Achieve more in life.
Goal Setting
Goal Setting for Success! Join Brian Tracy’s 30-Day Goals Challenge
Apr 24th
If you follow my work, you probably already know the success I’ve experienced by helping millions of people to set and achieve goals.
The one thing I’ve discovered in over 30 years of researching success patterns is that a person of average intelligence who has the ability set clear goals, and has the discipline to maintain a goal-achieving mindset is 90% more likely to succeed than a genius without a plan.
What most people don’t realize is that creating an effective, logical plan is absolutely crucial to achieve goals for success. There are specific, proven steps that, if followed, work everywhere, for everyone, in virtually every country, no matter what your education, experience, or background may be when you begin.
My personal mission statement has always been “To help people achieve their goals faster and easier than ever before.” That being said, I’ve just created a brand-new goal setting challenge that includes some of my best, time-tested strategies to help you achieve your goals in a fun, inspiring way. Oh, and you could be rewarded with some really great prizes, too.
My 30-Day Goals Challenge is a new opportunity to hone your goal achievement skills and stay motivated with a healthy, competitive fire that will keep you going until the end!
Here’s how the contest works:
-Join the contest and fill out a short questionnaire–so that we can create your unique challenge page.
-Set a realistic 30-day goal – one that you can reasonably expect to achieve at the end of the 30-day contest period.
-Each week, you’ll track and submit your progress. You can document and submit your progress in 3 different ways: Blog post, photo, or video – or any combination of the 3. At least one submission per week is required in order to remain eligible to win the challenge and challenge prizes.
-At the end of each week, the progress you submit will be added to your personal challenge page.
-Finally, at the end of the 30-Day Goals Challenge, 2 winners will be selected. One will be voted on by the challenge participants, and the other will be selected by my team and me.
This entirely FREE challenge is designed to show you that by following a proven goal setting system and by staying accountable, you CAN achieve goals you never thought were possible. Even more importantly, you can apply this same formula to any goal you want to achieve in life, at any time.
Once you begin to apply the principles you learn throughout the contest, you’ll:
-Become a more positive, powerful, and effective person.
-Build a higher level of self-esteem and self-confidence.
-Experience a tremendous sense of personal control and direction.
-Apply yourself with more energy and enthusiasm than ever before.
-Accomplish more in a few weeks than the average person might accomplish in several years.
…And the list goes on!
So if you’re ready to take on the challenge of a lifetime, with benefits that can last forever, then NOW is the time!
Because as I mentioned before, when you participate in this challenge, you are virtually guaranteed to succeed.
This is your chance to sign up—so don’t miss it! Join me for the 30 Day Goals Challenge and sign up HERE!
Please share this post on goal setting and encourage your friends and family to sign up for the 30 Day Goals Challenge! Remember, the sooner you try, the sooner you will triumph!
Topics included in this article include
Brian Tracy’s 30 Day Goals Challenge
Goal Setting
Achieve Goals
Stay Motivated
How to Salvage Any Blown New Year Resolutions
Feb 2nd
We are approaching the time of year when many people have already blown their New Year resolutions. For example, according to the fitness industry, a ton of gym memberships are sold from December to February but attendance significantly drops from March and on when people who were hoping to get fit as a New Year resolution will give up.
This happens year after year for not only health-related resolutions but for pretty well all types including saving money and quitting smoking. If this has already happened to you or if you are on the verge of giving up some of your New Year resolutions, here are some steps you can take to hopefully salvage them.
Reconsider the Reasons for Each Resolution
First, reconsider the reasons behind each of your resolutions just to better understand why you came up with them in the first place. Are they still valid or important?
Sometimes a New Year resolution might be just a sudden urge that is not really all that important to your life after some time passes. If this is the case, drop the resolution altogether. If the reasons are still solid, then keep the resolutions for the next step.
