Success and Happiness: It's Your Heart vs. What the Others Think

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Productivity down the drain? Maximize your willpower for complete success!

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How To Think Like A 21st Century Entrepreneur. Tips For Success And Getting Ahead In The Information Age.

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30sec Tip: The Secret to Success

The secret to success is… Is not secret. It’s called work your ass off and find a way to add more value to people lives than anyone else does!

We’re all in a hurry, it seems. The pace of life has increased and rushing through our days—through our lives—has now become the norm. We want everything now; happiness now, success now, health now, love now. Not surprisingly, this is the way we approach our goals and life changes as well. Patience is hard to come by: we expect results now, and if we haven’t reached our goal yet, it must be because we’re not working hard enough or fast enough or we’re lazy and undisciplined.

The Number One Secret to Life Success: Baby Steps

Brian is a Lifehacker who covers all sorts of tips for life. He is also fascinated with new technology. Contact him at brian@lifehack.org

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Tips For Success: How to Create a Face-to-Face Networking Plan

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How to Reflect on 2012 and Set Yourself Up for Success in 2013

2012 is almost over and what a crazy year it has been!

At the end of the year comes the beginning of a new year, and with the beginning of a new year comes the beginning of a new set of goals. At the beginning of a new set of goals comes the opportunity to live a more satisfying, successful and happy life, and it’s how you treat this process that will influence your success in the coming year.

To ensure that 2013 is set to be the best year you have ever had, it’s important to reflect on the year that was. What are the things that you are most proud of? What are the biggest discoveries you have made this year? What has made you the happiest? Understanding the answers to these questions will give you a huge boost in ensuring 2013 is the year that you change your life.

Every year I have a process of reflection that I go through to ensure that I am progressing in life and being satisfied and fulfilled. If we don’t reflect on our lives, we don’t know if we are heading in the right direction, and we don’t learn from the events that have shaped our lives.

People who do not take the time to reflect on their lives often feel “lost”, or that they are just drifting through life. It’s absolutely crazy how many people feel this way. In fact, I ran a survey a couple of months ago and the responses blew me away.

Although 91% of respondents noted that they feel it’s extremely important to have clarity about what you want to do with your life, only 34% of respondents indicated that they have some clarity about the direction in which they want to go—that leaves a whopping 66% with little or no focus. Out of a survey of over 200 respondents, not one individual mentioned that they get to live their passion on a daily basis.

Reflecting on the year-that-was helps you to identify your successes and help determine your strengths; it helps you to ensure that you are progressing towards your larger goals in life; and it helps you lay the foundation for goal-setting, assisting you in ensuring that 2013 is going to be the best year you have ever had.

Right now is the best time to reflect on your life and the year of 2012, so I encourage you to take 20 minutes to participate in the exercise below.

Find yourself a peaceful and quiet location to reflect on the past year, a place where there are no distractions around so you can really focus your thoughts. An ideal location would be somewhere outside of your own home—perhaps a beach or a nearby park. Find somewhere you can set your mind free.

Take a notepad and pen with you, or if you’re into technology, take your iPad or similar device.

Write down your answers to the questions below, but note that these questions are just a guide: depending on your individual circumstances, you may want to add your own questions that are more specific or relevant to your life.

What are the 5 things of 2012 that you are most proud of?What new connections have you made, and how have these shaped your life?What experience has made you the happiest?Who has made you happiest?What have been the best moments in your career this year?What changes would you make to your career in 2013?What challenges did you overcome this year? How did you do it?What has held you back from achieving what you wanted to do this year?What can you do in 2013 to ensure this doesn’t happen again?What habit did you acquire this year that has made a difference?What habit has prohibited you from achieving what you wanted this year?What habit do you want to enable in 2013 that will make a difference?What was your biggest mistake in 2012? What have you learned from this?What else have you learned this year?What are 3 words that sum up your year?If you were to live 2012 all over again, what would you do differently?Add your own!

Now that you have reflected on the past year, keep your answers at the front of your mind, and file your notes about them nearby so you can refer to them regularly. Your reflections will become the starting point for setting your goals for the year, and those goals for 2013 will be much more targeted and more relevant to what it is that truly makes you happy.

It only takes 20 to 30 minutes to do this, and this short reflection can have a huge impact on your overall well-being, your learning, and your success for 2013.

Let me know how it goes as I would love to hear your experiences! 2013 is going to be an amazing year. I can feel it!

Featured photo credit:  abstract image of a businessmen rushing in the lobby via Shutterstock

Brendan Baker is an entrepreneur, socialite and starter of happiness. He has created The Start of Happiness, a movement dedicated to helping individuals find absolute happiness, reach peak performance and achieve ultimate success in life. You can sign up to be part of the Action Team for the upcoming Change Your Life course being released in January. You can visit Brendan and The Start of Happiness at http://startofhappiness.com/.

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The Number One Secret to Life Success: Baby Steps

We’re all in a hurry, it seems. The pace of life has increased and rushing through our days—through our lives—has now become the norm. We want everything now; happiness now, success now, health now, love now. Not surprisingly, this is the way we approach our goals and life changes as well. Patience is hard to come by: we expect results now, and if we haven’t reached our goal yet, it must be because we’re not working hard enough or fast enough or we’re lazy and undisciplined.

Hard work and discipline are certainly valuable traits when trying to make changes in our lives or attain important goals, however, even diligence and persistence are often not enough to get the results we’re looking for. The lack of an effective strategy is often our greatest obstacle. In our impatience for results, we try to change too much at once, and expect too much of ourselves, and this impatience usually leads to frustration and failure. This is why most people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions.

Sometimes we don’t even take the first step because our dreams, goals, and desires seem so overwhelming, so intimidating, and so unachievable that we give up before we even start. Maybe we just need to try a different strategy. I’m reminded of the popular saying, “Life is a marathon, not a sprint.” That same philosophy can be applied when we’re attempting to make changes in our lives: it’s true of career advancement or building a business, educational goals, weight loss or fitness, organization, habits, and certainly when trying to build or change relationships.

This may be the simplest, yet the most effective strategy we can use, as consistency, and learning to build on small victories are the keys to success.The happiest and most successful people will tell you that they have achieved their level of life and work success by taking small steps, and making one positive choice after another.

Look for the mini victories

What is a mini victory? A mini victory is a realistic, quickly-achievable, smaller portion of a larger objective. This bite-size goal will vary depending upon our specific intention, time frame, and motivation.The reason this strategy works is because we are able to see tangible progress, rather quickly, so we feel a sense of accomplishment and are encouraged to move on to our next mini goal, using the small successes as stepping-stones to larger change.

