Archive for the 'Self Improvement' Category

Ever wondered why some people are successful and some seem to always struggle? Obviously there are many reasons, but if you study the lives of successful people, and successful organizations, you will find some common denominators. I have spent my entire career studying these type people and organizations, and have found the following to be traits that we all need to apply (and reapply) to our lives.

Follow your passion. One of the key elements to success in life and business is having a passion for what you do. There is no limit to what you can accomplish when you feel passionate about it. Passion is the fuel that gets you out of bed in the morning, helps you endure while performing tasks that you don’t consider enjoyable, and gives you the strength to successfully deal with problems and challenges. To find your passion you might ask yourself the following questions:

• What would I do if I could not fail?
• What would I do if I had all the money in the world?
• What situation (on the evening news or in the daily paper) touches my heart the most?
• What type person, culture, lifestyle, and/or material item am I drawn to the most?

Have a clear idea about what you want to do. In just a few days most of us will do the same the same thing. Along about the time we are watching the New Year’s Day parade we will begin to think about 2006. We will begin dreaming about what we want to accomplish, how much weight we want to lose, or the relationships we hope to have formed by year’s end. Most call these New Year’s Resolutions, but by the end of the year we look back and realize that we didn’t accomplished all that we had hoped to accomplish.

How to accomplish your resolutions, or you may call them goals? There are three basic but very important steps to take.

• Dream what you want.
• Decide why you want it.
• Determine a plan to get it. This is the step that I feel most people leave out, but perhaps could be the most important of the three.

Find a niche and be the best you can be. Booker T. Washington once said, “Do the common things uncommonly well.” John Eldredge in Wild At Heart wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Both of these people give us good advice. Once you find what makes you come alive, and do it uncommonly well, you will discover that you have found your passion. If your passion turns out to be a love for the elderly then find your niche in helping or working with senior adults in your community.

[As you can see, all of these traits connect to one another.]

Make a difference. It has been said that the only thing that lasts long after you are gone is the relationships that you leave behind. In some respects that is true. All the money you made will not be in your pocket, and property deeds will not be along side you in your coffin. However, there is something else that will continue long after you pass from this world to the next. If you look into the history books you will find people that made a difference. We still feel the impact of their existence. I can think of at least two things that you can begin doing today that will extend your difference making ability long after you are gone.

• Live a life that is worth remembering and writing about. Statues in the town square are always erected in the memory of someone that made a real difference, and most are of people that did the common things uncommonly well.
• Start something that will out live you. “Like what”, you ask? Well, there is a person that you probably have never heard of, his name is Grant Powell. About twenty years ago Grant moved his little family to a small unheard of town in Florida. He had a dream of making a real difference in the community and worked hard at doing just that. After being in that town for about ten years Grant and his wife Jennifer begin to have a dream of starting a private school that would not only teach the “3 Rs” but would do it with class and excellence.

This school is now a reality with hundreds of children attending each day, and ground being broken for new educational buildings to be built. In short, Grant has started something that will not only out live him, but his children and their children.

Keep it simple. There is an old saying that I would like to change. You might have heard it put this way; K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid. I would like to change it to be Keep It Short and Simple. Many times we make life so complicated. Some of us carry a cell phone in their pockets, keep a PDA on our desks, and two or three calendars pasted to our refrigerators. The secret is to do what you do best and stick to it. Don’t make things more complicated than they are. Much of this is a mental exercise that you must go through each day. If you apply the following examples you will live a very simple life.

• Live your life to the fullest each and every day.
• Love your family members as if you will never see them again.
• Let your passion drive your career.

Go with your instincts. Never under estimate your instincts or intuition. If you have to work hard at selling yourself on an idea, it is probably not a good idea. Your instincts are like muscles, they get stronger the more you use them.

Value your time and be a good time manager.

