Hard Work, Outstanding Performance and Success
September 4, 2009
By Bud Bilanich
Outstanding performance is an important key to career and life success. If you want to become an outstanding performer you need to do three things.
First: stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner. 
Second: set high goals. Do whatever it takes to achieve them.
Third: get organized. Manage your time, life and stress well.
And, it should go without saying, you need to work hard. I subscribe to the Just Sell sales quotes. Yesterday, I found this quote from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers in my in box.
“The people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
This is true – and something a lot of less than successful people really don’t want to hear.
The law of attraction…
1. Know exactly what you want.
2. Ask the universe for it.
3. Feel, behave and know as if the object of your desire is already yours (visualize).
4. Be open to receive it and let go of (the attachment to) the outcome.
…is great as far as it goes. However, I have found that while visualization is important in creating a successful life and career, “behave” is an overlooked word in point 3. Hard work is the key behavior in becoming an outstanding performer and personal and professional success.
I have a quote by Paul J. Meyer hanging next to the door in my office. I read it every time I enter or leave my office.
“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon… must inevitably come to pass!”
I focus on the words “enthusiastically act upon.” To my way of thinking, these three words are synonymous with hard work — a key behavior in creating a successful life and career. Hard work is the behavior that is often overlooked when it comes to applying the law of attraction. If you think you can succeed merely by knowing what you want, asking the universe for it and visualizing yourself having it, I think you’re in for an unpleasant surprise.
As Malcolm Gladwell says, successful people work much, much harder than others.
Hard work is more than long hours. Sure, sometimes it’s necessary to work evenings and weekends. However, it’s just as important to maximize the value of the time you spend at work. Figure out your high brain times and do the most intense work then. I’m best in the early morning – 6:00 till 11:00 and the late afternoon and early evening 2:30 till 7:30 or 8:00. I do my writing and thinking then. I use the mid day hours for exercise, errands and low brain activities. When are your peak performance times? If you haven’t already done so, take a few minutes to determine them and do your best to schedule your most intense work then.
Set up systems for managing your work load. Once you have systems in place, continuously improve them. Make them better and more efficient so you can get more work done is less time. In this way, you’ll be maximizing the value of your hard work.
The common sense point here is simple. Successful people are outstanding performers. As Malcolm Gladwell points out, outstanding performers are hard workers. They know what they want and do whatever it takes to get it. They enthusiastically act on their dreams. This action helps them reach their goals. There is no way around hard work. You have to put in the time and effort if you want to be successful. Ask any “overnight success.” Everyone that I’ve ever met tells me that they spent years and years getting to the place where they became an “overnight success.” Set your goals. Work hard. Work smart. And you’ll succeed.
I’m Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy, a success coach, motivational speaker, author and blogger. I can help you achieve the career and life success you want and deserve.
If you like this article — or any others I’ve written — you’ll love my 25 best tips for career and life success. These tips are audios that you can download and save to your iPod, so you can listen to them any time you want.
Go to http://budbilanich.com/success.html to receive your 25 audio tapes and to register for your free subscription to my weekly ezine “Common Sense.” This subscription is worth $97.00 annually.
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Make it a great day!
Bud
Utilizing The Law of Attraction
July 20, 2009
by Jack Canfield
The law of attraction states that you will attract into your life–whether wanted or unwanted–whatever you give your energy, focus, and attention to.
You are constantly giving off vibrations of energy when you think and feel. These vibrations can be picked up and received by other people. That’s why people say, “he has good vibes,” or “he gives off bad vibes.” You are constantly giving off vibrations — literally!
If you’re feeling excited, enthusiastic, passionate, happy, joyful, loving, appreciative, abundant, prosperous, relaxed and peaceful, you are giving off positive vibrations.
On the other hand, if you’re feeling bored, anxious, worried, confused, sad, lonely, hurt, angry, resentful, guilty, disappointed, frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed out, or depressed, then you are giving off negative vibrations.
The law of attraction states that the universe responds to whatever you are offering — by giving you more of whatever you are vibrating. It doesn’t care whether it is good for you or not; it simply responds to your vibration.
If you saw the film The Secret, you saw this explained in great detail.
The problem is that most of the time, you are not aware of what vibration you are offering. You are simply responding to things outside of you–current events, the news, how people treat you, the stock market, how much money you are making, how your children are doing in school, whether or not your favorite sports team wins–and then having a feeling that is either positive or negative.
When you are simply responding unconsciously to what happens around you, you tend to stay “stuck” in your current condition. This is why most people’s lives never seem to change very much. They get stuck in a repeating cycle of recreating the same reality over and over by the vibration they are sending out.
It works like this… First you observe what you currently have and are currently receiving in your life. You call this your “reality.” You respond to what you observe with a feeling, positive or negative, which then gives off that vibration to the universe. The law of attraction then responds to this vibration and brings you more of what you were vibrating. This keeps the cycle going over and over, until you choose to change it through the exertion of your will. You are a victim of your lack of awareness of the law of attraction.
The Process of Intentional Creation
It is possible to get out of this vicious cycle and create what you want instead of continually recreating what you already have. It is a simple, three-step process that you can begin immediately.
If you’ve been implementing the action steps I coach you through in The KEY to Living the Law of Attraction, you have already begun this process.
Step 1: Identify what you truly desire & eliminate the negative
It is important to focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want. You must state it in the positive and filter out the words don’t, not and no. Remember, your mind works in pictures and if you say I don’t want to be mad, you are creating the picture and thus the vibration of being mad. You must create the opposite of what you don’t want.
Step 2: Raise your vibration level
Your job in stage two is to create a vibrational match for that which you say you want to have. How would you be feeling if you already had those things–the perfect job, the perfect relationship, the amount of money that you want to have?
Your job is to identify what makes you feel good and do more of it, then learn not to tolerate your negative feelings.
Affirmations are an important component in raising your vibrational level to what it is you want. Remember, the law of attraction does not respond to the words you use or the thoughts you think. It simply responds to how you feel about what you say and how you feel about what you think.
For information on how to create even more effective affirmations, review chapter 10 in The Key to Living the Law of Attraction, where you’ll find my guidelines for creating effective visualizations.
Step 3. Release it and allow it.
In this third step, you simply release your affirmation, your vibration, and your feelings to the universe to take care of your “request” or “order” as I call it. But you have to abstain from any doubts. If you doubt you can have it in any way, then you are not allowing it. You are pushing it away and you end up with contradictory messages to the universe.
It is only when the contradictory thoughts, talk, and images are removed that your desired results will manifest. The faster you remove your resistance, the faster your dreams can be realized.
