Get Focused & Learn to say 'NO'
I called a financial advisor today to find out how he was doing and what was going on in his life so I could find out how else we could help him achieve his goals this year. He proceeded to tell me about his wife who has been fighting cancer since the end of last year and is on her second round of chemo. She is a young woman and they are dealing with a lot of issues related to her health, as you might expect. He is also transitioning from one firm to another firm and should have that done by the end of June. Are you thinking what I’m thinking by now? WOW! You have a lot on your plate, not to mention the fact that he still has to do a certain amount of work to generate revenue for him to live and pay the bills for his wife along with everything else.
Then he proceeded to tell me that he is having a great year with his business. His year this year is starting off better than last year. What has he done to help make this happen, do you think, based on all the other things going on in his life? Well, one of the main things he did was learn to say NO to everything else he was doing. He isn’t part of any other groups of any kind right now and is only focusing on his business and helping his clients, his wife, and making the transition from one company to the new one. He is laser focused. He is executing a plan and working very well with his calendar.
This is just one example of someone who is doing well, in this economy and with all the other things on his plate that he has to deal with on a daily basis. I was thinking… if he can do this, so can the rest of us. Focus, apply yourself, say NO to those things that are getting in your way to you achieving your success, and effectively use your calendar. You can do it!
For additional help with focusing on your highest payoff activities, calendaring, and other personal and business development concepts, review the content-oriented tele-seminars at http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/resources_teleseminars.php and pick the ones that have the most value for you. Listen to them over and over again.
Take a mental break and get your heart pumping!
With increased focus on our highest payoff activities so we can achieve our goals this year – and during any economy, we sometimes need to make sure we are taking ‘mental’ breaks. One thing I often recommend to people is taking a 10 minute break to get some quick exercise and get the heart pumping while giving our brains a few minutes to relax. Consider including into your break something like 100 sit-ups, 25 push-ups, and take a lap around the building (inside our outside). You could do bicep curls, an exercise for your triceps, and some squats. There are many things you can do to get your heart pumping and give yourself a mental break so when you return you are more focused in order to continue to be as productive as possible. Add this concept to your calendar and see how much better you feel.
Apply Coaching to Your Life and Realize Your True Potential
Coaching is a form of teaching, with the directive of instructing and training a person to develop a specific ability. There are various ways to approach coaching since every coach brings a unique perspective to learning.
Life coaching helps clients to organize their life and pursue their life’s ambitions – professional and personal. Life coaches use a variety of methods to help give their clients confidence and guide them to take initiative that leads to action and results. Life coaches do not treat psychological disorders nor do they serve as therapists or special consultants. They train people for the pursuit of life and happiness, and to help bring balance in people’s lives. Their programs usually center on positive thinking, behavior modification, setting goals, and some form of belief practice
The most common forms of coaching programs are self-coaching, peer (or group) coaching, seminars, and one-on-one coaching. There are advantages and disadvantages to each style. You can review various coaching methods at http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/coaching.php. Review them and pick the one that you think will have the biggest impact on your life – personally and professionally.
What is the best method of coaching for you? What is the best way to train your staff and team members to be more efficient and effective in their performance? The answer is: whatever works. You may have to try one or more methods in order to find a system that is helpful. Research and review the options that are best for you to achieve your goals in the timeframe you desire. Pick one and implement that system as it is designed and it will make a difference in your life.
Go to http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/coaching.php and review the various options available to you.
8 Powerful Ways to Maintain Persistence so you can Achieve your Goals
Persistence is the ability to continue to get up no matter how many times you’ve been knocked down. It requires will power, flexibility, strength of character, determination and a desire to succeed at all costs.
If there was one common denominator that could be applied to successful people, it would be persistence.
The value of persistence lies in maintaining your goal while re-positioning yourself to get there without continually hitting your head against a brick wall.
So, what can you do to maintain persistence?
Here are 8 tips to help you persist and achieve your goals:
1. Maintain your Vision
Decide what you want out of life, and then work with a vision for the future. Keep your goal firmly planted in the front of your mind so that every action step you take will lead you closer to achieving what you want.
2. View Setbacks as Life Lessons
Nobody achieves their goals with one straight shot at the target. Understand there will be setbacks, failures and mistakes but don’t let a negative or sideways step move you off the path.
Mistakes are merely “life lessons” so view each backward or sideways step as an opportunity to learn.