Turn Each Resolution into a Defined Goal
Now for the resolutions that are still important to you, turn them into defined goals. Losing weight or getting in shape is far too general. Instead, set such a resolution as a realistic goal you can measure. For example, lose ten pounds during each remaining month in 2012 is something you can measure. Make sure that your defined goals are realistic by seeing what other people have done who have been successful with similar goals.
Plan What You Have to Do Each Week
Now that you have the end results in mind, plan out what you actually have to do each week in order to achieve those goals you set. This can be setting definite time periods during the week to work out at the gym as well as getting the training from qualified trainers if you need it.
Physically enter the things you must do each week into your calendar or appointment book just like any other important appointments that you may have each week. This must be on something that you will be referring to each day whether it is a physical calendar or electronic one.
Monitor Your Progress Over Time
Most goals that were previously New Year resolutions take time and effort to achieve. They cannot be done overnight. But accepting the fact that many of your goals will take continued work over the entire year doing a step at a time, you will then be able to monitor your progress over time.
If you stray a bit, take immediate action to make up for lost opportunities to work on your goals. Track your progress and adjust the targets as required if they were not originally set very realistically. Don’t forget that for many goals, active participation with other like-minded people rather than attempting everything on your own will help you stay on track.
(Photo credit: Lifebuoy white against the blue sky and bright sun via Shutterstock)
By turning your New Year resolutions into longer term, measurable goals over the entire course of the year with actual steps and time allocated for them, you will be able to salvage abandoned resolutions.
If you feel brave and honest enough to reveal any already blown resolutions, feel free to share them below and what you might do to salvage them.
Good luck!
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.
Master Your New Year’s Resolutions: The Ultimate Infographic
Jan 23rd
We’re well into the new year, and chances are you’ve made resolutions. They’re the same ones as last year: lose weight, stop smoking, drink less, exercise more…
After all, the new year is a great opportunity to have a fresh start. You can evaluate what you’ve accomplished during the last year, and clarify what you want for the year ahead of you. So you make resolutions, hoping that you’ll stick to them this time. Being greatly motivated by your goals, you get started. For the first few days, everything goes well – you’re on your way to achieving what you want!
Then reality hits you.
It is not as easy as you thought. You get caught up by the day-to-day operations and routine. You try to keep up your new habits and focus. But two weeks in, you quit. You stop going to the gym, or you start smoking again.
What happened? And how can avoid this from occurring — again?
The following infographic answers these questions. Simply click on the image below to view the full-size PDF. The blue underlined words are hyperlinks. Click on them to get more information about that particular topic.
Keep this infographic handy whenever you feel yourself slipping — and you’ll have a much better chance of keeping those resolutions this year.
(Photo credit: Three Elements of True Motivation via Shutterstock)
Matt is Fluent Brain's CEO and Chief Visual Facilitator. Visual Facilitation supercharges your thinking, brainstorming, and problem-solving, bringing clarity and order to your thought processes. You can follow him on his blog (and via RSS), Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.
Building the Courage to Break Out of Your Comfort Zone
Nov 16th
There are several forms of courage that you can develop with practice. These forms of courage will help you to achieve the great success that is possible for you. They are all learnable with practice.
Dream Big Dreams
The first form of courage is the courage to dream big dreams and to set big goals. This is where most people are stopped. The very idea of setting big, challenging, exciting, worthwhile goals is so overwhelming that they quit before they even begin. But this is not for you. Sit down, write out your goals as if anything were possible for you, and never be afraid to dream big dreams.
Make a Commitment
The second type of courage is the courage to make a total commitment, throwing yourself wholeheartedly into whatever it is you decide to do. Al successful people of my experience are people who are living fully engaged. They are fully involved in their lives and in their goals. They don’t do things by half measures. They may have no guarantees, but they are not afraid to put their whole hearts into their activities. If they pail, they fail by trying greatly, not by playing it safe, wishing and hoping that everything will work out all right.
