Things You Can Learn From A Dog

Yesterday I was talking about what you focus on is what grows and this evening we were very entertained by the small hairy member of our family putting that into action.

There was a packet of her favourite biscuits up on a bookshelf and she wanted one but she couldn’t reach them. She sat underneath the bookshelf and kept looking over at us to let us know what she wanted. She was offered kibble but she wasn’t interested, she was focused on the biscuits and nothing else would do. When she realised just sitting there wasn’t working she started barking and was quickly told to be quiet. Next she started trying to figure out how to climb up onto the bookshelf by herself. Eventually I gave up and up and gave her what she wanted.

So here’s the lesson to learn from a 9 inch high Lhasa Apso – if you’re persistent and consistent enough in going after what you want, eventually someone will come along and help you to get it!

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Ooops!

OK I had all sorts of good intentions today but I got sucked into watching a fabulous tennis match between Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin Del Potro. So I’m sorry folks, this is all you’re getting tonight!

What do you mean its not a tennis video? It’s about Wimbledon isn’t it?

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Passion Is The Answer

If success isn’t always as easy as we’d like it to be then the answer is to love what you do and do what you love.

That way even if things are not going according to plan at least you get to do what you love and it always makes it a lot easier to stick to a plan when its something you’re passionate about.

Passion is what gives you the energy to keep going when things get tough and even more important, it gives you the power to keep going when things get frantic!

Passionate people are always attractive. People just love to talk to them and be near them! Just watch the difference in a friends face as they switch from talking about the traffic to talking about their children – its as if someone has switched the lights on! Imagine living and working with that energy every day!

Even if you think your job is a bit boring, you can energise yourself with the power of passion by constantly re-focusing on the bits you do love! Even if they’re only very small bits. Remember – what you focus on is what grows.

And if you can find someone in your office that loves to do the things you hate, you can swap with them and do more of the things you love – that way you’ll both be more efficient and productive and you’ll both be doing what you love. Its a win-win all round.

Even if your job is really boring or your boss is a dinosaur, injecting  passion into everything you do will make you stand out from the crowd and attract the people who will really appreciate working with you!

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Human Being Or Human Doing?

There’s been a bit of debate flying around about whether we should define ourselves by what we do rather than by what we are. The tendency for most people is to identify themselves with their profession – “I’m a doctor”, “I’m a teacher”, “I’m a rocket scientist”. The challenge is what happens when, for whatever reason, you stop doing doctor stuff, or teacher stuff or rocket scientist stuff? You may retire or lose your job or just decide to do something different and if you only identify yourself by what you do, there’s a good chance you’re going to have a problem. Who are you when you’re not doing any more?

So if someone asked you “what are you?”, rather than “what do you do?”, how would you answer it? I would guess for a lot of people that would be a really challenging question. And possibly even rather intrusive. But if you were to answer it, would you say you were stressed, tired, angry, overwhelmed, out of control, unhappy?  Or would you say you were inspired, happy, in love with life, energised, spiritual, focused, calm, loving?

The chances are if you were really honest there would be elements of both. As much as we’d like to be positive all the time, the reality is you can’t have “up” without having “down”! But, as always, what you focus on is what grows and if you focus on the negative aspects of your being, very quickly you will become “depressed” which is not a helpful state. Focusing on the positive means you will always have access to the energy you need to create the results you desire.

The reality is we live in the material world and some, in fact most, people will identify us by what we do. What we need to always be aware of is that whatever we do, we focus on doing it in a joyful, positive, inspired way.

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Chocolate Has Consequences

Actually everything does! Every single action you take, every thought you have, every emotion you feel and yes, sadly every Easter Egg you ate will eventually show up somewhere in your results.

Its easy to convince ourselves that its just a little slip and it doesn’t really matter but the reality is all these little slips quickly add up and take us further and further from where we really want to be.

The problem is, the further away we get from where we want to be, the easier it is to convince ourselves that we don’t need to be there, or worse, that we don’t deserve to be there. And getting back on track gets more and more difficult.

That’s why its really important to check in with yourself on a regular basis to make sure you are still on track. Its much easier to make adjustments when you’re only slightly off course than to wait until you are so far away you need a map to get back!

Writing out your list of short term, medium term and long term goals every day is a fantastic way to keep yourself focused on where you want to be. Keeping the goals that inspire you at the forefront of your attention will make sure you take action in the areas that will most quickly get you there, and will also fire up your subconscious to look out for inspiration.

Another tool that can be really useful is to redo your wheel of life every month – that way you can keep an close eye on your motivation levels as well as your achievements and deal with any loss of enthusiasm quickly before it has a chance to do any damage.

Remember, the path from where you are now to where you want to be is rarely a straight line, but using these tools on a regular basis will certainly make the journey quicker, less stressful and more fun!

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Putting Things In Perpspective…

There’s not a lot I can add to this!

