Are Your Associations or Relationships Serving You?

Choose the people you associate with carefully as they are great contributors to your success. If you associate with or surround yourself with the wrong people, they will negatively impact your life and business, as they slowly, almost unnoticed, nudge you just a little off course every day. Until you wake one day, far down the wrong road wondering how you landed up so far off course and how things managed to go so wrong.

Action Idea: Take a really hard look at your environment and evaluate everyone, who you spend time around that has or may have some form of influence over you. Explore how all these associations are affecting you what have they got you doing, listening to, reading, thinking and most importantly how do these associations make me feel? Be brutally honest with yourself, as you make up your list of associations, careful detail the type of influence they have over you.

Are your Associations Positive or Negative

There are two main criterion, to use when evaluating all your associations or relationships. Firstly are the associations or relationships positive, do they make you feel good and contribute to your success. It is obviously very beneficial to promote these relationships and associations and you should work to spend more time around these people, as they will have a positive influence on you. Secondly, look at any negative relationships or associations, are they negative, draining and do they sap your passion and drive. You clearly want to limit these associations as far as possible and even eliminate these people from your life completely.

We Mirror the Behaviour of the People Around us

We have mirror Neurons in our Brains that mirror the behaviour of the people around us, so whether you believe it or not, both groups of people exert influence over you. The best example of this is shown when one person in a room yawns and within minutes everyone in the room has had an unconscious urge to yawn and has yawned themselves.

One group will contribute to your growth and take you where you want to go. Whilst the other group will creep into your life, like a thief in the night and slowly over time rob you of your energy, passion, drive, discipline, potential and success. It is a no-brainer for me and should be obvious to you that one of these two associations will help you to go in the direction you want to go and the other one will gradually creep in and rob your potential. So stop wasting your time on people that are like vampires that drain your life blood and energy and begin to invest your most valuable asset, your time, with only people that matter.

Post Audit Clean-up

After you have carried out your personal people audit and decided, which associations and relationships are positive and contribute to your success and which don’t. You only have three choices available, so that you can gain the maximum benefit from all your positive associations and reduce the effect your negative associations have on your life.

Disassociate – Completely eliminate those draining and dream killing people from your life. This is obviously not a decision you should take lightly, but I believe it is a really crucial and often very difficult decision to make. This very tough decision will eliminate a huge drain on your potential and help you realize the quality of life you desire.

Limited Association – If you are unable to completely dissociate from certain people and eliminate your associations with them completely. Due to family ties or work associations, etc. then it is imperative that you limit the amount of contact you have with these people. We have so little time at our disposal; invest your most valuable asset very wisely. Invest major time into associations that will assist you and minor time into relationships that could hurt you.

Expand Your Associations – As this is the area where you are going to leverage the most benefit, it is obviously the place where you should focus your energy. Identify people that you believe you can have a mutually beneficially relationship with and who you feel you can add value to and who in return will add real and lasting value to you and your business. These are called associations, which you develop on purpose and should be a conscious part of your success strategy.

When you invest time around these people you expand your circle of influence and by default you reduce the amount of time you waste with the wrong people. This is not an easy exercise to carry out, but it is most certainly a very worthwhile one. If you are trapped in a cycle of unacceptable results and you seem to have reached a ceiling on your success journey, carrying out this audit and consciously choosing your associations going forward, may very well be the catalysts you are searching for, to take you to the next level.  

Author: Andrew Horton Greatest Motivational Speakers South Africa

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Powerful Plan for Peak Performance

Success comes to those who have a strong will to succeed, a vision of what they want and finally a plan to guide them to get it. Does that sound really simple and easy to do, well it really is. The challenge you face though, is that as easy as it is to do, so easy is it not to do. It is really easy to invest the time to create a crystal clear vision for the future, build an action plan to get you there and then to act on the plan daily. It is also easy to get lost in a cycle of pointless wasted days of busyness and overwhelm, where each day just blurs into the next and we never seem to achieve very much at all.

Find a recipe that Works

A great method for finding ways to improve the level of successes you are enjoying in your life right now. Is to identify people, who have managed to achieve excellence and great success in their lives and businesses, in similar areas, to the ones where you want to achieve success and then to explore how they managed to do it. Try to get to know these people, and if possible ask them to mentor you. Even if they are unable to mentor you, over time try to learn their recipe for success and gradually use this picture, to build a similar recipe for yourself.

