Why can’t I achieve my goal?
One of the presenters of the Business Success Tips podcast said something very significant. If you’re having trouble reaching a goal, you should identify the challenge that is getting in your way. He said that there were only two kinds of challenges that prevent someone from accomplishing something.
It’s either a training issue or a motivational issue.
Imagine someone put a gun to your head and told you to complete the goal. If you couldn’t do it, even in those circumstances, it’s a training issue. If you could do it, then it’s a motivational issue.
Kind’a cuts right to it, doesn’t it?
If you find yourself with a training issue, determine the exact knowledge that you need and where you can get the needed training. Then take action.
If it’s a motivational issue, you have the knowledge. You know how to do it. You just need the “kick in the pants” to get going. Consider how much you want this goal, and what it will mean to you once it’s achieved. Then take action.
Famous Failures
Is there something you’ve been wanting to do, but you don’t because you think you might fail? Check out these famous failures…
For Any Outcome You Want
by Tony Yost
“For any outcome you want, there is a certain way of thinking and acting that will get it for you. You have to find it and be willing to adopt it.”
Bill Harris, founder of Centerpointe Research Institute
There are several things that we can learn from the quote above.
First of all, you CAN get what you want.
If you don’t believe that you can achieve a goal, your chances of success are very small. The first time the going gets a little tough, it will be way too easy to quit and then say, “See, I told you I couldn’t do it.”
Second, you may have to change your way of thinking or acting in order to get it.
Do you think it’s likely that you will achieve great wealth if you also believe that all wealthy people are greedy, no good, thieves?
Do you think it’s likely that you will find a satisfying relationship if you also think that all men/women are only out to take advantage of you?
In short, do you think that you can be a winner while acting like a loser?
If you are not living the life you want, find someone who is, and see how they think and act. If it works for them, there is no reason it shouldn’t work for you, too.
P.S. I don’t mean for this to come off as a sales pitch, but one really good way of finding out how successful people think and act is The Successful Life Course.
How Can I?
by Tony Yost
What you tell yourself when an opportunity presents itself can make a major difference in the results you get.
For example, if you see something you want and you tell yourself “I can’t afford that.”, you immediately shut down any possibilities of getting it.
Instead, if you will ask yourself the question, “How can I afford that?”, your mind (both conscious and subconscious) sets about trying to find an answer your question. You think “Maybe I can go in with someone to get it.” or “Maybe I could sell x and use the money to buy it.” or “Maybe I can find it online cheaper.” or …? The possibilities go on and on.
The “How can I…?” question opens you to all sorts of possibilities for getting what you want, where as the flat statement “I can’t …” excludes any options.
This doesn’t just apply to money. Instead of “I can never learn a new language.”, you might ask “How can I learn a new language?”. Or, instead of “There’s no way I can lose weight.”, you might ask “How can I lose weight?”. Or instead of “I don’t know how to use a computer.”, how about “How can I learn to use a computer?”.
You are infinitely more likely to find a way to make it happen when you ask “How can I…?, than when you close the door with “I can’t…”.
Switch “I can’t…” to “How can I…?” and watch the difference it creates in your life.
Are You Selling Your Soul to the Corporate Life?
by Richard Cox
We spend most of our lives working, usually far away from the ones we love and really want to be with. Are you letting the “way things are” at work make you feel cynical, unhappy, run down, unfulfilled? If so, you are not alone, that is for sure.
It is very easy to find yourself in the above situation. Many company cultures support that way, and without intervention it can really become a serious personal problem. First it starts off with mild discomfort, then perhaps a deeper attachment to proving we are good enough for the position we are in, followed by the need to make more money and keep the level of security we have in our lives.
Unattended to, these mild behavioural patterns can lead to more serious issues. Sitting at a desk, with mounting levels of stress, always needing to have more, do more, and be more. Day in, day out, doing work that is unfulfilling, because it needs to be done. Not taking care of the physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual concerns that each human being has, every day of their lives. Investing the large majority of our lives in something we do not really care that much about in the long run, other than our own income and security. A bit depressing isn’t it. Then we eventually blame the company, and move to another organisation, with the hope that it will be better next time.
