Tag: success

THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE

Thank you for taking the time to join us here at Secret2anamazinglife.com today. I appreciate the time you take to read the words I have to share with you and hope you leave here a little more inspired than when you arrived. Today I will be celebrating my mother’s birthday and this is a thought I think she would not only agree with, but personifies a great deal.

In today’s world everyone seems to be craving a special identity. The term ‘influencer’ barely existed 10 years ago. It would seem that people will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame. Here is the ironic thing, we do not need to have our faces, or any other body part, all over the internet to be famous. We all have an identity. This is true whether we realize it or not. Today I am going to share with you what that identity consists of and how to improve it. What you choose to do with this knowledge is up to you.

What you give is who you are. Have you ever thought about this before? Over two decades in the field of self-improvement and I have never quite heard it worded that way. The more I think about it, the more true it rings. We spend a great deal of time on trying to accumulate things in today’s world. The new car, the cool clothes and of course our little corner of the internet. All of this in an attempt to develop an identity. How many of us realize it is who we are in that car, what we do in those clothes and what we have to offer in our corner of the internet that make us who we are.

Think of something as simple as being kind to others. When we give kindness that is who we become – a kind person. We must be careful as the opposite is equally true. If we are someone who only gives the world complaints and negativity, that is who we become. It is not what we take or what we accumulate that defines who we are as much as what we give and leave behind. Once again I would like to reference my favorite quote by Denzel Washington, “You never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.” In other words, it is not what we accumulate that will define our legacy, but what we leave behind. That can be the time and effort we have given to those less fortunate. It can be the kind word or smile we share we a stranger who may be struggling. It is what we give that will forever define who we are. If you want to be someone special, learn to give.

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that is was my mother’s birthday today. She is a perfect example of giving as a legacy. She retired 9 years ago now. Since then she has worked even harder I think. She has taken care of many family members experiencing health challenges of different degrees. She volunteers at the zoo in our city. It happens to be one of our favorite places to go. She also is part of the local woman’s club, and helps supply the food pantry at her church. In other words, fills her time with giving. Speaking of the food pantry, a woman appreciated her donations, and her, so much she sent her a birthday card. My mother appreciated the card so much she gave the lady a hug and told her so. This, undoubtedly, made the lady feel good. It would probably motivate her to be kind to others or to my mother again. Do we show appreciation just to continue this cycle? Of course not. This is an example, however, of how continuous giving can create a world filled with love and appreciation. What a great legacy to leave behind! Happy birthday mom! Thank you for all of your giving.

SUCCESS IS STUMBLING

I have been involved in the world of self-improvement for over two decades now. I have seem many people, some with the best of intentions, try in vain to improve their lives. Why, when someone is so enthusiastic about improving their life do they fail to do so? It has to do mainly with their mindset when beginning the journey. Our attitude at the onset of a task has a great deal to do with the outcome. Sometimes more so than the circumstances in which we find ourselves surrounded with. That is why it is so important to get this right. To make preparations for the journey before we begin. You wouldn’t go for a long hike without making sure you brought enough water would you?

What is the proper mindset for self-improvement and what preparations should we be making? I think the quote from Mr. Churchill above gives us a few answers. To begin with, we must understand that improving our life is not a linear journey. There will be peaks and valleys. When some experience a setback, they feel that their journey is not working. The setbacks we experience in life often are some of the best teachers and provide knowledge we cannot gain in any other way. We need to prepare for them. We need to do more than understand from an intellectual standpoint that they are coming. We need to prepare for them emotionally as well. How you do this will depend a great deal on you as an individual.

Some things that work for a great deal of people include, but are not limited to the following. One of the most powerful things you can do is to understand your ‘why’ for improving your life. What happens if you do not improve your life? What happens if you stay the same? This might be a good time to scare yourself a little. Does your family have a history of cancer or heart disease? That might be a good motivation to stay in shape. Then there is the other side of the spectrum. What will happen if you do succeed in your efforts? Will you gain the respect and admiration of your spouse or family? Will you have more energy to play with your children or work on your passion project?