Know Exactly what you want

The one thing that stands out the most for me, about all the successful people I have admired and whose biographies I have read, over the years, is that each one of them had a clear vision and a plan behind their success. They did not just randomly arrive at the incredible level of success they eventually enjoyed, shake their head and wonder how they got there. They created a crystal clear vision in their head of exactly what they wanted in their future, created a plan to get them there and then with dogged determination; they chipped away every day, until they achieved their goals.

Action Idea: If you want to invite great success into your life, start by doing what all the successful people I have studied have done. Create a vivid, crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you want, write it down in the clearest and most easily to understand format possible. Know exactly why it is important to you to realise that vision. Once you have a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you want your future to be like. It is a good idea for you to create a plan for your success, one that will work well and will take you to the finish line powerfully and in style.

I have written some ideas below to help you create your “Powerful Plan for Peak 

Performance”.

Creating your Unique Plan

All people are different, some people need plenty of detail in their lives and they work best with a very detailed plan, which highlights every intricate detail. Other people are more freewheeling and work better within a plan that offers only an outline or framework within which they must work.

The first question to answer is “What is the right plan”? The right plan is one that suites you and your style. A plan that is unique to your circumstances, one that fits you and is right for you. Each of us is unique, driven and motivated by very different things. No one knows you better than you know yourself, create a plan, which suites your personality and one that considers your strengths and weaknesses.

Take Action on your Plan

No plan is of any value, unless you can actually use it daily to take inspired action. To be effective your plan must be broken back to include individual daily actions, which you can put into your daily schedule and actually take action to complete. Long term sustainable success requires that you take action daily, the secret to guarantee your success, is to ensure that the actions you are taking are indeed the right actions. Review your progress daily, weekly and monthly and ensure that the actions you are taking are delivering the expected outcomes and that you are applying sufficient discipline to ensure that you are completing all the actions scheduled in your dairy.

Reviewing your day

It is always good practice to set time aside at the end of your day to reflect on how you did. Are you meeting your commitments to create the future you desire? This is an opportunity for you to go over everything you have done that day. Re-examine everything you have learnt that day and lock all the valuable information into your brain. This will allow you to store all the most valuable experiences, for use at a later date.

Look back over your day and examine all the people you saw, who you talked to, what was said, what happened and how you felt. Each day is like a mosaic in the big picture of your life, carefully store each one so that you can use it to create a wonderful picture of your past. This allows you to gain the maximum benefit from your past experiences and makes your past experiences even more valuable, so they can serve you in the future.

Meet your Future every day

Your plan can only work if you actually take action every day. As you know we operate best with a daily success routine. Create time slots in your daily schedule that are devoted to work on the tasks highlighted in your plan. I call these time slots in my daily schedule “Meetings With My Future” Show commitment and perseverance every day and make sure that you meet your commitments to your future. Develop discipline and make completing those daily tasks your top priority, every day. As you repeat this positive cycle over time you will move closer and closer to the future you desire and any personal or business goal becomes achievable.

Act on your Plan Everyday

Finally ensure that you act on your plan in an inspired fashion every day. Simply commit to do what it takes and work your plan every day. Your daily disciplined actions, over time, will add up to massive equity. Stay committed to take action every day and remain disciplined and focused. You have got so much to gain when you commit to apply these few really simple principles in your life.

Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers

Dare to Break Free From your Comfort Zone and Live your Potential

You can choose to continue living your life like a little shadow, which runs across the field of your potential every day and then simply disappears when the sun sets or you can make the choice today to begin taking the strides necessary to finally invite your full potential to shine. When you make this choice, you will finally begin living a life of meaning and fulfillment, where you will leave an indelible mark on everyone you touch.

Until you choose to take daily consistent action and accept 100 % responsibility for how your future will unfold, something amazing is going to happen; NOTHING! You will just remain trapped in a life of average. It is time to stop making excuses for delaying the action you know is necessary to live your dreams and realise your business goals. Become enthusiastic about your potential right now and create a clear picture of what you want to achieve, see this as not only an obtainable reality, but an achievable reality for you. When you apply consistent, inspired energy and create both a positive and expectant outlook; you will start to see your dreams turn into your reality.

Choose to ignite your spark of possibility today, by accepting that you have unlimited potential locked inside you. Unlock this potential, by taking small, consistent inspired steps every day toward discovering what you are capable of achieving. Each small victory you experience will brighten the light within you and show you anything is not only possible, but that it is possible for you. You truly are magnificent and capable of achieving greatness; believe in yourself and your ability and the doors of possibility open up for you.

Making it Happen for you

Create a set of great personal values and surround yourself with the right people, who can form your support system. Have an optimistic spirit and develop a strong purpose, which you completely believe in. Accept that as you set your imagination free and consistently take inspired daily action; you will see your dreams unfold, day by day as they gradually turn into your reality.

Possibility plays a massive role in every aspect of our lives. When you create a really deep belief in your own potential and consistently take inspired daily action, the world opens up to you and you light the spark of possibility. Unleash your own unique gift today, allow that light which shines from within you to shine its spark of greatness on the world.  Finally accept that you can and will make the world a more beautiful place. Have the courage to set your light free and accept the responsibility of success. The world is waiting for you to express your light and free your potential.

Explore and Express your Potential

Dare to explore, the limits of your potential? Do you believe that your potential is limited only by what you believe is possible for YOU? Are limits real or are they self-imposed? Do you in fact have any limits at all? Set your imagination free and dream of all your possibilities. Your thoughts, words and actions predict your future. What are you thinking right now? Are those thoughts moving you closer or further away from your success?

Are you Prepared to Pay the Price to Express your Potential?

What price would you be prepared to pay, if the promise was anything you desired? How many hours of your valuable time would you give to this Endeavour? How much energy and resources would you be willing to expend to achieve this? For such a promise most people would give almost anything. Then why are you not doing just that right now, for unlimited potential is your birthright, believe it and you will see it. Believe in all the possibility, which is available to you, take inspired action every day and nothing is beyond the realm of your potential.

Your aptitude will merely assist your altitude, but your consistent good attitude will create the altitude that is conducive to your potential. Possibility plays a massive role in every aspect of our lives. When you create a really deep belief in your own potential and consistently take inspired action, the world opens up to you and you light the spark of probability.  Good things come to those who wait. Great things come to those that get off their butts and make things happen. An open mind allows you to see opportunity all around you and with the addition of inspired action, delivers the prize of living your full potential.

Believe in Yourself and Create a Crystal Clear Focus about What you want

When you learn to shift your focus, opportunities, which are staring you in the face right now will almost miraculously seem to become clear to you. This shift occurs when you get clarity on exactly what you want. This then programs your brain to focus like a laser on finding ways of bringing exactly that into your reality.

Timing is Everything

We hold ourselves away from our potential, not because we don’t have what it takes, but rather because we have unrealistic expectations around the timing, for the realizing our goals. Accept that everything you desire will arrive, when the time is right. Stay committed to your success and keep taking the daily actions you know are necessary to bring the success you desire into your life and your business goals and personal dreams will gradually unfold before your eyes. Embrace the concept of delayed gratification and you will live in the magic of life.

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You have a unique gift, a light within you that can make the world a more beautiful place. Set your light free, have the courage to face the possibility of rejection or the responsibility of success. The world is waiting for you to express your light and free your potential.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

The People Around you Mirror who you are

Strive to hold the highest consciousness possible and aspire to surround yourself with the RIGHT people. People that reflect the qualities you want to see in your own life. This will help you keep your focus and energy on the business of utilising your excellence and exposing your brilliance.

When viewed from a spiritual perspective, people are in essence a reflection of our inner aspirations and people that inspire you are merely people that mirror the qualities that you are waiting and ready to express yourself.

People who Irritate you, can be Great Teachers

From a different perspective it is true too that people that irritate us are also a reflection of some characteristics that we are hiding from ourselves or aspects that we are unclear on in our own lives. So if anyone irritates you, look at the reason that they are so challenging and see if that may be an area that needs work in your own life.

This is a very powerful tool that when used properly will allow you to uncover some very real issues in your own life. The issues that you find the most irritating in someone else is often just a reflection of a characteristic that you are dissatisfied with in your own life.

Unlock your Greatness

Have the courage to be completely honest with yourself and utilise this very empowering process to unlock issues that may be keeping you trapped in mediocrity.

When you make this small shift in the way you view people around you. You empower yourself to utilise the feedback from people in your environment to your advantage.

Why do some People bug you?

Take a critical look at the people all around you and try to identify people that are bugging you. Explore the reasons why they are driving you batty and record these in your journal.

Take a deep breath, have the courage to be brutally honest with yourself. Examine the list again, exploring each one from the perspective of “Could this be my issue” and then see what action is necessary to eliminate these negative characteristics from your own life.

This can be a very powerful success tool in your success toolkit. As you observe the people around you, it is possible to utilse this information, to explore your own philosophy, characteristics and attitude.

If someone irritates you, or you find something about them extremely distasteful, try to explore the reasons why you feel that way. It may be that they are just the wrong people for you and they are on a completely different path to you, but it could also offer you a great insight into your own shortcomings.

Learn the art of understanding your responses to your world and the people in it. This skill offers you a wonderful window into your inner self and gives you the ability to identify areas of challenge or weakness, which you may not have observed in yourself, had you not had the courage to see through the eyes of those who irritate you.

Surround yourself with the right People

It is far easier to be inspired every day, when the people you surround yourself with, are people who support you, reflect your values and beliefs and are on the same track as you. So obviously, it is good practice to work to only surround yourself with the right people.

My invitation today is to have the courage to explore the people who you do not want around you and to then try to discover why, you don’t want them in your life. Once you have explored and learned as much as you can about all the things you don’t like. Use this to examine your own life and see how you can use this information to help you to improve and grow.

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Do You Know What You Really Want and Do you Believe You Can Have It?

When you walk into a dark room, you simply reach across, press the light switch on and the darkness disappears. Do you need to attend a motivational talk to inspire you to press the light switch, or do you procrastinate and contemplate the task, before you actually press the switch? No, you just press the light switch. I know this is a simplistic example, but what it illustrates, is the principal that, if you believe with absolute certainty that any activity will result in the outcome you desire. You will carry out any task, without the need for any external motivation and you will most certainly never procrastinate before carrying out that activity ever again.

Get clarity about what you want, invest the time to acquire all the knowledge and skills you need, to be absolutely certain that you can achieve it. Once you have this deep rooted belief in your ability to succeed. Carrying out the daily activities necessary to achieve that goal will become almost effortless. Believe in yourself, know with certainty that you are on the right path and that the goal specific activities you are carrying out every day, is steadily moving you along the path of success and nothing will be able to stop you from succeeding.

Using the light switch example again: If you walked into the room and pressed the switch and for some reason the light never came on. The Bulb was fused, or the power was off or the circuit breaker had tripped. Would you never press the light switch again, because you had encountered a challenge and it never worked that one time? The same is true about the actions you take every day as you move towards the success you desire. There will be times that you take a specific action and some external factor may have changed and that action does not result in the outcome you wanted. That is no reason to stop believing in yourself and to stop taking action.

It is simply an opportunity to look around for the cause, does it mean you need a little more education or do you need a few new skills, maybe you need to slow down or speed up a little, are you getting enough rest, exercise or proper nutrition? Find the tripped circuit breaker, damaged light bulb or disconnected power supply in your life. Fix whatever is wrong and move forward. Experiencing challenges on your path toward the success you desire is never a reason to stop believing in your ability to succeed. It is simply an opportunity to explore and find out why things are not working like they should be.

Circuit breakers trip, light bulbs blow and the power sometimes gets interrupted. That does not mean you must stop pressing the light switch, when you walk into a dark room, it simply means, that you need to find out why it is not working. Fix it, and when you press the switch on the next time and the next, the light will come on. The same is true for your life and business. Things are going to go wrong, challenges will come your way and things will not always work out the way you want them to. Simply explore, find what is wrong and then press on and the action you take will once again deliver the results or outcomes you want.

Stop harping on your flaws and any temporary failures you may experience. This negative self-talk is extremely destructive and does not serve you at all. Simply identify what is wrong, build a plan to fix it and move on. When the light switch does not work, when you walk into the dark room? Do you go into a tirade of self-incrimination about, why the bulb blew, do you berate yourself for hours before changing the bulb. No you search for, and discover the challenge, do the repair and enjoy the benefit of the light. If you could learn to apply the same simple process in your life and business, every time you encounter a challenge or a roadblock. You would very quickly overcome any roadblock, setback or challenge and almost immediately, get back on track.

Instead of berating yourself and constantly reminding yourself about your flaws, rather learn to celebrate your successes and achievements. Constantly look at your skill and ability. Look at all the things you are doing today, which you were unable to do a week, month or year ago. Celebrate your progress and use this progress to help keep you inspired. Give yourself regular feedback and reinforce your new positive behaviours as often as possible. Don’t wait for an award, promotion, a friend or mentor to appreciate your progress. Take pride in and reward your own efforts daily. You are most certainly doing a whole lot more right every day, than you are doing wrong. Keep up your consistent positive efforts and you will eventually succeed.

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Sustainable Success Starts with Self-Belief

As you know whatever you think about you will eventually bring about. It is for this reason that I recommend creating a few positive affirmations, which support your vision and goals. Positive affirmations are nothing more than positive statements, which we create; to support a new positive belief we need to develop or to support us to take the inspired action we need to take every day. One of the greatest threats to our success is our own negative self-talk and the nagging doubt we feel about our own abilities. We continually engage in negative self-talk, where we berate ourselves and doubt our own abilities. This is where positive affirmations, come into play. They help us to think positive thoughts, which will support us to start to believe more in our own abilities and they equip us to think from a “can do” perspective.

Invest the time to learn how to create positive, effective affirmations, which will over time and regular use, allow you to reprogram your mind, so that you can stop engaging in negative self-talk and develop a real belief in your-self and your abilities. For your affirmations to be effective and for you to create the most powerful and vivid picture in your mind, it is crucial that you repeat them to yourself regularly throughout the day. The secret to make affirmations really work for you is not found by just repeating them frequently or even out loud. The power of affirmation comes from the amount of emotion you experience as you repeat each affirmation. The regular use of positive affirmations helps you to program your mind and plants the seed of intention in your mind.

The amount of feeling and passion you put behind your affirmations, determines how believable they are to you and increases their power in your mind. Much like a radio transmitter, the passion and emotion behind your affirmations will up the wattage of the message that you are sending. This will allow you to feel a much greater intensity from you affirmations and the positive message, which it conveys will play louder in your mind.

Don’t rush saying your affirmations, especially as you begin working with them. See them as depicting your personal world view and know that they are specific to your goals. Make them as meaningful as possible and try to evoke a deep positive emotive feeling as you repeat them. You may even find that over time, as you consistently repeat this exercise every day, you will begin to receive a reassuring, warm feeling inside and an uplifting feeling of infused energy and enthusiasm, as you repeat your goal-specific affirmations.  Enjoy the feeling it produces, knowing that the feeling you’re transmitting, is exactly what you’re calling into your life.

Find Your Reference Point

To get the most benefit from your goal specific affirmations, it is crucial that you refine your goals and become absolutely clear on what you want. If your goal seems too abstract and distant, you will be unable to get a strong emotional feeling, when you repeat your affirmations. Explore your goals and find a clear reference point, which will help you to cement a positive, believable feeling into your mind. Your goal must be reasonable, even though they must stretch you, they must feel achievable to you. If you are attempting to achieve something, which feels impossible and unrealistic, no affirmation will manage to fool your brain into believing you can achieve it. You will just feel like you are lying to yourself.

Also explore your current reality and if one of your goals or goal specific affirmations, is to enjoy driving your Porsche 911 Targa, past your new holiday home in Balito Bay, but your current reality is that you drive a Beetle in Springs. You need to make the possibility of driving a Porsche believable in your mind. Visit a Porsche dealer and sit in the car, build a picture in your mind about how it feels to actually sit in the car. Allow yourself to experience what it will be like when you actually achieve your dream. Make the feeling as real and vivid as possible.

The more vivid your visualization, the greater the results you will enjoy. Have a friend photograph you inside or next to the car.  Smell the leather. Feel the interior. Take it for a test drive, if possible. Listen to the sound of the engine. Engage your senses as much as possible so that you have a reference point for increasing the power of your affirmation.

You can also find a root experience that is similar enough to your goal that you can expand to the size of your goal. For example, if your goal is to alleviate world hunger, you can remember the time you fed a hungry bunch of kids at your home and their satisfied faces after the meal. Allow this experience to gradually expand over time and eventually you will find a way to start believing your huge goal is possible.

Find whatever hook you can use to increase the power of your emotions and the feeing generated associated with the affirmation. Purposely create that feeling, if need be. Relive it mentally in detail and with feeling, every day. Your subconscious cannot tell the difference between an imagined or a real experience. After repeating your affirmations enough times, where you have felt the emotions, your subconscious mind will start to believe that you can achieve your dream and the negative self-talk and doubt will fade away, to be replaced by belief and a commitment to succeed.

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Decide What You Want, Chances are it wants you Too

Decide what you want, chances are it wants you too. Once you are clear on exactly what you want in your future and you have invested the time and energy to turn that picture into a crystal clear vision for the future and you begin to take action every day to bring this vision to life. You will start to experience one of the most amazing phenomena.  The phone may ring and the person on the other side of the line may have positive news about an opportunity you can exploit, an unexpected financial windfall may come your way or some positive benefit may almost miraculously appear. You may even make a new acquaintance, who brings you exactly what you want or need, to achieve your Biggest Goal.  All these events seem to occur almost as though they are planned.

                                            

There could be a number of reasons for this happening. Could it be the universe rewarding your new positive habits, beliefs and action orientated attitude and thereby allowing you to harness all the amazing forces at its disposal. Or perhaps you are working a lot smarter, where you have been doing things differently and as a result you are getting very different more positive results. The most likely explanation though is that your subconscious is far more focused and you are far more attuned to see opportunity when it presents itself.  You need to believe that when you have the correct habit set, attitude, deep rooted belief and desire to achieve something, and you take consistent daily action, everything you need to achieve your goals will almost magically gravitate toward you.

Could the reason that you have not got exactly what you wanted until now, be the result of a lack of clarity on your part and as such, your daily actions or lack thereof are keeping you trapped in mediocrity.  Until you decide in compelling detail exactly what you want, something amazing is going to happen, NOTHING!!!!. A genius without a road map will get lost in any city, whilst an average person with a good map will be able to reach any destination of their choosing.

Your vision is your compass or the part of your success process that gives you direction. Without direction and a focused set of daily activities to help you to consistently keep moving in the direction, of your envisioned future, you cannot expect to achieve anything meaningful with your life. Until you create a clear picture for your subconscious mind, how can you expect your brain to start searching for what you need and for you to know what daily actions are going to help you achieve the outcome you want? 

Clarify your vision and your values

You must clearly define your desires, they must really be important to you. When you are clear on what you really want and you have a written down vision to support you to achieve exactly that. You equip your brain to search for and discover opportunities to support you. When you create your vision, you wants or desires must not fall into the “Should be important to me category” or the “world expects this to be important to me category”.  Your wants and desires, which you build into your vision for the future, must come from deep within your heart, from that inner self. That all knowing intuitive self, which resides inside you. Once you allow yourself to uncover all the things that are important to you and you know why you want to them in your life. Nothing will be able to stop you from achieving your vision. No obstacle, barrier or setback will ever be able to stop you.

Once you determine your real desires and wants, you must then try to align these with your core values and True Life Purpose. Try to ensure that all your wants and desires are in total alignment with your integrity, moral fiber and they must fall within acceptable limits, which are in alignment with who you really are.

For example: You might want all the riches that will flow from selling drugs, but you find it impossible to convince your mind that breaking the law and destroying people’s lives is OK. Engaging in an activity that flies in the face of your True Life Purpose and your core values will never make you happy or truly make you feel complete.

Never Live Someone Else’s Dream

You must be certain that what you want, is not just another version of what someone else thinks you should want or what you think society would expect you to desire.  Learn to be ruthlessly honest with yourself and ensure that you clearly define your personal wants and desires.  Your  “must haves” are always more inspiring and will instill far more drive and passion within you than your “shoulds” ever will.

Make an I wants List

Action Idea:  A very effective technique to help you to determine exactly what you want, is to get someone that you trust to ask you the following question:

What do you really want from your life?

Let them repeat the exercise for 10 -15 minutes. Use a recording device to record all your answers. Do not analyze or question any of the answers you come up with during the exercise. After completing the exercise listen to the recording and write down all your answers.

You will notice when you listen to the recording afterwards that you answers are not very profound, but as the exercise progresses, you will be amazed at what actually begins to come out. Initially you will hear things like “I want a BMW, or I want a big house, etc.”, but as you progress through the exercise you will start hearing the real you and your real wants will begin to emerge. You will start hearing things like, Ï want people to love me, I want to truly express myself, I want to make a real contribution, I want to make a difference to the world, I want to be powerful etc.  The wants that will emerge during the latter part of the exercise, will reflect your core values and be an expression of your True Life Purpose.

Give this action idea a try, it will most certainly help you to start getting the clarity you need to start living the life of your dreams.

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What are your Thoughts about Money?

If you are like most of us, you have been exposed to negative talk about money since you were a child.  You heard things like “money doesn’t grow on trees”, what do you think I am “”Rockerfella”” and many more as listed below.  All this negative talk about money has created a resistance within you toward money.  It is now time to change your relationship with money and only use positive self-talk about money and mostly train your brain to think only positive thoughts about you and your money. 

Get rid of all the thoughts like the ones listed below, when you think about money or your relationship with money.

• “What do you think I am, made of money?”
• “Money doesn't grow on trees.”
• “Money is the root of all evil.”
• “Filthy rich.”

“To become wealthy, you’ll need to surface, identify, root out, and replace any negative or limiting beliefs you have about money.”

Have any of these negative comments that you have heard throughout your life served you or others.  The negative talk around money ends right now; your awareness now empowers you to build a positive and beneficial relationship with money.

Your financial comfort Zone is keeping you from your abundance

Just as a thermostat combined with heating or cooling systems in your home regulates the temperature in your home. Cooling the air down if the temperature goes higher than requested or heating the air up if the temperature goes lower than requested. Your financial thermostat may be keeping you right where your beliefs and attitudes about money direct you. If your beliefs about money are that being rich is bad, but being poor is no fun either, you’ll stay right in the middle of the road. As much as you think you’d like to be financially independent, you’ll continue the behaviors and habits that your financial thermostat is dictating.

Identify Your Financial Comfort Zone                           

Ignorance is most certainly not bliss and it will never deliver you the financial success that you desire.  You need to take a very deep and careful look at your awareness around money.  Do you just spend money and act with and around money based on your internal financial programming, thoughts, habits and beliefs? 

• What do you know about your current financial situation?
• How much debt do you have?
• How many assets do you own, what is their current value?
• How much do you spend daily, weekly, monthly?
• Do you have a budget?
• Are you avoiding facing up to any truths about money?

Once you become aware of what drives you in relation to your money, you empower yourself to correct any problem areas and adjust your comfort zone in relation to your money.

Try to assess your relationship with money by very bluntly and truthfully answering the questions below:

What do you find yourself doing if you get a small windfall, like a tax return or sweepstakes? What about when you get a raise at work?

How do you approach shopping and spending, with what attitude or expectation?

What are your thoughts (or even fears) around saving, investing, spending, even working?

After answering these questions take time to asses your true relationship with money.  Identify those areas that are keeping you away from living in the abundance that is your birth right. Decide how you are going to introduce new habits and beliefs into your life, which will allow you to enjoy abundance and revel in the magic of life.

“One of the first requirements of becoming wealthy is to make a conscious decision to do so.”

Change Your Attitude toward money and you will Shift Your Financial Comfort Zone

The action needed to Change your thoughts, Habits, beliefs and talk around money are no different to changing any other limiting factors, which are holding you from your dreams. Face them head on, accept responsibility for them and be willing to explore them, be open to finding solutions for correcting them and then release them and replace them with an empowering “Money specific affirmation statements”, like the ones listed below:.

• Money comes easy and often, from multiple sources
• I am a money magnet and money works for me.
• Everyone is plotting to only do me good, and they enrich me with abundance

Do a Financial Assessment

The thoughts, habits and beliefs that are keeping you from your financial bliss are now out there for you to modify and change.  Now is the time for you to do a complete and honest assessment of your current financial position. 

This process is designed to give you an overview of your current financial situation and will get the ball rolling and make you aware of your financial status. These guidelines, listed below, are designed to allow you to assess whether further steps or resources are necessary to fully assess your position.

Become Conscious About Your Money

To fully understand your current financial position you must answer the questions below How much money you’ll need saved up for retirement to maintain your current lifestyle

• What is your net worth, or the difference between your total assets and total liabilities
• How much money do you have in savings
• What are your fixed and variable monthly expenses
• What is the total amount of your debt, you currently hold?
• How much do you pay each year on interest payments?
• Are you adequately insured
• What is your financial plan, how are you going to create fibnancial independence?
• What is your estate plan

Get Your Cash Flow under Control

Unsecured consumer debt and bankruptcies have been at an all-time high in recent years all over the world. Many individuals and families are spending more than they make, and credit is easy to secure. As a result, many are getting further away from wealth and financial independence. What’s worse, much of that money goes towards buying things that we don’t use, that take up space in our homes and garages, and that require time and money to maintain. We often end up paying much more than the initial price of the item because we pay interest on a revolving credit card balance.

If any of this sounds familiar, take some time to assess your spending habits. Is your spending getting you closer to or further away from your financial goals? Do you find yourself buying things that you really don’t need and perhaps can’t afford? If so, take some time to create your plan for eliminating your consumer debt.

Take Responsibility for Your Financial Success

The previous exercise we did around your relationship with money, has given you a basic understanding of your financial position, now I want you to consider how finances fit into your vision for your future.  When you visualize your ideal future, what do you envision yourself doing, being and enjoying?   Try to assess what you will require financially to live the life you have envisioned in the future..

This is a very important step, for you to live the life of your dreams and bask in the glory of the magic of life. To realise your dreams, you will need to create a very clear picture of what that lifestyle will cost.  This will then allow you to develop strategies to get you the dream life you desire. 

“Financial independence frees you up to pursue your passions, travel, engage, in philanthropic endeavors – or do whatever you wish.”

Invest for Success

To switch around from having to work for money to a place where money works for you, you will have to make investing a way of life.  Your investing must become more important even than paying your debts.  Regardless of what you choose to invest in—real estate, bonds, stocks, business ventures, mutual funds, etc.—you’ll need to be committed to those investments for them to be committed to you.

Make more so can invest more

There are really only two ways to end up with more money to invest and ultimately to spend.  You can either spend less or earn more.  To finally live the life of your dreams you will need to make more money, lots more money.

The key to making more money is creating value. If you’re creating what people want and need, especially something that you are passionate about, the money will follow. And if you can create multiple sources of income, you’re more likely to create financial security while you are building greater income.

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Create a new Success Habit Set to Support Your Dreams

Change is always disconcerting, if not terrifying, for most people. I want to offer you a few tips in this article, which will help make positive changes in your life, which will take you from where you are to where you want to be. The positive change I encourage you to make in your life right now, is the development of a new success habit set, which will support you to achieve the level of success you desire. Developing the new habits and beliefs or your new success habit set, will equip you with a set of new daily routines, which will allow you to carry out your daily goal specific activities every day, without consciously thinking about them at all.

Even though these are positive change, which will help you to invite the success you desire into your experience. It is still change and so developing your new success habit set, will still take you out of your comfort zone and challenge you to do things differently. Developing your new habit set will require you to apply your willpower daily for between 66 and ninety days. This will mean that you will need to be really committed to developing your new success habit set.

Action Idea: Explore your vision and goals, which you want to achieve. What daily habits would support you to invite that level of success into your experience? The daily routine you develop will be unique and different for everyone and depend on your unique circumstances. The new daily routine, which you will need to develop, must be designed to allow you to carry out all the goal specific activities you need to do, in order to realize your vision. Over time, as you apply your willpower to carry out the routines, they will eventually become entrenched success habits, which you carry out without very much conscious thought at all.

Imagine doing all the things you need to do to succeed every day without even thinking about it. You have a set of habits right now. How about committing to replace these over the next year with far better success habits, which will help you to achieve the success you deserve and desire. Explore the success you want to enjoy in the future. Once you know what you want, identify the habits, which will support you to achieve exactly that level of success. Now simply go about the task of building a daily routine, which will allow you to carry out all those activities.

The initial 30 days of the process are the hardest and will require the most willpower from you to ensure that you carry out these new routines. After about 60 days, these new routines will feel normal and after about 90 days has passed, not carrying out these new routines will feel strange as these new routines will be entrenched habits. You must be completely committed to the process and know exactly why you are developing your new daily routine. This is the key time to gather confidence and the energy you will need to get you through the first few weeks of transition. Stay focused on the amazing outcome, apply your willpower daily and you will eventually replace your current habit set, which is keeping you away from realizing your dreams, for a new success habit set, which will guarantee your success.

Try to remove all fear regarding the transition, from your old, limiting beliefs and constantly remind yourself that although developing your new success habit set is uncomfortable, it is necessary for you to positively change and attain your dreams.

The time you invest into developing and introducing your new success habit set into your life, will be well worth the effort in the end. It will allow you to almost subconsciously carry out all the goal specific activities you need to do every day. Success will become inevitable and as you are operating on automatic, the daily actions you will take will feel almost effortless. Is developing your own success habit set, not worth the effort, the incredible, almost effortless results you will enjoy, will make the few sacrifices necessary, well worth the effort in the end.

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