Sunday, May 27, 2012

You can Change your future by changing your vision of what is possible


Let your mind out for a walk today and explore the question “what do I really want in my future?” When you gain clarity around this issue, you become a creator of your circumstances. Continue to blunder, blindly through life and you will remain a creature of your circumstances. For you to finally begin to manifest your true aspirations, you must clearly articulate these aims to both yourself and the universe. When you clarify your aspirations, they take on a new substance and what was a mere wish, before becomes real and achievable.

No matter how good your eyesight may be, it will be of little value if you do not have vision. This is your ability to see things that may be invisible to other people or to innovate and see things that may not even exist yet. The limitations we face in life are not due to our current circumstances or abilities but rather by our vision of what is possible for us. True vision is the ability to create pictures of what can be, it is a place where we appeal to our better selves, a place where we appeal to that hidden self and we strive to become more.

We are visual beings that do not only see with our eyes.  The building that you are sitting in right now was just an idea in someone’s head at one point. They then developed a clear picture of exactly what they wanted to create. This was then converted into a blue print and then built into the structure you are now sitting inside. The way to create the future of your dreams is to first create a vivid picture of what you want, a clear vision for the future. Then to create your own blue print ot make that happen. As you think it, you must commit to ink it. The size and scope of your future is only limited by your ability to envision it. Set your mind free and allow it the freedom to walk boldly into your future and see clear pictures of your dreams and fantasies. Commit to then clarify these and then create a blue print for your success.

Your future will turn out exactly the way you see it. Nothing will happen or ever has happened without someone first creating a vivid picture in their mind first. Begin today to start painting a better vision for your future. No matter what may have happened in your past, the slate for your future is spotless. You can paint any picture you can see onto this blank canvass. All the choices are open to you right now. You get to choose everything that you put into your picture of the future. Do not limit yourself by thinking small. It takes as much energy to dream small dreams that will hold you from your potential as it does to have huge dreams. Select the image you want for your future by searching deep within yourself and allow your mind to wander unfettered by logic or what you believe is possible for you right now.

Begin painting your picture for your future by exploring what is possible for the remainder of this year. Then begin to see bigger and bigger pictures form in your mind, as you allow yourself to stretch and expand into a worthy vision that will push you beyond your current comfort zone. Paint a grand picture of what is possible. It is widely accepted that we significantly over estimate what we can achieve in a year and that we dramatically underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Take a longer view of all the possibilities that await you in the future and dare to dream big dreams.

Live in the moment, never allowing your dreams to run ahead of you, for the person that only looks outside of themselves is simply a dreamer, those that learn to look into their heart, awaken their belief in their ability and they unleash their unlimited potential. Recording and time defining your dreams is simply the start, realizing them is the art

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Stop Attempting to Solve Problems Any Longer – Just Make Different Decisions


Working with the concept of problem solving, introduces a number of challenges for me. I believe that what we think about, we most certainly, through our thoughts and actions, eventually bring about. So the very act of viewing something as a problem causes us to engage in negative thought processes. These negative thought processes sees us approaching any event which has occurred from a very negative standpoint. We view the event as something we need to overcome, rather than simply an event, which has occurred that, is not aligned with the outcome we want to achieve.

When you make this shift, where you no longer view any changes that you need to make or events, which are not aligned with the outcome you want to achieve, as problems, you remove the negative connotation associated with overcoming problems. You instead allow yourself to operate from a far more positive position. This subtle shift then allows you to view these changes or undesirable outcomes, which you need to make, as merely a set of different choice or decisions away. This subtle shift, will allow you to operate from a more positive position. You no longer have to overcome anything, all you need to do is make a few calculated and focused different decisions or choices and the outcome or result will change.

My experience has shown that once you make this shift away from viewing any undesirable result, as a problem you need to overcome. Instead you see it as an event which is not aligned with the outcome you want to achieve, you immediately remove the feeling of overwhelm and move into a proactive position, where you feel empowered. It is obviously far easier to make meaningful, appropriate decisions, when you are operating from a positive modality, where you feel underwhelmed. Rather than from a pressured position of overwhelm, as you tackle a problem and try you overcome it.

