success – Page 18 – Personal Growth Cafe

June 13, 2012June 18, 2012

How to Use Habits to Reach Your Goals

One of the keys to reaching a new goal is to have habits in place that support that goal. If your current habits are counter-productive, you’ll need to change them or run the risk of coming up short.

How do habits help you reach your goals?

Suppose you have the goal of running a marathon: if you don’t already have the habit of running regularly, you’re unlikely to be successful until you can adopt that habit. Running regularly can help you attain your goal in several ways, including getting you in great physical shape and strengthening your endurance.

Developing supportive habits can be easier than you think and far more powerful than you can imagine!

Identify the Habits You Need

Before you create new, positive habits, you’ll want to figure out which habits will help you attain your goals. For every goal, there are habits that can practically guarantee success. Reflect on your goals and what actions you can take to help bring them about.

Consider these attributes for the habits you want to implement:

Look for daily habits. Habits you practice each day are much easier to put into place and keep than those that are less frequent.
Keep it simple. The more complex the task, the less likely you are to stick with it. If you really do need to implement a complex habit, start with a simpler version and then add more complexity later.
Be specific. It’s not enough to just specify what you’re going to do; include the how, when, and where as well. Time is always critical when creating a new habit. Be sure to specify a precise period of time in which you wish to implement the new actions.

So “I’m going to exercise 1 hour per day” is inadequate. “I’m going to swim from 6-7 am, Monday through Friday at the YMCA” is more like it. This has enough detail to be quite clear about what you want to accomplish and includes the how, when and where.

Prepare for Interference

There are usually obstacles to creating new habits and behavioral patterns. Try to figure out these possibilities ahead of time so you can eliminate them as soon as possible.

For example, if you’ve decided that you’re going to eat a healthy breakfast every day, get rid of all the breakfast junk food in your pantry and freezer. That junk food is an obstacle to successfully implementing your habit.

The obstacle might be time interference. Maybe your partner doesn’t usually leave you alone for 30 minutes every night so you can meditate, write, read, or whatever it is you want to do towards your goal. Simply let them know ahead of time that you need be undisturbed during this time.

Look for More Supporting Habits

When you determine supporting habits that will help you reach your goal, consider going even deeper into the details to find habits that will help you accomplish your other new habits.

For example, if one of your new habits is to make it to the gym every morning by 6:00 am, you can develop several supporting habits to help you establish this habit, such as:

Get out of bed by 5:15 am.
In order to get up at 5:15 am each day, you might need an additional habit of always being in bed by 10:00 pm.
Another supporting habit might be to pack your gym bag the night before.

These supporting habits are monumentally important. Take time to think about what additional habits you can develop to support your efforts.

Enjoy Automatic Success

Once an action becomes a habit, you’ll do it automatically, without having to make the decision to do it each time. In other words, you’ll automatically move forward, day after day, toward achieving your goal until you reach it.

Just as counter-productive habits can keep you from success, supportive habits can practically guarantee your victory. So consider the habits that will best support your goals, put them into action on a daily basis, and enjoy your new success!

Make sure you’re effectively using your power to manifest everything you want. Do the “Crash Course on Creating Your Ideal Life” video training for free at the Personal Growth Cafe.

June 13, 2012July 4, 2012

The Fear of Success: Self-Sabotage

Do you embrace success? Do you envision yourself with health, wealth, and other abundance? In going after yourhopes and desires, you might be surprised to encounter your fear of success.

If you find yourself achieving only small, fleeting successes, but the great things you deserve always seem just out of reach, you may be the victim of your fear of success.

Your fear of success may be tough to identify andunderstand because the causes are frequently hidden from conscious awareness. Your fear may be lurking in your subconscious and you may never even discover that this challenge exists within you without some real probing.

Yet, this fear can cause you to sabotage your pursuit of your most cherished dreams. So how do you find out if your actions are motivated by fear of success?

Is the Fear of Success Sabotaging You?

Think of a goal that you’d like to achieve. Then, take 20-30 minutes and answer the following question: “What will happen if I succeed?” Write down everything you can think of – both good and bad consequences of achieving your goal.

It’s important to take at least 20 minutes to answer the question. Your early answers are likely to be superficial. Simply keep writing for at least 20 minutes. Put down everything that comes to mind. Nothing is too silly or too small. If, after 20 minutes,you’re still getting good stuff, then keep on going.

Suppose your goal is to make $250,000 this year. You might include items like these in your list:

I’ll be able to pay all my bills.
I can buy a new car.
I can go on a vacation.
I’ll have to pay a lot in taxes.
My brother will want a loan.
I don’t know what to do with the money after I’ve got it.
People will treat me differently.
I should get a new house. But where would I live?
My partner will try to spend it all.
I’ll probably just lose it or invest it incorrectly.

In your excitement, you might quickly write down some of the things you’ve wanted to buy, and, once you have the money, you can. But then, as you delve further into all your feelings about achieving your goal, some of the not-so-positive consequences of your achievement appear on your page.

Some of these consequences may reveal things you fear happening if you really achieved your goal.

Goals are never completely free of fear. Achievement always involves change, and all change involves some apprehension. You might truly desire to be successful, but if the feelings of fear due to the changes outweigh the positive feelings in your mind, progress will be slow and challenging.

How to Eliminate Your Fear of Success

If you can make yourself aware of your apprehensions, you have the opportunity to attack each of them and eliminate them or at least minimize them so that you can make progress.

Looking directly at these fears is very powerful. Fears that are not acknowledged tend to grow stronger. Fears that are examined tend to be minimized, which will help you to take aggressive action towards the completion of a goal.

