Achieving Personal and Business Success – Vision, Focus and Discipline
October 16, 2009
By Lynn Baber
Have you ever met someone who is amazingly talented and highly credentialed in a wide variety of areas? A person who is phenomenal in both the diversity and quality of their work, yet has just never truly achieved success? Someone who may be a gifted artist, an investment pro, graduated from law school, and has people skills galore – yet, they just haven’t made it. Have you ever wondered why? Perhaps this is you. Why, with all the resources and skills at your disposal have you not found success?
Success is a result of knowing where you want to go, creating a specific roadmap to get you there and having the discipline to stay on track.
Individuals and organizations fail to achieve success because they have never done the work of defining who they are or what they do and then sticking with it. People fail to succeed for the same reason businesses do; they are not focused in the way they invest scarce resources. Each person or business has only a limited amount of time, energy and capital to use pursuing their goals and dreams.
Most fabulously talented people fail because they don’t set limits. Have you met someone who has three or four different business cards? They are so busy doing a little of everything they never shine at any one thing. In order to succeed, you must select some one thing to be the vehicle of your success. You can’t be committed to two visions any more than you can drive two cars at one time.
Crafting an effective mission statement provides the framework for using resources in ways that will best support all your efforts to achieve the goals you set. Individuals, families, churches, charities and businesses all benefit from well thought-out summaries of who they are, what they do and why they do it.
Establish your vision. If you don’t know where you want to go, just how do you propose to get there? Do you really want to entrust your future to nothing more than luck? If so, quit reading and go buy a lottery ticket.
Once you have a vision, specifically outline the process of attaining it. Set a series of goals, beginning with step one and continuing all the way to where your vision becomes your reality. Vision and goals are useless without discipline. Stay focused. Invest your resources only in ways that achieve set goals; using each dollar, hour or calorie wisely to get you closer to your vision and not wasted on impulsive activity.
Another aspect to achieving success is being realistic. What are you really willing to change? What are you truly able to change? What are you willing to do? What are you willing to risk?
Set yourself up to succeed. Identify smaller goals and gradually build a foundation of success. As that foundation gets stronger you can increase your expectations, expand your vision and build as high as you can imagine. Even though each step won is a small one, they eventually combine, serving as your road to the top.
Success isn’t really all that complicated if you remember that Vision gives you direction, Focus determines the method, and Discipline makes it happen.
Lynn Baber is a Christian writer, recovering business consultant and retired equine professional. She shares lessons learned in thirty-five years at the business table and round pen with her clients and readers. Highly credentialed in issues of leadership, customer relations and most things equine, Lynn has a unique perspective not found elsewhere. Whether the topic is customer service or training stallions, Lynn brings years of experience to presentations and articles. Lynn is the author of two books, the latest scheduled for release next spring.
Life’s Biggest Pleasure
October 6, 2009
By Juliet Philip
Is it winning a lottery? Or is it traveling the world and learning new cultures, tasting new dishes, lazing in exotic places? Or is it finding the perfect mate? Is it money, sex, power, fame? These are life’s pleasures, yes, but certainly not the biggest and the best.
Hold your breath ladies and gentlemen, for I am about to reveal life’s biggest and most satisfying pleasures of all. All other pleasures stand second to or stem from this glorious one. Life’s most pleasurable experience is doing what others said you could not do or achieving what others thought impossible
for you to achieve. It may not sound all that fascinating an experience in life, but when you believe in yourself when nobody else does, and you go on to achieve something that somebody else said you could not, you will realize that all other experiences are overshadowed by this one.
It may take years to experience this feeling, eons to prove that you were capable of doing what you believed in but the final experience is totally worth it. A teacher once told a student, you are dreaming beyond your capabilities, beyond what your IQ potential actually is. The student mulled over this advice and instead of giving up on her dream, she pursued it with an even greater determination. Years later, the student achieved what the teacher said she would not. This made her realize that she can achieve whatever she wanted. She realized that success came from persistence and belief in oneself. She realized that she could achieve anything she wanted and nothing was too difficult or beyond her capability. She realized all of this and more because she was lucky to have pursued her dream that some completely ignorant teacher laughed at.
And that realization broke all those barriers that stood in between her and her dreams. She let go of her fears, “Oh, that is too tough for me, that is not my cup of tea because it requires logic, I can’t take up a job that requires analytical thinking because I suffer from shift of focus, I’m not good at Math, I can’t contribute in meetings because I have an accent, I’m too fat to feel confident.”