Change the way you look at problems and the problems will change into manageable, undesirable events, which can be altered, by simply making a few different choices or decisions. Now that you know that there is no such thing as problems, it is time to offer you a few tools to help you make better decisions. The better and more informed your decisions are, the better will be the new outcomes you will be able to achieve.

This dynamic environment we live in often requires us to make decisions, very quickly.is. The rapidly changing world we live in means we are expected to make high quality decisions almost in an instant. Deciding and acting is always the responsibility of the leader in any business. It has however become very challenging leaders to make any decisions, because of the dynamic nature of the business environment, with far more inputs and a myriad of interdependencies.

This challenge is exacerbated by the way data is presented. Reports are designed to inform, rather than to provide insights. These reports are designed to report by category or to merely offer metrics. This way of presenting data was effective, when there were fewer connections between data. This meant that there was a small gap between having information and utilising this to make any decision. The dynamic nature of the business environment and the ever shifting and changing world, has now resulted in a huge gap forming between the available information and its effectiveness as a decision making tool.

For Example: It is important to know the consumer buying habits and patterns in any market. The current way of providing reports as used by companies at the moment, only provides metrics, there is no provision made to consider crucial factors such as strategy, core competencies and the company’s competitive position. Strategy, core competencies and the competitive position of any business are the key factors, which drive any decisions, which need to be made.

It is for this reason that the current way of providing reports, where only metrics are presented, should be revised to include more relevant information around core competencies, strategy, market conditions and competitive position. It is no longer adequate to provide discrete facts, it has become crucial to provide meaningful information, which provides real answers. The information should be prepared to provide data relative to the decision, which needs to be made or that provides actual answers to crucial questions, needed to make great decisions.

For Example: most scorecard reports are designed to list categories. They list each metric, their current level of performance and then this compared to some sort of historical data. All this information is useful in certain contexts, but does not reveal the real information you need to know, when looking at a scorecard. Your goal when exploring any scorecards is most certainly not to be informed about targets, performance or history. Your role as a leader is to have meaningful information, which will give you the necessary background to allow you to create a plan and to take action. If reports are prepared with the result in mind, they will be far more effective and provide a meaningful support mechanism to any leader.

Obviously when you review a traditional report detailing categories and metrics, you will go through the report line by line. As you try to absorb all the data overwhelm, your brain will be trying to compare this data with previous information, which you have encountered and it will be filtering, eliminating and removing potentially crucial information, simply because of the information overload. We look at the data overload and try to answer the same question as we progress down the report, line by line. “Is the metric on target and what is the trend telling me”? This is a really ineffective and inefficient way of analysing data. Why ask the same question, repeatedly, when you can organise the data to allow you to discover the info you need to allow you to make any decision.

Rather create a decision or outcome driven report. This way you only present the crucial or relevant data, which you need to use to make the decision. You organise the metrics according to the question you need answered or the decision you need to make, rather than the data being organised on the report in terms of the metric, with no thought about the decision you need to make. This simplified way of analysing only the data you need, in a way that answers the question you need answered or the decision you need to make simplifies the process and allows you to get a clear picture.

This will allow you to immediately know where to focus your attention. This focused approach eliminates the need to wade through unnecessary rows and rows of repetitive data, which only overwhelms the reader. When you organise the data according to the focused approach as defined above, there is no need to wade through reams of data to get the answer. This organised, decision driven approach provides all the answers you need. The raw numbers are irrelevant, all the reader is interested in is what the numbers or trends mean and what action is required.

This approach allows you to very quickly get the answers you need and to track only the trends you need to be observing. Of course you can still analyse the raw data and use the numbers, if necessary to further understand or diagnose any challenges. The raw data or metrics are merely an input; they are not the answer you are looking for. So having all the numbers on any report, will actually just slow you down and even force you to become overwhelmed and overloaded. Too much data on any report is difficult to analyse and will result in your brain filtering or ignoring crucial information.

