Success Principles 101

Success leaves clues!
Success, like failure, is not an accident. It happens on purpose, whether we strive to do so or not.
This is the first in a series of articles I will be presenting on the subject of success. There have been many books written about it, lectures and seminars given on it and yet even today many people are striving to find the key to lasting success.

What is success? It has different meanings to different people. Consider the following;
1) Family - for some having a happy, functional family with universal acceptance by all is success
2) Health - for some being healthy each day is a sign of success
3) Wealth - to others, you are not successful if you are broke
4) Prestige - being recognized as a leader in your field is succes to many.

You have to determine your personal definition for success. What is success to some will not be the same to others. This definition will help you to identify what steps you need to take in order to reach the levels of success you hope for.

To begin this journey, I want to give you what I am calling Success Principle 101:
"You must take 100% personal responsibility for your life" Period! No exceptions, no excuses.
The tendency for many is to find blame for all the shortcomings in their lives. Yet nothing is further from the truth. In order to find lasting success, you must be responsible. You are not responsible for all that happens to you. But you are responsible for how you respond to all that happens to you.

Is the cup half full or half empty? Is the impossible possible or highly improbable? Can you make it or are you doomed to failure? Too many people blame their lot in life to someone else (I didn't have a father, my mother didnt love me, my siblings hated me, my boss held me back) or to something ( I dont have a college education, I dont have the skills, I lack the experience, I am the wrong gender, wrong color, etc etc etc)
And the list goes on.

True success will always allude us if we fail to realize that no one is to blame for how our lives turn out. You cannot impact what happens to you ( sudden death of a loved one, unexpected illness, job loss, etc) but you have 100% control over how you choose to respond to adversity. And it is your choice.
I want to encourage each and every one of you who wishes to have lasting success in life; Take responsibility for your actions.

Next article will go into more detail on this subject

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The 3 F's: Fight, Flight and Freeze

The important key of successful stress management comes when we understand what stress is and what it's for. Actually stress is helpful.
Let's go way back in human history to understand how stress helps us.

Let's say sabre tooth cats are still roaming the earth. We're all cavemen are still running around trying to defend themselves from the cats that want to eat us. Scary cats are everywhere.

So you're out trying to find some food and suddenly you're confronted by one of these vicious cats. He's pretty hungry, he sees you, licks his lips and he growls at you. What do you do? I think we can agree that some reactions would not be very helpful in this situation. For example, one unhelpful reaction would be to think, "Oh, what a pretty kitty!" and try to pet it.

Another would be to say to yourself, "So what? That cat would never eat me."
Not so helpful. Not helpful at all.
One of the 3 F's might be a better, more helpful solution.
Do I freeze? Hmmm, no, he'll eat me for sure. Maybe I could hide over there and then stay real still so he'll not notice me... or,
Do I flee? If I can, I should certainly run for my life,
Or if none of that is working...
Do I fight? I'd better or I'm going to be his lunch!

The 3 F's were certainly helpful instincts for cavemen, but they're still inside each and every one of us today. They still help us survive. For instance, you might be crossing the road and out of nowhere here comes a car speeding toward you. You don't even think about it. Your body instinctively takes over and you jump out of the way. Your jump was the result of a wonderful and innate instinct to save yourself from danger.

However, the problem we have in our modern world is that there really aren't that many sabre tooth cats lurking around. A near miss like I just described is also very rare, but lots of times, our bodies don't know that. A lot of us are walking around prepared for sabre tooths and careening cars all the time!
Why? Why are we doing that?

We are walking around prepared for danger because we are in a state of negative stress. We got there by believing we were in danger when we weren't. We are walking around in a negative state of stress because our perceptions have created a negative stress situation in our bodies.

The body doesn't understand that you are merely convincing yourself with thoughts that danger exists when it doesn't. The body believes you. The body thinks simply. It knows danger and it knows safety. If you say there's danger, it's going to believe you. It's faithful that way. So here's the key: The body knows danger is about because your thoughts tell it that danger is about.

