First of all, success is maximizing your God given potential.

Secondly it can be defined as this: doing the best you can with what you have where you are. Success is not circumstantial. Some of the most successful people are those in the worst of circumstances, but they make the most of them. That’s success.

A third definition: the people who know you the best respect you the most. We care way too much about what strangers think of us, but they won’t be the ones at our graveside. I want my wife and my kids to respect me the most.

Definition four: success is trying until the day you die. I think most of us give up on our dreams much too easily and way too quickly. We stop trying, but why? If you’re still trying you’re succeeding!

One key to success is not worrying about the outcome. Winning or losing isn’t the issue. Trying is winning!

The measure of success is this: how hard did you try?

If you pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you, you cannot fail.

I know, it may sound a little corny to some of you. However, knowing your “why” is one of the most important steps in achieving any goal or getting through any project or anything that you do. In fact, “why” is the most important word when setting any goal. If you don’t know why you want something, then you probably don’t need it or want it and most likely you won’t ever achieve it.

When ever you do anything out of the norm or you want to try something new or you are just taking a close look at your current life and the things you are doing or want to do, it is critical to know your why. Is your why in line with your values? One of the first steps is to imagine what it will be like when you are there. What will it feel like? What will you be doing? What will you have? You need to stop, take a step back and visualize what the end result is. If you know what the end will look like, you are more likely to work harder to achieve it. “Begin with the end in mind” ~Stephen Covey~

If you have trouble understanding the fundamental of why, try asking yourself, at least five times, why?  The first answer is likely to be somewhat  empty and without substance. However, with each successive answer you will be digging down deeper and deeper into the true reason for your goal. This is truly not  an easy exercise, yet it will certainly strengthen your why once you have done it.

Frequently, people have great ideas and get enthusiastic about them only to talk ourselves out of moving forward because of the “hows” or the “whats”. We start asking ourselves, “How will I ever do that?” or “What was I thinking?” or “I don’t know enough about that so I’ll never be able to do it”. There are many of reasons not to do something, so your “why” has to be strong enough to get you through.

Once you understand your why, the hows and the whats will just seem to appear. They will no longer be the obstacles they appeared to be. If the why is strong enough, resources will show up or you will be inspired to seek out the answers wherever they may be. The internet, people we know, books are all great sources of information that will help remove the fog of the unknown. If your why is strong enough, you will do everything  and anything in your power to find out how to make it happen.

Conceptualize with a friend, using a trusted mentor to bounce ideas off, or using a coach are some of the ways that will help you discover your why, get your whats and hows organized and prioritized. Keep on your toes though, your why may not be good enough for other people and they will try very hard to discourage you. Be careful of who you tell your goals to, and know that they may not understand your why.

What is one thing that you would really like to accomplish? Now ask yourself why you’d like to accomplish that. Think about it for a few minutes. What will that accomplishment give you? Will it serve others? Once you know the why, close your eyes and visualize what it will be like when you achieve it. Hold that picture and make a mini-video of what you will be like, what you will feel like and what it will mean to others. Run that video in your mind first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Remember, we become what we think about.

Are you ready to fire your boss,
set your own hours, and start making
MONEY working part-time from
the comfort of your home?

True Financial Freedom!

True Financial Freedom means having all the money you could ever want AND having time available to enjoy it.

And that’s what this home business can do for you.

Definition of Change
1. to become different
2. to become altered or modified
3. to become transformed or converted
4. to pass gradually into

To become different you must THINK differently. To become altered or modified you need to ACT on your needs and desires and to transform you will need to FEEL the transformation you want to become. You do this by thinking outside the box, acting outside the box and start feeling outside the box.
If you think you can’t – you can’t! If you feel frustrated – you will give up! If you do nothing – you’ll do nothing!
If you currently do something you don’t like to do, but have to do it to live you have a couple of options. First, stop doing it! In most cases that’s not possible, you need the money so you do the job and complain about it every second you get a change to complain. As a matter of fact many people that hate what they do spend more time complaining about it than they do at it. Your second option is to change the way you THINK about what you do. Start thinking about what this provides to you. Money, food, shelter, vacations perhaps, activities for your kids maybe.
There are so many reasons we do things we don’t like to do. You need to find something you love to do and that will make you an income and do it. Imagine, doing something you love everyday and making money money from it, would you stop complaining? You see most don’t think they can do this because they need their current job – that they hate – to survive. Well start thinking different. Use your current job to continue paying the bills and to also start financing what you love to do until what you love is making enough money to allow you to stop doing what you hate. Whew… that’s a lot to absorb. It’s really simpler than it sounds. Simply start THINKING differently and make a plan to change. ACT on the plan. Don’t just make a plan and wish for it to happen because it won’t. This is what most do and they wonder why they don’t hit their goal. You have to do what you say you are going to do. Keep a journal or get a buddy to keep yourself accountable and set specific time lines to meet your goals. Change the way you ACT.
Finally, change the way your FEEL. I know I have heard it before, ‘but you can’t just change the way you feel’, well I am here to tell you that you can and you must. If you tell yourself or others that you feel like crap, then you’ll feel like crap. If you tell yourself or others ‘this is the greatest day of my life’ then it will be the greatest day of your life to that point and you can do this every single day. You need to change how you feel. Start right now by telling yourself and others that ’2010 is the best year of my life’. Not ‘will be’ or ‘could be’ but ‘IS’ every day and see what starts to happen.
So, change is in you. Change three things and watch everything else around you start to change.
Change the way you THINK – Think positive!
Change the way you ACT – Do what you love!
Change the way you FEEL – Everyday can be the best day of your live!

2010 is the best year ever!
Cheers

“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” -Napoleon Hill

There are so many people that wait until everything is just right or until the stars are lined up, they have their ducks all in order or they have all the tools, they think they need, to get started and they never end up starting at all!  If you are sitting on the fence of making a decision or wondering how, when or where to start, just take the advice of the late Napoleon Hill…”Start where you stand”!

If you haven’t read “Think and Grow Rich” – by Napoleon Hill, I recommend that you get it and take the time to read it, it will change your life – It’s changing mine!

Thank you to DeMarr Zimmerman for giving me the idea for this post in an email he sent. I borrowed some of you message DeMarr… Thanks.

The “would have”, “could have” and “should have” excuse really isn’t going to get you very far. The reality is that you can’t turn back time. All you have left is the opportunity to start now – from this very second. The trouble is that we don’t! It’s such a simple thing to do. But so few people do it. The principle is straightforward: Start now to change your life for the better… start dreaming big.

Do you believe that success is hit-or-miss? Or that successful people are simply lucky, or they were probably born rich? If your finances are not where you’d like them to be, having little to no money is not the problem; it is simply a symptom of what you are doing and your mind set. If your career, finances or just your life in general are not where you want them to be, stop playing the blame game. Don’t blame it on your education, your boss, or your failed ventures. It’s because you are not dreaming big enough or you are not doing anything to act on your dream.

Nobel Prize winner Anatole France once said, “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” We need a dream, and we need to dream big! In business terminology, the dream is typically called the Vision, and it defines the final destination of your business. This can also be the case for your personal life as well. The dream tells you where you are going and becomes, in effect, your compass.

Start dreaming big or begin now to do something that has long been a dream, something that makes you approach each new day as a journey to accomplish what you want and desire. Follow your compass.

2010 is going to be a fantastic journey for me, my family and those that choose to be around me. I know where I want to be by the end of the year and have a good idea how I going to get there. I AM DREAMING BIG, how about you?

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year To All.

Mike