Category Archives: Success

Plan your day work your plan

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“Plan your day and work your plan.”

—Author Unknown

image of a daytimer planner

Image from daytimer.com

Many people find planning their day downright boring, preferring to simply go with the flow and see what the day brings.

The most successful and often most disciplined people, on the other hand, chart their course and prepare for their day before they venture out into the world.

Consider this statement from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there.”

What payoff do you get for planning—or not planning—your own course? Some would say that unhappy people get to play the victim and blame other for their lot in life.

What does it cost you and others to abdicate opportunities and responsibility for planning your own course?

EXERCISE:

Consider posting today’s quote in several locations in your personal and professional environments. Take 3-5 minutes each day over this week to discover its benefits in creating a happier and more successful life.

Find Good Support

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“Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find a good wing and climb up underneath it.”

—Frank C. Bucard, Author of The Trust Puzzle

Image from Flickr by Savannah Sam Photography

Image from Flickr by Savannah Sam Photography

We all need help if we are to fly high and far.

Think back to the recent Olympics in Brazil, and consider the social supports in place for each athlete. Beyond their coaches, there were friends, family, mentors, and sports psychologists directing their efforts toward personal excellence.

In the event you do not have your own team of supportive individuals lined up to encourage and uphold you, begin today to seek them out, and choose the very best. With a champion’s spirit and effort, both you and those with “good wings” will benefit greatly.

EXERCISE:

Once your “A” team of supportive individuals are on board, take the initiative to spread your own wings for others to climb underneath.

To Be Outstanding

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“To be outstanding, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

—Alrik Koudenburg, Executive Creative Director at Rapt Studio

Image from Flickr by Vic

Image from Flickr by Vic

I have always been a big fan of Oprah Winfrey. Before, during, and after her highly successful television show, she fully demonstrated a passion for excellence in her own life.

During one particular episode about health and fitness, she described her own battle with weight. She viewed the occasional growling of her stomach and the slight feeling of emptiness as a sign of her commitment to eating less than was normally comfortable.

This discomfort was a demonstration of her commitment, which empowered her to continue her efforts to live a healthier life.

EXERCISE:

How and in what ways can you embrace various levels of discomfort in your life, as a sign of progress toward one or more of your most deeply desired goals?

Rock Bottom

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“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

-J.K. Rowling, Author of the Harry Potter series

Image from www.telegraph.co.uk

Image from www.telegraph.co.uk

J.K. Rowling conceived the idea for the highly successful Harry Potter series while on a train from Manchester to London in 1990. At the time, she was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. Over the course of the next seven years, her mother died, her first marriage ended in divorce, and she and her young child lived in relative poverty, subsisting on state benefits, until she finished the first book in the series.

Five years later, she became a multi-millionaire.

She was the runner-up for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, noted for the social, moral, and political inspiration she brought to her fans. Today, she supports numerous charities.

EXERCISE:

Where and how can you use life’s biggest challenges and difficulties as the foundation to take your life to the next level?

How can you support others in your world to do the same?

common knowledge

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“The uncommon application of common knowledge will pave the way to extraordinary success.”

-Ivan Misner, Founder of BNI

Image from Flickr by Dennis Skley

Image from Flickr by Dennis Skley

Do you have paper clips in your office or home?

When you consider their use, how many options come to mind beyond clipping pieces of paper together or sealing a bag of chips you haven’t quite finished?

Take a moment to brainstorm five or more uses, or get a group of friends together to see how many possibilities can be discovered for applying uncommon usage to this very common item.

EXERCISE:

Check out this YouTube video on binder clips, and this website on uncommon things you can do with a paper clip.

How can you use this exercise in either your personal or professional worlds to pursue new levels of success?

Hard Working People

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“Nice, Smart, and Hard Working People Succeed.”

-Author Unknown

QC #954

Image from funds2orgs.com

 

I often speak on the subject of success with various professional and civic groups as part of my business development efforts. In a presentation called Success: Best Practices, I engage the audience in 24 ideas I’ve discovered over the years. One of my favorites that relates to today’s quote is the acronym A.S.K., which stands for:

Activity

Skills
Knowledge

By increasing any or all of these qualities, we can all achieve even more. These characteristics also point to the smart and hard-working aspects in today’s quote.

I do very much like niceness as a critical element in building our social capital. This highlights the importance of relationship as a fundamental aspect of success.

EXERCISE:

How can you use the coaching in today’s quote to enhance your own success journey now and throughout this New Year?

Won’t Change You

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“If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”

—Fred Devito, American Yoga Instructor

Image from londonpowertunnels.co.uk

Image from londonpowertunnels.co.uk

What areas of your personal or professional life would you most like to change for the better? How long have you wanted these changes in your life? If your answer is “far longer than I care to admit,” a new approach will be required.

The New Year is just around the corner and a high percentage of people will be looking to resolve or achieve far more this time around.

One key to this success is to choose only a small number of challenging objectives that will cause you to stretch and grow, and to garner many more social and structural sources of support to virtually guarantee your success.

EXERCISE:

List one or two challenging goals for the New Year. Display them in multiple places in your personal and professional worlds. Solicit the rigorous support of a coach, mentor, family member, or friend, who will not give up on you to assure the lasting changes and results you desire.

Once this has occurred, select another priority goal and repeat the process, to have your best year yet!

What You Want Most

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“Don’t give up what you want the most for what you want right now.”

-attributed to Peter Rossomando, Head Football Coach at CCSU

Image from wtvr.com

Image from wtvr.com

A characteristic shared by many of the most successful people is their ability to delay gratification in order to achieve their most highly desired objectives.

In the late 60s/early 70s Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel did a study in which children ages four to six were given the choice between one marshmallow provided immediately, or two marshmallows if they waited for 15 minutes. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that those who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes.

EXERCISE:

What disciplined actions, behaviors, and habits must you develop in order to resist short-term wants so that you can realize your most cherished and valued priorities?

Don’t stray from yourself

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“Don’t ever stray away from yourself to get closer to someone else.”

—Author Unknown

Image from www.scribendi.com

Image from www.scribendi.com

Imagine you are shopping for a new pair of shoes, a suit, or an outfit. In the process, you consider color, style, price, and of course, the fit of each item. When all the factors are optimized, we usually make the purchase. If the factors don’t fit, we usually save our money and keep looking.

What does it mean to stray away from yourself? Who are the people that best fit with your most authentic self? How often do you experience relationships with others that, on a gut level, seem to miss that genuine connection?

EXERCISE:

Where, currently or in the past, have you strayed from your values, beliefs, and priorities to get closer to others, even when your gut raises a red flag?

How can you use the same values, beliefs, and priorities to attract and engage the people who are the best “fit” in your personal and professional lives?

Thorn of Experience

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“One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.”

—James Russell Lowell, 20th Century American poet, critic, and diplomat

Image from Flickr by Taro Taylor

Image from Flickr by Taro Taylor

Perhaps the single most significant reason the coaching profession has grown to over a $2 billion industry is the fact that it focuses a great degree on experiential learning. Although there is still a substantial value in telling and showing, it seems the stickiness and sustainability of the lesson comes from experiencing things firsthand, where we actually get on the field, run a few plays, and see what happens.

EXERCISE:

Where and how can you include far more experiential learning opportunities to help you progress even further in your life?