Improving Your Life

We’re nearly 2 weeks into 2016 and the whole “New Years Resolutions” farce that I’ve been seeing posted all over social media spurred me to write this post.

Here’s the thing.  Every new year millions of people all over the world realized that they have SUCKED at losing weight, keeping fit, making money, or being inconsistent with something along these lines for the previous YEAR.  At the start of the new year these same people make a half baked promise to themselves that they will turn these failures around and 2 weeks later these promises are broken and that’s that for another year.

Sound familiar?

New Years Resolutions are programmed into us to fail.  We associate these resolutions with the excitement of a new year and once the new year feeling passes, so does our desire to stick with our resolutions.  This has proven to be the case each and every year and although “some” will stick with their resolutions the majority will  FAIL miserably.

Here is what you need to do.  Stop waiting for the New Year.

You see, the very best time to make a change in your life it to act RIGHT NOW.  Whether it is to lose weight, stick to a training regime, start a business, learn to cook… whatever it is there is no better time than the present.

Believe it or not “change” is instant.  It doesn’t take days or weeks… it just takes a stern decision to act now and change.  That’s it.

By not acting right now you’re basically making an excuse and justifying it.  If you argue with me on that point then I’m likely already proving my point.

People who succeed in life do not wait for New Years to put a plan in place.  They make a decision and act NOW.

As the title of this post says… Don’t think, just do.

Today I wanted to talk about a key ingredient to breaking down those barriers to success and that is “Believing in yourself”.

I wrote a post about negativity previously and that has some similarities to what I’m talking about here.  You see, it is a fact of life that most people are not driven in the slightest.  They are happy working their 9-5 jobs skating through life without any real ambition.  The problem here is that although some of these people are not “action takers” they don’t like others to be either.  This can often result in them pulling other people dreams and aspirations apart.  I’ve experienced it myself.

Do you know any people like this?

When entrepreneurs take the plunge with a project or dream we often battle with our own internal demons.  We think to ourselves, “Will this work?”… “Is this a good idea?”… “Will others see the value in this idea?”.  This is a natural outcome of getting out of our comfort zone and actually doing something.  Taking an idea and turning it into a reality.  It might be risky, there may be a level of uncertainty… but by god, it feels good!  And if you don’t try you will never know.

The issue is that some people do not share our dream and because they aren’t the ones getting off their backside and taking the required actionable steps they will not offer the support you’d expect.

You see, whatever you do in life you have to believe in yourself.  You have to believe in what you are creating, and the value it will bring to others.  Not believing in yourself is one of the biggest SUCCESS KILLERS known to man (or woman).  It’s all to do with mindset.  If you don’t believe in your idea then your idea has failed before you have even started.

Stay positive, stay focused, stay driven and more importantly believe in yourself and your goals.

Have you ever heard that expression before? When you can’t see the woods for the tree’s.

It refers to being too close or involved with a situation to see it clearly or have clarity.  The reason I wanted to write about this is because I have often being in this situation.  There are times when you can get stuck on a problem and unless you walk away from it you’ll struggle to get enough clarity to “SOLVE” it.

Owning my own software and online marketing business means that I do some “Programming” from time to time.  I don’t need to do this myself but I LIKE to keep my hand in it because I enjoy it SO much.  I enjoy it like a hobby.

However, there have been countless times when I have been stuck on a coding problem.  I have found myself engrossed in a problem for hours, tweaking and testing and going over the same bit of code over and over again.  It’s frustrating as I always felt really close to solving these issues BUT never did until a number of hours had passed.  That’s time wasted that I’ll never get back.

On one occasion I had such a problem and spent around 6 hours trying to resolve it with ZERO success.  I got angry and frustrated and after a number of attempts I decided to leave my machine and go on a long walk with my dog.  It was a nice sunny day and after about 5 minutes of walking along a quiet walkway my frustration started to subside.  My thoughts became clearer.  I started to ponder on my issue again but this time I wasn’t at my machine with my brain running at 100mph.  I was out walking taking deep breaths and enjoying a more relaxed environment.  Suddenly I came up with the “Solution”.  It almost drifted into place and I knew exactly WHERE I was going wrong and how I could most likely fix it.  I got back home about 30 minutes later, applied my solution and it solved my problem.

From that day it made me realize something.  If you are having a problem working something out or you can’t seem to “Get your head around” a situation then remove yourself from that environment and put your mind in a more relaxed state.  You can’t solve problems when your mind is clogged up and frustrated.  Your brain works much better when you de-clutter it and take yourself away from the problem!

I hope that you enjoyed this post and got something valuable from it.  These photo’s were taken on “one” of my dog walks.  It’s amazing the ideas and solutions that I come up with when I venture out on these walks with my dog.

Goal setting plays a vital part in both business and your personal life.  If you have no goals you have no direction.  Imagine taking the goal posts away in a football match… The players would have no clear direction to kick the ball.  The same applies in your life and business.

Earlier last year (2014) I set myself a goal.  It had been a long time since I owned a sports car and with me heading towards the big “40” I wanted to rekindle my youth and treat myself to something shiny and sporty.  So, I set myself a goal of buying and owning a 370Z.  The condition I set myself – I had to earn the money outright in order to get one.