Action Idea: Think about all the reports you utilise to assist you when making any important decisions. Are you asking and answering the same questions on every line or even if you have become more organised and have adopted a colour coding scheme to highlight and track certain issues. Does the report actually answer the questions you have around the decision you need to make. To make the reports you use in future really effective, where they will serve as a powerful decision making tool. Organise the report to answer the real questions you have and simplify the process, by using the process I described above.
When you are rethinking how you can utilise the data you need in future, to assist you to make meaningful decisions, you need to make. Will require a major shift to the way you have operated in the past. Your historical practices of analysing, reading and attempting to analyse rows and rows of metrics, will most certainly not serve you going forward.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The Art of Making Decisions that Can Change your Life or Business


The ever increasing rate of change in our world, over the past few decades, has resulted in the challenges we face, becoming more and more complex. There is a constant barrage of data and information, through which we need to sort, before we can even begin making any decisions. These constant, accelerating changes, the vast amount of information and the complexities we face every day, has also resulted in much larger interdependencies amongst those impacted by any decision we make. All of these factors have added up and have made decision making far more difficult and complex for leaders.

The vast amount of data available and the tools, which can be used to help leaders shift through and analyse the data overwhelm, has seen leaders respond to these new complexities, by placing a far greater focus on analytics and data driven decision making. Leaders are becoming far more dependent on vast amounts of data to make decisions and are losing the confidence to listen to their internal voice of experience. They have turned down the volume on their leadership intuition and instead have learnt to trust the data to guide them, when making decisions.

I have observed a definite trend, in all the leaders, at the businesses where I consult. They have all moved toward an increased need for data and tools to analyse this data. Yet, despite, this increased attention, massively increased volume of data and tools to analyse and interpret the data, the decisions made by all these leaders does not always improve. I accept that the rapid rate of change, the complexities we face and the interdependencies amongst those impacted by every decision, makes data and analytical tools crucial to any leader. The challenge is that the leaders I have observed rely completely on the data, to guide them to make decisions.

The data and tools for analysing the data are only support mechanisms for any leader and are by no means enough on their own. The data and analytics only support the leader to make any decision and are by no means enough on their own. If any leader is to excel in their role as a leader and to ensure that the decisions they make are valid and in the best interest of all stakeholders. They must ensure that they trust their insight, experience and ability to effectively interpret all the data they receive. The reason many leaders fail to make credible decisions, is because they rely almost exclusively on the data they have analysed and they do not listen to their inner voice of experience, insight and foresight.

The second challenge I have observed in the leaders I have consulted with over the past few years, is that they are relying on analytical tools and techniques, which are outdated. If leaders are to begin making credible and effective decisions going forward, I believe that it is time to rethink how we use all the data, which is all around us and that leaders need learn to trust themselves, where they use their innate leadership intuition to analyse and more effectively utilise the data. This is best achieved when leaders commit to flex their decision making muscle, as often as possible and they work to consistently improve their skill and ability to lead and make decisions.

Effectively analysing and Utilising Data to Make Decisions

It is most certainly time to rethink how we utilise, analyse and interpret the massive amount of data all around us. The analytical tools and techniques employed by most of the leaders I have observed, were designed for a much simpler world. The rapid rate of change and the ever increasing amount of data, which is available, has seen these tools become ineffective and outdated. This means that leaders are making decisions, with flawed information. As they have begun to rely exclusively on the analysed data and have turned down the volume on their own leadership intuition and foresight, they often make ineffectual decisions, which have a negative impact on their businesses. Leaders are also allowing themselves to become overwhelmed with data overload.

Understanding How Your Brain Manages Data

Your brain is designed to work hard to map what it currently sees or observes, to what it already knows. To do this when it is overwhelmed with a vast amount of data overload, it must distort, ignore and sub optimise data. This system of comparing everything to what you already know was a very effective system forty thousand years ago, when our brains were evolving to their current structure. Back then things were pretty static and everything in our world changed really slowly. Therefore the brains ability to link all the new things it encountered to the old things it had already experienced, if not always accurate, provided our species with a survival advantage.

The challenge we face today is that we live in a vastly differently world, than we inhabited forty thousand years ago. Things are changing so rapidly in our world today, the business cycle is getting shorter and shorter, companies are developing products with an expected life cycle of only six months, completely new products, which did not even exist are created every thirty seconds today. This rate of change is not showing signs of slowing down either. The rate of change is accelerating at an ever increasing pace.

All of this means that your brain is completely overwhelmed with new data and input information, resulting in your brain kicking into a higher gear, where you distort, ignore and sub-optimise the entire data overload at an ever increasing rate. All the graphs, charts and reports become overwhelming and as such your brain will filter as much of the information as possible. This entire process happens subconsciously and so the more irrelevant data you try to utilise and analyse to make decisions, the more likely it is that your brain will filter the information and the less likely you are to see any problem data areas.

