Most people will do what’s easiest and avoid hard work — and that’s precisely why you should do the opposite.
― Steve Pavlina
Quote of the Day 11/30/15
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
― Calvin Coolidge
One Powerful Way to Overcome Procrastination
Is procrastination overpowering you? Have you stopped or put off any actions, thinking that you’ll get to it “someday?”
Take an honest look at your self-talk. Do you find yourself telling stories about why you can’t be, do, or have something you really desire? What stories (read: excuses) are causing you to delay or not take any real actions?
Do any of these self-talk stories sound familiar?
- I don’t have enough time
- I don’t have enough money
- My job is getting in the way
- It’s too much work
- It’s too risky
- I don’t have the right education/degree/experience
- I’m too young/too old
- My family and friends won’t agree or understand
- And so on…
To get back on track towards realizing your dreams, begin to understand that these are all self-imposed limitations that we create for ourselves. This is procrastination disguising itself as logical rationalization in an attempt to stop all dream-achieving activity.
How can you defeat procrastination?
Two words —> Build Momentum.
Determine the results you desire for yourself and then find a way to take momentum-building actions on a regular and consistent basis. Set yourself up to win by developing the right system that works for you.
The best momentum-building systems are the ones that get you to take action before any thoughts of procrastination can enter your mind. Your objective is to find a way to make your actions automatic.
Here are a few examples of setting yourself up to win by building momentum:
- Fitness: Have your running shoes/gear ready and next to your bed so you can get up to run first thing in the morning
- Writing: Write 1 paragraph, or 1 page, every day etc.
- Reading: Read 1 paragraph, or 1 chapter, every day etc.
- Meditation: Meditate for 5 minutes, or 20 minutes, every day etc.
- Finances: Save $1, or $5 every day, etc.
- Fitness: Walk 20 minutes, every day, etc.
By building up the right momentum, you will begin establishing powerful habits that accelerate the achievement of your desires. You’ll find yourself automatically taking on increasingly larger actions as you naturally level up. Purposefully build up your momentum and procrastination won’t stand a chance!
7 Warning Signs That You’re Too Focused on Fear
Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
― Dale Carnegie
One of your biggest threats to living a life full of passion plus profits is fear. I’m not talking about the kind of fear that is a response to actual physical dangers. I’m referring to the kind of fear that attempts to hold you back with imaginary threats. Beware of the form of fear which aims to leave you living a life of mediocrity and regret.
Energy flows where your attention goes
If you’re too focused on fear, then your energy is being sucked into the things that do not bring you closer to your goals. Fortunately, from the right perspective it’s easy to see if fear has a hold on your mind. Once you become aware of this, you can consciously choose to refocus your attention.
Here are 7 warning signs that you’re focusing too much attention on fear:
- You’re not taking any action.
- You’re taking action on the wrong things.
- You’re avoiding any big decisions.
- You’re full of excuses.
- You’re procrastinating.
- You’re distracting yourself.
- You’re stuck on the problem and not exploring possible solutions.
If you’re experiencing any of the above warning signs, then this message was created with you mind. You can use fear as a trigger to re-direct your attention towards those actions you most need to take. Instead of focusing on what you fear, focus on what you want to make real.
Why Being a Consumer Can Be Devastating to Your Dreams and What You Can Do About It
Since the day you were born you’ve been bombarded with daily advertisements designed to influence you to want to consume something. We’ve been conditioned to want toys as kids and even more expensive “toys” as adults. I’m guilty of wanting the newest shiny object, and there’s actually nothing wrong with wanting to buy products that bring us joy.
The problem is when you solely possess a consumer mindset.
Only wanting to consume things in this world is a sure way to destroy your chances of achieving your dreams. Having a consumer mindset means spending your time, money, and resources on buying things which only bring temporary joy and that depreciate in value. It means not exercising the discipline to practice patience and not understanding your true needs vs wants. It means trying to “keep up with the Joneses”.
The cure for a consumer mindset.