Move out of Your Comfort Zone
The third type of courage you need is the courage to move out of your comfort zone. It is the courage to move into your zone of discomfort, where you feel awkward, clumsy, and alone. The comfort zone is one of the greatest enemies of human potential. When people get into a comfort zone, they strive to stay in that comfort zone. Often their whole lives pass them by while they are furnishing and reinforcing their little rut of medium performance.
You need the courage to continually move yourself in the direction of your biggest goals and ambitions. You need to be willing to face discomfort in order for you to grow.
Step Out in Faith
You need the courage to launch in faith with no guarantees of success. Someone once wrote, “If every obstacle must first be overcome, nothing will ever get done.”
Courageous people are those who have a dream and set a goal, make a plan and take the first step, with no assurances and no guarantees that their efforts will result in success. However, if you look upon every step forward as a learning experience and every setback as a valuable lesson that has been sent to you to make you stronger and better, you will not be afraid to launch in faith into the unknown.
Risk Failure
You need the courage to risk failure. You need the courage to endure constant setbacks, disappointments, and temporary defeats. You need to learn to deal with failure by realizing that it is an indispensible prerequisite for success. You need the courage to treat failure as an opportunity to more intelligently begin again. You need to overcome the fear of failure by doing the things you fear over and over again, and then by resolving to bounce rather than break when things don’t work out for you.
Face Your Fears
You need the courage to turn toward danger continuously. Identify all the fear situations in your life that cause you stress or anxiety today. Decide what the worst possible outcome of each of these situations might be. Resolve to accept the worst, should it occur. And then take action to resolve each of those situations. Refuse to allow a fear situation to remain in your life, dominating your thinking and emotions and holding you back.
Be Willing To Make Mistakes
You need the courage to be willing to make mistakes and learn from them. All peak performers continually make decisions, make mistakes, learn from them, self-correct, and carry on.
Successful people are not those who necessarily make the right decisions all the time, but they make their decisions right. If they make a mistake, they accept it, learn as much as possible from it, failing and making mistakes. The more you fail and the more mistakes you make, the smarter you become and the more likely it is that you will eventually achieve your goals.
Accept Complete Responsibility
You need the courage to accept complete responsibility for your life, which means to take ownership for results. You need the courage to refuse to make excuses or to defend yourself. You need the courage to say, over and over again, “I am responsible!”
When something goes wrong, you focus on the solution rather than the problem. You ask, “What do we do from here? What’s the next step? What is the solution?”
You then pick yourself up and carry on, extracting the wheat from the situation and throwing away the chaff.
Persist Longer
The final courage you need is the courage to persist longer than anyone else. Persistence is the quality that will ultimately guarantee your success. Your willingness to persist in the face of every adversity can be your greatest asset. It can be the one factor that guarantees your success.
If you refuse to quit, you must ultimately succeed. Just as in baseball, you won’t ultimately hit a home run unless you keep on swinging. In 30 years of studying successful people, I have discovered one fact over and over. No one was ever defeated until they accepted defeat as a reality. No one can ever defeat you but yourself.
How to Practice the Art of Detached Focus to Achieve Your Goals
Sep 23rd
Focus: Effort, Attention, concentration, motivation, application, single mindedness emphasis, to name but a few of its synonyms.
Having the ability to decide at each moment what merits your attention is to me one of the secrets of success. It’s been proven time and again by sports stars and high achievers If there is something you want, fearlessly focusing on it will give you a much higher probability of achieving it.
Can we focus too much?
But what happens if we focus too much on our destination, when the object of our focus becomes our waking thoughts, our daily deliberations and our midnight meditations? Can this intense concentration bring us the results that we desire?
The answer unfortunately is no, those people who set goals and struggle daily for their goals to manifest generally don’t achieve them, holding on to the goal too tightly will not assist in its acquisition.
Shooting Arrows
My husband practices archery, he has thought me the basics of shooting arrows, the stance, the technique, the pulling back but most importantly the letting go. They say the letting go is the most important bit. The energy, the focus and the goal are there but it is in letting go that the arrow reaches its target.