Consider health goals. When we are attempting to lose weight, be more fit, or achieve better health, it’s much more effective to set intermediate targets than to fixate on what might be a massive change.

Set a mini-goal of losing 5 pounds each month, rather than a goal of 60 pounds in a year.Swap out one unhealthy snack for piece of fruit, or eat one vegetarian meal a week, and replace one soda or cappuccino with a glass of water. When we try to eliminate all sugar, or soda, or junk food from our diets, we usually fall off the bandwagon within the first week or two. That’s not a very good success rate.Train to run a 5K, then a 10K, then a half marathon rather than training for full marathon all at once. This advice holds true even when tackling the full marathon as well: many successful long-distance runners say that they don’t run 26 miles, they run 1 mile 26 times.

Most of us want career success, but it usually comes one rung up the ladder at a time.

Take one course at a time.Achieve one certification.Improve one skill.Make a few new contacts at each event, conference, or gathering and slowly build your list of business contacts.

It’s better to cultivate good relationships with a small network of contacts, and then gradually expand that network.

We all want to be more organized, but when we attempt to organize or de-clutter our entire home or office all at once, we usually get overwhelmed and don’t finish the project. Instead, when we try to organize one area at a time, change one messy habit, or develop one productive routine, we have better success. Tackle one project, and then add in another change when the first one is well established.

Make a master list of everything you need to do.Eliminate one or two piles.Clear off your desk or the kitchen counter.Sort through old mail.Clear out your email inbox.Start cleaning off your desk at the end of the day.Study or read for one hour a day.Gather the empty cups, bags, and papers each time you get out of the car.

This strategy is useful in almost every area of life, and when trying to achieve nearly any goal. Just work towards one mini-victory at time and make sure you celebrate each achievement in some small way—a little success goes a long way in propelling us to the finish line.

Goal: It’s never too old for me to take baby steps. Tweet and show your determination.

SEE ALSO: 8 Steps To Continuous Self-Motivation

Featured photo credit: Running baby girl via Shutterstock Royale Scuderi is a life fulfillment specialist, success consultant, and writer who specializes in cultivating human potential. She excels at helping others achieve growth, lasting change, professional success, life satisfaction, and clarity of purpose. Her passion is asking questions that matter and finding solutions that work. As owner of Productive Life Concepts, she uses her expertise to help individuals and businesses maximize their potential. Find out more at Productive Life Concepts.

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Why The Road to Success is Always Full of Failures

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Thought for the Day: What is the Price of Success?

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand. By Vince Lombardi

We all want to succeed. Whether it’s in losing weight, learning the guitar, speed reading, or starting our own business. For those of us who have tried and failed, success seems elusive. Why is it one person succeeds where another person fails? First and foremost, I believe it is in their mindset. But secondly, I believe that successful people have developed certain habits, either naturally or through research, that the rest of us haven’t stumbled upon yet.

Though I want each of you to succeed in everything you do, I can’t guarantee success. Only you can do that. It starts in your mind, and from there your thoughts take physical form through your actions. Believing in yourself is a necessity! Beyond that, I’ve made a list of some habits to help you set goals and achieve them.

11 Essential Habits for Success

Brian is a Lifehacker who covers all sorts of tips for life. He is also fascinated with new technology.

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The Way to Success: Know What It Looks Like

I’m waiting for a meeting. It’s a biggie: depending on the report I give, someone either keeps or loses their job, in the next 20 minutes. I’ve already had two big meetings today (on of them resulting in a contact for my company which on its own takes us 20% of the way to our annual targets!). I’ve got a huge meeting to come with a very influential man in my field.

I really can’t afford to screw up at any point at all today, so I need to stay calm.

The killer question is “How?”

I’ve written in a lot of other places about tools and tricks. Here I want to concentrate on just one more – and it’s so simple I feel embarrassed typing it.

But here goes…

Ready?

See! Told you it was embarrassingly simple!

Here’s the deal.

Everyone knows what it feels like to screw up, right? We all know exactly what it feels like to fail – or at least we can imagine it. It’s not hard… the laughter, the mockery, the sense of having let everyone down; the letter saying you didn’t get the job…

But what does success look like?

Okay, for getting a job the result is (usually) getting the job, fair enough (although there are jobs you’re better of not getting, trust me on this as I speak from experience!) but for much of the rest of what we do success is harder to describe.

Let’s take my big meeting last thing this afternoon. It’s with arguably the biggest name in my field (presentation skills training) in the UK and obviously I want him to think well of me.

I can imagine a million bad scenarios in my head, but how will I know if the meeting has gone well?

Well, the trick is to figure out what ‘good enough’ looks like. That, of course, is easier said than done but the important thing is always (seriously, always) do that before you get involved. Once you’re up to your neck in something it’s impossible to be objective about things, least of all when to call it a day.

One technique I’ve found to be remarkably useful is to jot down the project on a sheet of paper… make sure you write it down clearly…. and create three columns. (The image is a grab from my iPhone of a whiteboard in our office about a training day we’re planning.)

The first is the one you’ll find easiest to fill in, so do it first: it’s examples of how you know you’ve screwed up.

Fill in the right hand column next – this one is the same items but now itemized as complete success. Instead of the report being late, the report is now (as an example) written a week early, giving time for reflections and reviews.

With the right hand column filed in it’s much easier to get to the point of the exercise – filling in the middle column… the column of “Good Enough”.

This middle column matches the others, item for item, but now things are only ‘good enough’. For example, if the first column might include the report being late and the middle column would include it being on time – just.

Once you’ve done that, you’re finished. It really is as simple as it sounds. Like all good ideas, the main problem is remembering to use it in the first place! The ‘magic’ of it lies in forcing you to be objective.

Featured photo credit: Sunset via Shutterstock

Simon runs a soft skills training company called Aware Plus in the UK, but is probably best known for his work as a presentation skills trainer. He's also becoming known as a speaker on emotional robustness and personal resilience... he's also a fairly proficient fire-eater!

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Effortless Success Mindfest – Free

Learning Strategies is hosting yet another Mindfest that you can listen to online, and like their previous Mindfests, it’s completely free. They’re really on a roll with these…

This one is called the Effortless Success Mindfest, and it’s a streaming version of an audio program from Jack Canfield.