The good news is that you have the power to change your mindset and if you want to realize your wildest dreams you will need to develop a producer mindset. It’s all about thinking how you can create and deliver real value to others. What problems can you solve? What can you offer? What can you commit yourself to giving? Aim to create strong value that produces positive results for others. The more people you can impact, the greater your reward for service rendered.
Interestingly, once you successfully master the art of producing value to the marketplace, you will be able to consume whatever desire. Which mindset will you give your attention to?
The Leading Cause of Poorness (Avoid This!)
There are a million and one excuses for the lack of money. It’s easy to blame the economy, current job, lack of education, environment, and anything or anybody else other than ourselves. Ultimately, we are all 100% responsible for our successes or failures in life. Those who choose not to accept this will continue to give up their control and play the role of victim.
If being poor is the effect, then what is the cause?
Every cause has an effect, and the leading cause of poorness is MAKING POOR CHOICES. If you aren’t where you financially want to be it is because you’ve made financially poor decisions.
Your current bank balance is a reflection of your choices. You can’t change your past decisions, but the good news is that you can make a conscious choice to start making improvements in your choices today which will affect your future results.
You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.― Jim John
How to make better financial choices.
It all starts with being honest with yourself and your past behaviors. Examine how you’ve been spending your time and money, then ask yourself these questions:
It all starts with being honest with yourself and your past behaviors. Examine how you’ve been spending your time and money, then ask yourself these questions:
- What are my spending habits?
- Am I managing my money well or mismanaging my money?
- How do I spend my free time?
- Who are the 5 people I’ve been spending the most time with?
- How am I investing in myself?
- What’s the last book I’ve read or class I’ve taken to increase my financial intelligence?
Your choices today, no matter how trivial they may seem, will impact your future outcomes. If you want to experience wealthy results, then you must commit to making wealthy choices. Fortunately, success leaves clues and we can model our choices after those who have achieved financial success.
Know this: You have the power to choose to be rich.
Develop This One Habit to Promote Yourself & Get Paid More
Whether you are working at a job or running a business, if you want to get paid more, then there is one specific habit that you will need to establish. This one habit alone will work for you regardless of your current position or role.
Here it is…
Develop the habit of doing more than you are paid for.
At first glance, the sentence above may sound overly simple, but please don’t overlook it. By developing this one habit, you will make yourself stand out from the crowd. The important thing is to deliver more value than you are expected, even if you are working in a position you don’t particularly like.
Most people will either only do what’s in their job description or will try to get by doing the least amount of work possible. Choose to be different.
From Lowly Cashier to High-Paying Salesman
I unconsciously developed this habit of doing more work than paid for at one of my first jobs as a cashier at a retail electronics store. This job was rather unchallenging and I knew that I wasn’t going to be there long, but instead of just getting by with providing the bare minimum effort (which everyone else was doing), I found other ways to provide value to the company.
As a cashier, I was doing all kinds of extra work that others didn’t enjoy doing like retrieving all the shopping carts in the parking lot, refilling the vending machines, helping carry out heavy merchandize, dealing with angry customers, and even selling vacuums. One day while I was in action, one of the sales managers witnessed my initiative and moved me up right away to a significantly higher-paying role in tv sales.
A few important things to remember while developing this habit of doing more than you are paid for:
- Provide greater service to your company and customers without any expectation of immediate payment. Just know that one way or another you will eventually get financially reimbursed for your services; this may come from your current role or from other greater opportunities in the future.
- You may not receive immediate financial reimbursement, but you will experience immediate benefit from what it will make of you to deliver greater service. You will also receive immediate rewards in the form of happiness and satisfaction.
- You never know who’s watching and word of ambitious work spreads quickly. If you focus on consistently delivering more value than expected, you will certainly get noticed by someone who will appreciate your extra efforts.
- Be ready for the opportunities that you will be offered. By establishing a reputation of being a person who delivers greater service than paid for, you will naturally attract opportunities far greater than your current role. Act with courage and be open to new roles you’ve never considered before. As a cashier, I never even thought of getting into sales, but I accepted the position and still exercise many of the lessons I’ve learned since then.
