps to Develop More Discipline

Use Mistakes to Achieve Success

No matter what you do in life, you will make mistakes in your quest for success. Whether your path is entrepreneurship, athletics, or another pursuit, it is important that you embrace these mistakes as the perfect learning opportunity to achieve success.

Often looked down upon in modern society, mistakes are simply unavoidable on any path in life. It is time we changed how we view making mistakes and their role in promoting success.

Mistakes Are Rarely the End of the World
Even if each mistake that you make seems like the end of the world, there are people with far worse stories. In some cases, mistakes can lead to death, loss of property, or relationships, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot recover in order to be successful with whichever endeavor you would like. After all of these mistakes are made, you can either complain, feel emotionally drained, or take a learning approach to your situation.

At the moment, the pain might be very real. Many of these scars will even last you a lifetime, but this will prevent you from ever making the same mistake again. For anyone trying to be successful, avoiding the same mistake more than once is key.

Victory From Mistakes
Whether you believe it or not, many of the top leaders in world history made tremendous mistakes earlier in their lives. Some of them even led to the death of friends and comrades, but each man learned from the mistakes in order to be successful.

George Washington – well known as the founder of the USA, Washington started his military career in the French and Indian War as a Corporal in the Colonial Militia. In one skirmish, Washington made a blunder that cost the lives of almost all of his men. Learning from his mistake, Washington was able to outmaneuver the British army, which was the strongest of the time.

Thomas Edison – once quoted as saying “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work!” Edison is the perfect example of making mistakes. After thousands of his own mistakes, Edison learned all of the things he had done wrong in order to create the light bulb correctly. Had he quit, we would all be in a very different place.

Abraham Lincoln – while known for his two Presidential terms in the USA and his role in the Civil War, Lincoln’s political past is largely forgotten. In the years before the Presidential election in 1860, Lincoln had lost 8 out of 10 elections. Only two years prior, Lincoln had lost a U.S. Senate race. Learning from his mistakes, he was able to win the election and change the course of American history.

Learning From Your Mistakes
Even though the histories of these great men might resonate with you, sometimes it is better to have a tangible practice to help you learn from your mistakes. Here are a few of the things that you can do in order to learn from your mistakes more efficiently.

Meditation / Relaxation – initially, you cannot learn from your mistakes without relaxing. If you are stressed, your mind will think differently, you will take the wrong lessons, and ultimately you will learn nothing. You must compose yourself through either meditation or just through some time of relaxation where you can become more composed.

Write mistakes down – you need to visualize your mistakes and even diagram them to see at what level things started to fall apart. When you write it down, it will have a much deeper impact on you.
Be realistic / remove emotions – you have to be realistic with yourself when it comes to your mistakes. Do not be too harsh, do not be too easy on yourself. Just look at the event subjectively and see what you can learn.

Ask friends and family – you need more than your own perspective. Get the help from friends and family that you trust to see where you went wrong and how to correct things
Once you transition your brain to embrace mistakes in order to learn from them, you will find that you are far more free from outcome and able to utilize lessons better.

Source

Brian Tracy's 3 favourite books

I know what I want for my Birthday

Personally I'd put Dale Carnegie's How to win Friends & influence people above Brian Tracy's book but his is informative.

Please let me know your 3 favorite books!!!

Jim Rohn 10 Great Powers

Which do you think is the greatest of the 10?

Jim Rohn Have A Solid Plan (For Teens and Adults)

Jim Rohn - Personal Development - Living An Exceptional Life

Well worth listening to, The Late Jim Rohn What do you think ?

Why Your Purpose Is Not to Have a Destination

 Article by Janice B Gordon
In my thirties, I was on a quest to find my purpose. I read much self-development books and ask myself many questions like:

• Is this it?
• What is my purpose?
• What is the point of me being here?
• What am I here to do?

I realised in my forties that my purpose is not a destination, but it is the experience, it is the journey. It is the entire impact I have on the world, with my relationships, my experience and the impact of my actions.
When I was looking for my purpose I was looking outside of myself, then I started to look inside myself, I discovered that other people do not have the answer, the answer is within me. The answer is unique to my experience and is unique to me, no one answer is given it forms, and it evolves with my unique experiences and insights gained.
I thought that not everyone was going to be a Nelson Mandela or a Steve Jobs, but this does not mean their value is less in the world. When I watch 'Pride of Britain' I am amazed by the things people are compelled to do, even children, they do what they think is necessary, often with little thought for themselves.

• Is saving a life worth less in value than saving a business?
• Is inspiring a young person to go to university less in value than inspiring an adult to lose weight and get fit?