You may be fortunate enough to have a manager or boss that takes care of you really well and pays attention to your needs and requirements to help you work at your peak performance (without burning you out!). Transformational Leadership is one of the ways that this can occur, as usually the transformational leader is fairly awake, interactive, caring and takes into consideration the individual’s needs, as well as providing some intellectual stimulation.
Other ways that you might be able to overcome some of the issues outlines below is to get a personal life coach, or results coach to assist you in focussing your results in an area that has meaning and significance for you.
One more idea you might want to consider – exploring what your life purpose is. This will awaken you to what you are really here to do. This can inject a level of energy and purpose to your daily life, which can help you make the changes that you have been wanting, perhaps for a very long time.
It might be that you are happy working in the corporate environment, and maybe there are some changes that you want to make to the “way that you do what you do”. Someone once said, “A change is as as good as a haircut”. We all need a certain level of change and refreshment in our lives.
The question is, will you make the changes that you know you want to make?
www.transformationalleadership.net is dedicated to unlocking your transformation and leadership potential. Developing Tomorrow’s Transformational Leaders Today.
Article Source: www.bizhelp.info
When Every Day Is Christmas
by Donovan Baldwin
My sister sent me an email recently, and in it were several cute quotations. This one in particular caught my eye:
"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour."
Fits me to a "T".
If there ever was an oxymoron that often describes my normal conditions and feelings, it must be something like "he smiled sadly". I must drive people nuts, and on more than one occasion, okay, on more than several thousand occasions, I have been reminded that the world is not ready for a truly happy person! In my life, almost the only thing that makes me feel down is the sadness or anger of others. On those occasions I mentioned, I am often reminded that people don’t usually see things as I do. Of course, I can’t blame them.
After all, here’s what it is like to live with me. I am 62 years old, and every morning of my adult life, no matter how terrible things were, and there have been some terrible times, I have opened the front door of wherever I lived and looked out on the world as if it were totally new and a wonderful thing that I have never seen before. At the same time, I was perfectly comfortable with the simultaneous feeling of looking at an old familiar place..even if I had just moved in.
We recently moved (again), and by day two in the new place, my wife, who loves me dearly but is of a Mediterranean temperament, was ready to toss me (the mad Irishman) to the wolves, or sacrifice me to Etna…whatever! I could not wait to open the same boxes we had packed just days before with things we had owned for years! I even secretly opened one today just so I could see what was in it. Get my excitement fix, you might say. Let’s see; there was a bag of chips, a bottle of vinegar (unopened), a box of pasta (opened but in a Ziploc bag), a veritable plethora of tea bags of various sorts and smells…and other goodies too numerous to mention.
I actually enjoyed it. However, it was over all too soon. I think I will have to secretly rip open another box tomorrow to get my next fix. We have several stored in the shed nearby. Maybe I can slip down there after she’s asleep.
You see, the problem is, she thinks we are supposed to open boxes and put things away in an orderly fashion, while I just like to open boxes, ooh and ahh over the contents, and then open another box. If I put things away in an orderly fashion, I would miss out on half the fun of my life…finding long lost wonderments on my bookcase, in my desk drawer, under the desk (dresser, bed, and assorted other pieces of furniture).
To me, every event is something to be savored and admired, no matter the smallness in the minds of those around me. I have actually had to restrain myself from pointing out garbage that made an interesting collage along the side of the road. Sometimes these are seen on planned routes, but often I am just enjoying the scenery on a detour…or while lost…which happens a lot, for some reason. The really interesting part is that when I was in the army, they used to take me to places where I didn’t know where I was, give me a map and a compass, and expect me to find my way back home, or to some appointed spot. No problem. Did it every time. However, send me to the grocery store one mile away for milk and eggs, and I will be back in two or three hours…probably without the milk, or the eggs, or both. I will have picked up something at the hardware store, had a cup of coffee somewhere, bought another notebook…because I can’t find the other two thousand I own.
A few months ago, my wife and I watched "Finding Nemo". If you see it, I am in there, only I am a female fish named "Dory" and have the voice of Ellen DeGeneres…which is as confusing to me as it is to you. If you have not seen the movie, Dory cannot remember anything for more than a couple of minutes and is continually having to be reintroduced to the life going on around her and which she has been a part. I can relate.