You must also create ways of maintaining your enthusiasm. This can be planning little rewards for yourself when you reached certain points of your self-improvement journey. If you are trying to lose a good amount of weight, make sure to honor yourself along the way or it may feel like you will never get there. It also includes giving yourself a little pain when you mess up. Just make sure to not beat yourself up so bad that you feel like giving up. If you binge on a couple of doughnuts after a month of eating good? Yes, realize you made a mistake, but also realize that maybe you used to do it once a week. Keep your enthusiasm. Keep working towards your goal.

One of the main things you can do to assist in this is to keep your goal in front of you. This can be something as simple as an affirmation on the bathroom mirror or more involved like a vision board. Keep your reason for maintaining your effort in front of you too. It could be a picture of your children, your husband or wife. Whatever the reason that will make you push harder when much of you is telling yourself to give up. Make these preparations, and develop this mindset at the beginning and the journey will be a lot easier.

LEARN TO FAIL PROPERLY

How many times do you have to try something before learning it? Two times? Three times? Thomas Edison failed more than 1000 times before inventing the electric light bulb. Can you imagine sticking with something that long? I am not sure that I would. The point of all of this is that the amount of times that you do not succeed at something in life will always outnumber the times that you do succeed. In other words, you will fail a lot more than you succeed. Knowing this, you would think that failure would be a well-studied subject. On the contrary. Most people do not like to think about failure, much less study it.

If failure is something we are going to experience often in our life, should we not spend some time learning how to do it properly? Many of you might be asking how can you ‘fail properly’? Don’t you just fail or succeed? The average person does, yes. If we are looking to create an amazing life, it involves learning to put everything that occurs in our life to work for us. This includes failure. How can we do that? The first step is changing our mindset around failure. We must see it for what it is – a learning experience. Your muscles do not grow in the gym without encountering resistance. The same is true for you as a person. You only grow when you encounter resistance. In fact, the bigger the resistance, the bigger you must grow to overcome it. Just as the heavier weight in the gym requires more muscle growth. The photo above may seem cliche, but it is 100% true. Failure is a ‘first attempt at learning’. You do not learn much if you succeed at things the first time. It also would lead to a boring life eventually.

The second step to making failure work for us is learning to mine it. Yes, it is time to imagine ourselves as miners and see what we can get out of failure. The obvious may be the lessons and knowledge. If you have ever tried to put out a grease fire with water, you will soon learn, in spectacular fashion, that is the exact opposite thing you should do. It is a failure in the moment, but you will never put water on a grease fire again. You gained that knowledge. How about trusting someone with a secret only to discover they told everyone they know? Failed in that judge of character, but learned they cannot be trusted with confidential information. In addition, if there is something you want to get out, perhaps this was the person to tell. In each case you walked away with more knowledge than you went in with.

Another thing we gain from failure is resilience. If we always succeeded, how tough would we be when faced with a challenge? Not very. Failure teaches us perseverance, patience, and mental and emotional fortitude. These are lessons that you cannot learn with success. Therefore, failure is actually something we can be grateful for. It gives us a kind of strength that success never could. You owe it to yourself to learn how to fail properly. We are all going to do it in life. We should learn to do it in a way that will give us an amazing life!

BEING GREAT

Today in the United States we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day. It is only fitting that we start off with a quote from the man himself. My favorite thing about this quote is that it is a simple, yet effective formula for success. Many people view becoming successful in terms of grand events. Winning the lottery, getting that promotion, losing all the weight they want or whatever they view to be successful. Being great, or successful, is not that complicated.

Take a look at the examples above. Winning the lottery? How about saving or investing the money we would have spent foolishly? Getting that promotion? While we are working to make that happen, we should be doing the best we can at the job we currently have. Putting in a hard days work, whether we are acknowledged for it or not, is being great. How about losing weight? That seems to be on a lot of people’s minds now. It is admirable to be healthy, but understand that even the small things we do will make us great. Saying ‘no’ to the doughnuts in the breakroom is great. Going for a walk after dinner when all we want to do is lay down, that is great.