I heard Deepak Chopra explain the concept of letting go by using the metaphor of a gardener. The gardener plants the seed and gives the seed all it needs to survive but he doesn’t go and dig it up every day to see if it has grown. The gardener is clear about the outcome he desires, he does the work required but then he lets go or detaches himself from the outcome.
So the problem is not focusing too much but focusing on the wrong thing.
Do not focus on the goal
So the sports star should focus on the daily actions and not on the final outcome, the business person should focus on the individual tasks and not the ultimate objective. When you concentrate on the goal you are holding onto it and holding on does not work with the flow of nature and life. If you focus too intently on the goal you are not truly present, and if you are not present you cannot be open to the possibilities that life may bring.
If a sales person focuses on finalizing the sale he is not paying attention to the customer and therefore will not serve the customer according to their needs. Therefore we must remember to work with a sense of purpose and awareness of presence, if we work in this manner we will be benefiting from the increase in productivity and efficiency that being focused can bring us, but more importantly we will be moving closer to our desired outcomes in a relaxed, detached and more effective manner.
Focus on the path
And so the secret is to focus intently, but to focus on the path and not on the destination. To do all that is required to make you the best at what you do but not to concentrate on the result. If we can learn to practise and hit the best forehand that we can physically hit, the outcome we want will follow. If we do our jobs with passion and the best of our abilities then the consequences will be positive, and if we intently focus on the perfecting or doing the best possible job, our goals, our dreams and our desires should not delay in following close behind.
By practicing the art of detached focus, ironic though it may sound we can achieve more by letting go.
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. “With Productivity and Positivity there is little you can’t achieve” Find out more about Ciara and sign up for her tips, articles and links at Productivity & Positivity
The 3 Step Productivity Slump Reversal
Aug 30th
I’m blissfully basking in my productive flow; last week was spent de-cluttering. From the cellar to the attic; it all got the treatment. The mice no longer have a place to hide and the dust mites go hungry. After a spout of qualifying for numerous awards such as good housekeeper of the year, most generous charity donor and recycling Queen, the clear house, office and mind give way to positive things. Firstly I feel good, I feel light, clear and in control, but more importantly in one way or another getting organized and taking control leads to a more productive and creative me.
Step 1: De-clutter your space
The week prior to my eclectic productive state, I was low, I had fallen off the wagon, my creative juices were absent and I had forgotten what were the productivity beliefs I wholeheartedly agreed to. But then there was a shift. It started by revisiting my goals. I reminded myself of the things that I want from my life. I thought of the goals that excite me; the ones that challenge me and I repeated to myself all the reasons why I want to achieve them.
Step 2: Remind Yourself of your Goals
Next I took restock of my positive habits, the yoga and meditation that calm and clear my mind, the exercise that invigorates me, and the healthy food that nourishes my body. I do have good habits but it wasn’t always this way.
My youth was chaotic. I liked to refer to the chaos as spontaneity and I clung to this title for many years feeling like it represented my “Libertad”. Throughout the years and with each additional offspring I reluctantly adopted routines and habits to help assist me with my parenting, then gradually in my career and throughout my life.
Step 3: Re-engage Positive Habits
What I discovered was that spontaneity and living life without the structure of routines may be fine when backpacking across Australia but try to run a household, a business, have meaningful relationships, study, write, exercise, meditate with this attitude. And that’s just Monday’s tasks!
I’m afraid I only know one way, and that way involves systems, routines and good positive habits!
Go with the Flow
Please don’t get me wrong. If opportunity comes knocking and the change to do something out of the routine, away from the norm, I’ll go all in and happily break the routine to feel the freedom and wind in my hair. Having children can regularly induce this state of non-conformity; I make my plans and set my goals and BAM! Someone is sick and needs their mama. Or someone is bored and needs a playmate. Or someone is naughty and invades ones workspace.