• Take Charge. Decide now that you will get on top of managing your own time. Remind yourself that poor time-management is nobody else’s responsibility but your own.
• Be Decisive. Don’t put off decisions. Remember there’s often time later to reverse an early decision, there’s rarely time to correct a late one.
• Prioritize. Decide what is worth an allocation of your precious time and what is not. Don’t let others set your time agenda.
• Plan extensively. You can use a pocket or desktop PC, or a Franklin organizer, either way take five minutes each morning to review the day ahead. And…
  • Plan tomorrow today.
  • Plan next week this week.
  • Plan next month this month
  • Plan next year this year.
• Delegate. Give away what others can do so they can begin to reach their potential, and you yours.

One of my favorite sports, and has been most of my life, is stockcar racing. I have spent hours sitting on a hard bleacher watching 43 drivers go over 200mph, and doing it just inches from each other. It is a sport that has evolved from a bunch of moon-shiners showing off their “beefed up” cars to now a multi-million dollar industry full of high-tech computerized equipment. In the middle of all these high powered engines, fast turns, and million dollar pay checks are some basic principles to winning your own race; life. Below are five of those principles first explained in racing terminology and then compared to your life.

Mental Preparation

In a driver’s mind, the race has to start before he ever arrives at the track. The driver and his team have to be mentally prepared to endure whatever it takes to win. That’s the No. 1 priority, the No. 1 goal: Win.

In order for you to win, or overcome your day’s challenges, you must be mentally prepared. I have found that mental preparedness and success in my day comes from…

• Preparing and planning the day before.
• Expecting the best but being prepared for the worst.
• Remembering to keep God first in my day - long before my appointments and tasks.

Sound Car

Every racetrack is going to have its peculiarities and a different set of problems to solve, but the driver and crew must identify them beforehand and factor that information into the set-up of the car. Adjusting the car to each track is the single, greatest challenge, week-in and week-out, for every driver and team. Every piece of equipment on the car must be thoroughly checked. The engine has to be lovingly massaged by every member of the crew that works on it. By the time the green flag drops on Sunday afternoon, car, driver and team must be as one and as close to perfect as possible.

The better we stick to our priorities the more successful we will be. If priorities are what keeps us heading in the right direction, then our plans are the equipment that must be adjusted and analyzed with a fine-toothed comb. The old saying is true, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Track Position

Track position is the key of keys when it comes to winning a race. The secret to establishing track position comes down to risk. While the crew chief can keep a driver posted on what his car can do, knowing when and where to do it is still left up to a driver’s instincts. Trying to pass a car that’s going the same speed is very difficult. You need the right combination of timing, knowledge of the track and experience.

Track position in racing is just as important as being in the right position at the right time in life. It has been said, “It is not what you know, but who you know that counts.” That may very well be true, but if you are not in the right place at the right time it does not matter. So the question is, “How can you be in the right place at the right time so you can capitalize on the opportunity?” The answer, at least for me, is to focus on preparing for the opportunity instead of always looking for the opportunity. I am of the opinion that if you prepare well enough the opportunities seek you out.

Pit Stops

Making up time on the track, only to give it back in the pits, is one of the surest ways to stay out of Victory Lane. While most pit stops routinely take between 12 and 15 seconds, and might only occur four or five times a race, they can combine to total the most significant minute in a three-hour race.

A pit stop in your life is R&R, rest and relaxation. Most of us live lives going Mach 3 with our hair on fire, and love every minute of it. However, pit stops are the key to life’s success. Just like in racing, the pit stops in our lives are short and few in number. But they are extremely important. Also, as in racing, our pit stops must be intentional, planned out, and effective. The goal of each pit stop in our life should be to refuel our tanks, clean our view of life, and provide strength enough to overcome life’s challenges.

Luck

If luck is where preparation meets opportunity, then bad luck is where preparation meets circumstance. More times than not, cars involved in accidents really did nothing wrong. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is inevitable that a certain amount of bad luck will take place at every race.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds just like my life. I have found that bad things do happen to good people, and that good luck shines just as often. Many times it is our perspective and attitude towards things that makes all the difference.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that one or all of these keys will help you win life’s race today.