Doing the ‘small’ things greatly is what prepares us for when the big things arise. If we work to keep our studio apartment in order, guess what will happen when we move into that mansion? If we keep working on passing on the doughnuts, or maybe adding healthy meals to our plate, eventually we will start losing that weight. We are a success long before we reach our goal weight. We are great every time we do not give into temptation. We should celebrate every small step on the way to greatness and make sure we do each one to the best of our ability.

IF I CANNOT DO GREAT THINGS….

It is so important to remember that greatness, and success, are habits. There is a quote that says “it is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. ” What that means is that it is better to be prepared for a situation and not have it come, than to be unprepared for an event that is now here.

When it comes to success and greatness, being prepared is so important. We have seen countless celebrities get fame quickly and not be able to deal with it. They end up in rehab or worse. We must practice success in every area of our life. It isn’t just how you do one thing. It is how you do everything. Make sure to keep this in mind next time you are making dinner, cleaning the house or any other supposed little thing. It is in these little things that the seeds of greatness can be found.

GET REVENGE ON LAST YEAR!

I have always enjoyed this quote by Frank Sinatra. It reminds us that we should not waste our time trying to ‘get even’ with others. That the best revenge on people and things that bring us down is to be massively successful in our own life. We would go a lot farther by focusing our energy on improving ourselves than by bringing down someone else. It also provides some intense motivation when we are not inclined to do those things which we know will bring the necessary improvements to our life. Knowing that there are people who would relish the opportunity to see us fail, or who have counted us out, can drive us to take that action that is necessary.

Last year, there were certainly people who counted you out. Use them for your motivation. Maybe there were situations that were not fair to you. Perhaps you did not get that promotion you deserved? Instead of harboring anger about it, use it to help drive you to show them how amazing you are. You can only do that by becoming the best version of yourself. That involves hard work and consistent action. This year, try to spend more time with people who do believe in you. Include those people who will drive you to better yourself. Those who criticize you, or doubt you, thank them with a wry smile. Use that for fuel to work even harder than you did last year. Do so with an inner smile knowing that those who do speak ill of you will look foolish when you rise to the top!

JUDGE EACH DAY BY THE SEEDS YOU PLANT

Another great quote from one of my favorite Stoics. How many of us judge the success of our days, or our lives, by how much we harvest? How much money did we make? How much power and influence did we earn? Did we get that promotion? Did we get affection and love from our partner? Did our friends praise us? Not only does this cause stress, it can make us a self-centered jackass. If only there was a way to handle our life and decide whether it was successful that was less stressful and moved us closer to becoming the best version of ourselves.

There is! That is how many seeds we planted. What on earth does this analogy mean? Looking at the examples above, let us figure that out. How much money did we make? What if we instead looked at how much we invested? What we did that may help us earn money in the future? Did we review our budget? Did we get that promotion? How about the work we put in that will separate us from our coworkers and show what a valuable employee we are? Setting us up to earn promotions in the future? How much power and influence did we earn? This is a tricky one because it is rarely understood by those looking for power and influence. One of the best ways to get both is to find as many ways as you can to be of service. The more you can give to any situation, the more valuable and significant you are. Next we can combine the relationships of our intimate partner and our friends. Why? The solution is pretty much the same. If we are looking for love and affection, or we are looking for praise, we must ask ourselves what we did to earn it. I can tell you on a personal level, when I do something that will bring joy, peace or love to my Margie, my heart soars! Not only that, I usually receive a healthy dose of love in return. When I can do something to help my friends, or express genuine appreciation for them, it results in a reciprocation. That is not the reason you should do it. Always be genuine, but the best way to earn the respect of others is to show them respect.

One important lesson of all of these is that you have little control over how the harvest of your life turns out. Just like growing crops, some years will be better than others. What you have entire control over is the seeds you plant and how well you take care of them. What do you think would be less stressful, putting all of your energy and importance into the harvest, over which you have no control or the planting over which you have complete control? Ask yourself what seeds have you planted today.

HOW TO GET ANYTHING YOU WANT!