She realized that she could have whatever she wanted, no matter what anybody else said or felt about it. She was free to dream, because she achieved something that someone said she could not. What she experienced was blissful, rewarding and taught her the best lesson in life: Never judge yourself based on others’ comments. If you have a beautiful dream, that serves humanity in some way, pursue it, give it your best shot, achieve it and then look back and say: See, old friend, I did it, in spite of what you said. I didn’t give up on myself. And it feels terrific.
Chunk-Down that Goal and Get Out of Overwhelm
September 30, 2009
by Jack Canfield
Sometimes our biggest life goals seem so overwhelming.
We rarely see them as a series of small, achievable tasks, but in reality, breaking down a large goal into smaller tasks—and accomplishing them one at a time—is exactly how any big goal gets achieved.
After you have decided what you really want, with specific deadlines, the next step is to determine all of the individual action steps you will need to take to accomplish your goal.
How to Chunk It Down
There are several ways to figure out the action steps you will need to take to accomplish any goal. One is to consult with people who have already done what you want to do and ask what steps they took. From their experience, they can give you all of the necessary steps as well as advice on what pitfalls to avoid.
Another way is to purchase a book or manual that outlines the process.
Yet another way is to start from the end and look backward. You simply close your eyes and imagine that it is now the future and you have already achieved your goal. Then just look back and see what you had to do to get to where you now are. What was the last thing you did? And then the thing before that, and then the thing before that, until you arrive at the first action you had to start with. Remember that it is okay not to know how to do something. It’s okay to ask for guidance and advice from those who do know. Sometimes you can get it free, and sometimes you have to pay for it. Get used to asking, “Can you tell me how to go about…?” and “What would I have to do to…?” and “How did you…?” Keep researching and asking until you can create a realistic action plan that will get you from where you are to where you want to go. What will you need to do? How much money will you need to save or raise? What new skills will you need to learn? What resources will you need to mobilize? Who will you need to enroll in your vision? Who will you need to ask for assistance? What new disciplines or habits will you need to build into your life?
Another valuable technique for creating an action plan for your goals is called mind mapping.
How to Use Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a simple but powerful process for creating a detailed to-do list for achieving your goal. It lets you determine what information you’ll need to gather, who you’ll need to talk to, what small steps you’ll need to take, how much money you’ll need to earn or raise, which deadlines you’ll need to meet, and so on—for each and every goal.
When I began creating my first educational audio program—a breakthrough goal that led to extraordinary gains for me and my business—I used mind mapping to help me “chunk down” that very large goal into all the individual tasks I would need to complete to produce a finished product.
To mind-map your own goals, follow these steps as illustrated in the example:
1.) Center circle: In the center circle, jot down the name of your stated goal—in this case, Create an Audio Educational Program.
2.) Outside circles: Next, divide the goal into the major categories of tasks you’ll need to accomplish to achieve the greater goal—in this case, Title, Studio, Topics, Audience, and so on.
3.) Spokes: Then, draw spokes radiating outward from each mini-circle and label each one (such as Write Copy, Color Picture for Back Cover, and Arrange Lunch.)
On a separate line connected to the minicircle, write every single step you’ll need to take. Break down each one of the more detailed task spokes with action items to help you create your master to-do list.
Next, Make a Daily To-Do List
Once you’ve completed a mind map for your goal, convert all of the to-do items into daily action items by listing each one on your daily to-do lists and committing to a completion date for each one. Then schedule them in the appropriate order into your calendar and do whatever it takes to stay on schedule.
Do First Things First
The goal is to stay on schedule and complete the most important item first. In his excellent book, Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Brian Tracy reveals not just how to conquer procrastination but also how to prioritize and complete all of your action items. In his unique system, Brian advises goal-setters to identify the one to five things you must accomplish on any given day, and then pick the one you absolutely must do first. This becomes your biggest and ugliest frog. He then suggests you accomplish that task first—in essence, eat that frog first—and, by so doing; make the rest of your day much, much easier. It’s a great strategy. But unfortunately, most of us leave the biggest and ugliest frog for last, hoping it will go away or somehow become easier. It never does. However, when you accomplish your toughest task early in the day, it sets the tone for the rest of your day.
By chunking down your goals, and then taking daily action on them, you create momentum and build your confidence, both of which move you farther and faster toward the achievement of your goals.
Now go take some action!
Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: http://www.freesuccessstrategies.com/