The secret to making effective decisions is to limit the data overwhelm and to ensure that all the data you utilise to guide you when making any decisions, is correctly analysed and processed before you even see it. It is also crucial that you turn the volume up on your own leadership intuition and that you once again learn to trust your experience and follow your gut feel. Flex your decision making muscle as often as possible. Become decisive and trust yourself. Too much analysis and data overwhelm, will often result in paralysis and ultimately poor decisions.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Make The Most of Your Personal Power as a Leader


All really great leaders know the few leadership secrets I am going to share with you in this article. They know that there are a few crucial personality traits, which they can use to empower themselves as leaders. These personality traits or rather personality powers, will help them to increase their level of influence and as you know leadership is all about a leaders ability to influence their team to perform optimally.
I am sure you have sat in a room where someone has put their hand to their mouth and yawned. How long did it take before everyone in the room felt a virtually uncontrollable urge to yawn themselves or put differently, mirrored their behaviour? We have billions of mirror neurons in our brains, which drive us to mirror the behaviour of the people around us. These mirror neurons are crucial to our development and help us to learn and grow. Any great leader knows how to use this concept and knows that emotions are contagious, or rather that the people around them mirror the emotions they project to the world.
Your Emotions are Contagious
When any leader consistently projects an aura of enthusiasm to everyone around them, everyone in their team, feels more excited and driven to participate in supporting the team’s success. The more excited a leader is about accomplishing anything, the more excited and driven everyone in their team will be to help the leader succeed. Emotions are most certainly contagious and so, the more passion you have for your life and everything you do, the more charisma you will project and the more driven people in your team will be to co-operate with you as their leader. Every great leader, who has lived has been passionate and driven by a cause greater than them and as a result, has attracted the support and co-operation of a myriad of people, who supported them to achieve the outcome they wanted.
As people mirror the behaviour of the people around them it is crucial that anyone, who wants to become a great leader, must develop expertise and competence. Any leader knows that their team will very quickly lose trust and respect in them, if they are consistently incompetent and do not possess sufficient knowledge and expertise. The opposite is also true. The more knowledge and expertise any leader has in their respective field, the easier it will be for their team to trust and respect them, as their leader. When any leader is consistently competent and leads by example, their team members will exhibit the same level of competence and willingness to always deliver their best. When you are a competent leader and consistently perform at a high level, you will naturally attract a team, who will support you and help you to succeed.
The Power of Preparation
All great leaders also know the power of preparation. The more prepared you are to lead your team, prior to tackling any task, the more your team will respect and trust you as their leader. When preparing to tackle any new task or project, it is crucial that you research and have a deep understanding of what you want to achieve. You as the leader must have an overall vision or direction that you want your team to travel in. Everyone in your team must know their individual role in delivering on this vision.
As you however introduce any new task or activity, which will assist the team to achieve this vision, you must be absolutely clear in your mind about why you need to carry out that specific task or activity. This clarity must be clearly communicated to all team members. Each team member must be left with no doubt as to their individual role in carrying out the new task or activity. Clarity and an understanding of purpose, will act to inspire all team members and allow them to completely support you as their leader. The more prepared you are as a leader, where you have invested time to think through different scenarios, considered numerous possibilities and explored all the different ramifications. The more you will be able to positively influence and inform your team about the new project and their role in achieving the outcome you need.
As any great leader knows, you lead by example. Always strive to do things right the first time and everyone in your team will soon mirror this positive behaviour too. You and everyone in your team is a work in progress, show your commitment to keep growing and expanding and you will very quickly see all your team members show a willingness to keep growing themselves.
Action Idea: What can you do from today to make a real difference to you as a leader?
  • Get excited and passionate about your teams goals and project this enthusiasm to everyone in your team. You will be amazed at how quickly the members of your team will start to exhibit the same level of enthusiasm and willingness to support you as their leader.
  • Commit to constantly grow and expand in every area of your life and encourage every team member, with your example, to do the same. Your encouragement and example will most certainly, over time, encourage everyone in your team to grow, learn and expand themselves.
  • Show your belief and commitment to every team member and ensure that they are completely clear about their individual role on delivering on the team’s vision.
  • Always ensure that you are adequately prepared and strive to always be the example you want your team members to be.