These are the times you use Branson’s words and say, “screw it let’s do it” and I get an opportunity to be spontaneous again.
So what am I saying?
I’m saying it’s ok to break the rules and go with the flow of the moment, but then what? Then jump right back on that wagon with your goals set and your positive habits installed. It’s a lot easier to get back on track after life throws a curve-ball or a little marble of interruption in your day when you have your goals and habits to support you. Strive for your goals but don’t forget to be present and smell the roses every once in awhile. This will ensure that you achieve what you want to achieve as well as enjoy the journey.
In Summary: Productivity Slump Reversal
1. De-clutter. A clean sweep will always get things going in the right direction.
2. Remind yourself of your goals and why you want to achieve them.
3. Re-engage positive habits that support and encourage you.
Life is the journey people, don’t forget to enjoy each day.
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. “With Productivity and Positivity there is little you can’t achieve” Find out more about Ciara and sign up for her tips, articles and links at Productivity & Positivity
High Energy Performance
Nov 25th
The mark of the exceptional person is that he or she is determined to get the very most living out of life. He or she is fully engaged. The exceptional person, in Maslow’s words wants to “become everything he or she is capable of becoming.”
You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they will all fall under one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas.
The first goal that you have in common with everyone else is your desire for happy relationships. You want to love and be loved by other people. You want to have a happy, harmonious home life. You want to get along well with the people around you and you want to earn the respect of the people that you respect.
Your involvement in social and community affairs and activities is determined by your desire to have happy interactions with other people and to make a contribution to the society you live in.
The second goal you have in common with everyone else is your desire for interesting and challenging work. You want to make a good living, of course, but more than that, you want to really enjoy what you do as an occupation or profession. The very best times of your life are when you are completely absorbed by your work and your business activities.
The third goal you have in common with others is your desire for financial independence. You want to be free from worries about money. You want to have enough money in the bank so that you can make decisions without counting your pennies.
You want to achieve a certain financial estate so that you can retire in comfort and never have to be concerned about whether or not you have enough money to support your life style.
Financial independence frees you from poverty and a need to depend on others for your livelihood. If you save and invest regularly throughout your working life, you will eventually reach the point where you will never have to work again.
The fourth, and final goal that you have in common with everyone else is your desire for good health, to be free of pain and illness and to have a continuous flow of energy and feelings of well being. In fact, your health is so important to you, so central to your life, that you take it for granted until something happens to disrupt it.
The common denominator of these four common goals, and the essential requirement for achieving each of them, is high levels of energy. To achieve even a small amount of success in any one of these areas requires the development and expenditure of energy.
It is the critical fuel and the one ingredient without which no other accomplishment is possible. For example, the aim or purpose of strategic planning for corporations is to find ways to organize the business to increase R.O.E., or return on equity.
Return on equity refers to increasing the return on the capital invested in the enterprise. By shifting resources from areas of lower value to areas of higher potential value, the return on the cash invested in the business can be increased.
In personal strategic planning, the aim is similar. It is to increase R.O.E., but in this case, R.O.E. stands for return on energy. All the work on personal development, self-improvement, goal-setting and time management is all aimed at enabling you to increase your return on energy, or as my friend Ken Blanchard calls it, “your return on life.”
You are continually organizing and reorganizing your time and your resources so that you can get the very most pleasure, satisfaction and rewards from the time and energy you put in on a day-to-day basis.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please share it with your friends and leave a comment below. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you; I’m thankful for your continuous support.
If It Won’t Fit On A Post-It, It Won’t Fit In Your Day
Oct 26th
Have you ever had a to-do list that was so long it felt like you’d never get to the end of it? Or have you ever started the day with a manageable list, but by the end of the afternoon it was longer than when you began – because of all the things that got added during the day? Too many days like this, and your to-do list starts to look like a wish list.
This was a familiar scenario to me a few years ago. It was compounded when I started using digital to-do list managers, which enabled me to create a literally endless to-do list. However much I prioritized, however hard I worked, I always seemed to end the day with a longer list than I started with.
