Achieve the Impossible, One Step at a Time

Author: Andrew Horton

At some stage in your life, you still dared to dream and you had those grandiose goals and aspirations, to live a life of meaning and fulfilment. What killed that drive and determination in you? Was it because you really were dreaming the impossible  or you just simply did not have what it took or was it something else altogether? Was it because the people around you told you that what you wanted to achieve in your life or business was impossible? Eventually, after hearing that negative talk from everyone around you, you started to believe them and so you simply gave up on your dream for your life or business.

There is only one opinion that matters when it comes to following your heart and living your dreams. The opinions of everyone around you are nothing more than feedback from your environment. As you know feedback can be very useful to ensure that you have considered all the possible challenges, or to help you assess any knowledge or skills, you may require. It is seldom a reason to kill your dreams and to accept an average life, with no meaning or fulfilment.

As you know, if you have ever tried to light a campfire. Nothing will happen until that small spark hits the kindling. Those small flames, which start to flare up, in the kindling, will very quickly die out, if you do not add more of the right type of dry wood to the fire, to help build the fire and add critical mass to it. If you add huge pieces of wet wood with the bark still on it, the small fire you have created with the kindling, will be unable to ignite the big piece of wood and the small fire will quickly die out.  The same is true with any new idea or dream you may have, for your life or business. When that idea catches fire in your belly, it is important that you take action immediately, you must then keep adding the right amount daily activity, to this small flame of inspiration, to help keep the idea alive and to eventually to bring your idea to life.

Take the Right Type of action

If you do nothing and you do not take any action at all, those initial flames will obviously just die out. If on the other hand you rush headlong into attempting to turn your idea into reality, as soon as possible. You will also kill those flames of inspiration, as you will feel overwhelmed and quickly move back to your comfort zone. The simplest example I can offer here is one where someone, gets all inspired to get fit. So they sign up for a new gym contract. They rush into the gym and for the first three days, they go every day for an hour of vigorous exercise. As you know we are a pleasure seeking and pain avoiding species, so as the level of discomfort increases as we overload our bodies. We quickly lose interest and return to our comfort zone and almost immediately stop exercising altogether.

If that person had thought the process through and instead of rushing headlong into the gym, every day, they had instead, started slowly. Doing the right type of exercise, which was fun and enjoyable. Not overtaxing themselves, they would have been far more likely to keep going to the gym and their new exercise routine would have eventually become part of the daily routine. If we use this approach, to achieve any goal we want in our life or business, where we quickly take the right action, which helps to keep the flame of inspiration burning, and we keep adding the right activities to our initial action. We will gradually build up the critical mass we need to sustain our efforts and eventually achieve our goal.

Sustaining the Effort

The second challenge we have when we have a new idea, is to sustain the initial effort required, to get the idea going, when we do not see any immediate results. Imagine a hand water pump, with the water level about 3 meters below the ground. When you prime the pump (add a little water to fill the pump) and you begin pressing the handle, up and down. You will see no water come out of the spout, for quite a long time, as the water is slowly pumped from far beneath the ground and it gradually rises to towards the surface. If you stop pumping before the water gets to the surface, it will simply just return to the level it was at, before you started pumping.

This is how most people tackle any new goal, they start out taking action every day and as they do not see any progress for a while. They stop taking action, before the actions they are taking have had time to gather momentum and so they never get to see the results they desire. In the example of the water pump above, if the person pushing the lever on the hand pump, kept pushing the lever long enough, to give the water a chance to start flowing from the spout. It would take very little effort to keep the water flowing. The same is true for achieving your goals or turning ideas into something tangible and real. You need to persevere and keep taking those small actions every day until you see results. Once the results start to appear, it is really easy to sustain the effort required.

Imagine a huge horizontal flywheel, rotating on a vertical shaft. If you grabbed hold of it and applied force to start the flywheel turning. You would only manage to move the wheel a fraction. As you continue to apply force to the flywheel it will slowly, build up momentum, until it is spinning at speed. It is not the first push or any one push, no matter how big that push may have been, which allowed that flywheel to build up the speed and momentum it now has. It was the accumulation of all the small pushes, which added up to make it speed along. Exactly the same is true for the almost insignificant goal specific actions you will take every. No single small action is going to result in the success you want. It is the accumulation of all those almost insignificant actions, over time, when added together will allow you to succeed.

