The Secret to Your Success in 2014

As 2014 has swiftly arrived, we are brought to that time of the season when most of us take to planning and plotting the next 12 months of our lives. If you’re already considering your to-do lists and new years resolutions, then you’re on the right track, but you’ll need to be careful in making your plans in order to be sure that you’re able to use them to your advantage!

Set Goals

The first rule of making progress in anything you do is setting goals, allowing yourself to always have a finish line in sight. This provides a boost in motivation during those moments when slogging forward seems impossible, giving you something tangible to work towards at every moment.

Whether you’re planning positive changes to your work or personal life, take note of the things that you want to achieve by the end of the year, and what you’ll need to do in order to get there. With these goals firmly in heart and mind, you’ll have just what you need to propel you in the right direction.

But wait…

Set Reasonable Goals

Goals are great, but what if those goals are only barely achievable? Like a high-risk gambler, you stand to gain the most when you meet sky-high expectations, but your chances of any success at all are well below par.

In order to limit your risk of perceived failure, be sure not to aim too high when setting your goals. Take the time to consider your history and your present circumstances, planning to hit milestones that are within reach instead of shooting for the stars and coming up short.

That’s not to say that you’ll never reach the stars, mind you – only that you’ll need to get to them in incremental steps.

Set Reasonable, Incremental Goals

Alright, you’ve got goals set that are useful, reachable, and will serve to take your endeavors to the next level throughout 2014. With the whole year plotted out ahead of you, it may seem that you’re ready to close the books on another successful year planned and get started with the heavy lifting.

 Not so fast.

You may feel particularly pumped up about achieving your goals now, but what about that inevitable day when inspiration is lacking and your goals seem further away than they did the day before? Whether it’s a day, a week, or a month away, that time will come, and you’ve got to narrow your plans even further if you want to get yourself on the right track without fear of hitting a serious bump.

Overarching goals are a necessary thing when you’re taking in the big picture, but life isn’t a big picture; on the contrary, life happens minute by minute, and that means that you’ll also need a more focused view. In order to achieve maximum momentum and build the kind of habits that lead to long-term success, be sure to set incremental goals that take you from point to point towards the place you visualize yourself being at the end of 2014.

No matter what your goals are and what aspect of your life they apply to, good planning and hard work will get you there – good luck!

What are your plans to make 2014 the most successful year of your life? 

Practice Happiness

Practice makes perfect, right? Wrong!

First of all, nothing’s ever perfect. I’d even say you don’t really want anything to be “perfect.” Why not? Well, once you’ve reached it, where else is there to go but backwards or, even worse, nowhere?

No, the point of practice isn’t perfection. We want to strive for perfection, yes, but that’s only going to work if you understand that it’s not just about the destination but the journey as well. That’s why it helps to look at the process when it comes to those outcomes we’re reaching for.Because what would be the point of getting to where you always wanted to be if you’re beat up and worn out by the time you get there? Where’s the happiness in that?

Happiness is a process as much as an outcome. Don’t get me wrong – a hard-earned victory is awesome. But think about it; should happiness in life be restricted to success in finances, or business, or career, or the attainment of goals?

We have all been there at some point in our lives, saying something like, “If only I had [fill in the blank], I’d be so much happier.” Hey, sometimes we may even get whatever it is we think will make us happy, but what usually ends up happening? We’re psyched for a little while—if at all—and then we find out it wasn’t really enough to make us as happy as we thought it would. There’s always more.

You can work your butt off to get to where you want to be by practicing your delivery, your backhand swing, your investment strategies—you can practice anything until you get it down, but that doesn’t mean things are always going to turn out perfectly. Practice doesn’t make perfect.

Practice becomes habit, and habits become permanent unless we consciously change them. We’re practicing something all the time through our habits, even when we’re not really thinking about it. If you practice the thought that “I’ll be happy when [fill in the blank] happens,” then guess what? You’re always delaying your happiness until [fill in the bank] happens. Not because things will never be great, but because you’ve become a master at being unhappy. Unhappiness will be your habit!

You have to practice being happy no matter what is going on in life; whether you win or lose, succeed or experience temporary setbacks, whether everything is the way you have always dreamed or if you are still on the road to your next major destination.

Practice whatever you want to be in the future now. If you want to be more patient and less reactionary, then practice patience now. If you want to be a manager of your own personal wealth, start managing your finances now no matter how much money you earn. If you want to be successful, then practice being successful now. Start small. Engage in things that you’re already good at and challenge yourself to be better, even if it’s just in small increments.

