Tag: setting goals

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Invest in More Training and Education

When you invest in more training and education, you are investing in yourself and ensuring a successful life for you and your business. Through education, creativity and innovation are born. What you achieve and don’t do in life is a symptom of the knowledge and experiences you have gained.

 

As they commonly say, “You can’t know what you don’t know.” Simple to put, yet complex in nature when you really break it down. In other words, when you lack the knowledge, you can’t make the right decisions. This is why it’s essential to take the time to find and invest in the right education to be sure you do what needs to be done to live your idea of success.

 

The following are four important reasons you should never skip on an opportunity to learn and gain more knowledge:

The Importance of Continued Learning in Life and Business

To Increase Your Reputation and Trustworthiness

To make a sale in a business, you need to form trust with your target audience. This requires your ability to build a favorable reputation for your brand. The more you educate yourself within your industry, the better you can understand how to do this.

 

To Bring About New Opportunities and Experiences

Personal growth, innovation, and creativity are developed through the experiences and opportunities you take. You get a chance to see life from many different perspectives as you meet and interact with more people. Giving you more opportunities to network and to better optimize your business.

 Be More Proactive and Less Reactive to Achieve Higher Success

To Have A Competitive Advantage

The one consistency to life is change. While scary to most, it is actually a beautiful thing. Change has afforded you all the wonderful experiences, people, and possessions you get to enjoy today. Change in business can happen fast, and before you know it, you are no longer relevant. Education can keep you relevant and ahead of your competition as you are proactive to keep up and become more creative.

 

To Improve Strengths and Weaknesses

Finally, but certainly not least, education provides you the ability to improve your weakness and perfect your strengths. Even more so, it can unlock abilities and skills you never know you had. Further increasing your creativity and giving your business a unique and personal advantage.

 

To Improve Empathy and Compassion

Education provides you information and different perspectives about the world. Empathy and compassion help you develop a deep understanding of the world, its challenges, and how people interact. With empathy and compassion, you can create better products, ideas and get through obstacles more efficiently and successfully.

 

Investing in education will always be a gain, even if you can’t see it directly. It can improve the quality of work, increase your revenue, improve your communication and understanding of the world to better plan and be more effective with your time. Increasing your success and happiness in the long run, making it one of, if not, the best investment you can make in business.

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Essential Elements of The Realistic Optimist

If you want to be more productive, striving to be more of a realistic optimist might be the strategy for you. If you ask a successful entrepreneur what values or attitudes you should project, realism and optimism will likely be high on their list. An optimistic mindset should always be filtered with realism to see success. You can be a positive person all day long, but that doesn’t mean you will get what you want if you don’t act.

 

Here are a few tips to help you become a realistic optimist:

 

Unrealistic Vs. Realistic Optimist: Understand the Difference

One of the best methods to learning how to do something is to discover what not to do first. Being positive is great and has many benefits but doesn’t do anyone favors if it’s unrealistic. Toxic positivity only keeps you back and focused on the wrong things.

 

The distinction between a realistic optimist and an unrealistic one is their actions and their perspective on the world. Unrealistic optimists believe they will have success no matter what, even if they don’t work on it. They deserve and are owed success and the path to it won’t be complicated or challenging.

 

Realistic optimists are the exact opposite. While they too believe their life will be successful, they understand it is still up to them to realize that they have to seek knowledge and education, recognize mistakes, improve skills, and go after their dreams. They don’t wait around for it to come. They are proactive and always take on new challenges because they see them grow and gain more.

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

Keep It Positive but Relevant and Attainable

An optimist is someone who is hopeful and confident about their life and the direction it will go. They believe that the world is ultimately good, and that evil will never prevail. While it sounds great, it’s not very practical on its own.

 

The world may be ultimately good, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be hard or challenging, which is why you need realism to balance it out. Realism makes sure that the plan you are taking is relevant to your ultimate dreams and ultimately attainable.

 

Only Focus on What You Can Control

One of the main objectives of a realistic optimist is to only focus on and control what you can. There is no point in ruminating or overthinking something that you have no ability to change.

 

You can’t change the weather; you can’t control people’s emotions, but you can control how you respond and which actions you take or don’t to get around it. You know the weather can change at a moment’s notice, so always have a plan B, for example.

 

Use these tips to be more positive and realistic to achieve maximum productivity, happiness and never miss any opportunity.

