Quick Question No.5

When you plan for success, do you really plan for success or do you think about all the things that could go wrong, all the stupid mistakes you could make and the negativity that could crop up, and try to work out ways to avoid them?

 

self help

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

Often when I post something on Full Contact Living or one of the awesome lovely special sites I visit, I will get a reply along the lines of “I like what you say and I’m trying it. But it’s so hard to apply to everyday life and I find myself failing…”

Is there anyone who doesn’t relate to this? I’m not raising my hand to this one and I suspect you’re not too. I know only too well the frustration of reading something inspirational in an Antony Robbins book one week, and nothing having changed the following week. Something to remember here is a point I touched on recently regarding successful people. Let me remind/clarify. I can strip down the key qualities to success to just TWO ELEMENTS.

Successful people know where they want to go.

Successful people are willing and prepared to do whatever it takes to get them there.

That’s it. Personal Development was never so easy!

Once a successful person is on course, they will put in the effort – and most importantly the time – to get them to their goal. A musician will practice for hours. An athlete will run laps, lift weights, watch their diet. An academic will study, and study… and study. To the point where most people have got bored and walked away YEARS previously.  In short – Successful people will spend far longer rehearsing than they will actually performing. I know from personal experience – I’ve probably spent more hours in a single day of rehearsal than I have in a studio during my entire music career. How many months – or years – did Usain Bolt have to train in order to run that 100m? Years of prep for a task over in less than 10 seconds. I’ve known close up magicians who will practice for hours a day on just one tiny trick – that you won’t even see happen!

HOW COME?

Successful people put more focus on the joy of success than on the discomfort of failure. As a musician, I would practice a riff for HOURS. I’d get it right maybe 1 time out of 20, if I was lucky. But it felt sooooo good when I got it right, I just kept on going until I was nailing it 2 times… 5 times… 10 times… eventually every time (Pretty much!).  If I got it wrong, I’d just laugh and start it again. It’s no biggie if I drop a note, I just keep on forging through those 19 bum notes for the euphoria of playing that tune perfectly on the 20th attempt. I’ll apologise to the neighbours tomorrow.

The person who will write a response such as the one at the opening of this issue will have a different thought process. See if you recognise this (I know I do!)

I set a goal or decide on a course of action. I get a picture in my mind of exactly what will happen when I’m successful. I know exactly what I should do, how it should feel. It doesn’t turn out just like expected so I get frustrated and despondent.

Being positive, being “up beat”, changing lifelong conditioning and disempowering beliefs takes time. Most importantly. It takes PRACTICE. It takes ACTION. More accurately, it takes CONSISTENT ACTION. Whining doesn’t figure in this process, and nobody ever said it was easy or will happen in a week.

Believe me, if whining could take the place of action I’d have made it as the most successful person in the world in 2005!

Moving on…

 

self help

Jack Canfield’s Top 7 Success Tips

As far as I’m concerned, Jack Canfield is a total genius when it comes to personal development. His book, The Success Principles, is my self help bible. Out of all the amazing books on my shelf on the subject, The Success Principles is the one I absolutely cannot do without. It’s the one book I come back to again and again, and I read it cover to cover at least once a year – and every time it’s like a different book. Yup, Canfield is the daddy. Here’s Mr Canfield’s top 7 success tips, taken from his book.

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life. One of the greatest myths that is pervasive in our culture today is that you are entitled to a great life – that somehow, somewhere, someone is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist. But the real truth is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is YOU.
2. Be Clear Why You’re Here. I believe each of us is born with a life purpose. Identifying, acknowledging and honoring this purpose is perhaps the most important action successful people take. They take the time to understand what they’re here to do - and then they pursue that with passion and enthusiasm.
3. Decide What You Want. One of the main reasons why most people don’t get what they want is they haven’t decided what they want. They haven’t defined their desires in clear and compelling detail…What does success look like to you?
4. Believe It’s Possible. Scientists used to believe that humans responded to information flowing into the brain from the outside world. But today, they’re learning instead that we respond to what the brain, based on previous experience, expects to happen next…In fact, the mind is such a powerful instrument, it can deliver to you literally everything you want. But you have to believe that what you want is possible.
5. Believe in Yourself. If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen… Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence or self-assurance, it is a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes-the abilities, inner resources, talents and skills to create your desired results.
6. Become an Inverse Paranoid. Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed in life if you were constantly expecting the world to support you and bring you opportunity. Successful people do just that.
7. Unleash the Power of Goal Setting. Experts on the science of success know the brain is a goal-seeking organism. Whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it will work day and night to achieve… To engage you subconscious mind, a goal has to be measurable. When there are no criteria for measurement, it is simply something you want, a wish, a preference, a good idea.