I listened to this full program on CD several years ago. I liked it and was considering recommending it on my blog, but at the time I felt the price was just too high. There were many LoA products that were introduced after the movie The Secret became a hit, and some of them were priced pretty high. If I recall correctly, this program was selling for $800+ back then.

I couldn’t see too many people in my audience paying that much money for a program like this, even though it was of good quality, so I didn’t recommend it back then. But now that it’s available for you to listen for free, I’m happy to suggest that you check it out. For free, it’s a no brainer.

Jack and I normally hang out at leadership retreats twice a year, so I’ve had the chance to get to know him a bit. One thing I can tell you about him is that he’s a seriously dedicated lifelong learner. He’s read thousands of books in this field — including mine — and he’s constantly refreshing his thinking with new ideas.

I also like that he’s a very heart-centered and playful guy. He clearly enjoys his work and has a lot of fun doing what he does. While he’s had a lot of success and fame, especially with his Chicken Soup for the Soul books, The Secret, and The Success Principles, he’s also very down to earth.

The last time we talked, he asked me about my motivations for doing what I do. I told him that I really don’t care about money or success or fame. What I love most is learning, growing, connecting, and sharing, and making a positive difference in people’s lives. I love seeing the ripples of this kind of work spreading around the world.

Jack told me his motivation is much the same. He also really likes to stretch himself. Many years ago he worked with W. Clement Stone, and Stone’s influence helped Jack to start setting bigger goals — like making the Chicken Soup books into one of the most successful franchises in history.

Jack is also a very authentic and laid back communicator. His style is very relaxed and mellow — about what you’d expect from someone who lives in Santa Barbara.

If you’re looking for a really hardcore, left-brained, step by step program, this isn’t it. This program is centered around sharing personal lessons, observations, anecdotes, stories, and success habits you can put into practice.

It’s been a while since I listened to this program, but one thing I remember about it was that Jack shares many specific habits that he uses to stay focused on his goals and moving forward with action, such as the Create Your Day meditation and the Rule of Five. You can see the full list of topics on the Effortless Success Mindfest website.

If you’d like to deepen your understanding of the Law of Attraction, learn practical success habits, clarify your goals and intentions, and get help staying focused, then I think you’ll really enjoy this program.

If this sounds good to you, you can sign up at Effortless Success Mindfest and start listening to your first lesson right away. You’ll also receive an email reminder to let you know when the other lessons are posted.

If you have any difficulties getting access to the course, just drop an email to info@learningstrategies.com, and they’ll be happy to talk you through it.

Enjoy!

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Site Build It! - Start your own money-making website
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose

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How Reframing Events Leads to Success

Have you ever wondered how some people always manage to achieve success in life even when they are going through traumatic events or situations?

What’s their secret?

I’ve researched what the most successful people do when the going gets tough and there’s one killer technique that I’m going to share with you today that you can start using immediately.

This is it:

Regardless of what’s going on in our lives, we can always ‘reframe’ our situation. So – no matter how bad everything appears to be, we always have the choice to make ourselves feel better by changing the way we view our problems or situations.

The key point is this:

We can’t always change the things that happen to us in life, but we can change the way we view them

Here’s an example of a smart student using the ‘reframe‘ technique to help her parents ‘view’ a situation differently:

Dear Mum and Dad

Apologies for taking so long to write, but my writing utensils were destroyed in the fire at my apartment. I am out of the hospital and the doctor says I should be able to lead a healthy normal life. A handsome young man called Pete saved me from the fire and kindly offered to share his apartment with me. He is very nice and drives a lovely motorcycle, which I like to travel on with him – we go so fast and it is fun. I think you’ll be happy when I tell you that he did the right thing and we got married last week…you see you’re going to be grandparents very soon.

Actually – there was no fire, I haven’t been in hospital, I’m not married and I’m not pregnant. But I did fail my biology exam and I just wanted to make sure that when I told you, you put it into proper perspective.

Love Your Daughter

So essentially, ‘reframing’ events is a way of changing your ‘perspective’ in life so that you don’t get so caught up in everyday problems.

The way that we choose to ‘frame’ our lives will depend on our personal happiness and achievement.  The fact is that there will be times when you don’t have control over an event or a situation. You do though, have control over the way that you ‘view’ the event or situation.

You can choose to ‘view’ it negatively or you can choose to ‘view’ it positively.

The research shows that those who reframe challenging events & situations positively will achieve much more success than those who reframe negatively.

Why?

In my opinion it can be easy to get caught up in everyday problems and this can block us from getting ahead. By ‘reframing’ events you can ensure you’re always moving forward and are not getting fixated on the problems in your life.

It’s all about context –  if you perceive something to be bad – that is often because you are comparing it to something you perceive to be better.

So, take a lesson from the most successful people in history and choose to reframe positively.

The inventor of electric light, Thomas Edison was a genius at ‘reframing’ events in his life and in my opinion it was this technique that powered him forward through every failure to his eventual success.

Having been asked this question by a New York Times journalist: “How does it feel to have failed seven hundred times?”, Edison’s reply was as follows:

Imagine what you could achieve if you began to ‘reframe’ the failures in your life instead of being blocked by them?

How Can you Start Reframing Today?

The next time you notice yourself feeling frustrated about a situation or perceiving something to be ‘bad’, ask yourself how you can reframe it?Start by finding something worse to compare it to by thinking, “At least ‘X’ didn’t happen”.Try flipping the situation around to gain a positive from it.Think about what you have learned from the experience – this can often provide a positive reframe.Consider how the experience will help you move forward and remember that failure is always a pre-requisite for success.

(Photo credit: Businessman Different View via Shutterstock)

Zoë B is a strategist, coach & the author of the Simple Life Strategies blog. Through her coaching programs and blog, Zoë helps others to learn the strategies that exceptional people use to overcome things like stress, indecision, worries, boredom, procrastination & fear so that they can perform at their own personal best. Connect with Zoë B on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Do You Know What "Success" Means for You?

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What WordPress Plugins are Vital to the Success Of Your Blog?

If you have a WordPress blog, then you definitely use some plugins. There are so many plugins available for different uses, so it can become really difficult to find out which ones are the most needed for your site. Because of the benefits that plugins offer, webmasters and blog owners often tend to use too many plugins. Too many plug-ins cause several problems.

SEE ALSO: Top WordPress Plugins for the Smart Blogger

If you have used too many plugins for your blog or website, then it will load slowly. Slow-loading sites are not good for visitors — and especially not good for conversion of prospects to customers. Google recently announced they were going to start using page load times in their algorithm, which means now load time will also affect your search engine rankings.