Achieving sustainable success is thus the result of taking action, before the idea has had a chance to fizzle out, to then keep taking small actions daily, to sustain this flame of inspiration and to use your willpower to sustain these efforts long enough to actually start seeing results. The biggest secret of all is to accept that goals are not achieved in a day, but rather daily, with sustained and determined effort.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/achieve-the-impossible-one-step-at-a-time-6004412.html

About the Author

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Do You Know What You Really Want and Do You Believe You Can Have It?

by Andrew Horton

When you walk into a dark room, you simply reach across, press the light switch on and the darkness disappears. Do you need to attend a motivational talk to inspire you to press the light switch, or do you procrastinate and contemplate the task, before you actually press the switch? No, you just press the light switch. I know this is a simplistic example, but what it illustrates, is the principal that, if you believe with absolute certainty that any activity will result in the outcome you desire. You will carry out any task, without the need for any external motivation and you will most certainly never procrastinate before carrying out that activity ever again.
Get clarity about what you want, invest the time to acquire all the knowledge and skills you need, to be absolutely certain that you can achieve it. Once you have this deep rooted belief in your ability to succeed. Carrying out the daily activities necessary to achieve that goal will become almost effortless. Believe in yourself, know with certainty that you are on the right path and that the goal specific activities you are carrying out every day, is steadily moving you along the path of success and nothing will be able to stop you from succeeding.

Using the light switch example again: If you walked into the room and pressed the switch and for some reason the light never came on. The Bulb was fused, or the power was off or the circuit breaker had tripped. Would you never press the light switch again, because you had encountered a challenge and it never worked that one time? The same is true about the actions you take every day as you move towards the success you desire. There will be times that you take a specific action and some external factor may have changed and that action does not result in the outcome you wanted. That is no reason to stop believing in yourself and to stop taking action.

It is simply an opportunity to look around for the cause, does it mean you need a little more education or do you need a few new skills, maybe you need to slow down or speed up a little, are you getting enough rest, exercise or proper nutrition? Find the tripped circuit breaker, damaged light bulb or disconnected power supply in your life. Fix whatever is wrong and move forward. Experiencing challenges on your path toward the success you desire is never a reason to stop believing in your ability to succeed. It is simply an opportunity to explore and find out why things are not working like they should be.

Circuit breakers trip, light bulbs blow and the power sometimes gets interrupted. That does not mean you must stop pressing the light switch, when you walk into a dark room, it simply means, that you need to find out why it is not working. Fix it, and when you press the switch on the next time and the next, the light will come on. The same is true for your life and business. Things are going to go wrong, challenges will come your way and things will not always work out the way you want them to. Simply explore, find what is wrong and then press on and the action you take will once again deliver the results or outcomes you want.

Stop harping on your flaws and any temporary failures you may experience. This negative self-talk is extremely destructive and does not serve you at all. Simply identify what is wrong, build a plan to fix it and move on. When the light switch does not work, when you walk into the dark room? Do you go into a tirade of self-incrimination about, why the bulb blew, do you berate yourself for hours before changing the bulb. No you search for, and discover the challenge, do the repair and enjoy the benefit of the light. If you could learn to apply the same simple process in your life and business, every time you encounter a challenge or a roadblock. You would very quickly overcome any roadblock, setback or challenge and almost immediately, get back on track.

Instead of berating yourself and constantly reminding yourself about your flaws, rather learn to celebrate your successes and achievements. Constantly look at your skill and ability. Look at all the things you are doing today, which you were unable to do a week, month or year ago. Celebrate your progress and use this progress to help keep you inspired. Give yourself regular feedback and reinforce your new positive behaviours as often as possible. Don't wait for an award, promotion, a friend or mentor to appreciate your progress. Take pride in and reward your own efforts daily. You are most certainly doing a whole lot more right every day, than you are doing wrong. Keep up your consistent positive efforts and you will eventually succeed.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew is an expert and master teacher that speaks and teaches self-leadership, expanded awareness, effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. He guides individuals and business professionals, to identify, prioritise and carry out the right activities, consistently, so that they can maximise their personal effectiveness and deliver their best; on time, every time. All the tools and techniques Andrew teaches; have been tested in the laboratory of his own life and the many successful businesses he has owned and led, over the past 20 years. These strategies have seen Andrew achieve financial independence and reach a point of harmonious balance in all areas of his life. His purpose is to help as many people as possible, achieve similar or better results and to show them how they can realise their full potential, both personal and professionally and to help them live a meaningful life, where they are fulfilled in all areas. http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Goal Setting - Why Most People Fail

By Rusty O'Connor

Goal setting is one of the most effective ways to achieve success in your life. Sadly, for many people the setting of goals ends in failure, and they deem the goal setting process to not work. There are many reasons for why the goal setting process may not have worked, this article shares with you the major reasons.