Stress is one of the biggest social diseases of our time. When you have disharmony in your mind, it will rob your energy and focus, causing you to work against yourself. It can even shit your mind down making your mental energies unavailable to you. Marco Auciello at Melbourne Cognitive Hypnotherapy has been working with clients for years in helping them find relief through cutting edge hypnotherapy mind training exercises in Melbourne. He also helps you with weight loss hypnosis and quit smoking hypnosis If you want the best Melbourne hypnotherapy, come visit Marco at: http://www.melbournecognitivehypnotherapy.com.au

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How To Improve Your Study Habits and Remember Better

If you're a student attending classes, you have probably experienced many moments when it was hard to make yourself settle down and study, even when an important exam was coming up.

If you're like most students, you put off studying until the very last minute. The night before the exam, you'll stay up all night cramming, getting little or no sleep. In the morning, you'll drag yourself out of bed, psych yourself up with lots of coffee and some cigarettes, and go into the exam feeling exhausted, drained and jittery all at the same time. You'll find it hard to focus or think, and you'll be cursing yourself for not starting to study sooner.

And not surprisingly, unless you're blessed with natural brilliance, or you happen to know the subject matter extremely well, you'll probably do terribly on the test.

If this is your typical method of studying, you already know it doesn't work. Every time you go through this ritual, you tell yourself that you're going to smarten up the next time you face a big exam. Next time you'll start to study weeks in advance, you say. But instead, you keep repeating this crazy pattern. Why does this keep happening? And what should you be doing instead if you want to get better marks?

A big problem for most people, especially those who are young students, is that life gets in the way. If you're a student, you probably have a part time job, and like most young people, you also want to have a social life.
Studying can seem very boring compared to all the exciting temptations just outside your door. Or the games on your computer. Even watching old reruns of Sesame Street can seem more interesting than the biology text your teacher is expecting you to master!

One reason we often don't start studying until the last possible minute is that we have misjudged how long it will actually take us to absorb and understand the material. If your mid-term is still six weeks away, that might seem like plenty of time left before you need to get around to studying. You might find however, that the subject matter is a lot harder to understand than you thought it would be, and all of a sudden there's no time left to ask someone to explain it to you.

Another reason we often put off starting to study is that we are too overwhelmed with how big the project actually seems to be. Somehow we convince ourselves that putting off a tough study project can be the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by it.

When we are faced with a study project that seems exceptionally difficult and overwhelming, it can be to maintain a high level of interest and motivation for the duration of the learning process.
If you have been guilty of all these bad study habits, it's not too late to learn some other habits that will work better for you.

First, remind yourself why you want to do better in your studies. Maybe you need a good mark to get into a good college. Maybe you want a chance at a career that will pay you well. Always keep your end goal in mind.

You can put little cards up around your room with inspirational messages, and attractive photographs that will remind you why you want to do well in school.

If you feel very overwhelmed, you can improve your motivation and your performance by breaking up the project into smaller sections, or "chunks". Each time you accomplish one little bit successfully, give yourself a meaningful reward.

If you have a deadline looming, decide how much of the project you need to tackle at one time.
Let's say you have six weeks to master the content of a difficult biology text. Looking through the book you realize that if you study one chapter each night, you can get through the book in 28 days, leaving two weeks in which you can again review the material.

With this knowledge you can pace yourself. You know what your assignment is. You know how much you need to read every night. Concentrate on the immediate task at hand. You don't need to feel overwhelmed by the entire book at one time. Next, work out a system of rewards for yourself. Give yourself a series of small rewards each time you master one chapter, and a larger reward for completing the entire book.
For rewards to work they must be immediate, and personally meaningful to you. There is no point in rewarding yourself with a new fishing rod if you hate fishing.

Rewards don't need to be material objects if there is something else that would really motivate and inspire you. How about attending a special concert, or taking a special trip? You decide. Get creative and think of something that will spur you to take action.

It's very important that the reward take place soon after the work has been accomplished. This creates a sense of positive reinforcement. Give yourself a small reward every time you finish a small part of the job, and a bigger reward when the project is completed. If there is too long a gap between the activity and the reward, it will not have the effect of reinforcing the desired activity.