So…how many WordPress plugins should you use? The answer to this question is: the fewer, the better.

Basically, use those plugins which are absolutely necessary for managing and running your blog like a professional one. A plugin is necessary for your blog if:

It increases the loading speed of your blog;It helps you to add a new feature that is important for your blog and business;The plugin increases safety and security of your blog by eliminating viruses, malware, spam and other such problems;It helps you to improve the search engine ranking of your blog;If it benefits you and your blog in any other way.

There aren’t many that I fully recommend, but here’s my small list:

Google XML Sitemaps – Google Sitemaps is very important from the point of view of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you have a sitemap for your blog, the search engines find it easier to crawl your blog and index it. That alone makes it a vital plugin for your blog.Akismet – This is an important plugin because it saves your blog from spam. It filters the comment spam and saves your time wasted in going through and deleting the spam manually. W3 Total Cache – This plugin can help you to speed up your blog. It caches your site so your blog can load faster for your readers.An advertising management plugin -  There are several plugins available that can help you to manage the advertising on your blog. If you have a blog and you use different types of advertising for generating revenue, then you need this plugin to control your advertisement placement and other vital factors for generating more revenue. The plugin makes it easier for you to manage the placement, frequency, customization of the ads you place in the blog. Several are available by using the search term “Advertising” from within the plugin administration end of your WordPress blog.A plugin for forms – You  need a plugin for creating forms to use in your blog. Using forms you can allow people to contact you without showing your email ID, which saves you from the “spam masters”. There are different plugins available for the creation of forms. Ones to try include Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms.

My final piece of advice? Never use more than 10 plugins for your blog.

What WordPress plugins (if any) do you use and why? Let me know in the comments below.

(Photo credit: Plugged In via Shutterstock)

Bikash Kalita is a Content Manager for the technology blog Take A Plunge. He also manages Nirvana Sutra, the complete Content Management Agency. He is a netpreneur and help people to write, create and publish eBooks.

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There Are No Shortcuts To Real Success

So many people are in such a hurry to success that they eagerly take any shortcuts that come across their way. In reality, shortcuts usually lead to disappointments rather than quicker success. The key to any long-term success is to take the necessary steps to steadily progress rather than skip any of them. This would be true whether the goals are financial or health or relationship related.

I’ve seen gullible people buy into the many ‘get rich quick’ or ‘lose weight fast’ schemes out there only to find out that none of them work except in relieving you of the money paid for such products or programs. A friend of mine even bought one of those home devices that electronically stimulate belly muscle contractions thinking that weight lost is possible while watching TV. This friend, who did not want to put in the work of exercising in a gym, is still overweight today.

As a certified ski instructor, I’ve seen many beginners who try to come down slopes that they are clearly not ready for. Such folks have not reached a level where they can consistently stop and turn on their skis while even on the bunny hill yet. For some reason, these same people ventured onto steeper slopes serviced by chairlifts and they end up frozen stiff with fear at the top.

I’ve had to physically climb back up a slope to rescue such novice skiers by holding them all the way safely back down the hill. Imagine how embarrassing this must be for an adult as this is how we usually start little three or four year-olds on the bunny hill.

If they do manage to start coming down on their own, they will usually panic, lose their focus and end up going straight down the hill with increasing speed. Of course a ‘yard sale’ (a ski phrase which describes a fallen skier with skis and poles ending up all over the slope) will be the result.

We always tell beginners that they must be completely comfortable in making solid turns and stops on a bunny hill before going onto slopes serviced by chairlifts. This is achieved only by extra practice outside of lesson time. But some are just impatient and decide to go on the chairlifts anyway before they are proficient on the easier slopes.

They thought that they could take shortcuts and bypass the steps required. Imagine the shock when they realize that even the easier slopes serviced by the chairlifts are way beyond their abilities and comfort levels when they are looking down these larger hills compared to the relatively flat bunny slopes.

Unfortunately, some of these beginners may never put on skis again because of their terrifying experiences. This is a real shame since they did make the initial efforts to come out to try skiing as a way to embrace winter. If they do come back to try again, sometimes it is the following winter when they have already loss the momentum of any progress as they have forgotten the basic skills.

The shortcuts they thought they could get away with resulted in a loss of success. These poor folks usually have to start all over again from scratch in terms of learning how to ski even the bunny hills. Their initial fears will take twice as much work to get over compared to those who did not take shortcuts in their learning.

Although it is wise to get proper coaching, instruction and mentoring for your goals, these are not considered shortcuts. They are just more efficient ways to learn the skills required for success. However, time with a coach or instructor does not replace the steps one must take in order to be successful.

You still have to do your part of the work whether it’s working out at the gym, building wealth, starting a new relationship or practicing your ski turns on the bunny hill. The bottom line is that there are no true shortcuts to real success.

Many of the goals we want to achieve have already been achieved by countless numbers of other people. Follow their examples and take the same type of steps they had to take in order to be successful. Each step is very much like a little success on its own and little successes do add up. Pay your dues to steadily develop towards success rather than take detours on shortcuts that can actually set you back.

(Photo credit: Ski, snow, sun and fun – skiers on winter vacation via Shutterstock)

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author & Karate World Champion based near Toronto, Canada. Get his FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series on how to expand your comfort zone and finally conquer even your most daunting goals in life.

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Why Failure Can Take You One Step Closer to Success

The Failure/Success Crossroads

Are you one of those people who has never failed? I hope not, because failing in my opinion is a stepping stone on the road to success.

In my world of work I am seen as a “productivity expert”. I use GTD, I try and test productivity apps and I teach people how to organize both their physical and electronic world. But I’m going to let you into a little secret:

I’m not naturally inclined that way.

I am chaos — or maybe I’ll qualify that — I was chaos.

My life was disorder, disorganization, stress, frustration and many more negative things. When I was young my father used to offer me a shovel on my way to bed. The joke was that I would need a shovel in order to clear a path to my bed. Yes I was that bad.

The fairytale goes like this; I was chaos, I found the world of productivity and now my life is order, control and success.

I don’t think so.

There have been many bumps on the road and I still battle at times to keep my physical and mental world in check. I didn’t like the rigidity of systems, the discipline of routines. It wasn’t going to work for me. I got started and I failed.

What is failure? A student once asked me:

“Is failure a necessary component in success?”

We debated the subject in class and came to the conclusion that failure doesn’t have to failure 100% of the time in order for someone to be successful but more often than not it will be a component. Especially when the success comes from hard work and personal achievement, as opposed to getting lucky or having a successful family.