 

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

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Your Lack of Realism Is Stalling Your Success

Realism allows you to manage your time better to plan more efficiently with improved confidence, clarity, and focus on tackling your goals. Realism ensures positivity and actions that result in creating attainable and relevant pursuits. Realistic people are said to be more independent and practical with their time.

Managing Your Mental State (When Times Are Tough) or (Through Adversity)

They use education, knowledge, and mindfulness to their advantage to make the right decisions. You will rarely see them go with the flow or not take a moment to recognize it for what it truly is. Without realism, you are likely down a rocky path of confusion and low self-confidence as you continue to accomplish goals that don’t lead to happiness or try to go after ones that don’t make sense and are out of reach.

This is a Great Jim Rohn Video that highlights the Steps to setting Realistic Goals. Pure Gold!

 

The following are a few tips to help you be more realistic to improve your business and life:

 

Always Stop to Think and Evaluate

Your parents might have told you this already, but it’s important to reiterate and harder than one might think. However, it’s the first step you should take to being more realistic. If you don’t stop and thoroughly analyze the situation, it could lead to more problems down the road. Miscommunication often stems from reacting right away rather than fully listening and being aware in that moment. It only takes a few minutes to evaluate your situation to be sure the information you are receiving and dissecting is accurate or not.

 

Develop More Awareness

Realism develops through experiences and education. Taking the time to learn about other people and the challenges or different things they go through in life allows you to see a different perspective and really see things for what they are. When you know all sides of the equation, you won’t be shocked at the result.  Join local events, industry conferences and surround yourself with more people that have similar interests and goals.

Ask for Feedback and Advice

Don’t shy away from constructive feedback, advice, or different point of view. The purpose is to provide you more insight and information you can’t see for yourself. Even if their opinions may not be true in the end, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t value you in some way. Now you know what not to do, for example.

 

Take Responsibility

Commit to being more mindful and responsible for your actions and inactions. This means being proactive with your life and gaining the knowledge required to form the success you want. Recognize your mistakes and find ways to improve, and always strive to be and do better.

 

Remember, the key to realism is to slow down, experience more, take in as much information as possible to create the right action steps to achieve your dreams and aspirations.

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These Bad Habits Are Killing Your Self-Discipline

Self-discipline is about finding the inner strength and confidence to put one foot forward each and every day to achieve your goals. It’s about taking personal responsibility and doing what needs to be done.

 

The following are common bad habits killing your self-discipline and preventing you from being successful:

 

Having High Expectations of Others

Realistically, even as a boss (or a parent), you can only control yourself. Therefore, you should never have higher expectations of others than you would for yourself. You and only you must take action to get there.

 

Only Working or Starting When It Feels Right

Every day is different, and as a responsible adult, you have to learn to move forward even with life or things get uncomfortable. Of course, if you are really sick or haven’t taken any days off, then you should. However, if you are waiting for the stars to align perfectly to act, you might be waiting forever.

 

Allowing Your Emotions to Control You

In other words, you are more reactive than proactive. When you have a plan, you can’t allow your emotions to change from one day to the next. You need to be firm and learn to control them to get what you want from life.

 

When you are more proactive with your life and go after what you want, it’s unlikely you would have to deal with this too much anyways. As you control what you wish to and plan for obstacles ensuring you are not doing work you simply hate doing, you’ll succeed.

 

Too Much Focus on the “What Ifs” of the Future

You can’t control every outcome, but you can manage your efforts to get closer to the results you want. Worrying too much about if you will fail or if this will happen or that will happen will only cause anxiety and confusion that leads to inaction. Stalling any results that you hope to see.

 

While reflecting on your future to ensure you are going in the right direction, what if’s should never be your primary focus. What if’s need to be used as a measure or guideline to create the right goals and action steps. Your main focus should specifically be on your actions and what you can do to achieve your dreams.

 

Making Excuses

Lack of accountability and ownership for your actions, inactions, or mistakes equals stalled growth. You might as well settle for the life you have now if you can’t take responsibility for what you want.

 

It’s not your spouse’s fault that you can’t get on the right schedule, it’s not your competitions fault that they got your idea out first, it’s not your friend’s fault they didn’t encourage you, and it’s not the weathers’ fault that you can’t exercise, for a few examples. Your inability to understand your actual wants in life and the discipline required to get moving and take charge of your own life hold you back.

 The Importance Of “Why”

If you have a dream, then stop the excuses and start looking within yourself to act and get moving every day.