The solution turned out to be counterintuitive: I got more done by making my to-do list shorter.
One of my most valuable productivity tools is a stack of Post-It notes. Not the smallest size, but the 3″ x 3″ squares. The top Post-It contains my to-do list for today, and today only. Because my day is a limited size, I figure it makes sense to limit the size of my to-do list. If I can’t fit the day’s tasks on the Post-It, I’m not likely to fit them into the day.
Because my day is a limited size, I figure it makes sense to limit the size of my to-do list.
The top left corner is reserved for the “One Big Task” I need to accomplish today. It could be an article, a presentation, a training plan, a client proposal, or the draft of a poem. As I wrote in The Key to Creating Remarkable Things, I start the day by devoting my full creative energy to the most important task on my list. The rest of the Post-It is taken up with everything else I have to do today, roughly in order of priority.
The Not-Do List: 9 Things You Need To Stop Doing
Oct 14th
We’ve all familiar with creating a to-do list to increase our productivity. Another list which can jumpstart our productivity is the not-do list – things we shouldn’t do. By being conscious of what to avoid, it’ll automatically channel our energy into things that we want to do. Doing both hand in hand will maximize our performance.
If you want to take your productivity to the next level, here are 9 habits avoid:
1. Trying to do everything
I mention 80/20 rule a lot in my articles because it’s true. And I’ll repeat again. Not all tasks are equal. Each task has its own importance. In fact by the 80/20 rule, 20% of the tasks on our to-do list account for 80% of the value. So cut ferociously at your to-do list and slice away the 80% low-value tasks. When you’ve streamlined it to the minimum essential, laser focus all your energy on those 20% high value ones. Do the same thing the next day. Rinse and repeat. Keep only the absolute important things and let go of the rest.
Read Strategy #6 on 13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity for more on the 80/20 rule.
2. Answering all emails (or calls and messages for that matter)
I used to think I have to reply to all emails until I noticed that not all my emails were replied to. In fact, many weren’t, even when they were follow-up replies to reader mails asking for help. Seemingly, all the effort that go into meticulously typing, wording and formatting my mails wasn’t really getting me anywhere. I would be stuck in email land the whole day long with no output to claim of my own except for an increase in mails in my sent box. So I began to selectively reply to higher priority emails , and the world didn’t stop. In fact, I now have more time to create more high value content and articles for readers, which is a big win for everyone.
3. Thinking you have to do everything immediately
Apart from my to-do list and not-do list, I also have a do-later list. This is to collect the items that drop in mid-way through the day, usually administrative, nitty gritty tasks that don’t take much time but aren’t majorly important too. If I drop what I’m doing at the moment to work on them it can be disruptive, so instead I put them in my do-later list. Then at the end of the day, I batch and process everything at one go. It’s a lot more effective.
Likewise for my emails, I have a “Reply by Tue/Thu/Sat” folder where I archived mails to deal with on the respective days.
4. Putting important tasks off
Procrastination is the mind killer. It may seem like a good idea to put off that task now, but that’s just setting yourself for a jam later on, and it’s not worth it. Get started on your most important projects now and stop putting them off. Out of all the people I’ve met in all my life, I’ve never come across anyone who gets authentic joy and happiness from procrastination. The ones who claim to be happy procrastinating are usually living in an illusion, alternating from “Oh I’m happy the way I am” to “I wish I don’t have to do this” to “Sigh I wish I started earlier” in a matter of seconds.
Don’t subject yourself to such a situation. It’s all about a matter of getting started. Once you start, it gets easier. I’ve written 11 simple, yet practical steps which can help you move out of the procrastination cycle.