Both might be lifesaving; the young person could have got into drugs, the adult could have had a heart attack. You do not always see the impact of your actions, until much later, if at all. I am always amazed how small actions can have an enormous impact.
The little things you do can have a massive impact.
Purpose it not a big bang event, it is what you learn from a big bang event and then what YOU do about what you learnt from the experience. We tend to focus on the event rather than the consequence of the experience. Two people can have the same experience, but their reactions may be very different. Your reactions and your actions account for something; it is unique to you. Events in life are to cause a reaction; the reaction is the test the challenge, the lesson and the learning are your unique perspective, as is your experience and subsequent actions.
I think it is wonderful that we all have a different perspective because we all see things and react to things differently on purpose. This is your purpose: to understand the meaning through our perspective. You must use what you have gained to share and to improve, you are then compelled to do what only you can do. This is your impact!
If you are still not clear about your purpose, bear in mind it is:

• Not something you have to work hard at and gain.
• Something you have in abundance.
• Who you are now and whom your will become.
• What you already have that is uniquely yours.
• Your perspective and the effect of your actions.
• The untold impact you have now and then.

You may feel your purpose is not worthy unless it is big. If your purpose is your journey, then how can you anticipate the conclusion of your journey and the impact you will have in the world? Do not worry about the result or destination, if you were to predict it, it would probably be smaller than the true possibility that is unless you can predict the future. Your imagination is tired to your perceptions that form from your past experiences. You must be open to having new experiences beyond the limits of your current imagination. These new experiences will bring new insights and new challenges that will enable you to learn new possibilities and effect more in new ways. This is your purpose evolving to help you to reach new levels of understanding.
How can you do what you do to have maximum impact?
Your purpose is to live your life on purpose, with purpose.

1. Do the right thing always.
2. Do what feels right to you.
3. Be authentically you.
4. Act with integrity.
5. Be open to new insights, challenges and lessons.
6. Rather than ask for your purpose ask 'how can I be better?'

This is the beauty of Purpose. Live it - do not limit it!
Source

Will Smith - Ultimate Motivational Speeches

5 Weekend Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

 

 1. Find a recharge ritual

Find a ritual that you can follow each weekend that leaves you feeling recharged. Whether it's an exercise regimen, music or time with your family, following a ritual can energize you for the week ahead. Successful entrepreneurs know that, like a vehicle, they can not go far on empty. 

2. Spend time in solitude 

It gives you a chance to think, sort out problems and plan where you want to be in the future. This can be an excellent opportunity to free write or journal. Experts agree that free writing during regular scheduled times can lead to answers to problems, discovering new goals and insight into your direction for the future.

3. No devices for a day

Take a Saturday or Sunday and choose to unplug. Taking a break from your devices for a day is beneficial both mentally and physically. Constantly being connected and checking email, social media and the places you visit online can drain both your energy and your creativity. Choosing to release the hyper vigilance of being constantly connected creates allows you to live life in real time, resulting in fresh perspectives and a boost in productivity.

4. Reflect

What did you do well this past week and what did you do wrong? How will you be better in the week ahead? Reflecting on the past week offers the successful entrepreneur the opportunity to determine which activities to continue and which to let go. Reflection is a valuable investment of your time that will help you set the goals that will get you to the next level of success during the upcoming week.

5. Plan your week ahead

The successful entrepreneur doesn’t wait until Monday morning to plan for the week. Sunday is the perfect day to sit down and draw a plan. After spending time reflecting on the prior week, you will have a good idea of what you need and want to accomplish. Use this time to schedule important tasks, phone calls and face-to-face meetings that align with your goals. Planning out the entire week ahead as much as reasonably possible guards against missed opportunities and costly errors.

These five weekend habits appear so simple that you may be tempted to dismiss them as non-essential. But the entrepreneur that begins to add these habits to their weekend routine will find themselves steps ahead every Monday morning.

Artical Source:

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The 3 Habits Productive People Find Time for Every Day

To keep yourself productive, it's essential that you build habits to help you organize your day and get the most out of your time.
Here are three of the most powerful habits.