3. Act with Courage
Don’t allow fear of failure to stop you. As human beings, we all fail from time to time. It’s the winners who get back up and start again. Act with courage and determination to achieve the things you want in life.
4. No doesn’t mean “No”
There will always be those who will try to discourage and dishearten you. There will also be those who say “No”.
“No” isn’t a personal affront. Nor does it mean “Stop”. “No” may simply mean “this doesn’t suit me right now” or “I’d rather do it a different way”.
If you hit a brick wall of “No’s”, simply back-track and find a new and brighter path to travel to reach your destination.
5. Exert Control over your Actions
Make a conscious decision to make every step count. Keep your vision clear in your mind at all times so that your actions become a part of the process to get you where you want to go.
6. Think Creatively
Often we become so fixed on the goal, we forget that other options exist. Be prepared for the fact that not only will the road to achieving your goals take a number of unexpected turns, the goal posts may shift too. Allow yourself to stay flexible and understand that what you originally envisioned may alter to become a fresher, more realistic outcome.
7. Believe in Yourself
Have faith in the fact you will achieve your goal, no matter what circumstances or situations arise. When times get tough – and they usually will – keep your focus clear and don’t get bogged down in “I can’t” or “I won’t”.
8. Pick a Support Team
You don’t have to do it alone. Gather a team of family and friends who you know you can count on to offer your support and guidance when the going gets tough. There is nothing like a friendly pat on the back to keep you going when you feel you’ve given as much as you have to give.
Download the Tele-seminar about helping you Achieve Your Goals Sooner and Persistence Paying Off at: http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/resources_teleseminars.php. Implement the ideas in this tele-seminar and achieve your goals!!
11 Guidelines for Increased Focus Power
Great leaders stay focused on the strategic big picture while prioritizing the smaller pieces that will form the global canvas.
11 Guidelines for Staying Focused
The power of focus lies in your ability to distinguish the urgent from the important; and concentrate your energy on the important.
Here are some guidelines to help re-direct your focus and prioritize getting the important stuff done first.
1. Write down the important tasks you have set yourself for the day. These are the results-driven projects that require your complete focus.
Prioritize those tasks according to their importance, and then plan a strategy for completing the most important task first.
Visualize the entire process and how it will look once it’s completed. Keep that image at the front of your mind.
2. Clear your desk of everything except the important project you are working on. If necessary, make a pile of paperwork on the floor. You can always pick it up once your important task is completed.
3. Block out a time in your daily schedule to attend to the urgent matters. Most of us find we are at out lowest ebb early in the afternoon, so this is an ideal time to take care of anything “urgent”.
4. Don’t answer the phone. Imagine you are in a meeting and can’t be interrupted.
5. Turn off your email client and shut down the automatic email notification system.
6. Turn off your cell phone or shift the ring tone to “silent”.
7. Close down any programs on your computer that could cause you to become distracted. Remember to turn off RSS feeds.
8. Close the door to your office. If you work in an open plan space where there is a lot of noise around you, consider buying a pair of ear plugs.
9. Work attentively. If you find yourself getting distracted, re-visualize the project in your head and the action steps necessary to complete it.
10. Take regular breaks. Very few of us can remain focused for long periods of time without losing the plot, so take a 5 to 10 minute break every hour.
If you sit at a desk, get up, stretch your legs and take a few deep breaths. If you have been working on a computer, re-train your eyes to focus on middle to long distance objects. This helps avoid eye strain.
11. When you have successfully completed one of your important projects, give yourself an imaginary pat on the back for a job well done!
Staying focused requires effort and determination, but like any project we want to achieve, practice makes perfect!
Leverage Resources to Help You Be Even More Successful
If I told you it would take less than 10 minutes to begin designing the life you want, would you start right now?
Of course you would!
Maybe you’re familiar with the powerful Law of Attraction, but don’t know how to get started. Or, maybe you want to accelerate the success you’ve had so far. The Dear God Letter process can help you.
Let me introduce you to the Dear God Letter. At DearGodLetter.com, they will show you how to utilize the Dear God Letter and the Law of Attraction to change your life and help you live your dreams.
What is the Dear God Letter?
The Dear God Letter is a simple process to engage the Law of Attraction by writing a letter to God asking for help to achieve and attract the life you desire.
