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In Part 2 of this series of articles looking at ways to increase your productivity the topic is:
Anticipate And Take Care Of Any Issues That Have The Potential To Become Major Problems
When I left home the other day there was a man marking the pavement with paint. The Water Authority is currently replacing the old Victorian waterworks system in London. As you can imagine, it's creating enormous congestion but it has to be done. The old system is leaky and thus inefficient and can no longer cope with the increased demands. So now the street where I live will be affected.
This means that at the very least I can expect delays to my journeys and disruptions to my water supply. But the good thing is that I know that this will be happening and I can make allowances. Often in life, we have warnings that certain events will be happening or are likely to happen but we disregard the signs and then lament afterwards.
Issues that might have just have developed into minor irritations become enormous headaches. There were signs that even the current global economic crisis was imminent long before it escalated to its current dire proportions. When things appear to be going well on the surface it can be all too easy to cast a blind eye and just hope that tomorrow will take care of itself.
There will always be challenges in our lives. This is partly what makes life so fascinating. We'd be bored and have to deal with a different type of stress if we didn't have challenges to deal with. However, the trick is to deal with challenges before they reach epic proportions.
So examine every facet of your life - your career, your relationships, your family life, your health, your finances, etc. and consider where you'll be in a month, six months, a year and even five years from now if you continue to act as you're currently acting. Now some things will come to a head long before 5 years have elapsed but you get the point.
We often allow complacency to set in. We may frequently ignore our nutrition and not exercise because it's too much hassle or we may not consider it to be a fun thing to do. However, it's less fun when you get sick. If you allow your body to get out of shape it's much harder to become healthy again. The truth is that it is much easier in the short and long term to maintain our health than it is to attain it once we lose our health.
It is interesting to note that a high percentage of all bankruptcies are a consequence of medical problems.
So an honest evaluation of your current habits will allow you to anticipate potential future trouble spots. Armed with this information, you can make prudent decisions as to how you need to change your current habits so as to avoid the pitfalls you have identified.
Remember:
"A stitch in time saves nine."
If you're anything like me you no doubt lead a life where you are juggling many balls. You may be an expert juggler but the chances are that at some point you drop a ball or two and the balls you drop are often related to your goals and dreams.
In other words, a day passes when you haven't made significant progress on your goals and then that day stretches into a week and then before your know months have passed. This can be very frustrating and no doubt you will be able to find 'good' reasons as to why you are not working on your goals but the truth is they are just excuses.
Your reason why you want to accomplish a particular goal just isn't strong enough. Or, maybe you fear the success that will come your way once you achieve your goal and so you self-sabotage your efforts. You start focusing on obstacles instead of seeing the finish line and the more you focus on the obstacles the larger they loom or the more they multiply.
The obstacles may not even be directly related to your goal. They may simply be other problems to resolve but they steal your time.
So, in order to have the time to devote to achieving your goal it's important to:
~ Identify and eliminate any areas of friction in your life,
~ Anticipate and take care of any issues that have the potential to become major problems,
~ Create a strong personal foundation so that you are able to cope with extreme situations,
~ Create strong personal boundaries so that no matter what is going on in your life you can still remain focused on your goal.
So, over the next few posts I'll be taking a brief look at how you can accomplish this.
Identify and Eliminate Friction
Areas of friction may stem from:
~ Emotional issues
~ Your environment
~ Events and situations
Emotional Issues
For instance, if you have a row with a loved one this can have the effect where you may throw yourself at your work to distract yourself from feeling hurt and pain. This may be a necessary short-term measure to allow you time to stabilise your emotions sufficiently so that you can deal with the situation in a more rational and objective manner. However, it's not a healthy long-term strategy. You need to find a positive way of simply releasing those negative emotions. This may also have the positive result of helping you to become more focused on your goals but you'll be able to maintain that focus in a more holistic way.
Your Environment
Outer chaos can reflect inner chaos and vice versa. So if your working environment is disorganised and chaotic start addressing this. Improve your filing systems. There's a saying:
"There's a place for everything and everything in its place."
When you put this into practice you'll find that you'll save a lot of time and energy looking for things.
Aim to handle incoming mail once. In other words, open and where possible take action on it immediately. In some cases you may just need to file it away but you want to avoid multiple touches when it comes to mail handling.
As you work on organising your outer environment take time to focus on your inner environment as well. Chances are that you are feeling conflicted about something or even some things. You may have unresolved issues that are clogging your mind and your thoughts. The more you are able to clear yourself internally the better organised your external environment will become as well.
Events and Situations
Yesterday, the Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, announced that announced that the UK was heading towards its first recession for 16 years. And the media today was full of more doom and gloom.