The title of this sounds a bit too grand to be true. I thought so at first as well. The plan to achieve anything you want was brought to us courtesy of Earl Nightingale. One of my favorite authors and speakers. Earl was actually a lot more than that and I encourage you to explore his many works. He developed a plan that required no more than 5 hours a week, none on weekends, and can give us anything we want in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Here is the method, short and sweet. Wake up one hour earlier every morning. Yes, I know this sounds difficult. I wake up everyday at 4am, so I can understand. When I tell you what you can accomplish with this idea, you will soon see it is worth it. Make yourself a nice cup of coffee or tea. Whatever you prefer. Sit down with a pad of paper and a pen. Yes, we are going old-fashioned here. There is a reason that makes it more powerful. Write your single goal on the top of the piece of paper. Now, begin to list as many ideas as you can for reaching that goal as your sip your brew. Do not judge them and understand most of your ideas will not be very good. Write them down anyway. All you need is one good idea to succeed. Shoot for 20 ideas a day. Working 5 days a week, this will give you 100 ideas a week. Can you see how the law of averages is with you?

Another benefit of doing this is the fact that it imbeds your goal into your mind, but conscious and subconscious mind. Your mind will be working on it as you go throughout your day. The wonderful idea you are looking for may not come to you in that hour you are working, but may pop into your head on the drive to work, or while waiting in line at the grocery store. By writing with pen on paper, we create a greater mind/body connection. This will help drive our goal into our mind even more.

Bonus idea!!!! While doing this to accomplish goals certainly makes sense, there are other applications that will transform your life just as powerfully. Can you imagine waking up and trying to come up with 20 ways to add love and connection to your relationship? How about ways to show yourself some self-care and inner peace? How about leave a great legacy for those behind you? Imagine trying to come up with 100 ideas a week on any of these subjects? How would that change your life?

THE KEYS TO FREEDOM

Many of us have a negative association with the word ‘discipline’. It starts from childhood where we are disciplined for perceived bad behavior. This can be standing in the corner, a spanking or any other sort of punishment. In fact, it is here where we see discipline and punishment as the same. Then we move to school. Not much better here. We can be disciplined for acting up in class. Maybe even leading the class on an impromptu field trip while the teacher is out of the room. Say to the park…down the street. Who knew that was against the rules? Obviously not me in pre-school.

This is where another negative association to discipline begins. If our grades are not up to standards, we are told we have to be disciplined in our studies. This can result in long hours of pouring over the books and missing much of the fun our friends are enjoying. As an adult, things to not get much better. We have to be disciplined in our eating if we want to be healthy. This can mean missing out on many of our favorite foods. It can be forcing ourselves to eat many things we do not enjoy. We have to be disciplined about going to work. That sure is fun isn’t it? Roughly 87% of us do not like our current occupation. So that discipline is not enjoyable for most of us. Even as we leave work we have to remain disciplined in doctor visits and taking medication. Not much fun there.

Here is what nobody tells us. Discipline is the key to freedom. In each of the examples above, with maybe the exception of my pre-school adventures, the discipline was helping us gain some freedom. Learning how to properly behave in society allows us to have the freedom to get along once we are out on our own. Being disciplined in our studies not only helps us learn skills we will need in the real world, but shows us the value of committing focused time and effort to developing a skill. As far as being disciplined with our health, that gives us the freedom to enjoy a life with less sickness and injury. Life is no fun when you are constantly at home with the latest illness going around. Being disciplined with coming into work will keep us employed and earning a paycheck. As far as remembering to go to the doctor and take our meds, well that keeps us…alive! Freedom there!

We are taught to view discipline as what we have to go through, or even as a punishment. What many of us are not made aware of is what that discipline will result in. This change in mindset can transform our lives. Not only will it assist us in sticking to our discipline, it will make it more enjoyable. All of that will lead to a more successful life. If you will like to learn more about the power of this mindset change, join us tomorrow when we dive deeper into it.

BE UNSTOPPABLE THIS MONDAY!

Do not let the fact that it is Monday stop, or even intimate you. Discover what is holding you back from reaching your goals. Make that your enemy. Remember to focus on what you can control. Placing the blame on outside people and circumstances only puts you under their control and makes you weak.

The truth is most of the time it is not a lack of resources that stop you, but a lack of resourcefulness. Use those people and circumstances for motivation, not for excuses. Do not let them stop you. Find what you can do inside of you to improve your situation and move closer to your goals. You’ve got this!