Most business people fail the first time they start a business. In fact, statistics say that on average most people finally succeed at their third business.

(Corollary: Don’t panic if you are starting your first business; some of these succeed too.)

What entrepreneurs will tell you is that the important thing is to learn from failures, understand what happened, pick yourself up and start again.

So if failure is a stepping stone to success then why does this word have such a negative connotation? I think we need to change the way we think and speak about failure. The following words I heard at a weight watchers meeting and I think these words can become a philosophy for life

“You are going to fall, but that doesn’t matter, what matters is how long you stay lying down.”

So, that’s it.  We all fail. We all fall down. It’s how quickly you pick yourself and dust yourself off that is a strong determinant of success.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not naturally an organized person (to put it mildly). I also said that I did fail, but I picked myself up, I persisted and today I can now honestly call myself organized and productive. Sure, I’m not productive 100% of the time — Twitter and Facebook have a lot to answer for — but my stats are getting better. Through persistence and determination, I’ve learned all the tricks of the trade. I’ve tweaked them and now I have a lifestyle that works for me.

I have failed many times on my journey and at times I have been demotivated and disorganized, but because I know the beauty of productivity, the benefits and the possibilities, I know it’s worth that little extra effort to stay organized.

If you are just thinking about becoming more productive, or if you have tried and failed, here are my top tips to help you get going — or get back on board.

Have clear goals. This helps with motivation and purpose.Get a system. You need a way to organize and process your work, it also helps when you go off track by giving you a road-map to get back on track.Get up early. You can achieve so much more in the early hours when no one is awake. (This may not work for night owls. Instead, they need to get a head start on the early risers the night before.)Exercise. It reduces stress and creates energy to up your game.Meditate. This also helps with stress relief, focus and concentration.

And remember: If or when you do fail in life, it’s not an occasion to cry, it’s an opportunity to learn, grow and improve. A time get excited about the possibilities of what comes next and stand up to the challenge.

(Photo credit: Failure or Success Road Sign via Shutterstock)

Ciara Conlon is a Personal Productivity Coach and author. Her mission is to help people achieve their best through working efficiently and being positive and present. “Through Productivity and Positivity I believe there is little we can’t achieve” go to Productivity & Positivity and get Free eBook called Clear the Clutter; Find Your Life

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Conscious Success

In the mid-2000s, most of my income came from advertising. The Google Adsense ads on my website were bringing in $9-10K per month, and it was totally passive income. I focused on writing new articles, and Google took care of selling and serving up the thousands of ads that were displayed each day. It was a pretty nice way to make money as a blogger.

In addition to Adsense, I also sold some ads direct, and I earned income from other ad networks too, although Adsense was by far the best one I tested.

Then one day in October 2008, I decided to stop hosting third-party ads altogether, including Adsense, as I explained in a blog post about dropping Adsense at that time.

The consequences were predictable. Overnight my income dropped significantly.

If I’d kept those ads running, it’s fair to say I’d have received at least an extra $300K in ad revenue since then — probably significantly more since my web traffic has gone up during the past 3 years. Google has undoubtedly continued to refine the Adsense program as well.

If I ever feel the urge to do so, I could easily restore these ads to my website. It wouldn’t take long — a few hours at most. And it would probably start bringing in an extra $10-15K per month.

Many people would consider my decision a foolish one. Some have told me as much.

But my vision of success is my own to nurture. It’s not for anyone else to decide. I intend to grow in the ways that matter most to me, not the ways that society tells me I’m supposed to care about.

Letting go of that $300K bought me a different path of growth than I would have otherwise experienced. It started with asking myself What kind of man do I really wish to be? and How far am I willing to go to become that man?

This soul-searching led to a cascade of other choices, including ending my marriage after being together for 15 years and making some significant lifestyle changes.

Of course I can never be sure what would have happened if I made different decisions — we only get to experience the results of the paths we take, not the ones we don’t — but I’m still pleased with the path I chose. In this case the ad-dropping decision remains easily reversible, but I don’t see cause to reverse it.

Life includes many tests that help us clarify our values. I could have come up with all kinds of reasons to justify why I should have kept taking the ad money and what I could have done on that path, but based on what I knew about myself and what I was already experiencing on that path, I concluded that a different path would be more authentic and empowering for me — but also more difficult.

One side effect of dropping advertising is that I finally started doing live workshops. I’ve done seven of them now, and I have two more coming up. But workshops produce active income, whereas advertising was passive income. I’d previously believed that passive income is always superior to income I have to keep actively earning. But I learned that having to earn income actively can help me grow faster, especially when I have to exercise my creativity to earn it; active income is more challenging, and challenge encourages growth.

When my life gets too easy, I like making things harder on myself because it stimulates more growth. I like getting up early. I like writing deep and insightful articles. I like pushing myself. I like having some pressure to take action. I like being challenged. I don’t want a life of ease and comfort.

I made the choices that I felt were best for me, and I balanced that decision with what I felt was best for others. I think my website is more usable and provides more value to people without all those ads. I also know that the workshops I’ve been doing are providing a lot of value to those who attend. I really like the business model I’m using today, even though it’s more challenging than other business models I’ve tried. Designing and delivering 3-day workshops stimulates a lot more growth in my life than watching ad revenue automatically plop into my bank account.

Society may nudge you to adopt certain values, but at the end of the day, you still have a choice. You can decide which values you’ll hold as sacred and which aren’t nearly as important to you.

Exploring different ways to make money can be an interesting challenge, but I hold my path of growth and how it affects others on a much higher plane.

Conscious success requires making choices to mold your character as you desire to be molded.

Sometimes your choices will receive the approval of others. Sometimes they won’t. Regardless of others’ reactions, do your best to stay true to yourself. Make the choices that allow you to look in the mirror and feel good about the person gazing back at you.

I’ve been thinking more deeply about what it means to succeed consciously as I prep for the Conscious Success Workshop in January. I see a lot of people struggling with fuzzy notions of success that are overly infected by assumptions that society has drilled into them. I know that many people feel pressured to improve their finances, and they worry that they may be sabotaging their success with limiting beliefs about money.

I’d like to suggest that perhaps it isn’t self-sabotage or laziness that’s getting in the way, but it could be a need to develop more clarity about your true values.

There are a lot of ways to potentially earn more money that I wouldn’t feel good about, so I don’t do them. Perhaps you’re in a similar situation.