Thousands of others are already writing their Dear God Letters and living their dreams. Get started today – It’s Easy! Follow their 5 simple steps… Go to: http://www.deargodletter.com/ and learn more.
If Nothing is on your calendar you probably are doing Nothing…
What are the chances of you doing your highest payoff activities and the activities that will put you in the highest probability position to achieve your goals if nothing is on your calendar, or the things on the calendar aren’t the ‘right’ activities? Is every minute of your day accounted for toward something? It needs to be if you want to be as successful as possible. Schedule every minute of your day for those activities that will help you achieve your goals. Schedule email time (recommend not having it first thing in the morning), lunch time, exercise time, revenue generation time, client service time, break time (run around the building or do some sit-ups and push-ups), etc.
Schedule as many recurring events on your calendar as possible. Schedule as many similar activities together as possible. How much time do you want to spend on revenue generation versus client service versus administrative things?
How would you feel coming in to each day and each week with your calendar full of the ‘right’ activities? How would this impact your results? How will you know for sure? TRY IT! Begin today! Schedule activities on your calendar for next week, or even the next 30 days.
For additional assistance with this click on the following link and obtain the tele-seminar (Focus on Your High Pay-off Activities and Achieve Your Goals Using Effective Time Management)
http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/audio-store/
What Are You Committed To?
Our greatest leaders and the most successful business people all share common belief systems – determination, strength of purpose and commitment.
Being committed to yourself, your goals, your business and your relationships is what raises you above the mediocre, because people who honor their commitments stand out in the crowd.
By honoring your commitments, you keep your promises and stay true to your word. Honoring your commitments also means that you promise to see them through to the very end, come what may.
Not honoring your commitment destroys your credibility, dependability and trustworthiness.
Success doesn’t just happen. Success occurs when determination, a desire to succeed, strength of purpose and a commitment to achieve your goals are present.
Successful people commit to achieving better than their best. For them, commitment becomes an instinctual habit they practice every day.
Human beings are amazingly complex creatures, so the coming together of two complex creatures in an equally complex relationship can be fraught with mishaps, misunderstandings, doubt, deceipt, despair…the list goes on and on.
In its most simplistic terms, committing to a relationship is no different from committing to a long term goal. To stay committed, you need to keep your focus on the vision and understand that the path to attain that vision may meander, twist, turn, convolute and lead you down a number of dead ends.
What it takes is a shared desire to achieve the same vision and determination to succeed no matter what obstacles are placed in your path.
Your Confidence Glass Needs to Runneth Over…. Every Day
Every day we need to start the day with extra confidence. Especially during these times, your clients and prospects need and take some of your confidence so if you don’t start your day with extra, they will know it and the chances of them doing business with you are less than if you have enough to give away to all that need some of your confidence during each day. You need to do whatever rejuvenates you every night so that you can wake up each day with extra confidence to give out during the day. You will also feel better and be more effective when you start each day with extra confidence. If you have people who work for you, they will want some of your confidence also. Give it away to everyone you meet and it will have an effect on the results you achieve each day. What do you have to do every night to wake up every day with your glass of confidence running over?
Choose Wisely: Choose Life
The choices you make every minute of every day influence the life you live and the person you are. Make them wisely.
The more choices you make, and the more you realize the world won’t fall apart either way, the more control you gain over your life.
Making Choices That Matter
Whether we like it or not, we all make choices all the time; consciously and subconsciously, hard decisions and easy decisions, choices that not only affect us but those around us, life altering decisions and choices that, in hindsight, took us down the wrong path. But hey…that’s life!
As human beings, it’s often easier to choose the path of least resistance. After all, we are creatures of habit, so if it’s habitual for you to cocoon yourself inside your comfort zone, then it’s highly likely you’ll always choose the “soft option”.
But living a life of quiet desperation is a choice, and people who choose to live life in this way have to take on the responsibility for making that choice.
On the other hand, there are those of us who accept that making choices isn’t always easy and isn’t always comfortable, but want to live a life ripe with new opportunities, new visions, new adventures and new challenges.
Challenges allow us to grow and learn from the experiences we encounter.
Consider this: life doesn’t just happen. The life we choose to lead is dictated by the choices we’ve made in the past, those we make today and those we’ll make in the future.
To live an extraordinary life, we need to understand and focus on what we want to achieve, and then make choices that will ultimately lead us to the goals we want to attain.