Now, many people are wallowing in all of this negativity and allowing their judgement and actions to be clouded by all this bad news. Some individuals have decided to put off pursuing their goal of starting their own business because it's such a tough economy just now.
But imagine, if you can successfully launch and run a business now think of how successful you'll be once the economy expands again.
And regarding starting and running your own business there is lots of excellent advice available.
For instance, you could be mentored by a self-made billionaire for a fee so low you won't believe your eyes. Click the link below for more details:
Billionaire Business School
However, this is only one example of how you can let events and situations stand in the way of you achieving your goals. When you set yourself a tough goal expect challenges, and obstacles. No one is going to hand it to you on a platter.
I can't remember where I heard this, so apologies for not giving credit where credit is due but:
"Success is not something you deserve; it's something you claim."
You've got to reach out and grab it. You can have a winning lottery ticket in your hand but if you don't cash it in it's worthless.
Next time I'll take a look at the role of anticipation in achieving greater productivity and success.
However, if you want to learn from someone who is a master at maximising productivity then visit the link below to gain access to a FREE video on how to better manage your time and double your productivity.
Maximise Your Productivity
Time management is becoming an ever increasing concern for business owners and entrepreneurs today. Even employees are increasing feeling the strain because as a result of down-sizing and lay-offs people are expected to achieve more in less time.
However, because of poor time management skills, business owners, entrepreneurs and employees are falling far short of what they could and should be accomplishing. This reduced productivity leads to increased stress and massive loss in profits.
Excellent time management can result in the success of a business. Poor time management can not only result in poor performance, it can result in the overall failure of a business.
Thomas Edison said:
"Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose."
He was right.
The 3 major mistakes in time management that many people fall victim to are as follows:
1. Multi-Tasking
Many people are proud multi-taskers but studies have proven that multi-tasking is inefficient.
When you split your focus across many projects nothing benefits from your full undivided attention. Consequently:
~ You make more mistakes.
~ It takes you longer to complete a particular task.
~ It takes you longer to see the fruits of your labour.
It is more effective to prioritise your projects and set aside a dedicated block of time to work solely on that project. Naturally, there are some projects which you won't be able to complete in one sitting. Practice using flowcharts to break down your project and divide each project into smaller discrete blocks of tasks that can be completed in a few dedicated hours.
Focusing all of your mental resources on a particular task may be challenging at first but with practice it will become easier. When you develop your laser focus you will develop flow. And, when you're working in flow you will b able to complete tasks in record time and vastly increase your productivity.
2. Distractions and Interruptions
These come in all guises. To name just a few culprits there's the
~ Telephone
~ Fax
~ Email
~ Newspapers
~ Television
~ Post
~ Social Media sites, e.g. Twitter, Facebook
Yet, generally these are things we can control. We can switch off the telephone. We can hire someone to deal with phone calls and open the post. We can set aside discrete periods of the day, ideally when our energy levels are naturally low, to check email.
We can allocate a set amount of time to participate on Social Media Sites. We can also automate or outsource certain aspects of this. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can be valuable for networking, lead generation, promotion, etc. but only if we have a Social Media strategy. You also need to limit the amount of time you speed on these sites or else you can simply end up wasting your time.
Whenever, we are interrupted it can take up to 20 minutes for our full attention to be restored. Often, during this time we may be interrupted yet again which only compounds the negative effect interruptions have on our productivity.
Hence to become more productive it is essential that you learn how to eliminate distractions and interruptions in your working life. You also need to respect other people's time and stop unnecessarily interrupting and distracting others.
3. Fragmented Working Pattern
This is when you start a project for a few minutes and the turn to something else, then go back to the originally project and so on. This is another way to get nowhere fast.
You achieve MAXIMUM effectiveness and productivity when you focus on one thing. This is one reason why meditation is such a valuable tool in helping individuals improve their personal effectiveness. Also, when you think about it, applying your full attention to a particular task is in itself a form of meditation.
The other downside to working in a fragmented, haphazard fashion is that you end up expending far more energy. The result is that at the end of your working day you'll not only wind up achieving less than you had hoped for but you will feel more fatigued and more stressed.
The key is clearly to prioritise the tasks that you need to achieve. Work on the tasks that will result in creating the greatest value first. An important consideration is that what constitutes value is not what you consider to be of value. It is what your clients and customers consider to be of value. In other words, if a particular task results directly or indirectly in generating income for your business and company then this is a task worthy of the investment of your time.
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The Subway Ghost
I saw the movie Ghost recently starring Patrick Swayze as Sam Wheat, Demi Moore as Molly Jensen and Whoppi Goldberg as Oda Mae Brown. After all these years it's still a charming, sad yet funny movie.