On the other hand, there are ways to make money that I do feel good about. I feel great about selling workshop registrations, so I can be pretty shameless about that. When someone signs up for a workshop, it’s good for me, and it’s good for those who attend.

There’s a temptation to sacrifice your values to buy into someone else’s definition of success, but again you have the power to choose. At many personal growth seminars, for instance, there’s a big push to get you to spend more money on products in the back of the room. Some people earn more on product sales than they do on seminar registrations. In fact, BOR sales (BOR = back of room) is a common topic for pro speakers to discuss in organizations like the National Speakers Association. Speakers frequently share tips with each other on how to maximize BOR sales.

I don’t buy into this model though. It often creeps me out when speakers push for BOR sales so hard. It feels like they’re just trying to squeeze more money out of people who already paid to be there. Behind the scenes I know that speakers often calculate and track their BOR sales per attendee. Then they try to increase that number over time.

The only products I have for sale at my workshops are my books and Erin’s CDs, and they’re discounted. The main reason we do this is because some people want us to sign copies for them or to buy them as gifts. We don’t sell very much at all though. At the October workshop we did $100 total in product sales, just to give you an idea. In fact, one of those sales was to a conference center employee who was walking down the hall, saw our sign and got curious, and ended up buying one of my books.

It took me many years to figure out what conscious success means to me, and it’s still very much an ongoing process of discovery. I gradually learned that much of what is taught about success, achievement, and wealth just doesn’t resonate with me.

It’s nice to make money, but I prefer to earn it on my terms, even when it means earning less. I like making money from exercising my creativity, such as by writing and speaking. I like making money in ways that feel congruent to me, where more income equates to more value being provided to others. I feel better about earning money from workshop sign-ups than I do from seeing more clicks on third-party ads, for instance.

If you’re able to attend the Conscious Success Workshop next month, I think you’ll find it a very unique experience because it’s about understanding and achieving your own vision of success, not someone else’s.

As anyone who’s been to one of my previous workshops can attest, we create a special vibe at these events that you’re unlikely to see elsewhere. At the October workshop, for instance, I’d estimate that the average attendee received at least 5 hugs before they even made it to their seat at the start of Day 1 — from me, from Erin, from Rachelle, from KB, and from Shae. This doesn’t even include the hugs attendees often gave each other.

No one is going to force you to be hugged if you’d rather not be hugged, but I actually instruct our staff members to greet everyone by offering hugs. This isn’t for any manipulative purposes whatsoever. We do it because virtually everyone likes to be greeted in this way, and it feels good to us. It helps people feel very welcome and fosters an intimate, family-like atmosphere. I don’t know of any other success workshops where you can expect to be showered with warm hugs as soon as you arrive.

I share this because it’s another example of how we can define success on our own terms. Just because other people’s success seminars tend to have a vibe that’s more cold and calculating doesn’t mean we have to buy into that model. Whatever you don’t like about how society seems to be conditioning you to behave, you can say no to that. Then go do your own thing. I for one think American society is cold and disconnected enough already, and I want to help warm it up. I think we’re all better served by relating to each other as family as opposed to acting like strangers.

There’s a tendency to think of success in competitive terms, as if the point is to outperform other people. But that isn’t a very effective model. I think most people will experience far greater long-term success through cooperation, mutual support, and encouragement than they will through hard-hearted solo determination.

One tricky thing for me to figure out was how to create sales pages for my workshops that feel really good and congruent to me. I don’t like hard-sell tactics when someone tries to use them on me, nor do I like feeling that I’m being manipulated to buy something I don’t need. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel good to me to be shy about telling people about these workshops either. I know they help people, and so it would be lame not to encourage people to sign up.

In the summer when I launched some new workshops, I created very basic web pages for each of them. An example is the current page for the February Conscious Relationships Workshop. It’s a pretty simple page that’s mostly just a description of what people can expect to learn there.

My thinking in creating these pages wasn’t to try to sell people on new workshops but actually to get out of the way as much as possible. I wanted to give people a sense of what each workshop was about, but I didn’t want them basing their decision to attend on how persuasive I could be. I figured that it would be better for them to base their decision on whether or not they resonate with my work in general and if the topic appeals to them. That way we’d end up with a really good group of attendees who truly wanted to be there.

I was pleased to discover that these simple pages actually work just fine. Plenty of people have already signed up for each of the new workshops. And by and large, the people who’ve been signing up have been the right ones to attend.

But I still made some mistakes, and I’m continuing to calibrate my approach to feel more congruent to me.

For one, I used to offer a money-back guarantee on all my workshops. I discontinued that guarantee weeks ago. Of course it’s still going to be honored for anyone who signed up while it was in effect, but it isn’t something I’m willing to offer anymore.

I didn’t stop offering the guarantee for business reasons. Refund requests have always been minimal, so that wasn’t the issue. I don’t know if having a guarantee increased registrations overall. I didn’t have a guarantee for the first two workshops I did, and those were very well attended.

I realized that the way I was phrasing the guarantee was a mismatch for the kinds of people I wanted to attract. It was too far in the direction of trying to convince people to attend. My guarantee was based on my assuming 100% responsibility for people’s results, which in practice doesn’t make sense. Each workshop is a co-creative experience, and if people are showing up with less commitment because of that guarantee, that’s no good. I’m going to bring my A game to each event, but I also want other people to be fully committed as well.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I received a refund request from someone who didn’t claim to have a problem with the workshop at all. He just needed more money for rent, so he requested a refund as a convenient way to acquire some quick cash. I still honored his request, but it seriously creeped me out. That incident combined with a few other questionable requests convinced me to re-evaluate the decision to offer a money-back guarantee. I let the emotions of that incident subside, so I could make a clear-minded decision, and ultimately I concluded that it was the wrong approach for me.

Another thing I used to do was offer workshop scholarships to some people. I haven’t been advertising that fact because I don’t want to be inundated with freebie requests, but when I felt someone would benefit from the workshop and I knew that were very unlikely to attend due to financial issues, I’d offer them a free registration. Almost always when I made such offers, people took advantage of them.

In practice, however, this has been a mixed bag. Some people who were given free passes really appreciated it, put a lot of effort into the workshop, and got a lot of value out of it. That was nice to see. Unfortunately others utilized the freebies in ways I felt were hugely disrespectful. They’d show up late, skip out on key exercises, and not really take it seriously. They came to play.

So I’ve backed off from doing scholarships except in very rare cases, like with people I know very well and can absolutely trust to do their part. I don’t take freebie requests, so please don’t bother to ask.