The key is to enjoy the process and the journey. We can have moments of perfection, times where we wouldn’t want a single thing to change, but it’s unfair and unrealistic to ask that of life all the time. But it’s totally within our control to practice being whatever we want to be right now!

T. Harv Eker

When in Winter, Hibernate

Think back to a time in your past—five, 10, 15, or even 20 years ago. Maybe you envisioned a happy future making more money, having more fun, a family of your own, or living in a bigger place than you did previously.

Few things turn out perfectly, but chances are that at least one area of your life saw some growth and improvement. The standards of a 30 or 40-something-year-old adult are going to be necessarily different than those of a late teenager. In that sense, most of us have undergone economic, personal, and career upgrades, even if you might be disappointed with the outcome thus far.

All life on this planet goes through seasons. We’ll experience spring-like blooms, the reaping of summer, the preparations of fall, and the chill and severity that winter brings. These cycles affect us individually and globally. Overall, the world is experiencing something akin to a severe economic winter.

However, if we can remember that we’ve all experienced times of growth and improvement in our individual lives after a period of lack and want, we can re-adjust back to a mindset that focuses on a future we can look forward to again. That starts with accepting and embracing the now.

By far, the toughest cycle we’ll experience are our “winter times,” whether it’s cold outside or not. Even  the grasshopper needs to be told by the Ant to prepare for winter, so the old story goes. The other seasons are easier if not more enjoyable.

As tough as things can seem during harsh times, winter provides opportunity to recover and start planning for the next spring ahead—the same kind of spring that gave us relief before and will bring us relief again.

You can do this by defining what you want to create. Be specific. Sometimes luck helps, but there’s no way to get what you want until you’ve defined what that is, and, just as important, why you want it. Your motivations will steer you through any winter storm.

Also, taking inventory. List those attributes that enhance the quality of your life right here and now—family, friends, the network of colleagues who might help you take that next step; resources that are helping you economically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. You might be surprised at just how many resources are at your disposal.

Lastly, be grateful. For every “negative” thing that may be happening to you, someone else is undergoing more pressing challenges. Gratitude has a way of dispelling fear, anxiety, and a self-defeating attitude. You can’t focus on what you don’t have when you’re grateful for what you do have. How we progress through the seasons isn’t based on what we don’t have, or what we might’ve done or not done in the past. It’s about how we use what we do have now, sowing seeds of growth that we can reap later.

Winters can seem to go on forever, but they don’t. Somewhere, right now, someone is enjoying summer. That’s as true for the world as it is in our individual lives. When in winter, use this time to re-focus, heal, enjoy your blessings, and start planning your next spring now.

T. Harv Eker

Believe in Yourself: The 5 Levels of Personality

You can imagine your personality by thinking of a target with concentric rings. Your personality is made up of five rings, starting from the center with your values and radiating outward to the next circle, your beliefs and values in life.

Believe in Yourself

Your value in life determine your beliefs, about yourself and the world around you. If you have positive values, such as love, compassion, and generosity, you will believe that people in your world are deserving of these values and you will treat them accordingly. When you believe in yourself and chose to be a good person you will find yourself to be more positive and successful in life.

Set Expectations and Know Your Values in Life

Your beliefs, in turn, determine the third ring of your personality, your expectations. If you have positive values, you will believe yourself to be a good person. If you believe in yourself to be a good person, you will expect good things to happen to you. If you expect good things to happen to you, you will be positive cheerful, and future oriented. You will look for the good in other people and situations.

Attitude: Expect Good Things to Happen

The fourth level of your personality, determined by your expectations, is your attitude. Your attitude will be an outward manifestation or reflection of your values, beliefs, and expectations. For example, if your value is that this is a good world to live in and your belief is that you are going to be very successful in life, you will expect that everything that happens to you is helping you in some way.

As a result, you will have a positive mental attitude toward other people and they will respond positively toward you. You will be a more cheerful and optimistic person. You will be someone who others want to work with and for, buy from and sell to, and generally help to be more successful.

Be a Good Person Through Your Actions

The fifth ring, or level of life, is your actions. Your actions on the outside will ultimately be a reflection of your innermost values, beliefs, and expectations on the inside. This is why what you achieve in life and work will be determined more by what is going on inside of you than by any other factor.

Action Exercise

Make a list of your three to five most important values in life today. What do you really believe in and stand for? What are your values in life? What qualities are you best known for among the people who know you? What do you consider the most important values guiding your relationships with others in your life?