By consistently planting seeds of greater service, you will eventually reap benefits from opportunities that will seem to sprout out of nowhere.
5 Ways To Attract Increasingly More Opportunities
For weeks now, I’ve been attracting increasingly more opportunities. Sometimes I find them on my own and many times others bring these wonderful opportunities to me. These opportunities are highly targeted and specific to my own needs. The beautiful thing is that I know that this is just the beginning.
Here are 5 ways you can prepare yourself to attract increasingly more opportunities into your life:
- Know specifically what it is you desire to attract. How will you know if you encounter the right opportunity if you don’t even know what it looks like? Make sure you specify your own desires and not other people’s expectations.
- Do something every day to move yourself closer to attracting your opportunities. What can you do daily to make yourself more attractive to your opportunities? For me, this process includes writing, networking, expanding my knowledge on specific subjects, meditation, and helping others along the way.
- Build a magnetic team of advisors. Mentors and advisors are a powerful way to stay on the right path to attract your opportunities, especially if your advisors have accomplished similar desires.
- Stay aware. Often times we search far and wide for opportunities, when the best ones are right within our reach. Also, be mindful of opportunities that may appear unattractive at first, as opportunities often cross our paths in different disguises (e.g. failure).
- Enjoy the journey. It can be easy to get frustrated if you’re not immediately finding what you’re seeking. Continue your journey in a playful and pleasant manner; instead of coming from a place of neediness (very unattractive).
Finding Self-Discipline in Defeat v2.0
UCLA football was destroyed in Palo Alto last Thursday (56 to 32) and my friends and I just so happened to be seated in enemy territory. We were a tiny sliver of blue amongst a sea of Cardinal. Fortunately for us, Stanford fans have a lot of class and are very welcoming hosts.
Experiencing such a crushing defeat allowed the opportunity to either walk around with our heads down or to consciously make the most of a bad situation (from UCLA’s perspective). The path of least resistance was a downward spiral towards negativity, while the path to positivity required self-discipline to rise above.
In defeat, I was reminded that self-discipline is largely a matter of directing our own thoughts.
Here are a few lessons I learned from finding self-discipline in defeat:
- Real leadership consists of the ability to lift the spirits of those around you
- There are always opportunities to connect, network, and learn from your “competition”
- We may not be in total control of our outcomes/results, but we are in control of guiding our own thoughts
- With the right attitude, defeat is only temporary and all defeats or failures offer valuable lessons
- When feeling down, find a way to give more attention to those things that elevate your state
- There is power in celebrating other people’s successes
In order to me to learn these lessons of Discipline, I had to be in a specific state of mind or feeling state.
Here are some of then negative feelings I first felt when encountering defeat:
- Pride
- Ego
- Frustration
- Anger
Here are the areas I consciously gave more attention to and which created more pleasing, positive results:
- Gratitude
- Understanding
- Patience
- Connection
- Love
When facing defeat in your life how will You choose to respond?
My Ambitions As a Writer
After a long day at work and arriving home late in the evening, I almost gave into the lazy thought of skipping a day of writing… Fortunately, I realized that I don’t have the luxury to be lazy right now. I’ve still got so far to go so I have absolutely no excuse to delay what can be done today. We’ve got to be the change we want to see, right? I choose to do the things I have not done in order to have the things I have not had.
So, instead of falling into bed and drifting aimlessly into dreamland, I’ve summoned the energy and awakened the commitment to continue moving forward on this path of creativity. This is seriously just the beginning and it’s up to me to keep up this momentum.
What are my ambitions as a writer?
I am committed to writing more on this blog (as well as others). I will get back to writing poetry, spoken word and releasing tracks. I will organize thoughts into speeches and outline powerful presentations. I will tell my story through these words. I will share what’s working for me and what’s not. I will document my failures and provide blueprints for my successes. I will single-handedly put each thought, idea, and word on the line.
I do believe that success leaves clues. It’s true that I write for myself, but I also write for You.
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