Monday, December 27, 2010

At The Lazy U Ranch

So let's end 2010 with a bang, beginning with this series.


Laziness. Negative aspects: It has been too long since I posted last. I procrastinated, kept putting it off, until finally the pain of inaction was too great. Like the dog in the story, I got up off the nail. And it's also part of my comfort zone. I could, if I wanted to, just do the same I've been doing in years past, just working enough to sustain myself, and spend my leisure hours doing fun things.


Well, if I want to achieve all the things I want to in 2011 and beyond, I have to break free of my lazy nature and spend my time more effectively. That means planning my days carefully and making every moment count--which means no more playing Windows Solitaire! 


Now like I've said before, these traits I'll be discussing are neutral, meaning both positive and negative. The negative of course is just settling for a mediocre life, just getting by. And that's not for me,


Positive aspect of laziness: Everyone wants an easier way of doing things. For example, I rely on my spell-check feature on my software. I don't have to have a dictionary beside me, the program will tell me when I misspell a word. Also we like food that is easy to prepare, freeing up time doing a recipe from scratch (unless you enjoy preparing meals this way) to do other things. So wanting things easy is natural.


In Goal Setting however, it is both easy and hard to do. For me writing down my Goals every day is easy, but if I don't set aside the time to do this, then Life is difficult and hard.


So don't deny your lazy self, acknowledge it then get off your ass and DO SOMETHING.


ACTION STEP: On your to-do list, do the hardest and most difficult task FIRST. Then the other items will be easy to do.


I include to-day part 1 of an early Brian Tracy video, shot probably in the 1980s. Enjoy.


To Your Greater Success,
Tim

Saturday, December 18, 2010

7 All-too-human Traits: Introduction

To-day I'm just going to briefly go over what I'll be covering in the next few weeks here. For this list I have to acknowledge Brian Tracy where I got this list from one of his video programs. 


So in no particular order of importance, the 7 traits:


WE ARE-
* Lazy
*Greedy
*Ambitious
*Selfish
*Vain
*Ignorant
*Impatient


Now you might be saying that these are all negative-not so! All of these traits I've listed are neutral. It is how you VIEW them that matters.


What my intention is for this series is to show you how to put these traits to work FOR you. For now until we meet again next week, is to think about this list and see if any of them apply to YOU.


To Your Greater Success
Tim

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Time To Challenge Your BS?

Belief Systems. We all have them. The ones I'm going to focus on here are the ones that may be holding you back.


Story:
A young man of 25 is told of a Gypsy Fortune Teller who is uncannily accurate in her palm readings, so he goes to see her.


She reads his palm and tells him, "I see you in a dead-end, low-paying, career you will be dissatisfied with until you are 45."


Naturally, he is disappointed in hearing this, so he pays her and gets up to leave, but just before he does so he asks her, "What happens when I turn 45?"


"You'll get used to it."


So vigorously ask yourself, "Are my beliefs true?" Now, we have all kinds of beliefs, and some serve us well. Like the ones that protect life. If we're crossing the street and if we have the belief that being hit by a car is A Very Bad Thing that kind of belief serves us.


Someone may have the belief that people should pay him a premium wage for mediocre work, rationalizing it embracing the attitude that he is entitled to rewards without extending effort. Of course, he can't be bothered by people who might suggest he do more than he's paid for. Perish the thought!


Or a group of people go into business with the sincere belief that their product or service fulfills a real need, but do not do research into their market, write a business plan or put in the long hours needed to make the business a success.


The most spectacular collapse of a belief system that endured for nearly 70 years was that of the Soviet Union. Many people sincerely believed in Communism...but they were sincerely wrong! 


Now, I encourage you to-day to examine your own beliefs. If you're just doing OK, just getting by, ask yourself, "Can I do more? Is there more?"


Remember, it is not just the attainment of the Goal itself that matters--the new car, a relationship, career advancement--it's the person you become while working toward the Goal that matters.


Next time, I'll begin a 7-part series on Human Nature.


To your greater success,
Tim

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Beliefs: Are They True?

Let us now look at the B in our C B S formula: Beliefs and how they are shaped.


Babies are not born with any beliefs-someone might say "I was born a Baptist" or "I was born a Republican" or a hard-core biker might have a tattoo reading "Born to lose".


Beliefs come through family and social CONDITIONING. A child may be bullied by her older sister and brother and mother does nothing to stop it. The girl will then form the belief that she is "less than" in her family and it affects how she interacts socially with other children in the classroom and the playground.


Left unquestioned, any negative and disempowering belief that one has will adversely affect relationships, career, spiritual life and physical health.


When you're writing a Goal, you must write it in the present-tense as if you already have it. The idea here is to re-program your Mind to accept only positive, enriching and empowering thoughts. When you have negative thoughts-and we all will from time to time, you must follow the 95/5 Rule. Which means you only allow 5% of your time to devote to worry, impatience, irritation and other stressors and the remaining block of time to positive thoughts. Only babies are 100% positive in their thinking-they pick up all that other crap as they grow older.


Next time, I'll bring it all together as we look at Belief Systems as a whole, and how you can use that most wondrous Power you possess to literally create miracles in your Life.


To Your Success,
Tim 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Q: Who Likes Change?

A: According to speaker & author Nido Quebin, the only person who likes change is a baby in wet diapers.


This is the first of 3 posts I'm going to write about CBS I talked about last time. And the first part is C, CHANGE.


An old man and a dog were sitting on the front porch of an old wooden cabin, and a young man approached them. As the young man came closer, he heard the dog moaning.


The young man came up and asked the old man, "Why is your dog moaning?"


The old man replied, "O, that's ol' Duke. He's lying on a nail."


"Why doesn't he get up?" the young man asked.


"'cause it don't hurt him enough yet."


Ever hear about someone in a job or relationship that is not working and causing pain? Perhaps you've been in a situation where the potential pain of doing something different might be greater than the pain of what has become familiar.


Let me share part of my story about change.


About 10 years ago my life was a disaster. Due to some rotten choices I made I was faced with being unemployable and incapable of independent living. So I was told that I had to go on SSI, continue to take psychiatric medications and live in a boardinghouse, and it probably will be for the rest of my life. So I faced a lifetime of sharing a house with men I didn't want to be around, eating food I didn't want to eat and just sitting in the living room watching endless hours of T-V. A few years passed like this.


Finally, in 2007 the feelings of discontent were too much to bear. But what to do? I found a program on Google Video called The Secret. I was only able to watch a portion of it, as I was at the public library on their computers. Well, I put down the $29.95 plus shipping for the DVD and the film inspired me to take action to affect real change.


So I took pen and notebook and wrote down onto 4-5 pages exactly what I wanted in a new place to live; the kind of people I wanted to be around, the furnishings, appliances, location, all of it in great detail, and--this is IMPORTANT, I added the phrase after I wrote this goal down: OR SOMETHING BETTER.


Four months later an opportunity arose that WAS better than what I originally wanted-independent living in my own apartment. So now I have the freedom to come and go when I want, eat what I want and when I want it, and be able to contribute more. I'm going now on my fourth year. When I told the owner of the boardinghouse what I was going to do, she objected and told me that I couldn't make it on my own, that I needed to stay where I was. Well, I had to take a chance and it paid off.


Now, since then, especially in the last two years for me, change has accelerated rapidly. Opinions that I once clung to have started to change with new, better, empowering Beliefs...which will be for next time.


ACTION STEP: When you write your goals, always add the words OR SOMETHING BETTER. 


To Your Greater Achievements,
Tim