I’m sure you can tell Jack’s a big influence on my work!  We’ll be covering – and indeed have already touched upon – these points in detail in the weeks ahead. If you can’t wait that long, buy the book! (UK readers, I’m in the middle of setting up a UK Full Contact Reading List now, please be patient.)

See you tomorrow…

Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and the nation’s leading authority on Peak Performance. 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 www.JackCanfield.com

self help

Top Sites

In keeping with making Full Contact Living your one-stop shop for all things personal development related, here’s another list. This time, great websites and blogs you’ll enjoy visiting. They’re a great source of inspiration, information and motivation.

Again, no particular order here and I’ll expand this list regularly. Feel free to suggest sites that you really love (Just make sure they’re helpful to us in achieving the lives of our dreams!)

1. Scott Everest
2. Psychic Knight
3. Tony Robbins (You’ll especially like the “My Life Plan” Tool, about halfway down on the left of the page)
4. Motivate Thyself
5. Jack Canfield
6. A Couple of Quitters
7. Steve Pavlina (Great forum too!)
8. Zen Habits (Personal favourite!)
9. Huna Trainer
10. One Minute Millionaire
11. PlugIn ID
12. The Positivity Blog

self help

So You Want to Be An Entrepreneur? Don’t You?

“Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goals.”  (Copyright The Atlas Society)

You don’t have to be an objectivist to like my ideas or have a go at following them, but that quote happens to sum up how I feel perfectly.

Just a quick one today, but at the same time a huge one. We’re going to wrap up this round of thinking about being an entrepreneur, but we’re doing it by using a principle that can be used in all areas of your life. Full Contact Living, remember?

When it comes to deciding whether to go it alone with your own business, there’s a number of questions that can run through your mind. Even if you’re in a job that is secure, reasonably paid, enjoyable, and with friendly people – but is it what you always wanted to do? Does it fulfill you? Does it develop you – mentally, spiritually, physically? Will your life be better because of the time you send there? The list goes on…

Now, as I’ve said before, if you’re already in your dream job - if you’re happy and loving every second of your time as a clerical assistant, janitor, truck driver etc – then ignore this week. You’re very lucky and I encourage you to post your comments here to inform others who would like to find their calling like you have.

But for the rest of you reading this, the question is “Do you want to sack your boss and take control of your destiny?”

For the moment, we’re not considering exactly what business you want to undertake (If you know, great. If not, no worries. We’re coming to that decision soon), and you don’t have to actually do anything right now – remove that little anxiety from your life. Just decide if you want to work towards your own freedom, to make what you deserve to make and have a direct impact on the world around you.

If you decide it’s not something you’d like to do, that’s all cool. Just be certain it’s an empowered decision and not a fear based one. But how do you avoid making a fear based decision? Or one based on external pressures or opinions?

When making your mind up on this matter, put yourself in a bubble. There’s just you in there, the outside world can’t encroach.

In this bubble, you can leave the opinions of others behind. You don’t have to consider what their reactions could be to anything you do. You don’t have to consider “How” or “Why”. Put everything aside – if only for a moment – as you consider just the one question:

“Do I want to do it?”

And the underlying motivation for doing it?

“Would it make me happy?”

If you’re cool with the answers you come to, you can then invite in a couple of other concerns such as “Would it hurt anyone for me to do this? Would it make my world a better place if I achieved this?”

Only then, once you’ve decided that this – whatever “this” is – is something you want, do you move on to the logistics.

Establish your “Why” and the “How” will come along soon enough.

So for now, deciding that you want to live by your own clock, use your talents and skills for your own benefit rather than for someone you don’t even like is all you need to do. We’ll be coming back to this in a couple of weeks and taking it to the next level. Spend the interim getting used to the idea of being an entrepreneur. I’ll warn you now, it’s a scary way of life. But it’s life on your terms.

And I wouldn’t change it for the world!

Next week, we start on taming the mind! Whether you’re into the New Age angle, or the “real world” personal development angle, this is an essential skill. So yes, I’ve made it fun too!

Bookmark me, tell your friends.

self help