 

 

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Hit Pause, It’s Time to Reflect

It’s perfectly normal to experience times that you aren’t happy or satisfied with where your life is going, no matter how many goals you may have accomplished. The point of reflection is to ensure you are satisfied with the direction as you achieve each goal.

 

Without really trying things then you really never know what you might or might not like. It’s only natural to change course if you don’t. Evaluation and reflection also highlight areas you are likely doing wrong that are actually causing the process to fail.

 

Furthermore, self-reflection is an essential resource to your business because:

 

  • It builds confidence and self-efficacy.
  • It reduces stress and improves clarity.
  • It improves your goals and business processes.
  • It saves time and allows you to be more productive.

 

The following are a few ways to hit the pause button and reflect to better your business and yourself:

 

Ask Yourself Repeated Questions

Start the process by asking yourself open-ended questions. Meaning you can’t just answer yes or no. They need to inspire you to deep dive into your processes, goals, and aspirations to ensure you are on the right path for the success you want to achieve.

 

The following are a few ideas to get you started:

 

  • What’s working right now that I should continue?”
  • What didn’t work that I should change or adjust?”
  • What’s one new thing I have learned?”
  • What emotions did I experience, and how have they affected my work?”
  • What made me the proudest overall?”

 

Each of these questions is designed to analyze your actions and results and see how they compare to your ultimate goals and wants from life. For it to work, you can’t hold back and must commit to being honest. Accountability and ownership are two of the most important core values of productivity. As without them, you won’t take the right actions to get started or redesign your strategies.

 

Apply Solutions to Your Answers

After you answer each question, you need to take notice and action on whether you need to stick to your plan or change course. If you are experiencing more emotions than usual, for example, then it’s likely you need to add another routine or adjust a bad habit to make your day easier, less overwhelming, or bothersome.

 

Ignore Your Business for Once

One of the most important steps of self-evaluation is to forget about your business or job for once. While you may be passionate about your business, it’s not you or your life. It’s there to fuel the life you want. What do you and your body really need to achieve happiness, and why?

 

As you go through this process, it’s important to note that each time the experience will be, and should be, different to see results. Block time from your schedule and don’t utilize off-days. You need to set adequate time blocks and commit to the process to achieve ultimate happiness and success.

Are You Being Realistic About Your Goals?

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Don’t Let This Momentum Killer Destroy Your Success

Avoiding ownership and accountability impacts your life and business in many unhealthy ways. It is the momentum killer that ultimately eats away at your success, if there was any hope to start with, and certainly stalls any results for which you were hoping.

The price of Greatness

 

Waiting for others to do the work for you, blaming faults on everyone else, or finding excuse after excuse as to why bad things keep happening or why you keep delaying action will halt any success you hope to see in your life. Taking ownership and accountability is important:

 

  • For accelerated progress and business success.
  • For refining goals and responsibilities.
  • For improving your weaknesses and industry expertise.
  • To provide a sense of validation and control.
  • To keep you focused and engaged on what is most important.

 

Steps to improving your accountability and ownership for increased business success:

 

Step 1: Accept and Highlight the Truth

No one likes being wrong. It won’t feel the best at first, but there is a greater chance for peace with acceptance. Learn to highlight your weaknesses and problem areas so you can actively fight to do what’s right each step of the way. It’s not always as dramatic as it feels in the moment and most of the time, accepting it right away and verbally taking responsibility is all you need to get back on track and de-stress.

 

Step 2: Manage Your Expectations

Only rely on yourself and the actions you take to be successful. Don’t expect the world to give you everything on a silver platter. While success can and will happen to you, you must realize that it acts from you, and only you to get there. Please find what you need to do and make it happen. Don’t wait around for the world or others to make you happy.

 

Step 3: Find an Accountability Partner or Mentor

This is an excellent strategy if you have the extra funds or a friend and partner willing to help. When other people rely on you or expecting something from you, you are more willing and likely to do it. Not only that, but mentors can also provide knowledge, experiences, and perspectives that are far beyond your current reach to use and improve your ways.

 

Step 4: End the Excuses

Finally, the most important thing you must do is to stop excuses. Excuses only hold you back and prevent you from seeing the actual cause of your actions. It’s not the alarm clocks’ fault you didn’t show up on time again. It’s the lack of understanding why you keep hitting snooze and not putting in the effort to go after your goals.

Are You Being Realistic About Your Goals?

