GETTING STARTED

In order to achieve success I will have to be able to kick the negative and focus on the positive!  I want to surround myself with positive and visualize my goals being a reality!  I have to see that my potential is only limited by my beliefs!

After studying and reading books such as "The Magic of Thinking BIG", "The Secret", "Think and Grow Rich", "The Ant and the Elephant", and "The Alchemist", here are the 6 things I have decided that I must do, most of them on a daily basis, in order to draw SUCCESS into my life!

1. Define Success

2. Set Goals

3. Create and use a Vision Board

4. Write and use an Affirmation Statement

5. Create a Daily Schedule: meditate, read, apply

6. Surround my world with positive

There will be many other steps and actions taken to help me accomplish some of the big goals I have set for myself.  These 6 are my diving board, and as I launch through these mind acrobats I will be documenting every step I take and every move I make.  This is for myself as well as for any of you that want success as much as I do!

Define Success

In order to achieve success I have to know what it looks like for ME, otherwise I may look it right in the face and walk the other way!
I don't think success can be defined to a single definition, there are too many facets of our lives that need their individual clarity.  There is spiritual, financial, family, health and relationship success, to name a few.  I believe each area of life is like a separate tributary flowing into your ocean, or overall purpose and success as a human!
Here are how some leaders in the business world have defined success:

"To find and fully live your purpose in life, and to leave an enduring legacy of having made a difference in the world."

-- Ron Cordes, founder of the Cordes Foundation

"Success is not having to describe what's been accomplished....others do it for you"

-- Deborah Hopkins, Chief Innovation Officer of Citibank

"I define success as living my true purpose and having a positive impact on the lives of people by uplifting them and inspiring them to think and act in ways that they may not have considered before."

-- Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism and professor at Babson College

"The purpose of our lives is to contribute our unique, God-given gifts to have an extraordinary positive impact on the lives of others and the world."

-- David Kidder, CEO of Bionic

Thanks for your thoughts big, rich, and powerful people!  Although I like these definitions, it is imperative that success can be measured. I really like the definition Raj gives, but I really love what a man named Jesus Christ said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself".

That is my basis of MY overall purpose and definition in life.  So with that in mind, this is how I have chosen to define success:

OVERALL LIFE SUCCESS: success is having the temporal and spiritual resources to leave hope and happiness in every path I tread.  To inspire my friends and family to see their potential, and have a positive impact on the world by my example of living a higher standard of spiritual, financial, and interpersonal lifestyle.

FINANCIAL SUCCESS: financial success is being debt free and able to provide my family with comfortable living and educational opportunities.  It is living without the stress of "can I afford this," and to continue with all these benefits through retirement and beyond the day my wife and I die.

Other areas of success that I will define include Spiritual, Family, Fitness, Occupation, Friends, and Fun!!

I have placed these definitions where I will see them often on the wall in my office and attached to my vision board!

Set Goals

I based my goals off of of how I defined success (find how I defined success in my other post under Getting Started).  I like to have short term goals that are stepping stones to long term goals.

To help me write goals I have used two different clever guidelines:

• SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results focused, and Time bound

• I will do What, How Well, By When?

There has to be a measure so there is evidence I have reached my goal.  I need to be as specific as I can with the goal I am trying to accomplish.

The goal should be achievable but stretch me some.  Many of my goals, which can be seen on the side of this blog, are out of the realm of what many would consider achievable.  In this case I am shooting for crazy big things to see just what I am capable of doing.  I don't suggest everyone make goals as lavish as mine, but I do believe every person is capable of accomplishing whatever they can dream of.  As said by Earl Nightingale in Think and Grow Rich: Instant Motivator, "your mind would not think of things that it wasn't capable of achieving; if you can dream it, you can achieve it".  I am the lab rat in my own elaborate study!

The goals should measure outcomes or results, and there should always be a realistic time frame to accomplish the goal.

REVIEW my goals often.  In my case I have created a vision board so not only can I review them daily, but I can also spend time meditating and allowing my subconscious an opportunity to inform my conscious self how to achieve them.

Lastly, I can't be afraid to let my goals evolve a little bit as I go along.  With that said don't use that as an excuse to say, "oh, I won't be able to achieve this goal so I will just change it".  Keep the time frame and skeleton of the goal the same, but adjust and add details as needed to make the goal more realistic and exact.

Check out this informative and concise explanation on writing goals by author Michael Hyatt
http://michaelhyatt.com/goal-setting.html

Create and use a Vision Board

To help me achieve my goals I created a vision board that I can look at every day.  It will also serve as a way of focusing my meditation.  I can see my goals and visualize myself achieving them.
I found pictures that encompass each of my goals.  Vision board's are really easy to make but vital to achieving success...so I believe.

