Get Rid of Quitting Once and For All

I was working in the our garden the other day.  I looked at some of the seeds for the tomato plants I intended to plant.  However, I was discouraged by how small the seeds looked, so I did not put them in the ground.  Later, I saw some weeds growing.  I thought to myself, "Why is it that no matter how many times I weed my garden, inevitably weeds seem to grow up?"  So, I put away the fertilizer, defeated, discouraged.  A small tree in my back yard, an oak tree, had been planted a couple of months previous, and I could not believe at how small it still looked!  Finally, I decided it was not worth it: forget tomatoes, forget weeding, forget planting oak trees.  I must have a purple thumb, because nothing I do works!  Today, there is are brambles and weeds in the back, and the little oak tree sapling withered away.  Because I quit!


Well, the above story may be a little silly and hard to believe.  Because you are right, it never happened.  But how many times do we make the same mistakes with our dreams and goals?  How many times do we question our own seeds of vision and purpose that prompted us to write down our goals in the first place?  How many times do we see obstacles in our paths, or weeds in our garden, and we get discouraged, thinking that there are just too many of them, and they always seem to be popping up?  How many times do we become frustrated with what seem to be little results, forgetting the law of compound interest?


The key success factor for execution of big goals is perseverance and persistence!


Keep the End in Mind.  It's so important to rest a while, and to reconnect with your mission and your goals.  Rather than get caught up in the heat of the current problems or circumstances, stop, take a walk, take a deep breath, take a brief time off, but then come back to your overarching awe-inspiring goals.  One author has written about how, during a time in his life when he was jobless and homeless, he would take his young son and go watch the waves of the ocean.  He called this reconnecting with oceanic perspective that crowded out the negative mental weeds of his frustrations with circumstances and difficulties.


Rehearse Your Success.  I recently got an inexpensive app for my iPhone called the Live Happy app.  One of the activities that happy, successful people do is to rehearse their success frequently.  Brian Tracy, in his book, Maximum Achievement, talks about how he would write his most important goals daily.  Zig Ziglar talks about reading your written goals out loud daily.  I personally recorded my mission statement, 2009 goals, and my 10 year goals on my iPhone and listen daily to those things.  By focusing on what I really want, I am aware of weeds, the small size of seeds, the small size of the plants, but I have my eyes on the prize, and I don't get discouraged to the point of giving up.


Baby steps is the name of the game, my friends!  I'm currently reading Start Where You Are, by Chris Gardner, the true life star of The Pursuit of Happyness.  He's written a series of life lessons in getting from Where You are to Where You Want to Be.  One of the mistakes we often make is to minimize the importance of small, daily actions focused on our long terms objectives.  Make a list of the six most important things you need to accomplish, and be sure to have a couple of those items targeted toward the accomplishment of your most important goals.  Work on 1% improvement daily, and you will be astonished at how much you have accomplished by the end of 30 days, 60 days, 120 days, 365 days, one year, two years!

I watched this video recently, and found it to be very inspiring.  Now get out there, take those baby steps, and keep moving forward this week!  Also you might enjoy a specific example of business success  that I found over at Bizzia.com.





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The Best Way to Get What You Want!

In prior blog posts, I have shared my goals for the year. And, I have addressed the issues of motivation and being stuck. What do you do once you have your goals in place, and once you no longer need a kick in the butt to get moving? You've got the What in place, and the Big Why. Now you need the How!

I found a great article that summarized the concept of critical success factors at Mind Tools. Let's say that you have a car, and want to get from point A to point B. The critical success factors would be: a car that works, a gas tank that's full, you knowing how to drive, and a key to start the car. Oh, and don't forget that, if you don't know how to get there, you would need a road map or a GPS.

Critical success factors "are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project." (definition courtesy of MindTools) They are closely tied to your mission and vision (you can find out more information about this at MindTools, if you are needing help to formulate your mission).

I am going to summarize a five step process adapted from the Mind Tools blog, but I am going to apply it to my own personal mission. My personal mission in my life, business and professional, is "to bring hope to my clients through the services I offer." .

Step 1: Define you personal mission and your strategic goals.
You have to get very clear about who you want to be, what you are going to value, and what you want to achieve. Based on some very good books I have read in the past,
(Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, by Brian Tracy; Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!, by Anthony Robbins; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook, by Stephen Covey; and How to Find Your Mission in Life, by Richard Bolles).

Step 2: For each strategic goal, ask yourself, "What are the essential action steps that I need to achieve in order to accomplish this goal?" It is suggested that you keep this fairly simple, focusing on 4-5 actions at most. For example, one of the goals I have this year is to help my son re-decorate his room.
Therefore, my main action steps would be as follows:
a) Make sure that I have at least two days set aside to work specifically on this task. Make sure that I take two vacation days in order to make this happen.
b) Make a list of all the materials we will need in order to refinish his room.
c) Have a planning meeting with my son and my wife to discuss the materials they want (color of paint, decor, budget)
d) Remind myself of the reasons I am doing this, since I am not one who likes either 'handy' skills or 'interior design.' (Reasons/Why: I love my son, it will mean a lot to him, it will show him that I care about him, it will bring me joy and fulfillment, and it will meet my mission of "bringing hope through service.")