• No clear direction: If the overall outcome of the goal isn't given much thought then there is a high chance that the goal will not be achieved. To over come this you need to clearly and specifically look at what it is that you actually want to achieve and what is involved in turning your dream into a reality.
• Lack of planning: Writing a goal down on a piece of paper is a good start, but there is a lot more to the goal setting process than this. As with the above dot point you need to clearly identify what is involved in achieving the goal and develop up a clear plan of action. Following on from this the goal should then be broken into sub goals.
• No daily to do list: Again, while high level goals are good, you need to be taking action every day to help make your goal a reality. This requires a thorough knowledge of the goal and a to do list which reflects the goal.
• The goal isn't important enough: You need to remind yourself just how important the goal is for you and what it will mean for you and your family. Without this, there won't be much of an incentive for you to actually want to achieve your goal.
• Time: The process of achieving a goal isn't going to be easy. It will require a lot of work, and will take away from some of your relaxation time. You need to have a solid understanding of how long your goal will take to achieve and what it will mean to your schedule.
• Dream stealers: Yes... there are people out there who will try and take away your dreams. They will put you down and tell you that it can't be done. Firstly, always consider advice, but take it with a grain of salt. If you have done the research and know what is involved you will know that it can be done... don't let people steal your dreams and goals away.

As you can see from above there area a range of reasons why goals may not be met. Now that you know the major reasons, you can use this information to make sure that your goals will be achieved.

If you want to learn how to finally achieve your goals, then check out our free goal setting e-book at Goals Setting

Rusty O'Connor has been an avid goal setter for the past 10 years and has written numerous goal setting and time management articles and has provided in-depth advice to numerous clients. Outside of goal setting and time management, Rusty enjoys Internet Marketing, rock climbing, surfing and traveling. Rusty is married with four young children and currently lives as an expat in the Middle East.

Here's to your goal setting success!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rusty_O'Connor
http://EzineArticles.com/?Goal-Setting---Why-Most-People-Fail&id=7137833

Affirmation Quotes: Use Them To Stay Motivated

by Suzanne Glover

Affirmation quotes are a great tool to use for staying motivated when practicing any affirmations on your list of affirmations because they remind you that the affirmation process works. Many people, however, leave out affirmation quotes from their daily positive affirmations list and solely focus on just one category of affirmations. This article explains why including affirmation quotes and many other types of affirmations is valuable.

MOTIVATIONAL AFFIRMATIONS: When you think of a motivational affirmation, what comes to mind? Usually something like, "I'm motivated to [fill in the blank]." But a better motivational affirmation could be using positive thinking quotes and affirmations quotes to help you "believe" that you actually have the ability to change your beliefs. Why is this important? Because nothing changes in your "outer world" until something changes in the "inner world" of your mind. I think Albert Einstein said it very well when he said:

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions." ~ Albert Einstein

Many times when I want to remind myself that my list of affirmations actually has great power to help me change, I'll repeat Einstein's quote to myself all day as a turbo boost for confidence in the process of doing my daily positive affirmations. Another one of my favorites is from Napoleon Hill:

"Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." ~ Napoleon Hill

The fact that these two men were greatly successful also tells my subconscious that I'm repeating affirmation quotes from people who "knew what they were talking about."

POSITIVE THINKING QUOTES: Positive thinking quotes, while not directly addressing affirmations themselves, are also words of affirmation which "affirm" that positive thinking and keeping a positive attitude will make you happier or more successful.

This gives you hope and hope gives you motivation. Why? Simply because we're more motivated to get up and do something when we think that the "something" that we're doing is very possible to achieve.

This is also true with any positive affirmation that you practice because it is through these daily positive affirmations that change occurs inch by inch. I view JRR Tolkien's quote as summing it up precisely when talking about how words of affirmation, motivational affirmations, self esteem affirmations or any other daily positive affirmations on your list of affirmations work over time:

"Little by little, one travels far." ~ J R R Tolkien

In fact, if you look at your list of affirmations as the dashboard in your cockpit of your rocket ship, you'll see that every time you practice any of your daily positive affirmations, affirmation quotes, or other words of affirmation that initiate a small change in the direction of your desires, you'll realize that with every "positive affirmation button" you push on the dashboard, that you are changing the trajectory of your rocket ship "little by little" until you are on a new heading. Kind of like Star Trek when the captain initiated orders for a new bearing. This is exactly what you are doing when you are practicing your affirmation list of quotes and other words of affirmation.