According to the dictionary, accountability is all about taking responsibility for your actions and inactions (as the case may be) and dealing with the consequences, good, bad, or indifferent, to do better in life and achieve your goals. With consistent effort and the commitment to be a better person, you are more likely to be successful.

 

 

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“Power Office” Your Workspace

As you already know by now, organization is one key ingredient to increased productivity. Every step of business planning and implementing requires it. Good organization skills lead to better time management, consistency, and focus on getting work done on time, and more.

 

One of the most important areas to organize and get right first is your work environment or office. You need to power office your space or set it up to work for you to lead you to success.

 

What Is A Power Office and Why Is It So Valuable?

A power office is the work environment you create to do your work but explicitly optimized for success. A power office is organized to match work processes and the tasks required to achieve your goals. It inspires confidence and gives you a distraction-free area to highly concentrate and focus on your work.

 

Here’s what you need to set up your own power office successfully to achieve productivity:

 

Analyze What’s Not Working First

When you get to work, what causes the most frustration and anxiety? Do you have paper and knickknacks all over the place? Is there furniture or extra things causing more distraction than good? Before you change your space, go to work first and be more mindful of your emotions and surroundings to get a better sense of the space you need to work optimally.

 

Always Keep in Mind Your Work Objectives

When creating your workspace, keep in mind your main objectives or tasks. If you are on the phone a lot, for example, be sure the phone is right where you need it, or your cell phone charger is there to keep you on track.

 

Adjust the Layout, Setup, and Location

Find the right location and layout that work for your professional and personal needs. If you know you like freedom while you work, don’t use the smallest or most affordable location you can find in your home or elsewhere. It will only do the opposite and stall your work.

 

Declutter and Designate

Let go of all the stuff that you don’t need. In other words, trim the fat and put it somewhere else. If it doesn’t pertain to work or provide any kind of motivation and inspiration to get you to work, it doesn’t belong there.

 

Make It Personal but Simplified

Add things of value you know will inspire you or make you happy but don’t add too many things. You already decluttered the workspace. You don’t want to add it all back. Be mindful of each item you add.

 

Test and Adjust

Test the space and keep in mind when working on the things that are causing frustration and work to adjust those areas. Over time, your needs and business will change, which means your work environment should too.

 

Don’t let your work environment be the reason you can’t get your work done. It will only require a few minor adjustments to make your surroundings work hard for you.

 

Home Office Automation Tips

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Five Tips for Better Task Prioritization

The secret to a successful to-do list or plan is understanding how to prioritize your goals and requirements for life and business. Prioritization orders tasks in the importance of urgency or in the most organized fashion to promote a consistent and smooth workflow. If you think planning is getting in your way of success, it’s likely your priorities that are in disorder.

 

Here are five tips and methods that allow you to prioritize more effectively to be sure you start each day more productively and better manage your time:

 

Consolidate and Analyze All Tasks First

Categorize and break it down into similar properties, deadlines, or time it takes to complete.

 

Keep in Mind All Requirements for Tasks

Consider the effort and the time it will take to accomplish each task as well. Who may you have to work with, or what environments may you need to change?

 

Remember the activities that you have a little resistance to or cause extra stress and anxiety. These tasks should likely be higher on your to-do list as they may take longer to accomplish.

 

Assign A Priority Number

Each day list your tasks in the order they should get done for optimal productivity. Keep in mind due dates or how urgent and vital it is to get done compared to the other tasks. If something is easy, it doesn’t always mean it is the best idea to get it done first when you know you have a deadline for a completely different project coming up tomorrow, for example.

 

Create A Priority Matrix

From the list you created earlier, take each of the tasks and organize it into two categories: important or unimportant. Then list whether the task is urgent, not urgent or if you should delegate and eliminate it instead—the following chart is an example of a priority matrix you can use to order your tasks better.

Chart

 

Use The “ABCDE” Method
Invented by Stephen Covey, the ABCDE method uses a grading system to apply a straightforward approach and visual representation to each task. Allowing you to quickly see what you should get done first without having to analyze too much.

Learn to Create Realistic Schedules

The rules to this method are as follows:

 

  • A – High priority tasks
  • B – Medium priority tasks
  • C – Low priority tasks
  • D – Delegate the tasks to others
  • E – Eliminate the tasks completely

 

This information will help you create your daily to-do lists or 90-day action plan to ensure you use your time efficiently. The last thing you want to do is have the right plan for success, just in the wrong order.