Therefore, the above action steps are the critical success factors needed for me to accomplish this strategic objective: re-decorating my son's room. It will be helpful for me to put these critical success factor action steps on my weekly planning agenda, so that I can include them in my daily "to do" activities.

Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Criticial Success Factors. You may find that, as you review the actions listed, you may be able to combine some of the steps, or that you think of other steps that may come to mind. Try to synthesize everything into a 4-5 action list.

Step Four: Measure for success! Unless you give yourself a deadline for each action item, your critical success factors will remain inactive! All of us are capable of procrasinating, so the best way to Eat That Frog is by establishing a target date for each item. You can do that by reviewing your to do list daily. That to do list will include these critical success factors. By chipping away at those success factors, you will reach your goal on time!

Step Five: Continue to monitor you mission, goals, and critical success factors. The absolute best way I have found to do this is by daily reviewing my dreamboard, mission statement, and strategic objectives. I have recorded all of this onto my iPhone recording app, so that I can listen to it daily, and I review my dreamboard over at Morning Coach, my free personal development community that keeps me on track. I will be adding the critical success factors to my daily sacred six activities to do for the day, so that it will stay ever before me.

In a couple of months, when I have finished helping my son re-decorate his room, I am going to sit back, with my arm around his shoulders, and I will say to him, "Son, I am so glad that I took the time to write about the Best Way to Get What You Want!"
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Discover the Secret Power of Belief

"It is the mind that maketh good of ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor." --Edmund Spenser

"Believe you can, believe you can't, either way you're right." --Henry Ford

"The beliefs you choose to operate by are critical key success factors." --Me

Tony Robbins, in his classic book, Awaken the Giant Within, tells of a bitter and cruel alcoholic/drug addict who almost killed himself several times. Today he serves a life sentence in prison for the murder of a liquor store cashier who 'got in his way.' He has two sons, born eleven months apart. One grew up to be 'just like dad.' He is a drug addict, stealing and threatening others until he, too, was incarcerated for attempted murder.

His brother, however, is night and day. As a regional manager for a major company, he is physically fit, enjoys his work, and has no alcohol or drug addictions. He is raising three kids, enjoys his marriage, and appears to be truly happy!

Both were asked privately, without knowing that the other brother was being asked the question: "Why has your life turned out this way?" The suprising answer from both brothers was the same: "What else could I have become, having grown up with a father like that?"

As Tony Robbins states, our core beliefs about ourselves have the power to create and the power to destroy. Are you creating the life you desire? If not, it's time to examine the thoughts that you are thinking and beliefs that may be stalling you in your growth and progress. As the example above illustrates, it's not what happens to us that shapes our life, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

Recently, Federer beat Roddick in a the longest championship match in Wimbeldon history.

Both were top seeds, yet the commentators gave the odds to Federer at the outset of the match. Why? Mental Toughness.

If you want to lead the field, as Earl Nightingale would say, you will need to start thinking like a champion.

Here is a 4 step process for breaking down negative core beliefs and replacing them with the beliefs of a champion. This process is adapted from McKay, Davis, and Fanning's workbook, Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life.

1. Identify your core beliefs.

a. Keep a thought journal for one week. Purchase the workbook, or just draw three lines down the middle of a piece of paper. The header for one column is Situation. The second column is Feeling. And the final column is thoughts. For example, as a blogger, I might have this situation: "I need to start writing my paper." The feeling might be that of anxiety. My negative thought might be, "I can't write well. What makes me think I can do this?" Don't censor your thoughts, just write down what automatically comes to mind. By doing this with several situations in a week, you will get an idea of what some of your automatic thoughts are.

b) Use laddering to uncover your core beliefs by working down, rung by rung, t the meanings of a statement in your thought journal until you reach the core belief underpinning the statement.

Use the following question to successively uncover your belief. "What if (your thought) is true? What does this mean?"

For example, as a practicing therapist, I have my own, more experienced therapist-coach that I consult with in order consistently improve.

One of the situations that I identified as key for myself in the past is when a coaching client would end the coaching process with me prematurely. The feeling that would often come up for me was sadness/anxiety. The automatic thought was, "They don't like me. This shows that I'm not good at what I do."

Laddering functions as follows:

My coaching client does not like me.

What if your coaching client does not like you? What does this mean?

It means that I am not good at what I am doing.

What if you are not good at what you are doing? What does this mean?

It means that I will not be able to maintain my clients, and that I don't deserve to be an excellent therapist.

What if you are not able to maintain your clients? What if you don't deserve to be an excellent therapist?

It means I am inferior and have to quit being in the field.

An even deeper core belief that I reflected on, in writing this out, is the core belief of being inferior and not deserving success. Or, stated in a different way, "I am inferior, and I don't deserve success."

The other way to uncover your core belief/s is to conduct a theme analysis of your written situations/feelings/thoughts, searching for a particular theme or common thread running through these situations. For example, by listening to me, my coach/consultant uncovered another negative core belief that came out of my conversations: "I need to feel inferior and undeserving of success in order to be successful."