I guess I had better wrap this up. I was supposed to be checking emails and then joining my wife in the living room, but then I got this great idea for this article…
Well, at least I didn’t leave the garbage can in the bedroom like that other time.
Hmm! Sounds like she’s in the kitchen. There’s the kitchen drawer…wait a minute! That’s where the knives are!
Gotta go!
Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, the environment, happiness, self improvement, and weight loss. He occasionally blogs on subjects related to health at nodiet4me.blogspot.com and subjects related to writing at ravensong-poetry.blogspot.com .
Eat Everything on Your Plate?
by Tony Yost
I don’t know about you, but I was raised to eat everything on my plate at meals. I believe the reasoning had something to do with hungry Asian youths. I was not allowed to leave the table until I had cleaned my plate. Sometimes that meant sitting there for a couple of hours waiting to see who would give in first. A couple of times I tried to sneak the remaining vegetable into the trash without being seen. I had a lot of trouble with the “without being seen” part. 
(And now for something completely different) I was talking with my friend the other day. He now works with several people from other countries. He said they were commenting about the huge meal sizes at most restaurants. I told him I thought the restaurant industry found that larger portions were an easy way of selling more food. This, of course, meant they would make more money. And you can’t argue with that. When you go to pay the bill, you can’t say you didn’t get your money’s worth.
Ok, some of you already see where I’m going with this… If I’ve been trained to eat everything on my plate, and the restaurant delivers huge servings, then one of two things is going to happen. Either I, too, will become huge, or I will have to reverse my ingrained habit of eating it all.
The other piece of the puzzle for me is that, for business reasons, I learned to eat very fast. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to finish everything on my plate.
People well versed in science tell me that it takes 20 minutes for a full stomach to notify the brain. (It’s a good thing that it doesn’t take your fingers 20 minutes to tell your brain that they are touching a hot stove!). I don’t know why the stomach and brain have this relationship, but it comes in handy when you’re trying to finish a huge portion of food before your brain figures out what’s going on.
Ok, so to summarize… I’m given a very generous portion of food that I must completely finish, quickly. See the challenge here?
I’ve not had much luck getting the restaurants to serve me half portions (and charge me half price). My wife and I like different foods, so sharing is usually out.
So, it looks like the solution, at least for me is:
- Slow down, so my brain can find out that I’ve had enough in time to do something about it.
- After my brain figures out that I’m full, STOP EATING! Even if there is still food on my plate. (That is sooo hard).
And most importantly, I am NOT training my children they have to eat everything that gets served to them! In fact, I praise them when they quit because they are full.
How about you? Can you relate?
You Are Worth More!
by Tony Yost
You are worth more than you are being paid!
Does that come as a surprise to you? Have you felt that you couldn’t possibly find another job that would pay you as well? Have you been doing everything your boss asks you to do, no matter how unreasonable, like working so much that you never see your family?
Please don’t get me wrong… Taking pride in your work and “going the extra mile” on occasion is a very good thing, and it may be one of the reasons that you are worth more than you are being paid. But if you are constantly missing the important events in your life because you feel like you have to, maybe it’s time for you to create more balance.
How do I know that you are worth more than you are being paid?
It’s very simple. You are still employed. See, the difference in what you are being paid and what you are worth, is called “profit” by your employer. And profit is the whole reason for your company’s existence. If your employer was not making more money from your work, than you are getting paid, then you wouldn’t be there.
Make no mistake. Profit for your employer is a good thing. That’s what keeps the wheels of industry turning. Just don’t let their values override your own. Go see your child in that Christmas play. The work will still be there when you get back. And you’ll be much happier doing it.
And if you are an employer, note that your employees will be much more able to concentrate on their jobs if they don’t have family issues to worry about.
To give credit where credit is due, I got the basic idea for this from Pat O’Bryan in his book Your Portable Empire
Who Is Going To Let Me?
by Tony Yost
Yesterday, Buz McGuire had in his blog a link to “12 Lessons from Top Business Masters”.
For me, one quote really stands out.
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
by Ayn Rand.
Isn’t that powerful? That should be the motto of everyone who wants to succeed.
I have been a huge fan of Ayn Rand ever since I read the book Atlas Shrugged.
It absolutely changed the way I think about business and money. I highly recommend this book. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but you will also find the answer to “Who Is John Galt?”.