Materials:

• 1 poster board (any color would work)
• Glue (I used a glue stick but it's terrible, the pictures fall off as the poster board bends so I ended up taping the pictures on)
• Scissors
• Marker
• Printed pictures or magazine pictures representing each of your goals

After printing off my pics, I utilized a little child labor to get the work done!

The final product; Behold, my Goal/Vision Board!!!

How Do I Use This??!

Now that it is all organized and put together, I can start using it as a tool to 

train my subconscious.  

I use this board every day!

First, I put it where I can see it every day.  Since my wife doesn't want it hanging in our front room very bad, I put it next to my night stand by my bed.  Every time I wake up I see it, and every time I go to bed I see it.  It's a nice way to start and end each day!

When I take the time to ponder and visualize, I bring this with me.  I look at it, focusing on the closest goals, and then I just let the ideas flow!  I visualize myself already being in possession of each goal, and try to feel the emotions and happiness of having already achieved each goal. 

Write and memorize an Affirmation Statement:

I designed my affirmation statement from the guidelines of Chuck Cullen, a business coach and LIFE leadership speaker.
An affirmation statement is a personal explanation about who you are and what you will accomplish.  It is a way of giving yourself positive self talk!
This is so important because your mind is a powerful tool that believes what you tell it...the brain has to make into reality the information it is fed.  If I tell myself I am stupid and a loser long enough, eventually I will believe and become that.  If I tell myself I am a rich and successful chunk of man hunk, eventually I will believe and become that.
This is what Chuck says on creating a statement, and what I have used to create mine.
First I broke down the areas of my life and included specifics about each one.

• How I act
• How I want people to perceive me
• Faith and family
• What I focus on daily
• Income (I require how much $ a month to do what I want to do)

Below is my affirmation statement that I have written.  I put mine on a 3x5 card and on my phone so I can take it with me until I memorize it.  Now I need to work on memorizing it by either just repeating it enough that it gets drilled into my noggin, or break it up into pieces using different colored highlighters (a technique suggested by Mr. Cullen).
I will say this at least 3 times a day to myself, starting first thing in the morning and then throughout the day, until I finally believe it!  That's why it will be nice to have it memorized so I don't have to pack around the silly 3x5 card that will soon look like a used tissue more than a card!

This web page gave me some additional ideas on writing a statement:
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Effective-Affirmation

MY AFFIRMATION STATEMENT

I am a dynamic, confident, happy person that enjoys helping  others and makes good decisions quickly.  I am an intelligent critical thinker that uses my incredible creative talents to lead out in business, church and family.  I am respected and loved by those I interact with and lead.  People want to follow me; they trust my ideas and are benefited by them.  I am loyal to God and my family, giving them priority in my life.  I have an exciting and deep relationship with my wife and children that grows daily. Faith, Family, Finance, and Goal achievement are the things I focus on, on a daily basis.  I require $100,000 a month of passive income in order to achieve my goals, live my desired lifestyle, and help others through church, charity, and education.  I will maintain that lifestyle and income by developing creativity, business, and leadership skills every single day!

Create a Daily Schedule

Create a schedule that you feel like you can realistically stick to.  I have to schedule my time so I can get everything done that I need to and still have time to play and relax. I believe I must have balance!
My Thursday and Saturday are my free days.  Since they are changing all the time I didn't include them below.  These two days are for doing house chores, playing, and whatever else I need, including time to work on projects and business.

5am
6am	Wake up at 6am 6-6:50am Meditate, Read, Apply (more info on these below)
7am	6:50-7:10am Get ready to go to the gym and eat breakfast 7:10-8:00am drive to gym, workout, shower, and get ready for work
8am	WORK: I work 4-10’s with Thursday and the weekend off. **Those are the hours I see patients, sometimes I have lunch break to work on projects, but typically I have lunch meetings or notes to work on.  It also takes me 10-30 min after patient hours to wrap everything up.  Also, Tuesday night I spend at meetings for church until 8:30 and Thursday night from 9-11pm is reserved for basketball.
9am
10am
11am
12pm
1pm
2pm
3pm
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
8pm	Depending on my shift and when I get home, I spend from 6/7-9pm eating and playing with my kids
9pm	From when I put kids to bed (usually between 8-9pm) to 10pm is reserved for time talking with my wife and helping around the house
10pm	10-11pm is my time to work on projects, read, or just unwind by watching Jimmy Fallon or sports highlights
11pm	Be to bed by 11pm.  This is very difficult as I love to stay up late, making 12:00-12:30 my usual bed time
12am

meditate:

By no means do I claim to have any expert ability to focus and quiet my mind through meditation! However, because mediation is a life long pursuit of inner calm and awareness I decided it is Crucial to me being Successful and Now is the time to start!