Notice that the above beliefs I had adopted were not something I consciously recognized, until I conducted a thought journal, laddering, and thematic analysis of my thought journal. I was carrying this belief around as the truth.


Step 2. Assess what this belief is accomplishing for you. Believe it or not, as crazy or unhelpful as my core beliefs were, I was holding them for a reason. They must have been doing something for me. In analyzing what my the above beliefs did for me, I found out that:
they pushed me to be continuously better at what I did. they pushed me to provide great customer service to each of my clients.

But these 'advantages' came at such a great price! Once I had laid out all that the belifes were costing me, I was incredulous!

Step 3. Assess the negative impact of your belief or beliefs.

The negative effects these beliefs had on me were as follows: I was often over-extending myself for clients, charging less than my services were worth, feeling let down and undeserving when clients would cancel or end the coaching process prematurely. I was judging myself, being critical of myself, and feeling anxious, sad, and afraid of what this meant for my future career.

Step 4. Form new beliefs that will serve you better.

In my case, I came up with new thoughts, and consequently, new beliefs. As I acted consciously and consistently according to these beliefs, my old beliefs were weakened, and my stronger, more healthy belief emerged. My current newer thoughts are as follows:

Situation: Client cancels, starts to cease coming to therapy. Feeling: Calm acceptance. Thoughts/Actions: The client has different levels of motivation in requesting coaching: asking for help can be threatening. Also, the client may have many circumstances that may make continuing in therapy/coaching difficult. It's not personal."

"I am competent, I am God's creation and therefore worthy, and I am worthy of success"

Here are some key success beliefs that Steve Siebold over at Mental Toughness Blog has found to be prevalently held by world class athletes and performers. His encouragement is to print these out and start memorizing them, until they are part of your mental DNA. Per Steve Siebold, "beliefs are the software of human performance, they can be coached and they can be changed."

1. I cannot fail, I can only learn and grow. ( a global belief broken down by the great Larry Wilson, www.greatgameoflife.com)

2. Everything happens for a reason

Top athletes believe that everything is adding up to their success, everything is conspiring for them, even their mistakes and failures, as well as their successes.

3. All you can do is all you can do. You can only do your best, do your best, and let the chips fall where they may.

4. Every experience makes me stronger

5. Happiness is a choice. I am responsible for how I choose to field.

6. Happiness is a state of mind. This is beautifully illustrated by this whole blog post; namely, you can identify and change the state of your mind through examining and re-writing your core most unhelpful core beliefs.

7. People are inherently well meaning toward me. In other words, not everyone is out to get me or betray me.

8. The world is a beautiful place. They see the good in the world and in people, versus focusing on the bad.

9. Almost anything is possible. This is not Polyanna type thinking. This is not thinking that anything is possible. But it also believes that almost anything is possible. It believes in taking off the too often common limited thinking that holds us back.

10. Success is a choice. You can choose to be successful, by choosing to do the things successful people do. You can choose to be successful by committing to work on the four simple steps described in this post.

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4 Easy Ways to Banish the Monday Morning Blues

Years ago, there was a Dunkin Donuts commercial. A non-descript, middle aged man gets up, bleary eyed, on Monday morning, and mutters, "It's time to make the donuts." Making the donuts is obviously a dreaded chore, full of drudgery and monotony, and it appears that he is going to Donut Hell every day, let alone Monday!

Unfortunately, too many of us feel the same way, I am guessing, when it comes from transitioning from the weekend to the beginning of the week. Perhaps I should have said something about Tuesday, since a lot of us had this Monday off for Labor Day. A key success factor is how can make a successful transition from Sunday to Monday.

1. Review your goals. It's a good idea to take some time to review your overall mission, purpose, and goals, and then to do some weekly planning prior to starting out your week. By doing so, you will be starting with the end in mind. By connecting with your goals, vision, purpose, and mission, you will be getting excited about making a difference. Your daily routine at work will have meaning, because you will know Why you are going to work.

2. Get to bed on time. This one is a tough one for me. I really enjoy catching up on the computer, getting my social networking in on Facebook and Twitter, and getting some reading done. However, it comes at a cost. When I am running behind in the morning, struggling to get to work on time, and disorganized, it sets the tone for the rest of the day. By getting up early, I have time to get ready for the day, and hence, the week.

3. Get prepared for the day the night before. I know, this is a basic one, but one I have been too slow to learn. It helps to get your outfit picked out, and your keys, wallet, organizer all in place before you go to bed. I don't know how many times I have been frazzled and therefore in a bad mood because I wasted 10-15 minutes trying to find those things on Monday morning.

4. Ask yourself the right questions. First accept that you will feel a little natural letdown from having had a more relaxing pace over the weekend. Then, shift gears, by asking yourself some of Tony Robbins' morning power questions:

• What am I grateful for today?
• What am I excited about today?
• What am I passionate about today?
• How can I add value today?
• What am I enjoying today?

By focusing on these questions, you will be creating answers that will control your attitudes and actions, which will then translate to positive feelings.

I would have liked to add more to this article, but it's time for me to follow my own advice, and get to bed :)

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