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Work To Your Strengths

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

Its  a funny thing about us humans but we seem to have this obsession with focusing on the negative, and one of the ways it manifests is for us to feel we constantly need to be working on our weaknesses.

When I was in school I was rubbish at Maths but really good at English and Art. So as a result I got extra maths classes. It didn’t make one bit of difference to me – I was bored to tears with the numbers thing and spent all of the classes sitting at the back of the room drawing caricatures of everyone and writing limericks about them!

If only we would focus on improving our strengths, how much happier, healthier and wealthier we would be. We don’t need to be good at everything and, if we try then the best that will happen is we will be mediocre at lots of things.The world’s most successful people have figured this out – that’s one of the reasons why they have the time to be successful!

When you focus on your strengths you are automatically more intelligent, you are working with joy and passion and you are less stressed so you are 100% more productive, efficient and motivated. There are plenty of people around you who can do the things you are not good at. In fact they would probably love to do the things you’re not good at but instead they are struggling with the tasks you are brilliant at!

In my class at school there were no math prodigies taking extra classes – no, they were all being forced to suffer through extra English and Art!

So figure out what it is you are really great at and what you love to do and find people to work with who love what you hate! They will be so happy that you found them!



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Why Gurus Suck

OK, maybe I’m being a bit mean here. Some of them are good friends of mine and I have, on many occasions, flown half way round the world to learn from them. Mostly the top guys (and girls) are incredible motivational speakers and leave you with a broader, more inspired view of the possibilities for your life. They are absolutely brilliant at what they do.

However, coaches they are not. And here’s why:

Being coached by these “gurus” is a bit like asking Michaelangelo for painting lessons when you have never even picked up a brush. Or asking Jenson Button to help you pass your driving test. Or getting Rafael Nadal to give you tennis lessons – OK, I have to admit that does appeal! Yes, it does amazing things for your ego to say you’re being coached by the best of the best but in reality very few of them have learned to talk to you and empower you at a level you can work at now.

Your coach needs to be able to communicate, empathise, and empower you at the very edge of your comfort zone or just outside it. You need to be able to reach up to your coach at a stretch, but if he or she is at the very top of the ladder and you are only half way up they’re not going to be much use to you.

Coaching is not motivational speaking one on one!

Many of the gurus will tell you exactly how to do things to get the results they got, but they’re telling you what they know, not what you need to know! There’s a big difference. What you need to do where you are is very different from what they need to do where they are.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still travel half way round the world to be inspired by Mark Victor Hansen or Bob Proctor but in a coach I want someone who can say “I’ve been where you are and I remember how it feels”. The best motivators are rarely the best teachers.

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Willpower or Passion?

Its funny how often people talk about willpower being such an important element in success. What if success had absolutely nothing to do with willpower? Wouldn’t that be so much more fun?

If you think about it it makes perfect sense. Think about your absolute most favourite way to spend your free time – for me its scuba diving. Exactly how much willpower do I need to muster up to go scuba diving? None at all of course. Everything I have to do is worth it, the crazy early start, loading the car up, driving miles in the dark, even getting into a cold sticky wetsuit! I’m excited to do these things and none of it is hard because at the end of it I get to do something I love.

So what if you could put that same energy into your goal setting? Find goals that you are truly passionate about and you never need to think about having the willpower to see them through to completion.

What makes goal setting hard is not lack of willpower, its lack of passion!

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Have A Mental Detox!

Its all very well learning how to stop negative thinking in its tracks and fill your mind with uplifting ideas but to really change your results you need to get some direction to these thoughts. Thinking happy, positive, loving thoughts is a fantastic start but its not really going to create much action and its action that is the key to all of this.

One of the most powerful ways you can direct your thinking is with a Vision Board, often called a Treasure Map – you can get precise instructions how to create one here . Creating a map of all the things you want in your life is a great way of directing your subconscious to go off and find ways to get them.

You see, while your conscious mind does the thinking, its your subconscious mind which creates the inspiration for all your thoughts and if you’re filling your subconscious mind with rubbish, then all you will inspired with is rubbish thoughts!

So its really important while you are working on your thinking to put your mind on a health food diet – think of it as a mental detox!

As much as possible avoid negative people! I know that’s not always easy so if you do have to spend time with them, visualise yourself in a bubble so that none of their negativity can get at you. Negative people are energy vampires, they just want to drag you down to their level because they’re scared and lonely down there, so have compassion for them but don’t let yourself be sucked dry!

Don’t read the newspapers or watch the news – you don’t neeed to know this stuff. No, honestly, you don’t! If something happens that directly affects you or that you need to know you will find out pretty quickly.

If you watch TV, don’t watch programmes about violence and fear. Seriously, would you invite a murderer to sit with you in your living room in the evening? Of course not! And yet that’s exactly what you’re doing when you watch shows like CSI, or Criminal Minds.

There are so many wonderful inspiring, funny, uplifting movies around you don’t ever need to contaminate your mind with the dark stuff!

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