The New ABC’s of Success: Always Be Creating

Image courtesy of Hemmy.net (Creative Photography)

In every economic crisis, there have been those individuals who have emerged from the aftermath even more financially secure. Luck has something to do with it, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. In order to rise up and get ahead, you need to shift paradigms. You need a new way to look at and interact with the world. Fortunately, it’s as simple as re-learning your ABCs.

In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin taught us the ’80s ABCs: “A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing!” But that’s old school. The new ABCs are Always Be Creating. People who create will be the people who succeed and excel. If you can create, you can write your own check.

I know what you’re thinking: work stinks. They’re talking about more layoffs, bonuses are out of the question, and you have to pitch in more for health insurance. Your 401(k) is in shambles, and your house is worth 40 percent less than it was a couple of years ago. The vision you had for your life has been seriously challenged. All you feel like doing when you come home is kicking back, cracking open a Heineken, and watching the tube. That’s understandable, but it’s absolutely bass ackwards. Read the Rest of This Article »

The Goals Shortcut: Getting What You Want—Right Now

As a coach, I often work with people on achieving goals. Starting a business. Changing careers. Getting in shape.

I’ve learned that under every goal, there is an equation the goal-seeker has made up: If I do x, I will feel y. If I run my own business, I’ll feel a greater sense of control over my life. If I find a job I enjoy, I’ll feel happier and more energetic. If I get into shape, I’ll feel more secure about my health and more attractive.

This hypothesis then guides our actions. As a next step, we spend a lot of time and effort on x goal, believing it will be a means to feeling y. Sometimes we are right in our hypothesis, and often not. Research shows that humans are actually quite bad at predicting what will bring us happiness.

The more I work with people on their goals, the more odd it seems to me that we focus our energy on a particular goal, when what we really want is the desired change in feeling. Why don’t we focus on the feeling?

When I work with clients to focus on the new feeling they want to create, they find a wealth of options for getting there, including many that are available right now.

This is what I call “The Goals Shortcut” and its awesome power is that it allows you to feel the way you want to feel right now – not way off in the distant future after a goal has been achieved.

It has five simple steps. Read the Rest of This Article »

7 Simple Strategies For Instant Confidence

Let me be clear: I don’t believe in instant confidence as a permanent cure for confidence issues. I think what works in the long run is changing the thinking patterns and belief system which feed insecurities. And this cannot be done in an instant. It take times and persistent action.

I do however believe there are often situations when you don’t have the time to build confidence by addressing the roots and you need an instant boost for your confidence. There are strategies for this, which work a lot like a patch over a wound, with a temporary but also positive effect. This is why from my perspective, this discussion makes sense.

Do a simple search on this topic and you will actually find dozens of tips and tricks for instant confidence. Which always leads me to one simple question: which ones work the best and are truly worth applying?

Having tested a lot of them myself, as well as having seen even more of them at work in my activity as a coach, I’ve selected a couple of them, which I believe to be the most effective strategies for instant confidence. Here they are: Read the Rest of This Article »

What Animals Can Teach Us About Reaching Our Goals

You might think the reason I chose this title was to grab your attention but the truth is that several experiments* have been conducted on animals with the purpose of discovering how the brain works and how the results can be used to improve humans life – proving once more that animals are a lot more than just Man’s best friend.

Many animals have similar systems to the ones we have, and by applying the results of some of the experiments to  human beings have uncovered several methods of improving human life.

The monkeys that learned fear:

Monkeys that don’t fear snakes were introduced to some snakes while being forced to listen to loud, scary noises. Some monkeys learned to fear snakes as a result of this experiment but what’s more astonishing is that when monkeys that didn’t fear snakes were allowed to see the fear response of monkeys that fear snakes they learned how to fear snakes too!!!

Conclusion: We learn to fear things when we associate them with another event, for example a child might fear darkness after associating it with the noisy sound that happened when his mother slammed the door of a dark room.

Moreover, if a child watched an adult reacting with fear to a certain situation the child will develop fear too!! Read the Rest of This Article »

The Danger of Setting Big Goals

Image courtesy of WriterInspired

I ran in a race over the weekend and re-learned a valuable lesson. During the middle of the run, I turned a corner and faced a long stretch — the kind that doesn’t seem to end. When I started the race, the thought of crossing the finish line motivated me. But when I was half-way through, out of breath and out of energy, visualizing the finish line didn’t provide me with any “umph.”

Instead of focusing on success and reaching my goal, I tried to forget all about the finish line and conquering the long stretch ahead. I dropped my head and looked about three steps in front of me. Every three steps became a new “finish line.”  Forget about everything else, I told myself over and over. Focus on just those next three steps. Before I knew it, I had run the long stretch and was turning another corner. Read the Rest of This Article »

Is Social Networking Bad for You?