In summary, using affirmation quotes or positive thinking quotes to keep your mindset filled with hope and possibility because you believe in the "process of doing affirmations" can help you stay motivated because having hope and believing in possibilities are two basic ingredients to staying motivated, which is vital when doing daily positive affirmations because they work "little by little" to create great change.

Suzanne Glover offers a list of affirmations that includes more motivational affirmations and affirmation quotes. She also gives more positive thinking quotes at effective-positive-thinking.com.

Article Source: Affirmation Quotes: Use Them To Stay Motivated

Three Steps For Taking Control of Your Future And Living Life to the Fullest

by Jane Mountrose

Are you frustrated with the direction your life is taking and ready to make some positive changes in your life? If you really want to assume command, you may be thinking you'd like to be your own boss and create a larger income and have more control of your time, so you can really enjoy life.

If this sounds like you, then you are moving into new territory, which can feel scary. On the other hand, taking charge of your future is a positive step in becoming the person you are meant to be.

In contrast to what people are saying about times being tough and prospects looking bleak, there are ways that you can create improved health, greater wealth, and more free time. And you can start today with these important success secrets.

Three Keys for Taking Command and Creating the Best Possible Life

1. Take a close look at where you are now. Taking command of your life involves living more intentionally. Most men and women are unclear about where they would most like to go and how to get there. The place to start, then, is with creating a vision of the life you desire. Decide what you'd like to get from life if you could be, do, and have anything you want, which you can.

Most people miss this critically important step. They are told that they've got to work more and work faster to get more from their lives. This is completely wrong. These people wind up losing control, rushing from one thing to the next without ever deciding exactly where they hope to go and getting even less from life.

2. Put your dreams in writing. When you do this, they become clearer. Many individuals avoid doing this, too, because they are afraid that they won't ever succeed.

Actually, statistics show that the people who write down their dreams and goals are the ones who succeed. Which type of person do you want to be? Can you be satisfied being a person who doesn't ever commit and never starts? Or do you want to be the rare individual who gets on the road to your dreams and never looks back?

The key here is to get onto the road to success now. This requires doing another thing most people won't do.

3. Get out of your comfort zone and learn to think like an entrepreneur. Those who take this step are happier and more satisfied with their results. They also usually run their own businesses, which is a huge change for most men and women.

Business owners are a special breed of enterprising people with a vision. To start to become more like an entrepreneur, ask yourself these questions:

How might you provide a product or service that would bring value to others?

How might you offer this value with a product or service you love to do?

How might you make this easy so you also have more free time AND have the income you desire?

You might not have answers for all of these questions now and that's okay. You most likely know that if you are an employee you can't take command of your life and create the future you envision for yourself and those you love.

For the most part, people working for others are realizing someone else's dream, earning an income that will never provide the amount of money or control of your time that you long for. Start with the steps you read here to take charge and get yourself on track for living life to the fullest today.

Discover "Why Success Training is Critical in Business" today and get ready to take command of your life.

You can also read an article about entrepreneurs now at http://awesomesuccesssecrets.com/entrepreneur-qualities/.

Personal Development Plan Template: 5-Step Personal Action Plan

by Suzanne Glover

A good personal development plan template includes five steps that guide you to take action. When included, these five steps can make your personal action plan simple, yet effective.

In fact, keeping your personal development strategy simple is important when seeking a good template. Why is this important? Because when learning how to write a personal development plan (also referred to as a PD Plan), it is easy to get "analysis paralysis" if your example personal development plan is too complicated.

If you aren't familiar with the term, "analysis paralysis," it's where you are so caught up in your head, that you just keep spinning thoughts around inside without taking any action.

What we want to do here is to identify the five key components to making a simple personal growth plan. These five steps, while they may seem overly simplified, are the core to any plan, whether it is a personal leadership development plan, personal professional development plan or a personal action plan.

So, when you are looking for a good template, the simpler you make it, the faster you can "get down to business" and take action.

So, what are these five key parts your PD planning?

1. Identify goals
2. Prioritize goals
3. Action steps
4. Time line for first action
5. What if I do nothing?

IDENTIFY GOALS: When you start your personal growth plan, of course you'll want to identify what you want to accomplish. However, here's where many people make their first mistake by not identifying goals that are truly what they desire or are realistic enough to achieve. Be sure that your goals are what you truly desire at a deep, core level of your being.