I do know that meditation of some form or another has been instrumental in many success stories including Jim Carrey, Katy Perry, Madonna, Hugh Jackman, Clint Eastwood, Ray Dallio, Bill Ford, Tony Schwartz, Arianna Huffington, Steve Jobs, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul McCartney and Oprah Winfrey to name a few.

I believe that our subconscious has all the keys to unlock the doors that we don't know how to open.  It puts us in tune with our Creator and allows our spiritual subconscious to communicate and direct our busy and distracted conscious mind.
There are so many resources out there that I am not going to spend the time on this blog to discuss the "How To" of meditation, but here is a good link for a beginner: http://www.wikihow.com/Meditate

To achieve my goals I begin calming my mind by reading or listening to what I consider Spiritual Material.  I then spend 2-3  min trying to become aware of myself by listening to my breathing or my heart beating.  Then I spend 10-15 min visualizing myself having already achieved my goals, which I have in front of me on my vision board.  I try and feel the emotions, the surroundings, and atmosphere of me living the achievement of my goal

On meditation, Steve Jobs has said:
"If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it."


read:

Find good books that inspire, lift, and educate in all facets of life.  I will be focusing my reading on business, leadership, and thinking BIG!  Being a member of the Life Leadership organization, they have a fantastic books and a top 50 must read list which I can easily access at http://www.lifeleadership.com/.  

I like to read but am in no way opposed to books on tape.  My brother reads books all the time that are on his phone while riding his bike or driving his car to work.  I have had books playing while doing notes at work.  I really like them while I exercise, it's my favorite!

I also think it is very important to spend a fair amount of time reading books of a spiritual nature.  For me this is the guiding light to knowing what steps and what goals to take.

I have made a book list that is ridiculously long, but here are a few of my books I want to read or that I have read:

1. Think and Grow Rich 
2. The Magic of Thinking BIG
3. Attitude is Everything
4. The Alchemist
5. Launching a Leadership Revolution
6. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People
8. Next Millionaires
9. Resolved: 13 Resolutions for Life
10. Cash Flow Quadrant
11. Winning
12. The Tipping Point
13. Built to Last
14. Outliers
15. Crucial Conversations
16. The Answer
17. The Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
18. Bringing Out the Best in People
19. The Starbucks Experience: 5 principles fo turning ordinary to extraordinary
20. One Simple Idea
21. The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
22. The Greatest Salesman in the World
23. The DNA of Relationships
24. The Bible: King James Version
25. The Book of Mormon

apply:

I love this quote!!!
After reading and meditating in the morning, I will take any ideas I have, write them down, and then decide how I will apply the knowledge my subconscious through Heaven's Inspiration gives me.
I will answer this question: "What can I do today to achieve my goals"?

If I don't apply and put into action the ideas I receive, eventually I will lose the energy to achieve anything!
(P.S. I used the word "try" about 10 times in these last couple of sentences.  It is easy to fill ourselves with excuses of why we can't achieve and each time I caught myself using the word "try" it was because I doubted whether I could accomplish such tasks.  I have to be confident and certain I can attain the goals that I have set for myself).

Surrounding my World with Positive

In order to fight my negative thinking I want to place positive influences all around me! In order to draw good things into my life I have to everyday try to be good and think positive..."It's a moral imperative"!!! (Quote: Name that movie for 100pts??)

1.  Place my vision board where I can see it daily

2.  Put up pictures and quotes at work and home that motivate, inspire, and keep me focused on my goals (such as my definitions of success).  Here is an example of one of my pics at work.
         

3.  Use positive language in all conversation, written or spoken.  When asked how is my day, let it be "Great" or "This is the most Amazing day of my Life" or "Fantastic" or "It's ridiculous how good I am".  Talk well of people, don't gossip or speak negative of those you work with or for.  Use positive humor.  Don't use cutting and sarcastic humor, especially about your wife or kids!

4.  Decide to not let others upset you.  Every day and every time somebody's actions upset you, have a cue that you can quote that will help you choose to be happy and progress despite others negative thinking.  When someone is a jerk to me or difficult to work with, I say "Let them be what they want to be, I choose to be a dynamic, confident, and happy person" (taken from my affirmation statement)

5.  I compiled a list of songs that I can play in the car, at  home, or at work, that uplift and motivate me!  I tried to choose songs that fit different moods and emotions that I may encounter, with lyrics that remind me of how awesome I am or can be!

Listen to my playlist on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL44_eACBJevX7NrgE_-lpey33BK9Nnilt

The Reason Why I Started the Blog