My current approach to selling can be described as testing for resonance. This means that I seek to find the best matches for my workshops. As I see it, some people are really meant to be there. These people really resonate with the message of conscious growth, and they’re willing to put some effort into accelerating that process. Those are the people I want to work with.

Most of the material I’ve read about selling treats the process as one of persuading and convincing people to buy. But who actually likes to be convinced of anything they don’t already believe?

Testing for resonance makes a lot more sense to me. So I’ve been pondering how to do this with my workshop pages. I figured a good approach would be to simply write about the topic and share more thoughts about it, just like I do when writing new articles.

So a few weeks ago I rewrote the CSW web page to see how that approach felt to me. I wrote it to be more like a new article on success and achievement, not a sales page. I don’t think the workshop is even mentioned till about 2/3 of the way through. I mainly shared some personal stories about success and failure from my own life. My aim was to give you a better sense of my thinking about success and to see if that resonates with you. It’s only a small slice into the big picture, but I think it was a good slice to share. The page is much longer than the original version, but that’s because it’s long on content, not salesmanship.

On that page I also added some pics that I’ve never shared online before, namely copies of some of my college report cards.

Even if you know that you’re not going to attend CSW, I still encourage you to read that page if you’re interested in success since I do believe you’ll get some value from the content, especially if you’ve liked some of my other articles on the subject. If you don’t already resonate with the idea of coming to a workshop of mine, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that page convincing you to attend.

Yet another area where I’ve been re-assessing the notion of conscious success is our discussion forums. I realized that I’ve been a bit lax as admin this year, and the standards for our community have been slipping a bit. Our rules haven’t changed, but our enforcement of those rules hasn’t been as consistent as it could be. Consequently we’ve been seeing a rise in problems like trolling, thread derailment, and members taking disrespectful jabs at each other. Some members have racked up a half-dozen warnings or more, when they really should have been banned months ago.

So recently I’ve been working with the mods to raise our standards when it comes to cutting members who can’t follow the rules as they agreed to do when they joined. Suffice it to say we’re going to be much more strict about it. Otherwise the community is at risk of drifting towards a juvenile stomping ground like so many other online forums. So if you’re active in that community and you sense a tightening of our standards, it’s not because our moderation team is ganging up on people. You can lay the blame for that on me. I want our community to continue to serve as a place where people come together to help each other grow and to offer positive support, and I want to our signal-to-noise ratio to stay high. For everyone else, there’s Facebook.

This article itself could serve as an example of resonance testing. If the ideas I’ve shared here feel good to you, you’ll probably get a lot of value from one of my workshops, and you’re likely to make lots of new friends there who share a similar resonance.

On the other hand, if you’ve read this and think “meh… you’re an idiot for not taking the ad money,” then you’re probably less likely to be a good match for my workshops. So you can also label me an idiot for not wanting your money either. You probably wouldn’t be a good match for the other attendees either.

A key lesson I learned about success is: Sometimes we have to say no to the paths that don’t resonate with us, clearing them out of the way first, and only after that will the more congruent paths come forward and make themselves known. In other words, you may continue to attract mismatched approaches to success as long as you’re still tempted to pursue them. When you finally muster the strength to say no to those paths, then you can gain access to much better ones.

And yes, I really do feel good about shamelessly plugging my workshops… as long as I’m doing it in ways that align with my values. Convincing you to go isn’t the right approach. Testing to see if you’re the kind of person who totally belongs there does feel good, however.

Incidentally, the $100 early bird discount for CSW is still good for one more week. I’m not going to extend it beyond that since we already have enough people signed up to guarantee a vibrant weekend, and from past experience I know that a lot of people sign up in the final week before the discount expires.

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A Success Story: Failed Experiments with Productivity

In order to succeed, you've got to fail along the way.

As someone who has spent a lot of time tinkering with productivity – with both the various systems and tools that are available – I’ve come across a lot of successful ones. But I’ve come across a lot of things that just didn’t work, either. I found that these failures seemed to be more plentiful in my early days of studying the art of being productive, and as time progressed my chances of success did as well. It wasn’t often about the system or tool either.

It was all me.

When you’re trying to figure out what will work best in boosting your productivity, you rarely know what will work for you at first. You may be a paper person, but using it just isn’t practical to track all you’ve got going. Even a paper prophet like Patrick Rhone (of Minimal Mac fame) spends time in the digital world in order to keep on track. And while you may be excited about what your devices can do to make you a more productive person, there’s a chance that when it comes to actually being productive that a pen and paper are best suited for you. That’s why it’s so difficult to teach someone how to be more productive; there’s more to it than the old “Just Do It” assertion. A number of factors have to be weighed, making it a very subjective thing.

So if you’ve tried to become more productive through trial and error, you’re not alone. You’re more than not alone. Here are 3 of my own failed experiments with productivity. You may relate to some because you’ve given them a go or you may be inspired to try one of them because maybe your mind can wrap your head around it better than mine could. This isn’t an intervention or a warning; it’s an admission that even those who have lived in the world of productivity have fallen down. The trick is to keep looking for something until you’ve found something that allows you to get back up a whole lot faster and easier.

Since I didn’t want to bring my work home with me back when I had a 9 to 5 job, I kept a planner at work for work stuff and had a planner that went with me everywhere for personal stuff. Anything that was work-related never went in my personal planner and vice versa. Turns out there would be problems with this strategy.

By keeping two planners I was unable to be very nimble. I actually handcuffed my productivity rather than let it flourish. Instead of having one place to put stuff, I had two. And I had to decide on them with every action that came my way. I was working smarter…and harder.

In addition, I had essentially created a separation that really wasn’t there. There was no fluidity between work and personal stuff, and there needs to be. Work is part of life. So are personal matters that need attending. These feed off each other as well – maybe not in a technical sense, but certainly in an emotional one.

Time spent on this failed experiment: 4 months

This seemed like a good idea at the time. I used to use coloured pens and highlighters that were associated with a legend so I could tell what each task was associated with and how far along they were to completion. Different coloured pens were used for the “context” of the tasks (keeping in mind I had no knowledge of how contexts are defined in most productivity systems at the time) and the different coloured highlighters were used to signify the progress of the tasks.

One of the biggest problems with this experiment was that I was carrying around a pencil case for the first time since school. I also wound up using one of those multi-coloured pens that you had to flick to change colours. Not exactly the most pleasant writing tool.