There's a saying that when you read a book the second time that you don't see something in the book that wasn't there before; you see something in yourself that wasn't there before. The same can be said about watching a movie the second time around.
Whoopi Goldberg is a scream in the movie but the scene that made me smile ironically was one of the scenes involving the subway ghost. So here are five lessons on goal achievement that you can learn from the movie Ghost.
1. Find a Mentor
In order to increase his effectiveness as a ghost Sam realises needs to be able to move physical objects if he is to be able to save the life of his partner. He saw a ghost on the subway who was able to do so with consummate ease.
So he seeks out the subway ghost (played by Vincent Schiavelli) to teach him how to do this even although he didn't receive a warm welcome from the rather territorial ghost the last time they had an encounter. When you set your goals seek mentoring from someone who has already accomplished what you are striving to accomplish.
2. Be Persistent
Sam eventually finds the subway ghost who becomes very agitated upon seeing him and scares the living daylights out of the passengers on the train by knocking away their newspapers and other belongings while shouting at Sam to get off his train. However, Sam holds his ground.
This impromptu demonstration of the ghost's powers strengthens Sam's resolve. This ghost knows how to do what he can't. He needs this ghost to teach him.
Sam's persistence pays off and the ghost agrees to teach him. If you are persistent you will find doors where before there were only walls.
3. Tap into The Power of Your Mind
Now this is the bit that made me smile. Sam tries in vain to move a bottle cap with his finger and the ghost berates him reminding him that he's dead and informing him that his body is no more than an illusion. Then subway ghost tells him:
"Use your mind. You've gotta focus."
There is so much hidden meaning in this one short scene that I'm sure is lost on the majority of its millions of viewers. However, I would hazard a guess that the writer Bruce Joel Rubin, who is said to have an interest in spirituality, was well aware of the deeper significance of this scene.
The advice that the subway ghost was giving Sam is the same advice that anyone can adopt to transform their life.
The ghost Sam no longer had a body as we know it. And we are not our bodies. Just like you're not the car you drive. Your body is your physical vehicle in this plane of existence.
We are spiritual beings but because of a tendency to focus on our physicality rather than what we want to achieve we limit ourselves.
To achieve change in your external world you have to direct your mind on our desired outcome. You have to focus, unwaveringly, on your desired outcome.
Once Sam was able to focus he was able to make that bottle cap skid along the platform. When you are able to develop your focus you will see dramatic changes in your external world.
4. Think Big but Start Small
The subway ghost made Sam practice with a tiny bottle cap. He knew the importance of starting small.
However, you have to keep the big picture of what you want to accomplish in your sights. Then you can steadily grow towards your goal. No matter how big your goal is, to accomplish it, you have to take the first small step.
Remember:
1. The Sistine Chapel was painted one stroke at a time.
2. The Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed one block at a time.
3. The Great Wall of China was built one brick at a time.
And many more wonderful things were all created bit by bit. And everything in existence was once just a thought. So think big but don't allow yourself to be impeded by your grand vision. Simply take that first small step and follow that with the next logical step.
5. Define Your Purpose
Sam may have died in the physical sense but his love for Molly lived on and this was the fuel that drove him towards his goal to protect her. Similarly, you have to identify your purpose in life. You have to know your reason why or else you will quit at the first hurdle.
Without purpose your thoughts will be just idle fantasy.
"Until though is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment."
James Allen
The subway ghost may have been a little crazy but he still knew a thing or two about effecting change and ultimately about achieving goals.
The Time Experts Telesummit, a program to help entrepreneurs and business professionals overcome their top Time Management challenges, starts TODAY. And if you sign up today you can participate for FREE!
Bill Baren, the co-creator of the Time Experts Telesummit, has gathered some of the world's leading experts in Time Management for this exciting series of teleseminars. During the telesummit they will be sharing top productivity practices that have taken decades to develop but can be implemented in minutes allowing you to significantly boost your productivity while freeing up more of your time to do the things you love.
This Time Management Telesummit is ideal for you if you want to:
~ Learn how to get things done faster and more efficiently.
~ Dramatically increase your productivity and effectiveness.
~ Discover how to make work less stressful and more fun.
~ Learn how to take control of your rapidly expanding email inbox.
~ Discover how to eliminate the distractions and interruptions that erode your time.
~ Learn how to delegate and outsource low-priority tasks so you can focus on income-generation activities.
~ Discover the secret to overcoming procrastination.
The ten members of the world-class faculty for the Expert Time Management Telesummit are:
~ Mike Song: the co-author of "The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You". He is one of America's leading experts on email efficiency and etiquette.