 

 

 

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The 2-Minute Rule You Need

This is the 2-minute rule you need to finally end your procrastination or other bad habits and achieve more out of life. Procrastination and other lousy time management habits lead to many missed opportunities and chances for personal growth to build up your business. It encourages laziness and lacks accountability, in turn stalling your momentum, focus, and consistency needed for success.

 

What Exactly Is The 2-Minute Rule?

It’s a stress-free approach to starting new habits and kicking bad ones. It’s a rule designed to help you achieve more goals without feeling overwhelmed and keeps you from delaying action any longer than you should.

 

The two main concepts for the rule include:

 

  • If it only takes two minutes, then get it out of the way right now.
  • Establishing new habits or routines should only take two minutes to begin with.

 

As with most methods, if they are misused, they provide the opposite results than you intend.

 

Here’s how to use the 2-minute rule effectively to kick your bad habits and achieve max productivity:

 

Keep It Relevant and Realistic

Only use the rule if it is relevant to whatever you are doing at that time. In other words, don’t just do whatever task comes to mind if it doesn’t relate to what you are actively doing.

 

For example, if you are trying to finish your next content package for your client, it’s not a good idea to go ahead and get that email notification about your next business meeting out of the way. It is unrelated and will ultimately get you off track and prevent you from finishing your course. Instead, think, “what can I do in two minutes to finish this course?”

 

Don’t Make It Hard

You don’t need to gain success or be the best overnight. Don’t make adopting new habits challenging and overwhelming by speeding up the process. Small gradual changes make it easier to accomplish and stick around long term. For example, science proves that those who lose weight over a more extended period of time maintain the weight longer than those who lose it very quickly.

 

Meaning you shouldn’t focus on what you can’t do; rather, what you can do instead. For just two minutes, what can you do towards changing one bad habit? Then the next day, add two more minutes and keep repeating the process.

 

It’s All About Perspective

The main goal of the 2-minute rule is to change your perspective on how you see a challenge or annoying tasks. You can trick your brain into believing a task is simple and easy, even though it can be hard. Anyone can deal with something for just two minutes, and sometimes the most challenging part is just starting.

 

Give this 2-minute rule a try the next time you feel that you need to push off your work to Monday. You won’t regret giving it a try.

The Secrets to Time Management and Why You Need It

 

 

 

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Do This to Be More Consistent in Life and Business

Consistency is about doing repeatable tasks each day, night, or week depending on the goal you are trying to accomplish. Consistency is a smooth and repeatable process combined with the right actions to achieve your goal more efficiently.

 

Just think about the last place you ordered food. It’s likely that one of the top reasons you selected this choice is due to predictability and knowing they will do it right or be consistent in delivering the food you expect. Their ability to provide you the same food each time is why you keep coming back and why they are successful.

 

Become more consistent in life and business by following these five tips:

 

It’s Not Always About Being Comfortable

Push through even if you don’t feel like it or want to do it. It is pretty understood amongst successful entrepreneurs that continuous daily actions, no matter if you feel like doing nor what other problems are currently going on, is the path that leads to success. Even the happiest people realize they will experience discomfort, and it doesn’t stop them from getting what they want.

 

Understand Your True Wants and Intentions in Life

How do you define success, and what values do you live by each day? If you can’t answer these questions quickly, then take a moment right now to answer them and understand them.

 

If you don’t know yourself honestly, you can’t expect to achieve goals, especially not the right ones. Imagine for a moment that you have accomplished everything you want out of life and create a vision board to match it. This way, you can have a daily reminder to help you back on track.

 

Clarify Your Mission and Expectations

Highlight your goals and clearly outline what resources and other requirements you need to get there. The easier it is to understand, the easier it will be to make processes and systems that better flow for you and your business — giving you the resources you need to be more consistent.

 

Organize and Work in Batches

Be sure the work you set to do each day is organized and relevant. For example, schedule a separate time for checking emails or responding to clients and don’t allow yourself to work on anything else during this time.

 

Establish Healthy Routines

The first step you take in the morning is the most important as it determines your path going forward and how well you do. For example, if you wake up each morning in a bad mood, you will likely drag your feet trying to get work done — making your day that much harder to get going. Find the routines that allow you to live at your most optimal mental and physical health to always start on the right foot.

 

Being consistent should be at the top of your priority list and easy to do as long as you plan correctly and commit to it each and every day.

5 Rituals to Boost Your Energy and Productivity