Ultimately, if you look closely at your fears, you’ll see that the perceived side effects are what often seem scariest when pursing goals. So before you give up on your plans, ask yourself what would happen if you were ultimately successful. Tackle your fears head on and you can start achieving your dreams today!

Make sure you’re effectively using your power to manifest everything you want. Do the “Crash Course on Creating Your Ideal Life” video training for free at the Personal Growth Cafe.

June 13, 2012June 18, 2012

Believing in Yourself

Have you ever thought about how much believing in yourself makes a difference in your quality of life?

A strong belief in yourself can bring you all these benefits and more:

You recognize your ability to accomplish goals.
You’re optimistic about the future as you set goals and achieve them.
Deep down inside, you know you can do anything.
You treat yourself kindly.
You feel uplifted and more satisfied with life.
You’re motivated to get things done.
You have faith, no matter what.
You see and enjoy the abundance around you.
Others feel attracted to you.

Wouldn’t you love to enjoy these qualities of confidence and well-being on a daily basis? The good news is you can! There are actions you can take to fortify your belief in yourself.

Whether you feel lacking in this area or just want to strengthen your belief for the extra benefits, try these ideas to further develop your belief:

Have confidence in your own abilities to get something done. Be your own best cheerleader and encourage yourself to get your tasks done. Learn to break large tasks down into achievable portions. Then, even when times are tough and your spirit is low, you’ll know you can do it.
Create dreams.Whether it’s getting the career you want, obtaining more training, meeting someone you admire, traveling to a faraway place, or setting a goal to save a million dollars, connect with your dreams.

Where you come from, the money you make, and the people you hang out with are insignificant to the dreams you create. Dreams are often focused on what you want for yourself in the future. When you believe in your dreams, you can also believe in you!

Establish goals and go for the gold. Believing in yourself means you’re motivated to get things done. Get into the habit of setting goals (both short-term and long-term). Then, you can take active steps to achieve them.
Treat yourself well. Treating yourself with a nurturing nature and the understanding that you’re a deserving human being is an important aspect of developing belief in yourself.

Pamper yourself when you desire it. Recognize that others should treat you with respect and love.

Ensure motivation is high. Remember the childhood story about the little engine that could? When you wantto accomplish your tasks with excellence and achieve your goals, it’s an incredible testament to your level of motivation.Buildmomentum to fuel your motivation.
During the tough times, keep the faith. No one is immune from experiencing rocky chapters in his life. But if you believe in yourself, you can meet those challenging phases with a positive, solid fortitude. You’ll push forward, move through the trying moments and know you’ll come out on the other side smarter, stronger and surer of yourself.
Recognize the bounty you have. Regardless of what stage of life you’re living, search for the good all around you. Get the most you can from each moment.

Is the chair you’re sitting on comfortable? Are you safe and warm right now?
Whatever you love in your life, be thankful.Have gratitude.

Believing in yourself is one of the most powerful choices you can make. Practice these strategies and you’ll discover the sheer joy and comfort of knowing you can do whatever it is you choose when you believe in yourself.

Make sure you’re effectively using your power to manifest everything you want. Do the “Crash Course on Creating Your Ideal Life” video training for free at the Personal Growth Cafe.

June 13, 2012September 11, 2017

Four Actions That Bring You Success

Whatever you’ve already accomplished, there’s always another interesting mountain to climb. If you’re looking for more achievement, you can improve your life dramatically with a few simple changes.

Although these suggestions are straightforward, most of them will require constant attention for a little while until they become habitual. Once they become automatic, though, you’ll be thrilled with your progress.

Try these ideas to enjoy greater success:

1. Hang out with successful individuals. You’ll frequently find that you achieve about as much as the people with whom you spend the most time. If you want to be successful, affiliate as often as you can with people who are more successful than you. There are a couple of reasons for this:

You’ll be exposed to a completely different way of thinking and interacting with the world. Very successful people look at many things differently than those who are less successful. Integrating some of these ideas into your own thinking will likely bring you more successes of your own.
You’ll also encounter new opportunities. High-achieving people frequently have all kinds of ventures going on; you never know when they might need a helping hand. You’ll also get to connect with their peer group, who are likely to be very successful as well.

2. Adjust your attitude. Successful people usually have a positive attitude. That’s what allows them to move forward aggressively. This is not the same as acting foolishly, however.

Minor challenges don’t bog them down because they believe that things will work out in the end. They also keep the bigger picture in mind, so minor challenges are just that – minor.
If you want to be wealthy, do you have positive attitudes about wealth and wealthy people? If you want to be healthy, do you have a positive outlook about that? Your attitudes must be congruent with your objectives.
Everything starts internally; seeing outside changes in your life takes time.

3. Be organized and focused. Before you go to bed each night, make a list with all the things you want to accomplish the next day. Doing this at night gives your brain a chance to work on things in your sleep. Also, you’ll feel much better when you can start the day with a clear objective instead of spending time trying to figure out what to do.

4. Have goals. Your brain is tremendously good at finding solutions. You can help it out by doing a good job of outlining and prioritizing your objectives. The simplest way to do this is to write down your goal and include a deadline. Now your brain knows what to work on and when to have it accomplished.

Read over your goals at least twice a day to provide mental emphasis that they’re important. We all know how easy it is to get sidetracked by 50 other things and forget all about our goals and plans.

These 4 simple ideas can bring you great power, if you’ll use them to your advantage.

Being successful is really no more challenging than being unsuccessful. Both require specific actions and attitudes applied consistently over a period of time. Make some changes today and give yourself the gift of success.