Furthermore, I had to keep tabs on what each aspect of the colour-coding represented. I was either pulling out the legend regularly to make sure I knew what was going on with certain tasks or I inadvertantly would use a wrong colour and throw everything out of whack. Well, at least it felt like everything was out of whack. What it really was: not the best solution for my personal productivity.

Time spent on this failed experiment: 1 year (yes…1 whole year!)

When I first dove into using apps for productivity purposes, Things won out over OmniFocus. The price was cheaper and it seemed to have everything I needed. The user interface was simple and elegant, the developers had built a complementary iPhone app and I was able to use it with relative ease and get a whole lot done.

Until I was away from my Mac for too long with my iPhone. Then “Things” wasnt working out so well. It had no over-the-air sync at the time. That was a problem for me. Others felt the same way.

So I ditched Things for OmniFocus. Moving stuff over took time, but not nearly as long as reconciling Things between two devices would’ve taken me over the long haul.

Time spent on this failed experiment: 6 months

As I was writing this there were several other failed experiments with productivity that came to mind. I’ve made note of them (in the trusted system I use today, which is a combination of different tools I use) and may revisit them in the future so I can share them with you. There’s a lot of material to work with.

As for what I’m using now…well, that’s another post as well. But I can tell you that through these failed experiments I’ve been able to concoct my own winning productivity formula. It’s been the failures that have led me to my successes, which – when you put them into perspective – could indicate that perhaps they really weren’t failures after all.

Mike Vardy is an independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivity pundit" who also dishes the goods at Vardy.me. You can follow him daily on Twitter, listen to him weekly on ProductiVardy, and read more from him eventually at Eventualism.

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From Lemons to Lemonade: Squeeze Every Last Drop of Success Out of Your Mistakes

Learn More from Failure, Learn It Faster...and Use Those Lessons to Achieve Breakthrough Success!

 

We all fail. And we all want to learn from our failures. But learning from failure doesnâ??t happen automatically. It requires very specific emotional and rational skills. You can learn those skillsâ??from this book. Drawing on leading-edge research with hundreds of failing and successful entrepreneurs, Dr. Dean A. Shepherd offers powerful strategies for managing the emotions generated by failureâ??so failure becomes less devastating, learning happens faster, and you grow as much as possible from the experience. Shepherd shows how to clarify why you failed, so you can walk away with insights you can actually use...how to eliminate â??secondaryâ? stresses that aggravate failure or make it more likely...how to master the self-compassion you deserve in times of trouble...and a whole lot more. Failing will never be easy or desirable. But this book will make it less catastrophic, and more instructiveâ??so you can get back to success and get there fast.

• Mourn your failure faster, so you can learn from it sooner
  Learn how to â??undoâ? your emotional ties to failure
• Grow from the experience of failure
  Absorb the lessons that donâ??t fit with your preconceptions
• Discover when to â??pull the plugâ? on a failure in progress
  Know when to move on, so failure wonâ??t last longer or feel worse than it has to
• Stay committed to excellence, no matter what
  Keep focused on success, even in environments where multiple failures are commonplace

Price: $18.99

Click here to buy from Amazon

Book Review: Five Laws of Success

Arnina Nikitina was shocked. “I felt sorry for the time I wasted trying to succeed without knowing the basics,” she recalls. “I was mad because I didn’t discover them before.”

She’s talking about her book Five Laws of Success: “From the beginning of time, there have been laws set in motion that automatically bring their results when we act in relation to them. And success is no exception.”

Law #1: The Law of Desire

“If you want something badly enough you will get it.”

The people who succeed in life are the people who want to. They make the conscious choice to go after their goals no matter what conditions they have to put up with or how many sacrifices they have to make. “If you want something badly enough, then quitting is simply not an option,” Nikitina writes. “You either find a way or make one. You pay the price, whatever it takes.”

You can test and strengthen your desire by getting in touch with all the reasons why you want to achieve your goal. The more benefits you can list and the more often you can review this list (every morning is ideal), the stronger your desire becomes.

Law #2: The Law of Belief

“Anything you believe to be true will be your reality.”

The mind is our greatest asset. And yet many of us constantly put ourselves down with limiting beliefs. “If you don’t believe that you can achieve your goal, you won’t,” Nikitina explains. “In order to achieve anything, you must believe it is possible.” Unless you’re 100% sure, the doubt will prevent your success.

Positive beliefs can be created by practicing visualization exercises every night before bed. Close your eyes and create a clear mental picture of success. See and feel it as though it already exists. Because our subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between dreams and reality, consistently envisioning success will drive actions to create it in real life.

Law #3: The Law of Positive Attitude

“The way we think is the way we perform.”

We all have problems. But what determines success is how we respond to them. Since we can’t control the obstacles we encounter, we must control our attitude about them. “Positive attitude and optimism work like a magnet for success,” Nikitina points out. “If you maintain [a] positive attitude no matter what the situation is, success will come to you AUTOMATICALLY.”

Maintaining a positive attitude is easy if you:

Listen to yourself – pay attention to your “thoughts, ideas, beliefs and commentaries” so you can replace negative ones with positive ones.Get enough sleep – this will boost your energy and enable you to do what needs to be done without feeling tired, overwhelmed, or depressed.Put things in perspective – looked at in the grand scheme of things, most stresses aren’t worth the trouble and most problems aren’t that big.Take a break – sometimes it’s best to simply step back and relax so you can come back stronger to carry on.

Law #4: The Law of Persistence

“If you keep trying you will succeed.”

Success is never instant, which means we’re bound to go through a certain number of failures along the way. “They are a part of life,” Nikitina writes. Learning the lessons means we don’t have to keep repeating them while adapting our approach makes us stronger in the process.

Ultimately, failure is just a stepping stone that teaches us what doesn’t work and what we should do instead. “Fail or succeed, it doesn’t matter. Both of them will get you where you want to be.”

Law #5: The Law of Goal Setting

 “There is no achievement without goals.”

“Goal setting is the most powerful tool you have to achieve success,” Nikitina explains. Goals keep us focused and motivated. They also turn our dreams into reality because they are specific, in writing, have a deadline, and include a clear step-by-step plan.

Conclusion

What do you think? Which of the five do you struggle with most? And what can you do to change that? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Eugene shares his love for reading and personal development by publishing weekly book summaries and reviews at eugeneyiga.com. He’s also on a quest to read the 100 greatest books of all time before he turns 30 and gives away free stuff without making you join his mailing list. Follow Eugene on Twitter for instant updates and alerts.

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