~ Philip Zimbardo: the Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University and author of several books including his latest "The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life".
~ Jeff Davidson: the author of 24 books for the busy professional including "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time", "The Joy of Simple Living" and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stress".
~ Stewart Friedman: the founder of Total Leadership and the author of "Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life" from Harvard Business Press.
~ Dr Jim Loehr: a world-renowned performance psychologist and the co-author of co-author of the national bestseller "The Power of Full Engagement - Managing Energy, not Time, is the key to High Performance and Personal Renewal".
~ Dr Neil Fiore: an acclaimed psychologist, lecturer and bestselling author in the field of optimal performance and productivity. He is the author of the bestselling book "The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination".
~ Andrea J. Lee: an award-winning author, coach, consultant and online business manager to entrepreneurs on five continents. She is the author of "Multiple Streams of Coaching Income", "Money Meaning and Beyond".
~ Genpo Roshi: a certified Zen Master with over 35 years of Zen meditation practice. He is the creator of the Big Mind Big Heart practice. He is also the Founder and Abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center and Kanzeon Sangha International.
~ Marcia Wieder: who has appeared several times on Oprah and The Today Show. She is the renowned author of four books dedicated to achieving your dreams, including "Making Your Dreams Come True".
~ Bill Baren: is a life-long entrepreneur, a transformational business coach and a time management expert. He is featured on the Fine Living Networks' "What's Your Time Worth" TV show.
This is one of the most exciting events on Time Management that has ever been organised. After each teleseminar participants will be armed with practical strategies that they can start putting into place immediately to improve their effectiveness and increase their profitability without needlessly sacrificing their time.
For further details and to sign up for this Time Management Telesummit click the link below:
Expert Time Management Telesummit
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Achieving Life Success with the Power of Forgiveness
Yesterday I listened to a presentation by life coach and motivational speaker Pete Cohen. During his talk he told the story of a woman, whom I'll called Martha, which highlighted the power of forgiveness in achieving life success.
When Martha attended her first confession she discovered that she had no 'wrong-doing' to confess. So she decided to make something up. On the next occasion she confessed to having lied the previous time and then started a vicious pattern.
You see, Martha was spending a lot of time thinking about what to confess. In other words, she was focusing much of her energy on what was perceived to be negative in her life rather than on what was positive. On a weekly basis she would then go to confession to ask for forgiveness.
Now, there are a lot of individuals who are just like Martha. They may not attend a formal confession on a regular basis but they too focus on the things in their life which they consider to be negative. They spend a disproportionate amount of their time focusing on their mistakes.
They needlessly beat themselves up about their failures. They may find ways to consciously or unconsciously punish themselves but it doesn't stop them from doing the things they perceive to be wrong. So they persist in their wrong-doing. They persist in punishing themselves and they feel absolutely wretched about their lives.
The thing is that it doesn't matter if someone else forgives you or not for something you have done. The important thing is to forgive yourself. Unless you practice self-forgiveness you cannot experience self-healing and self-love.
I believe that while it is important to evaluate our mistakes and learn from them, it is far more empowering to focus on your successes. Focusing on your failures is paralysing. Focusing on your successes is liberating.
For instance, you think about how a project unfolded in the past that didn't achieve your desired results. You think that if you attempt a similar project that the end result will be the same. So you don't even attempt to do the new project. Or, if you do pluck up the courage to start the project you'll find a way to self-sabotage your success.
I'm not suggesting that you become blasé about how you conduct your life. However, here's the thing. If you find yourself in a position where you feel unable to forgive yourself you are not taking full responsibility for your life. When you hold resentment against yourself it prevents you from fully engaging with life. It stops you from moving on.
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."
Lewis B. Smedes
It is through the power of forgiveness that you heal, feel more whole and positive energy can flow freely to and through you. You can then show up more fully in the world and you are then in a better position to share the gifts that you have been bestowed with.
So unleash the power of forgiveness in your life today if you truly wish to achieve life success.
Business Strategist Stephen Pierce is one of my favourite speakers. You always know you're going to hear great content and he has such a powerful stage presence. At BigSeminar 12 Stephen shared 5 key leverage points that are critical to your success.
This is my take on the 5Ms you must master to achieve massive success in your business.
1. Your Mission
Without a mission in life you're like a ship without a rudder - directionless. Without direction you have no focus and with no focus your attention will be scattered. You cannot accomplish anything of great magnitude in this state so it's important to identify your mission or your purpose in life. Only then will you be positioned to achieve maximum effectiveness in what you do.
As W Clement Stone said:
"When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it."
2. Your Mind
There's a saying:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me."