PRIORITIZE GOALS: Once you find goals that are "what you want" and not "want someone else wants for you," and these goals are realistic, there are certain steps to prioritizing these goals using something called, "reverse goal setting." This is exactly what it sounds like where you take your "end goal" and work backwards writing down each step it took to get there. Like you are walking your goal backwards.

ACTION STEPS: Once you've done your reverse goal setting and have a step-by-step map for your personal development strategy, an important part of your PD planning is to find a way to turn these "bread crumbs" you've identified as a sequence of goals into a personal action plan. To do this, simply ask yourself, "What can I do today on 'bread crumb number 1' to take action?"

TIME LINE FOR ACTION: Any example personal development plan will tell you that you must set out a time line for action. What you want to do is to create daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals for yourself so you stay on track. Be sure with this part of your personal development strategy to keep it realistic with everything else you spend time on in your life.

WHAT IF I DO NOTHING? When you want to develop a personal development plan, it's easy to be very motivated in the beginning. Your enthusiasm is ample to help you learn how to write a personal development plan and about the various parts of PD planning. After awhile, however, it is easy to set your personal action plan or personal growth plan aside, so one question you'll want to keep in front of you for motivation is, "What if I do nothing?" This one question can keep you going through the myriad of tasks of putting your template into action.

While finding a good personal development plan template or personal development plan sample isn't easy at first, using these five steps in learning how to write a personal development plan can get you started. Then you can turn your personal action plan into action, rather than spinning thoughts around and around "thinking" about taking action because your plan is too complicated.

Suzanne Glover offers a free personal development plan template, as well as detailed instructions for using it in her free life plan workbook “Create Your Life,” which can be found at effective-positive-thinking.com.

Article Source: Personal Development Plan Template: 5-Step Personal Action Plan

7 Tips to Improve Your Attraction to Prosperity

by Jeff Balagosa

The most popular aspect of the law of attraction is creating prosperity, for good reason too. Wealth can't buy you happiness, but I'm willing to bet most people would rather choose wealth and misery over poverty and misery. Because of the way our society works, wealth becomes the most powerful tool used to help people craft the life they want.

Despite its popularity, it is the subject where most people get stuck. I'll give you 7 tips to help you get your attraction to prosperity "unstuck."
1. Keep focus on what you want. This is the most important one. When you keep focus on what you want, you occupy your mind with goal oriented thoughts. It makes you more focused and helps curb procrastination.
2. Focus on being positive for most of your day. Think about it. Feeling happy for the majority of your life, results in living a happy life. Living a happy life is essential if you try to attract prosperity into it. And you don't need to feel happy all the time either. All it takes to make a huge impact on your life takes 51%. That 1% turns out to be all that's needed to be considered the "majority."
3. Practice gratitude as much as possible. When we feel grateful for what we already own, it tells the universe that we want more of it. Whatever you focus on expands, so when you focus on the good things you own already, your reality will expand on more good things. Heck, you can feel gratitude for things that you don't even own yet. Gratitude will help you get them much faster.
4. Take inspired action when the opportunity presents itself. My favorite. When you feel that intuitive push that tells you that you need to do something, (Like start a business, read a particular book, or make a phone call.) you need to do it. There's a popular saying that goes, "Your intuition is right 100% of the time." The trick, knowing the difference between your intuition and your emotional responses. If you follow these seven tips, makes it easier to tell apart.
5. Realize that you make up reality as you go. Your perception and beliefs literally create the physical world around you. If you'd like more info on this, go to Youtube and search for "The Double Slit Experiment." You'll feel fascinated with what you find.
6. Stay in the moment. All of our problems lie in our memories of the past and our thoughts about the future. Neither of these are actually real at this very moment. Right this very second, as you read this, life is perfect and peaceful. It's a perfect staging ground for creating wealth.
7. Have as much fun as possible. Celebrate every little success you can. When we acknowledge the good things in our reality, it will bring in more good. We all get a limited time here and life is too short to not enjoy it.
Just a few of the tips I know that will help bring prosperity into your life. There are many more techniques and methods for creating abundance, but these being the simplest and most straight forward. A great place to start!

DISCOVER THE FORTUNE & SUCCESS THAT ALREADY LIES HIDDEN IN YOUR MIND

Jeff Balagosa is the chief writer for the • Prosperity Online Resource• : Powerful FREE resources that will help you create prosperity in all areas of your life.

A detailed blueprint for attracting anything you want into your life is available for FREE

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