When you commit to introduce these few new behaviours and you bring these few new action ideas into your leadership style, you will very quickly see a dramatic improvement in the performance of all your team members and ultimately the results you will achieve.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Share in the Abundance, Which Ebbs and Flows all Around Us


I very often get asked by people, why I write an article every day, in which I aspire to add inspiration to as many people’s lives as possible and freely share my take on personal development. They cannot understand how I can give so freely to others and ask nothing in return. My answer is always very simple, we live in an abundant universe and the more we are willing to share and give to others. The more open we are to receive ourselves.
Imagine standing with your hands clasped tightly against your chest, where you are attempting to cling onto everything you know and possess, so that no one can get any of it. Those clasped or closed hands can only hang on to what you have; it is very difficult for them to open so they can gather anything more. Contrast that picture with someone, who stands with open hands, freely sharing everything they know and possess, with others. Yes those open hands do give away plenty. But they are open and welcoming, inviting so much more into their experience.
I believe that the secret to creating a life of meaning and living a fulfilling experience, where you constantly grow, expand and share your abundance with others, is to strive to be a person of value, rather than a person, who possesses trinkets and a vast fortune. There is an incredible quote written by Albert Einstein, which epitomises this concept. “Try not to become a man of success but rather become a man of value” The more value I am able to add to the lives of others, the more value, love and grace flows into my life. Every act of kindness you are able to bestow on people around you, will not only fill the receiver with joy and happiness, but will allow you to feel good too.
When you are no longer self-focused and you consistently think abundant thoughts, in which you are outward looking and you actively look for ways to help and grow the people around you. It is almost magical, how many people around you do exactly the same for you. What you think about, you bring about. When you are thinking positive, good, sharing thoughts and you are in a modality of always looking to improve the lives of the people around you, exactly that will be reflected back at you. I am most certainly not suggesting that you give to others, with a deep rooted expectation that you will get something in return. The very thinking, which goes with that selfish motivation, will have you thinking thoughts and acting in ways, which will interrupt the flow of abundance into your experience.
Imagine what a wonderful, abundant world we would inhabit, if everyone gave freely of themselves and only wanted the best for everyone around them. Imagine if we all wanted to be people of value, or rather people, who add real value to our world. This planet would be incredible. Start to play you role today, no matter how small and strive to add some value to someone in your environment. As you strive to be a person of value, in every facet of your life, career, financial, spiritual, family, social, etc, you may give away more than you are accustomed to at first. However it is my deep rooted belief that if you have an abundant mind-set and you give freely without the expectation of ever receiving anything in return, where you strive to give as much value to those around you as possible, you will see buckets of success and abundance flow into your life.  
Accepting that there is abundance all around you and becoming a value adder, is not a part time shift that you need to make. It must become your new way of thinking and acting from this moment on. When all of us become value adders and we have open hearts, hands and heads, where we share freely, we invite happiness and abundance into our lives too.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Real winners never cross the line, they Keep Moving the Goal Posts


Whenever I watch the athletes being interviewed, before the Olympic Games I can quickly tell who the winners and who the participants will be. The most reliable way of doing this is by simply listening, to their answers, during sports interviews. Those that say “I am just glad to be here” are not going to be wearing the champion’s rings, when the games are over. They have achieved their goals before the games even started.

As you move through the different phases in your life and you get to achieve your goals. You have to continually set more, new and ambitious ones, which will constantly stretch and challenge you. Real great, long term, sustainable success is the result of not only setting and achieving big goals, but is about constantly getting and creating new goals along the way. Super achievement is not about “goal setting”, it is the result of a constant hunger, for consistent growth, in other words, you must be a new goal getter.

Vision and success is a direction, never a destination. The secret to living a life of meaning and fulfilment is to know that, yes, we must achieve a few milestones along our journey towards the success, we have envisioned. But they are merely milestones, not the reason we started the journey in the first place. A young man may set a goal to mow 100 people’s lawns during his summer vacation, so that he can buy an old jalopy to impress his girlfriend. Once he has earned sufficient money and actually bought the car, the real lesson and purpose of setting the goal in the first place, was never to impress his girlfriend. It was to learn the crucial lesson of solid work habits and experiencing the joy of setting and achieving a goal.