So, what did this do? It gave me a desire to achieve this goal.  It gave me something to work towards and to focus on.  I mapped out a plan to achieve this goal and then got to work.  Each and every morning when I turned on my computer I spent just 5 minutes looking at this car.  I imagined what it would be like to pick it up and drive home.  I imagined what it would feel like to pull it off my driveway on a warm summers day and take it out for a drive.  This allowed me to get passionate not just about the car but also the “work” required in order to achieve this goal.  After all it wasn’t going to earn itself.  Within just 2-3 months I had made enough extra money to buy my 370Z outright.

By focusing on a goal it makes you enjoy the whole process so much more.  Every day you get a step closer and the sense of “achievement” is amazing.

Here are a couple of photos of my “2014” goal.

The truth is that goal setting will help you strive for greatness and help you achieve bigger and better things in your life.  Once you achieve one goal set another.  After all why stop?  As they say – a moving train is going places.

An important thing to remember when setting goals is “Do not make your goals too small”.  By chasing easy goals you won’t push yourself hard enough.  You won’t have the same desire to succeed and the excitement just won’t be there.  Set big goals, push your limits and know that you can achieve them if you just take action.  My 2015 goals have so far been MUCH bigger and guess what… I smashed them!  If I can, so can you!

 

Do you ever wonder why some people have nothing whilst others are sat on a mountain of cash and are living the dream? Well, I appreciate that there are various circumstances that can give some an advantage over others but in most cases there is no excuse for not being successful and living the kind of life you desire.  The key difference between these two types of people is their “Mindset”.  The question is, are you thinking BIG enough?

Some fish grow in relation to the size of the tank they are in… and some plants grow larger and taller when they are taken out of a small plant pot and placed into a larger one.  Yes, those were analogies but very fitting ones.  You see, when you rid yourself of the scarcity mindset and think BIGGER you will become more successful.

This is also known as “Limited Beliefs”.  If you believe you can only earn up to a certain amount of money per year then guess what… It’s very likely that’s the most you will earn.  Your mindset is a very powerful tool and if you don’t expand your mindset to bigger opportunities and possibilities you will subconsciously limit your ability to grow and prosper.

I myself used to have a scarcity mindset.  I used to dream of being able to earn a few thousand dollars per month online and as a result of that I subconsciously followed a path that eventually gave me that.  In hindsight though why didn’t I dream of earning multiple times that? Why did I just focus on earning a few thousand per month? The reason was my mindset at the time.  I never thought it was possible for me to achieve that and as a result it stumped my financial growth.

When you open your mind to bigger goals and a wider vision you are increasing the size of your “Fish Tank”.  Financially speaking money is all around us.  It changes hands each and every day and the world that we live on is essentially a large pie of money.  The question is – How big a slice of that pie are you going to take? Most people think that money is hard to come by and it is that exact limited mindset that prevents them from tapping into this pie of money and getting more for themselves.

When you understand and “accept” that money and opportunities are around you all the time your goals and vision will grow and you will finally open yourself up for bigger and better things.

Why settle for less when you can have so much more? It’s just a case of creating a big vision and then taking actionable steps to turn that vision into a reality.

 

The subject of “Negativity” is one I felt I wanted to talk about first on my blog.  The reason for this is because negativity will suck the life force from you and really stump the progress of being able to lead a happy, successful life.

Negativity breeds negativity like laughter breeds laughter.  This actually relates to an old analogy – “You are what you eat”.  If you eat rubbish you will feel like rubbish.  The same rule of thumb applies to both negativity and positivity.  Surround yourself with happy, positive, successful people and you yourself are more likely to be happy, positive and successful.  Alternatively, if you surround yourself with negative people then they will drain any positivity you have and drag you down.  They will stop you progressing in your life and hinder your chances of success.  That is a fact.

When I was a child I wasn’t the most confident of people.  People around me made me feel that I wasn’t worthy or that other people were more capable than I was.  I’m not suggesting this was intentional but it was how I felt at the time and it engrained in me from a very early age.  I wasn’t confident around girls and more importantly I wasn’t confident in my abilities.  It’s amazing how that kind of feeling can effect you growing up.

As I grew older I started to have ideas, aspirations and a vision for a better life.  Call it a dream or whatever you like.  The problem was that those around me were quick to pull apart my dreams and ideas.  I was made to feel inferior and because of that never pursued anything with confidence.  Whatever you do in life you MUST do with confidence!  If you aren’t confident with what you are doing you have already lost the battle.

Unfortunately, negativity can come from many directions.  Often it can be family and friends.  It’s not easy to cut out family and I’m not suggesting you do but at the very least you need to learn how to put up a barrier against their negativity.  You need to surround yourself in a bubble and keep negativity as far away as possible from you.  As for negative friends and associates… Surrounding yourself by these types of friends and people will impact your life in a negative way.  Instead spend more time with those that are happy and positive.  Those that listen to your goals, show interest and tell you to go for it are the types of people you need to be mixing with.

I’m going to end with a quote that I often see banded around and it is – “Surround yourself with successful people and you too will become successful”.  Never have there been truer words.