Image courtesy of ComputerArt

Using part of your other 8 hours on social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can build your human capital, but social networking has a dark side that can stifle creativity and foster narrow-mindedness if you’re not careful.

Once upon a time if you had different opinions, interests, or views from the norm, you were considered odd or maybe even weird.  Then the Internet came along and changed all that.  No matter how different you are, and no matter how strange your beliefs, you can find a million others just like you.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this.  No matter what you think or what you like, there’s an online community just a few clicks away where everybody knows your name.  The internet is now one big high school cafeteria.  Jocks over here, nerds over there, brainiacs back there, stoners over . . . uh, stoners? Read the Rest of This Article »

9 Ways to Wake Up Ready to Rock

“Never Wake Up” courtesy of Heiko Muller

I bet you’ve had days when you just want to stay under the duvet. Maybe you slept badly, or perhaps you just can’t face dragging yourself out of bed and facing your to-do list. Yet you know that if you could get up when you want to every day – rather than at the last minute possible – you’d be able to accomplish a lot more of your goals.

Here are nine ways to wake up ready to rock, roughly in order of when you’ll need to do them the day before. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments!

1.    Exercise During the Day

There are plenty of great reasons to exercise, and I won’t rehash them all here. Many people, though, find that exercising helps them to sleep well at night – yet another health-boosting benefit.

If you’re struggling to fit exercise into your day, try looking for ways to get active in your lunch hour or straight after work: if exercise forms a natural part of your routine, you’ll be much more likely to stick with it. Read the Rest of This Article »

10 Dream Steps for Success—How to Bring Your Dreams to Reality

A Midsummer’s Night Dream courtesy of Jasmin Aldin

Putting Power in Your Steps

To come from a place power, a clear understanding of past, present, and future is critical. In dwelling on the past, we are deterred from our dreams and dream objectives. By emotionally living in the past, we distract ourselves from discovering and giving voice to our deepest, most inspirational desires.

The Past Does Not Equal the Future

In thinking of the past, we stir up negative explanations as to why our dreams can’t come true because they haven’t come true in the past. It is a specific sort of blame game and subtracts from our power to take responsibility for what our life has become. Develop a habit of catching yourself in these thoughts and instantly correct them to shift your power by taking action in the present moment.

Our lives are a reflection of what we continuously focus on. Therefore, if we continue to focus on what happened in the past, we continue to repeat the past. History repeats itself, particularly for those who keep focusing on it!

“But how can I learn from my mistakes if I don’t look back?”  Although this question seems to make sense, there is weakness in this thinking. It makes the assumption that mistakes have been made. However, I believe that there is no such thing as failure, and that all seeming failure is an opportunity for adjustment. An adjustment is an improvement, rather than a correction of a mistake. When we think in terms of mistakes, this thinking comes from lack, or fear.

In thinking from power, faith, and responsibility, we simply make improvements. When we shift our thinking from fear of repeating mistakes to acceptance of a learning opportunity, the negative past loses its power over us. Read the Rest of This Article »

5 Interesting Ways to Improve Your Health and Happiness

When you think of improving your health and happiness, what do you think about? Is it diet? Is it money? Or is it even having that dream house with a nice car? We all have different dreams, but the thing that connects us all is the fact that we believe these dreams will make us happy.

Happiness is something that has been studied for a long time. Itís something that we cannot fully grasp. We may see happy people walking past us, but we never know why theyíre so happy and what their secret is.

As the Buddhists say ìthe secret of happiness lies in the mindís release of worldly tiesî, but do we really need to do that? Iíve gathered five simple ways you can improve your health and happiness without giving up that which makes our lives interesting. Read the Rest of This Article »

The American Dream According to My Father

Image courtesy of Andy Warhol

My father is my hero.  The greatest man I know.  Honestly.  As I have matured through the years, I realize this more every day.  And I am more and more grateful for him every day.

He is a quiet and reserved man… a hard worker, and very successful in most facets of his life.  He spent his entire 45 year career at one company, starting out as an intern making 75 cents an hour to spending the last several years as CEO.  Surely he has weathered several economic recessions, witnessing and even overseeing his fair share of lay-offs, salary cuts and disgruntled employees.  He was fiercely dedicated to his work, and sacrificed a lot of time with his family to fulfill his responsibilities and accomplish his career goals.  He traveled often and spent endless hours at the office.  He was never a 9-5, 40 hours a week, employee.  More like 60-70 hours. Read the Rest of This Article »

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