1. Become an early riser by going to bed early.

There was probably a period of time in your life where it was easy stay up late into the night (or early into the next morning) trying to get things done.
For me, however, that period was over a long time ago. Recently, I’ve come to realize that all eight-hour periods just aren’t created equally.
Going to bed at 10 pm and waking up around 6 am is EXPONENTIALLY better than going to bed at 3 am and waking up around 11 am, even though number of hours you sleep is the same. I’ve tested this over and over again, and the evidence is pretty clear: I don’t perform well if I stay up past 11 pm-ish.
Early risers really do have a distinct advantage when it comes to mental clarity, acuity and energy.
Simply put: waking up early works better than any other strategy for becoming more productive. But you have to make sure you get enough sleep to back it up. So get to bed!
I’ve had to give myself a bedtime and be my own parent by ruthlessly enforcing it. It was harder than it sounds, because I’ve been programmed to stay up late for so many years.

2. Start every day with an intention, focus or meditation.

Starting your day with  a clear idea of what you want to do changes EVERYTHING.
Have you ever had a day where as soon as you woke up, there were already missed calls, text messages and emails screaming for your attention? You felt like you were struggling to stay afloat before breakfast. Oh, that sounds like every day, you say? That needs so stop.
If you like, you can meditate. You know, cross-legged, a candle, with some nice music playing in your ridiculously expensive Beats headphones. But if that's too much, you can just "take 10."
Take 10 slow breaths, think about your main objectives for the day, then get moving. This seems too simple to have an effect, but it’s not. If you’re used to getting up already in battle mode, then you’ve probably forgotten how it feels to have a moment to yourself.
Take a few of those minutes back to refocus yourself. It really helps. You can also use that time to create a better to-do list.

3. Physical activity. Do it.

Working out is probably the highest-leverage tool in your arsenal. It predictably and reliably makes you feel  better and keeps you both physically and emotionally healthy, all year round.
To have the mental energy to take on the full calendar of to-do’s that people want from you, you have to be in the gym.
Period.
Training yourself physically not only gives you benchmarks to hit on a regular basis, but it also creates a predictable backbone in your daily life that you can count on, even if everything goes wrong. Mentally, that’s very comforting.

Trust me, I know that integrating these habits into your life won't be easy at first. But if you're not healthy, your business can't thrive anyway. Consider them a long-term investment in your business.

Sources
www.entrepreneur.com/article/239267 - Daniel DiPiazza
www.nadiyahvidsten.com
www.playingwiththeuniverse.com
www.dumblittleman.com

The most motivating 8 min of your life!

We set our own limits in Life

Let me know if you have ever seen evidence of this :)

Be Independent of the GOOD Opinion of Others.

Something I personally struggle with!!

It takes time and determination to unlearn our bad habits,

The stronger the determination the less time it takes!!!

Stay Focused and Stay on YOUR chosen path!

The Importance of Having A Personal Development Plan

A personal development plan provides a framework that will make individuals identify the areas of their strengths and weaknesses and come up with a guide that will optimize and capitalize on their existing skills and capabilities.

Development is a progressive process in one’s life time. It should not stop as long as there is a desire for it, and the need for it. Many individuals hold the principle that only when they cease to exist can make them stop working for their self-growth. Personal development may include procurement of new skills and knowledge depending on your goals.

When you make your own personal development plan, it can provide you with a self-reflection. One of the objectives of this endeavor is the assessment of your assets including your knowledge, skills, capabilities and other qualifications. You may touch the areas of strengths, weaknesses, and new sets of strengths. This self-evaluation gives you a clear awareness about your being.

It can set your path straight in terms of career. When you know which areas you would like to develop and have taken steps to enhance your assets or increase them, you may have clearer picture of where you are heading in the next 5 to 15 years. You will know which decision is the best for you and your future.

In fact, a personal development plan is geared toward progress in your personality and career. It will enhance your self-esteem and add up to your qualifications when you vie for higher position.

Several people experience personality crises. Some thought that they are lost and uncertain of where to go. By having goals in life, you are setting your direction. You will know what to do to follow such direction.

In planning and organizing your personal development, you will use your thinking faculty in making the decisions. By the time you have completed the personal development plan and achieved some of your targets, your ability to make wise decisions will be enhanced as well. As you gain more skills and knowledge, your decision-making ability becomes quicker and sharper.

There are also people who achieve a sense of balance in life by having the development plan. They are able to balance properly their time for work and play. Others who are family-oriented have managed to devote a portion of their time to their children and partner as well as to their career. It also saved them their marriage.

After completing the development plan, most people realized that they have become more responsible and have more positive perspectives in life. Regardless of their goals, they learned to appreciate more their life and have put more value to it than before.

Having a personal development plan is a wise investment in terms of money and time. No matter which angle you will analyze it, self-growth does not have liabilities. Should there be any, they are minor compared to the benefits you will gain from it. In today’s competitive time, having a development plan is a step recommended to everyone. It allows you to gain an edge in life.