5. Trying to get things perfect the first time round
Interesting, it’s the perfectionist in us that causes many of us to procrastinate (see #4). If the perfectionist side of you is hindering you from getting things done in the first place, that’s something you should look into. Get into the notion of ‘drafts’ – let yourself work on a 1st draft, where you work on the core content, then return for a 2nd or 3rd draft where you iron out the little details. Give yourself the permission to make mistakes which you can correct later on. It’s much easier this way than trying to get everything right in the 1st version. I do this when writing my articles and my books and my productivity is higher.
6. Being hung up over details
Being detail oriented is good. I’m a very detail oriented person myself. However, don’t be so obsessed with details that it holds you back. Does this matter a year from now? 3 years from now? 5 years? If not, then maybe it’s not worth worrying so much about it now. Go for the bigger picture; that’s more important to you.
7. Not having clear goals
Do you know your goals for this month? How about your goals for this year? And the next year? If you can answer these 3 questions with absolute certainty and conciseness, then you’re good to go. Otherwise, perhaps it’s good to spend some time to think over them. While it may take a bit of time in the beginning, after you work out your priorities, your days become very sharp and focused. I have clear monthly goals and targets which I work toward and review every week, and these help me to stay on track towards my long-term goals. This month, my biggest goal is to finish and release my 2nd book. Being conscious of this goal has helped me to push away the unimportant tasks and prioritize the ones essential for the launch, so I can meet the launch timing. Right now everything is going on track and I’m excited to see the final outcome. Read Strategy #1 of 13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity for more about setting your targets.
8. Not taking breaks
Humans are not robots. While robots can sustain constant output over a long period of time, we need to rest and recharge. So schedule a short break in between your work hours, say for 5 or 10 minutes, and take a breather. You’ll find your focus markedly higher when you return.
9. Trying to please everyone
I like this quote by Colin Powell, which says “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity”. You’re never going to be able to control what others think, so don’t spend too much time sweating over it. Instead, work on the things you have control over – yourself, your emotions, your thoughts and your actions. Spend your energy in the creation process, and on people who do deserve your attention and love. Try it for a week – You’ll find it’s a lot more rewarding this way.
How about you?
Which of the 9 items in the not-do list above apply to you? Do you have anything that will increase your productivity markedly once you stop doing them? Share in the comments area.
I'm Celes and I write at The Personal Excellence Blog on how to achieve our highest potential and live our best life. Get my free ebook 101 Things To Do Before You Die by joining my free newsletter (unsubscribe whenever you want). Get my RSS feed and add me on Twitter @celestinechua.
20 Inspirational Quotes To Brighten Your Day
Oct 11th
I love inspirational quotes. They are powerful nuggets of wisdom condensed into 1-2 lines. Whenever I read them, I get so inspired to take action. I remember when I was a high school student, I would decorate the cover of my foolscap pads with quotes because they were so meaningful. Today, I have quotes plastered on the noticeboard in front of my work desk, which I change regularly to whichever quote resonates most with me at the point in time. Whenever I raise my head, I’ll see them in front of me, sort of like a little nod of affirmation. :)
Here, I’ll share 20 of my favorite inspirational quotes. I won’t include any commentary because the quotes speak for themselves. I hope they resonate with you as much as they have with me :)
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” – Albert Ellis
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” – Bill Copeland
“If what you’re doing is not your passion, you have nothing to lose.”
“The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it.”
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
“What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” – Seneca
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” -Albert Einstein.
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” -Milton Berle
“The sky has never been the limit. We are our own limits. It’s then about breaking our personal limits and outgrowing ourselves to live our best lives.”
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – Life’s Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails.” ~ H. Jackson Brown
“Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If you don’t aim for it all, you’ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know what you want” ~ Richard Koch
“”To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”
“Confidence comes not from always being right but not fearing to be wrong”
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
Photo: MarcoMagrini
I'm Celes and I write at The Personal Excellence Blog on how to achieve our highest potential and live our best life. Get my free ebook 101 Things To Do Before You Die by joining my free newsletter (unsubscribe whenever you want). Get my RSS feed and add me on Twitter @celestinechua.