Are you falling into the 2016 New Year’s Resolution Trap?
As we end 2015 and start looking out into 2016, I know most people have already started the process of creating those “New Year’s Resolutions” that we “know” we need to create; however, I encourage you not to be one of those people.
I encourage you to look at this process differently this year……
Here are eight simple principles to make 2016 an outstanding year for you:
1. Be intentional about your success. Be deliberate and purposeful about it. Success doesn’t find you, you have to create it. This year we were honored to be part of the early release of John Maxwell’s Intentional Living book and 30 Day Journey program. If you have not taken advantage of this book and program, you can explore that at this link: CLICK HERE to access the 30 Day Journey, truly a life transforming program!
2. Learn to think. Go within. Nothing will shift the quality of your personal and professional life more than making a habit of thinking. If you find addressing the coaching questions in your Success Implementation Guides tough, so you should – it’s because they make you think. Do it for long enough and you won’t find it tough anymore. It’s only tough now because you don’t think on a regular basis (if you do at all).
3. Grasp the principle of the power of proximity. Your environment shapes you and has a MASSIVE bearing on your success. Have the wisdom to create or join an inner circle that stretches you, an environment conducive to growth and fuller expression, one that seems well above your pay grade, full of the kind of people with the kind of results you aspire to. That’s what members of my Entrepreneurial Mastery Inner Circle have done, and I’ve done the same with my mentors. Every highly successful entrepreneur has a deliberate and carefully considered inner circle in their lives. The strugglers and mediocre folks don’t. At best they congregate at BNI, Chamber of Commerce and Institute of Directors with every other ‘average’ business owner.
4. For goodness sake investment in yourself. If you don’t your doomed. Money exists as a means of exchange, so you can aquire something else that adds value and brings you greater return. Nothing adds value more or brings you a greater return than investing in yourself. Put your money where your potential is, and that is in YOU! It will bring you the greatest return on investment you’ll ever see, compounding year on year for the rest of your life.
5. Take risks. There’s no growth without them. And forget so-called ‘calculated’ risks – that’s just another way of saying a ‘safe risk,’ which is an oxymoron in itself. If it won’t hurt – and hurt a lot – it’s not a risk.
6. Suspend the need to know how. Concern yourself only with the why. You can’t possibly know ‘how.’ If what you are intending to achieve is big enough to scare you as well as excite you (if it doesn’t do either, it’s not worthy of you) and represents significant growth, you couldn’t possible know ‘how.’ No one in the history of mankind has ever achieved anything of significance by knowing ‘how’ – what they did know was their why. Know yours, and the rest will take care of itself.
A simple reminder is back when you started to learn how to ride a bike…..you didn’t know how, but you had a desire! You didn’t know how, but you took the risk….see above. Then you probably fell off and sometimes it may have hurt….but you learned how by doing! So this year, take a risk and learn…even if you don’t know how!
7. Be persistent in your pursuits. We’ll subjected to more information in a day in 2016 than the average person received in a lifetime a hundred years ago. ‘The magpie effect,’ or ‘shiny object syndrome’ is a very real threat to your success. You can’t afford to be distracted from your purpose by alternative opinions, opposition, or other opportunities. As Napoleon Hill noted: “Riches do not respond to wishes. They respond only to definite plans, backed by definitive desires, through constant persistence.” Make persistence the muscle you hone in 2016….Don’t quit!
8. Finally, model success, not struggle or mediocrity. Choose your mentors wisely. Look into them not up to them. The world is full of self-annointed ‘coaches’ (most of whom have no understanding of what coaching is), self-styled ‘guru’s’ and ‘business consultants,’ all proclaiming they’ve got the answers you need. They haven’t. You have. Make sure you’re learning from someone who’s demonstrated by results AND their skill set that they can add significant value to you and your life. In a future post we will be discussing how to find a mentor and a coach and the questions to ask when you meet with them.
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