That's a lie.
Words can be even more destructive than physical weapons. The words you say to yourself, the words you listen to and the words you read on a daily basis, consciously or unconsciously, have a powerful effect on your mind and how you ultimately behave. Words that are spoken, listened to or read to contribute to the programming of your mind.
To test whether or not your mind is programmed for success you just have to look at your results. If your results are not what you desire then you know that you have more work to do - internally. When you do the work inside to program your mind for maximum success then your external results will reflect just how successfully you have gained control over your mind.
3. Your Market
Some individuals try to be all things to all people. However, when you are able to clearly define your target market you are able to be more focused and effective in marketing and promoting your message. This makes you and or your business more attractive to prospective clients and it also makes it easier for your existing clients to refer you to others.
Having a well-defined market will make it easier for you to provide specialised products and or services for your clients that other businesses may have overlooked. This will also help you to stand out in what are often rather 'noisy' and crowded market places.
4. Your Mentors
Every successful person has a mentor or in many cases several mentors. When you set a goal it will be highly likely that someone else has already achieved this goal or has achieved something very similar. They can envisage your entire project in a step-by-step manner while for you this picture may as yet be incomplete.
They can show you the pitfalls to avoid and shortcuts to take so that you can achieve your goal faster and with less effort. Life is short. Some lessons may be best learnt by experiencing them but often needlessly repeating mistakes that a mentor could have shown you how to overcome is simply too costly.
5. Your Momentum
Even huge projects and endeavours have small beginnings. Everything starts with a thought, an idea. And then by applying the right resources at the right time in the right place we can get our project going. Once our project is up and running in the right direction it can start to take a life of its own. It starts to gather momentum.
Look at what Nelson Mandela has achieved in his lifetime. At a London event to celebrate his 90th birthday earlier this year - the 46664 Concert - he publicly announced it was time for others to continue the work of his 46664 initiative.
"...We say tonight, after nearly 90 years of life that's it time for new hands to lift the burdens. It is in your hands now. I thank you."
The truth is, this project now has so much momentum that he couldn't stop it even if Mandela wanted to. That's the kind of momentum we want to build in our lives and our businesses.
The going will be tough at first but, done correctly, the energy required to sustain your success will be less than that needed to create in the first instance.
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Childhood games, nursery rhymes, cartoons and other seeming innocuous things and events can have a significant impact on our money blueprint and self-image.
Our money blueprint and self-image are created by our genetics, our environment and our beliefs. The games that we play can have a profound effect on our beliefs especially because we exert a great deal of emotion when we play games.
I was at a seminar recently and something that one of the speakers said gave me a new insight into the game of musical chairs. This is a game you're probably familiar with and will probably have played at some point during your childhood.
However, if you are unfamiliar with this game then basically it is a game set to music where there are fewer chairs than individuals vying for the chairs. Music is played and you move around the chairs in a random manner until the music stops at which point you make a bee-line for the chairs in attempt to secure one of the seats.
If you're unsuccessful you're eliminated. The game continues until there is just one chair left and two players. The end result is that one and only one person wins.
Surely, this is a pretty harmless game?
The thing is this particular game can contribute to the belief that there is a limited supply of resources instead of the belief that there is an abundance of resources.
"From abundance he took abundance and still abundance remained."
The Upanishads
You may be thinking,
"But it's just a game!"
The problem is that your sub-conscious mind doesn't differentiate between what's real and what's fantasy and unless other elements of your belief system strongly support the concept of abundance as opposed to scarcity can have a dramatic and negative effect on your ability to create the results you desire in life and in particular to create wealth.
The scarcity mentality can affect how you operate in business. While it is necessary to be aware of your competitors, you don't necessarily have to compete with them in order to carve out your share of the market. It could prove to be far more profitable to collaborate with your competitors.
In this way together you'd command an even greater market share and, by pooling together your resources and expertise, you could take your respective companies to new heights. It may not be practical in every instance but there are many case studies where businesses have done just this creating a win-win situation for both companies. It just requires a little creativity.
I have clients who are often frustrated by the way in which their belief system is sabotaging their efforts to achieve the level of success they desire. However, when you take into account the myriad of ways in which your beliefs are formed and the length of time that some negative beliefs have been reinforced then it's futile getting upset about the situation.
Be patient. There are numerous methods by which you can get clear of these negative beliefs and proven systems such as Quantum Mind Power created by Morry Zelcovitch who has also been involved with Mind Movies for re-programming your mind. When you put this into action along with your daily personal success habits you will overcome the effects of any insidious negative programming you may have been subjected to.
In Part 2 of this series of articles looking at ways to increase your productivity the topic is:
