Set Only Positive Goals and Achieving Them will be a Cinch

When police agents are trained to recognise counterfeit money, they are trained to focus on knowing all the characteristics of the legal currency. They are trained using real money and work with only the legal tender, until they know every counterfeiting measure printed on or in the money. They study the money on both sides, until they know every feature of the money, which makes it legal tender. By knowing the real money so well, when they encounter any counterfeit money, they will immediately recognise it as counterfeit. Their training is very specific and focused on teaching them to know everything about the legal money. Their minds are therefore not cluttered with all the possible things, which could be wrong or the mistakes that are commonly made. They are completely focused, because they are specialists in the real thing. This way any counterfeit money is glaringly obvious to them.

The same is true for your life. When you focus your energy on the penalties of failure or you are constantly worried about all the things that could go wrong. You are far more likely to infuse your performance with those penalties and potential mistakes. One of the most crucial steps in the process of ensuring you stay focused on achieving your vision and goals is to concentrate on what you need to do. Do not allow yourself to focus any attention on the things you must not do. For example, if you feel you are carrying a little too much weight. Do not set a goal to lose weight, or if you are a tennis player do not set a negative goal, not to double fault. Avoid setting negative goals like not being late all the time or not to speak so fast and loud all the time. These goals are framed in negative terms and try to get us to move in a positive direction, by focusing on the negative. No wonder achieving goals seems so difficult.

We need to steer clear of negative goal setting. It is impossible for our minds to focus on a reverse idea. For example: when the tennis player focusses on the negative term, namely the double fault. He is reminding himself of the very condition he wants to avoid at all costs. The person, who is constantly late for everything, by setting a negative goal about not being late, does not offer a solution, but only highlights the challenge they want to overcome. When we think in terms of all the weight we have to lose, we have a negative self-image in our minds of someone who is overweight. To succeed in achieving any goal we set we must create a vivid picture in our mind of what we want to do, or achieve, not what we do not want to do, or what we do not want to achieve. In the case of losing weight we need to create a vivid image in our minds of what we will look like when we reach our perfect weight. Using this image as our goal we have a positive image and a solution to focus on, rather than a negative picture of being overweight and the kilograms we need to lose.  

Try this little experiment: Get a picture in your mind of a time you were really angry or upset. Focusing on that picture, try to concentrate on not being upset or angry. How does it make you feel? Now get a vivid picture in your mind of a time you felt energised and happy. Focusing on that picture, concentrate all your energy on feeling elated and happy. How much better do you feel using the second technique, where you focused on the positive outcome you wanted to achieve, rather than trying to overcome a negative picture or emotion?

When you understand this really important characteristic about how your mind works and you understand that your brain can’t focus on an idea in reverse, you can now appreciate why you must only set positive goals. Try to never again tell yourself not to make mistakes, rather focus on visualising a picture of a perfect or flawless performance. When you focus on the positive outcome you want to achieve, you will perform far better. Can you imagine a tight rope walker who constantly tells himself, not to fall? How long do you think he will survive as a tight rope walker?

The best way to improve performance or to set goals is as follows:

• The tennis player, should say things like “First serve in every time”
• The person who wants to lose weight, should say “I am reaching my perfect weight”
• The person, who speaks loudly and too fast, should say “I speak, slowly, clearly and with confidence”.
• The person, who is always late, should say “On time, all the time, every time”.

These are all examples of positive goal statements and they help you to create positive images of achievement in your mind. These positive images, then act as a strong pulling force, to pull you in the direction of the desired new behaviour you need to adopt, to achieve any goal. This small shift in the way you set goals will have a remarkable positive effect on your ability to achieve any goals in the future.

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It is time to Take a Half-Time Break in 2012

Have you ever attended a sport match where, the players reach half time? During this break they refresh themselves, gather their thoughts, examine their performance during the first half and set strategy for the second half of the match. Well as you reach the halfway mark in your year, have you planned a short break to go away, regroup, refresh, rejuvenate, explore your performance during the first half of the year and set new strategy for the rest of the year?

That break is the perfect opportunity for you to assess how you are doing so far this year and to set new strategy for the second half of the year, so that you can come back firing on all cylinders when you return from your break. If you have not scheduled at least a three to four day break within the next month, where you have the opportunity to refresh and rejuvenate your mind and body, I suggest you look at your calendar today and put this crucial goal achievement tool into your calendar. During this halftime break, it is crucial you recharge your batteries, assess how you played during the first half of 2012 and set a new strategy for the rest of the year.  This new strategy will set the tone for how you are going to tackle the rest of this year.

It is crucial that you explore all your goals and without beating yourself up for any poor results, assess how you are doing against your expectations. As Anthony Robbins said so eloquently, “We often overestimate what we can achieve in a year and significantly underestimate what we can achieve in a decade”. So if you are not tracking as well as you would like against your expectations, it may be that you were too optimistic when you set your goals earlier in the year. As Anthony said, you may have extended yourself for the year, but watch this spot, for with focus and discipline, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in a decade.  

It will most certainly not serve you to engage in any negative self-talk and criticism at this stage of the year. Now is the time to assess your performance from a non-emotive position. If you have not achieved the results you wanted, it simply means that the actions you are taking are not delivering the results you expected or you are trying to achieve too much. During this break it is crucial that you evaluate where you are in terms of achieving your goals, with an open and exploring mind. As you approach the hallway mark through the year, explore your goals and answer these few questions.

·         How many goals have you achieved so far this year? Reward yourself for a job well done and languish in the glow of this great achievement. It is crucial that you use any successes as a springboard for achieving similar results for the remainder of the year. If on the other hand, you have not achieved any successes so far this year, know that after, this break, where you reassess how you have done so far this year and you get the focus you need for the second half of the year. Achieving your goals will be far easier for the remainder of the year; things will only get better from here.

·         How many of your goals are you on track to achieve? It is better to put a few goals on the backburner for the moment and to focus on trying to do less, for the remainder of the year. If you continue doing things the way you have for the first half of the year, you will most certainly keep getting the same results. Shake things up a bit and get more focus. It would be better to put some goals on hold for the moment and to reach the end of the year, having achieved one small goal, than it would be to continue trying to achieve all your goals and you reach December, having achieved very little.

·         Have you set too many goals for yourself to achieve? Take a real honest look at your goals and see whether you have set too many goals and as such you are chasing after your own tail, not achieving much. Would it not be better to pull out only one priority goal at this point and to focus all your energy on achieving just that one goal for the rest of the year?

·         If there are some goals that you have not even managed to tackle so far this year. Take the pressure off and file them away for later. The more you can reduce the amount of overwhelm you feel and the more focus you can get, the better equipped you are to achieve your goals.

·         Are the actions you are taking every day delivering the results you need? Explore your daily actions and see if you can discover a way to polish, massage or change them in any way, to help you improve the outcomes you are currently enjoying. If you keep doing things the way you have for the first half of the year, you will continue to get the same results. If you want different results, you will need to do things differently.

Where you are right now and what you have managed to achieve until now, is the perfect place to start and the ideal place from which to create the circumstances you need to achieve your goals for the rest of the year. It does not serve you or your goal achieving efforts to beat yourself up about what has not worked until now. Grab the reigns of your life and do things better for the remainder of the year. All you can ask of yourself is your best. As long as you are giving your best every day and you are taking meaningful actions, which will allow you to gradually move toward your vision and dreams, you will succeed in the end. I wish you only the best for the remainder of this incredible year.

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Creating consistent High Performance Throughout Your Day

As you know compounding, is the eighth wonder of the world. Consistent small focused efforts add up over time and eventually turn into incredible results. I believe that the addition of all these small efforts over time is the single biggest reason why some people become super achievers and others are left trapped in empty meaningless lives of overwhelm. It is because of the power of compounding, that I have searched for many years for a formula, which will help people to stay focused and able to perform at a consistently high level of performance throughout their day. After polishing this process for a number of years, I want to share what I have come up with, so that you can improve your results. I hope this simple process, will help you to gain the consistent energy, focus and productivity, which you need throughout your life to build the success you desire and deserve.

The first crucial aspect necessary to ensure that you have the energy and persistence, needed to sustain your performance throughout your day, is a connection to a meaningful purpose. When you have something bigger than yourself to focus on achieving and you live in a modality of “How can I serve greatly”, you are connected to a higher purpose. This energy, enthusiasm, drive and passion will help inspire you and help you to stay focused and task centric. This sense of purpose allows you to feel like you matter and will be visible to the people around you. This will then result in a sense of love, connection and meaning, which will flow from everyone around you. This will equip you to connect with your community allowing you to feel a constant charge and drive to succeed.

Secondly, you need to become aware and strive to be present, as you tackle each task. This means that you must be completely engaged and 100 % emotionally present in everything you do. When you are fully invested in the moment, it feels like there is both a push and pull of energy, which seems to inspire you throughout your day. This will help you to focus all your energy on completing only a single task at a time. You will never engage in any practices, which allow you to become distracted, thus stopping you from completing each individual task, before tackling the next one.

Action Idea: Examine your ability to remain present throughout your day. When you are next engaged in completing any task, rate yourself on a scale of 1 -10, as to the level of complete focus or presence you are exhibiting in the moment. “One” being, I am completely distracted and my attention is everywhere, “ten” being I am completely present and 100 % focused on completing that task, I allow nothing to distract me. Constantly measure you presence and focus throughout the day, if you are consistently achieving ratings, below a 7 or 8, you need to invest time into becoming more focused in the moment. When you are able to become completely present and focused on completing tasks, throughout your day, you actually get things done, you avoid overwhelm and the tasks you manage to complete, compound over time and add up into super achievement.

Thirdly, invest time into ensuring that you are powering the vessel, which provides you with energy and the ability to achieve greatness, namely your body, with sufficient rest and hydration. Unless you are getting sufficient sleep every night, where you actually get to switch off and regenerate and recharge your batteries, you will not have sufficient energy to perform at a high level throughout your day. When you are energised and your batteries are adequately charged every day, you will be focused and driven throughout your day.

Action Idea: Plan your day the night before and ensure that you know when you will tackle any issue the next day, which may be worrying you. This certainty, will allow you to switch off and to focus on being present in the moment, i.e. you will be able to rest when you sleep, rather than tossing and turning as you worry all night. Try to get a minimum of 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.

Fourthly, learn to understand who you are and what drives and inspires you. When you are authentic and live in congruence with who you really are, you equip yourself to live your truth. This continuity, which comes from living according to who you really are, allows you to be your authentic self and makes everything you do seem effortless.

Action Idea: Pick three words that you feel define who you are as a person. These words must resonate with you and define your identity and describe who you really are. What is that authentic self, the real you? The three words I have chosen for myself are driven, bold and inspired. Choose your words carefully and every time you tackle any task throughout your day, ask yourself if you are exhibiting these characteristics. If you have chosen your three words properly, then if you are not acting in alignment with your words, you are not being authentic and as such your energy will soon fade and disappear. Keep massaging the words you choose, until you get a perfect fit. Once you have discovered the words that best describe you and you consistently measure each task against these words, you are acting congruent with your highest self and will feel driven and energised throughout your day.

Finally, choose your three most important priorities every day and ensure that your head does not touch the pillow each night until these priorities are completed. These priorities must obviously be focused on achieving a specific outcome that day. When you have a single mission each day and you centre your day on achieving that mission, you equip yourself to get the right things done. Focus on completing these priority tasks and challenge and stretch yourself every day. When I say stretch yourself, I am not talking about stretching yourself to the point of overwhelm. I mean stretch yourself to a level, where you perform at your optimum. Focus on your mission each day and try to accomplish everything you need to do each day at the right pace.

When you bring these five new concepts into your life, you will see a remarkable improvement in your drive, determination and you will feel energised throughout your day. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain. Give these ideas a whirl, what if it is just these few new ideas, which completely change your life and put you on the fast track to success.  

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Personal Mastery is the Key to Super Achievement and Sustainable Success

The rapid rate of transformation and the growth of knowledge all around us has made the consistent acquisition of knowledge a necessity. In the past the select few people, who engaged in the practice of constant and never ending improvement, where they committed to continue learning and growing throughout their lives, were guaranteed to succeed and excel. The rapid rate of change and constant new developments of products, new technologies and the ever shortening of the business cycle has made a commitment to on-going growth and development a necessity today. If you are not learning and growing, you are not standing still, you are going backwards. As you know, you can only coast in one direction.

Anyone, who wants to engage in a process of creating personal mastery in their lives, where they can achieve their full potential and achieve extra-ordinary levels of success, must commit as much time as they can spare each day, towards growing and expanding their knowledge and skill base. Jim Rohn, well known business philosopher and personal development expert, said it so well when he said, “As you become more so you will attract more” The secret to success and realising your full potential, is never about pursuing anything, but rather a process of becoming. As you become more, miraculous things begin to happen all around you. The resources, people and everything you need just seem to gravitate toward you.

Decide what you want to achieve in your future, discover what you need to become in order to enjoy that level of success in your life and then, invest sufficient time and energy into growing and becoming exactly that type of person. As you grow into the type of person you need to be, the success you desire will almost magically start to flow into your life. Super achievement is a process of becoming, never an endless cycle of pursuing. As you grow and master your personal development and growth you will gradually achieve greatness and extraordinary levels of success

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As you travel down the path towards super achievement, consistently investing into your on-going growth and development. You must ensure that you are using your time as effectively as possible. Too many people get so wrapped up in doing to survive that they do not have sufficient time to invest into learning, growing and expanding. The secret to ensure that you succeed in this endeavour is to be 100 % certain that the scope and level of success you are attempting to achieve, is in fact in line with what you really want. If you are attempting to achieve anything, which is not aligned with your personal concept of success or values, you will not have the drive and passion to keep you on track. Inspiring you to take the daily action you need to succeed. When you are passionate about what you want and the success you desire is aligned with your concept of success, you will guard your time and invest sufficient time into acquiring the knowledge and skill you need vigorously.

Achieving mastery and consistently growing and expanding, means that you must be willing to fail fast and often and be willing to persevere, despite any challenges, temporary failures or setbacks, you may encounter. This attribute may seem really strange and many people struggle to get their emotional arms around the necessity to be willing to fail, as a crucial success tool, in their super achievement toolkit. Mastery seems to be exactly the opposite of failure and as such anyone, who wishes to achieve personal mastery, would be failure averse, wouldn’t they. Wrong, anyone who wants achieve greatness, must thrive on failure. One of the best ways of constantly improving and expanding comes from experiencing failure and setbacks. As you grow, you must continually test your boundaries and get to understand and appreciate your own capabilities. You can never break through and discover the limits of your potential, if you do not continually test boundaries and tempt failure and setbacks. Failure offers the opportunity to tweak, improve and move your performance onto the next level.

Constantly push the boundaries and dare to tempt failure on a grand scale. The larger the failure, the greater the potential to learn, grow, expand and become more. Gaining mastery can only be achieved through perpetual testing of boundaries and tempting failures and setbacks. Thomas Watson of IBM said it so well, when he said: “If you want to speed up your success, double your rate of failure.”

Personal mastery is not decided by talent, chance or luck. It is the result of discipline, commitment and hard work. Decide today if you want to achieve greatness and become a super achiever, it will not be easy, but it is most certainly will be worth the effort in the end. Let me leave you with a quote from one of the masters from antiquity, namely, Michelangelo. He said, “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

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Become Recognised as the Expert in Your Field

In this evolving and ever changing world we live in, it is becoming increasingly important to be recognised as the go to person or expert in your field. If I had to ask you who the best Body builder in the world was, you would immediately say Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is seen as the expert, despite the fact that he has not competed in any body building competitions since 1983. He is still perceived as the best body builder or expert in the field of body building. Not many people know that although he won the Mr Olympia title six times, there are two people who have won the MR. Olympia competition a total of seven times each. So it is not just about actually being the expert in any field, it is about perception and what you are able to communicate about your abilities, which plays a factor in how you are perceived too. It is therefore not good enough to only be the expert in any field; you need to have an effective way of communicating this to the world around you.

Becoming the expert or go to person in any field, will increase your perceived value. You will be able to charge a premium for your services, which people will gladly pay, as they see you as the most valuable person available. Becoming the perceived expert in any field does not happen in a day, it happens daily over a period of time. If you want to move down the path of personal mastery and gradually grow into the resident expert in any specific field, you need to adopt a few new behaviours or traits. These new behaviours or traits will help you to master the qualities and develop a new success habit set, to support your progress towards becoming an expert in your chosen field.

Commit to a process of On-going and Never Ending Improvement

The first and probably the most crucial, new habit you need to develop, is a commitment to constantly grow your knowledge and skills. When you commit to become a consummate learner and every day you strive to be just a little better than you were the day before. You equip yourself to gradually grow into an expert in your chosen field. Research has shown that becoming an expert in any field will take approximately 10 000 hours, of dedicated and focused practice.

If you have not read the book “Outliers – by Malcolm Gladwell, in which he outlines the 10 000 hour rule and describes how this rule separates, those people who do end up as experts in their field from everyone else. He shows that it takes a minimum of 10 000 hours of consistent, focused and perfect practice to develop great talent in any field. In other words if you want to become an expert in any field, it is imperative that you apply the principle of consistent, constant never ending improvement in your life. Only after 10 0000 hours of perfect practice can you expect to be a master at what you do. To become an expert in any field you need to be driven to constantly learn, grow and improve. This commitment must continue for the rest of your life, because if you are not growing, you are not standing still, you are actually going backwards. You can only coast in one direction.

The model of constant and never ending improvement, which really resonates with me is the one advocated by the late Steve Jobs and followed by Apple. Steve jobs had a mantra; in which he said “There has got to be a better way.” This philosophy of always raising the bar, striving for constant improvement, equips people to constantly look for ways to expand, innovate and grow.

Action Idea: Look at your life right now and have a crystal clear vision about where you want to go, i.e. what area do you want to master or become the resident expert in. Try to identify the greatest constraint, which is limiting your progress and stopping you from growing into that expert. Once you know the areas, which need improving, create a growth and development plan to start acquiring the knowledge and skills you require. Search and discover why it is important for you to grow into that expert. Finally commit to action every day to acquire the knowledge and skill you need. This process of learning and growth is a lifetime commitment. Although it will take 10 000 hours to master any new skill, it takes a lifetime commitment to become and remain the go to person or expert in any field.

Becoming the expert in any field, takes work and dedication, so before you decide to invest all the effort into learning and becoming, it is crucial you search and discover that deep rooted reason why acquiring the required knowledge or skill is important to you. You will never have the drive and determination to keep going, day after day, investing time to learn, expand and grow, unless you have, a clear vision and a real deep rooted reason why you want to become the expert. Your reason is unique to you and your circumstances. Whatever your reason is, it needs to be powerful enough to drive you out of bed every morning and keep you inspired and passionate all day, despite any challenges you may encounter.

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Empower Yourself, Accept Challenge as Part of your Journey Through Life

Everything that happens in our world is merely an event. We give each one, meaning and get to decide whether it is positive or negative. For example: If two young children climb onto a roller coaster. One is an adrenalin junky and loves being out of control. The other is a more serious child, who likes their feet firmly on the ground. Any time they are not completely in control, they feel overwhelmed and in a state of discomfort. The roller coaster races around the track, the adrenalin junky cannot get enough. When the event is over, or rather, when the roller coaster gets back after the ride.

The adrenalin junky is jumping up and down, wanting to go again. Whilst the other more serious child, can’t wait to get off the ride and needs time to settle and ground themselves once again. How is it possible that two people can experience one event, namely a roller coaster ride, so differently? It is the way we are wired, we give every event, which occurs in our lives meaning and decide whether it is a positive or negative experience. 

As happiness is an inside job and nothing outside of you, should affect your level of happiness, you should theoretically never allow any event to change your state. I know this sounds like a pipe dream, but it is not as impossible as it seems. All that is required, for you to wrestle back control of your emotions, is a few small shifts to the way you see your world. Explore the few shifts I have described below, adopting even one of them will help you to gain more control over your happiness

·         Accept that living a one sided positive life is impossible. Life is filled with challenges and negative people. Expecting to find a world without either, is as impossible as discovering a one sided positive magnet.

·         Create a crystal clear vision of exactly what you want in your future. The more clarity you have about where you are going, the easier it is to overcome challenges and manage difficult situations or events.

·         Try to discover “WHY” achieving your vision is important to you. Once you have a compelling reason why something is important to you, roadblocks, challenges or negative people, are merely stepping stones on your success journey.

·         Adopt a new philosophy –Where you keep your eyes focused on your vision. Stop seeing events as being” IN” your way any longer. Shift your thinking and view every event, which crosses your path, as being “ON” your way to the future you have envisioned. We cannot easily change the events or circumstances in our lives, but we can change the way we view them in an instant. Take charge of your life right now and put the power of your emotive state squarely back in your hands. Nothing outside of you should ever hold sway over how you feel, from this moment on.

·         Ask a better quality of question, every time you are faced with a challenge or a negative person. Instead of looking at the challenge or negative person and asking “Why is this person sent to irritate me or how can I get through this situation?” Ask a better question like “What can I learn from this person or situation or what is causing them to behave this way?” These new more positive questions will help you to stay positive and empower you to remain happy in the face of challenge or even when negative people challenge you.

I believe that the secret to happiness and joy is found in the realization that living a one sided positive life is impossible. It is our unrealistic expectations that we should only live this pipe dream, which puts us in a place of overwhelm. So when the inevitable challenges do cross your path and they will, or you encounter a challenging negative person with a bad attitude in future, immediately make a conscious decision to take charge of the situation. Start by asking a better more positive question about the situation and try to see every event as a something sent to help you. When you see everything as part of your success journey, or something which is on your way to the future you have envisioned. You see the same event differently and you are able to find ways of getting something from each event.

You are in charge of how you feel; do not allow any event to overwhelm you in future. Nothing can cause you any stress or discomfort, when you change the way you see it. Anything which is an integral part of your success journey and is on your way to the future you have envisioned, can never feel overwhelming.  I must admit that this philosophy does not work every time, but with practice, you will feel happy and content, far more than you are overwhelmed and unhappy, after adopting this new philosophy.

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Ask more Positive Questions and you will Transform your Life

How you show up every day, does most certainly set the tone for how your day will unfold. Do you wake up every morning spring out of bed, energised and fired up by the prospect of tackling your day? I refer to this as my daily activation energy. When you wake up and consciously force yourself to get out of bed, energised and ready to tackle whatever comes your way that day, you are effectively setting the tone for an energised and productive day. On the other hand when you wake up, you barely open one eye as you reach over and press the snooze button, you are programing your brain to be lethargic and un-energised for the day. You are setting a tone for a lacklustre performance and that is exactly what you will get.

When you practice this daily energising routine, where you get your day going in a highly energised and inspired way, this energised feeling lasts throughout your day. This allows you to be incredibly productive, effective and efficient, leaving you feeling satisfied by what you are able to accomplish and the contribution you are able to make each day. The art of waking up energised and inspired every day, where you project a great attitude to the world, is a conscious choice. You can either choose to be disgruntled and overwhelmed by everything in your world or you can shift the way you see those things. Change the way you see the things, which are causing you discomfort and those things will immediately change.

We cannot easily change the state of the economy, the constant changes we face in our lives and businesses each day, interest rates or the availability of capital. But we can immediately change one thing and that is how we see these things and how we allow them to affect our lives. If we wake up in the morning and we are faced with challenges, which seem overwhelming and insurmountable, we can either allow ourselves to feel beaten or we can learn to ask a better more positive question. The overwhelm is most likely caused because we are asking negative questions like “why me and what have I done to deserve this” instead of asking more positive questions like  “how can I use this challenge to my advantage or how can this challenge help me to prosper” These better questions will allow you to immediately shift your state and will move you into a far more creative place.

I have seen how quickly people can change their state, from a negative, place of overwhelm to a place of creative positive energy. When consulting with clients who are engaging in negative self-talk and bombarding themselves with a series negative questions, because they are facing a few difficulties or challenges. As they consciously start to ask a better series of positive questions, as they make the shift, to a more positive state, I can actually see their body language change. Their shoulders lift, they stop looking down and they start to raise their eyes, looking into the distance. They immediately start to feel more creative and innovative, as they begin to contemplate and allow their creative juices to flow. The change can be almost instant. As soon as you make the conscious decision to improve the type of question you are asking, you empower yourself to raise your state and you become far more creative and innovative.

It is a well-known fact that the quality of your life or business is directly proportional to the quality of your questions. Instead of allowing your mind to travel down the slippery slope of negative self-talk, as you engage in asking yourself a series of negative questions, every time you face a challenge. Learn the art of asking positive questions, questions which allow you to explore the situation and discover solutions. Negative questions can never serve you and rob you of your creativity and ability to innovate. The time you will invest into developing this skill, will stand you in good stead going forward. Next time you find yourself engaging in a downward cycle of negative questioning, take charge and consciously force yourself to ask a better more positive series of questions. You will immediately feel your mood lift and your creative juices will start flowing.

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