Accumulating sufficient money to actually buy the car is of course a wonderful reason to celebrate. He has after all reached a really fantastic milestone on his journey toward meaning and fulfilment. The secret to sustain this success and to keep moving in the direction of the success he desires, is to immediately set an even more ambitious goal, which will keep stretching him and moving him down the path of growing and becoming. Remember that “As you become more, you will constantly keep attracting more”.

The lessons learned by the young boy, that setting goals, applying daily discipline and hard work to anything, he wants to achieve, will result in a desirable outcome. Has most certainly allowed him to grow expand and become more. As the universal law say, “As you become more, so you will attract more” This young man has thus started his sustainable success journey through life. To live a life of meaning and fulfilment and where he can achieve true success. He must keep moving the goal posts and keep setting and getting more and more ambitious goals as he reaches each milestone.

There are so many companies, which were really amazing blue-chip companies at one time, but have faded into just memories today. Companies like Studebaker, W.T Grant and Triumph Motor cycles. These companies had a goal of reaching the top, which they did, but they allowed themselves to falter, because, they never moved the goal posts and expanded their game. I am sure that you have seen it happen to people around you. The sales guru, who topped the charts for years and then overnight, everything just falls apart and they tumble off the no. one slot, all the way to the bottom. Tiger Woods is a perfect example of this. Yes there was infidelity and too many women involved in his life to count, but the real reason he fell from the number one slot and is finding it difficult to get back on top, has nothing to do with infidelity. It has everything to do with reaching the pinnacle of success and then not moving the goal posts.

As you set and achieve goals, always stretch yourself, by setting more and more ambitious ones. Never allow yourself to lose your way and think you have reached your destination. Don’t lose your hunger, desire and your need to keep growing, innovating and expanding. It is extremely unlikely that you will ever exceed your own expectations. So dare to dream big, set big hairy audacious goals and as you get close to crossing the line and achieving any goal you have set, keep moving the goals posts and becoming more.


Monday, May 21, 2012

Allow Your Excellence to Shine


Our level of productivity and the delivery of the commitments we make to our future success, is seriously under threat, due to our lack of commitment to carry out the necessary daily actions, we know are needed, to deliver our dreams.  We are so wrapped up in doing our daily JOB (Just Over Broke) that we never make time available for the really important task of making time available to work on our goals and plans that will create the future we really desire. Stop allowing your lack of discipline, to carry out the small daily actions, needed to succeed, from stopping you living your brilliance.

Strive to become and remain inspired, stay focused on your success, work to remain creative and make time available for the important task of carrying out the daily small disciplines that will move you one small step at a time, closer and closer to your dreams.

Stay tapped in to the flow of your excellence and creativity and allow your brilliance to shine with every small, disciplined action you complete daily. Ensure that you make the necessary time available, to carry out the actions needed, by planning your week in advance and setting aside time slots every day in which you will perform these activities. I refer to these time slots as “meetings with my future”.

These meetings are cast in stone and should something really urgent and unavoidable come up, these “meetings with your future” must be rescheduled, never ever cancelled. These meetings or time slots in your daily agenda are as important as meetings with one of your most important clients and must be treated as such. If something really urgent comes up, you would reschedule an appointment with your clients, you would never summarily just cancel it. These meetings with yourself are really crucial if you are to ever move out of the rut that you may be stuck in.

Earl Nightingale was quoted as saying that he can tell exactly how successful someone will be, purely by looking at the daily agenda. Are you satisfied with your daily agenda? Will it lead you to the dreams you hold so dear?

As long as you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always got. Develop the discipline to carry out the necessary daily actions needed to realise your dreams and goals, keep your commitment to remain focused and driven to keep carrying out your daily commitments and your success becomes inevitable. 
Upgrade your circuitry of your productivity, daily discipline, time allocation and commitment to your dreams and you will manifest the most incredible life for yourself and your family. When you develop the new success habit set of consistent daily action that is focused specifically on realising your dreams, your success will feel effortless and you will start to live a complete and fulfilled life.

Commit to create a new routine that is focused on ensuring that you move out of the rut of “only getting through your day”, where all your effort is focused on simply surviving and rather move to a place where you “see what you can get from every day”, by committing to a few daily disciplines focused on carrying out tasks geared to realising your dreams.