Besides motivating yourself with a series of external rewards, learn to motivate yourself internally. Tell yourself you're a good learner. Tell yourself you enjoy learning. Tell yourself you enjoy giving your brain a good work out. Congratulate yourself for your efforts. Tell yourself you love acquiring new knowledge, and let yourself feel a joy in learning. Be proud of yourself for the work you do to gain more knowledge.
For information to sink into your brain and be accessible to you, you need to review it several times, and your brain needs to sleep properly for the memories to be encoded in your neurons. You need to reduce your mental stress. Your brain needs good nutrition and it needs to be in a peaceful, confident state. Drugs and alcohol don't help the process of learning.

Write out what you are learning in your own words, and find a learning buddy. Practice explaining to someone else what you have learned. This will increase the likelihood that your brain will remember it.
If you start to cram the night before, you are putting your brain at a big disadvantage.

You're increasing your physical and mental stress, and you're not giving yourself time to review the material several times. By cutting back on your sleep, you're not giving your brain a chance to put the information you've been studying into the hard drive storage of your brain.

By starting your studies early, and reviewing what you've learned, you have a much better chance of remembering and understanding what you need to know when you face a big exam.

Royane Real is a science educator and the author of several books on improving learning. This article is taken from the new short report "Your Quick Guide to Improving Your Learning Ability" You can get the paperback version or download it from http://www.lulu.com/real

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Time Management: Establishing Productive Work Habits

All human beings are creatures of habit, even when the habit is laziness or being disorganised, there is always a rhythm. The difference between a productive person and an unproductive person is in the habits they have allowed themselves to develop. If your aim is to become more productive, you need to know how to change your daily habits to fit the work you need to get done.
Before setting out to develop these new habits, you need to confront three aspects of your mindset.

1 - Start with your mental clutter. If your head is swimming with information or emotional problems, you are not going to get very far. Learn how to prioritize and control your mental energy, and to concentrate on the task at hand no matter what.

2 - Gather all your loose ends. Any aspects of your life that desperately require immediate attention are not going to let you get on with your work in peace, so address them and then move on. You obviously won't be able to solve all of your problems in one sitting, but feeling that you have at least started to deal with them will help you stay focused.

3 - Identify the things that suck up most of your energy. There are areas of your life that inevitably take a lot out of you. You need to be aware of these and know how to deal with them. Effectively managing your energy is the single most important step in becoming a productive and efficient professional.
By this point you have already made significant changes to your lifestyle, just by changing how you look at it. Now there are a few areas of your daily routine that you need to change. An important piece of advice here would be to start small and to be patient. If you change everything on the first day, you will be overwhelmed and feel that you cannot do it. Likewise, even when you make small changes there will be days when you slip up. Be prepared to acknowledge these moments without losing track of your goals.

Now here is a list of some of the changes you may need to make to your routine:
- As much as possible, make sure your work routine is in line with your body's natural rhythm. If you're a morning person you don't want to be doing most of your work after midnight.
- Whatever time you decide is best suited to your own natural rhythm, be disciplined and stick to it even on the days when it feels harder.

- Make lists. The most important ones are your daily to-do lists and your lists of short-term and long-term goals.
- Make an effort to concentrate your energy on getting things done, instead of talking about getting them done. This one seems obvious, but when you make a conscious effort to notice when you are making this mistake, you notice how easily it happens.

- Write down what you have done, as you complete each action, and reward yourself with a little snack, a short walk, or something like that, but only when it's really finished!
- Don't allow other people to pull you into unscheduled, unproductive activities. Your priority during working hours is to get your work done.

- Do the thing you least feel like doing first, and get it finished. It will make the rest of the day much easier.

Finally, whatever you do, stay positive. Negativity is the productivity killer!

No matter how confusing or complicated your current workday is, becoming more productive and streamlining the process is always just a single decision away: decide to make that change! If you need help improving your productivity and time management skills, visit http://www.productiveandefficient.com where you can get a FREE 7-day course in productivity.

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Leadership: 7 Simple Keys To Effective Leadership

Not Bosses But Leaders
Not bosses but leaders inspire effective conversations around the future, vision and purpose. Leadership qualities in professionals at all levels of the management hierarchy play a key role in business success. Today's fiercely competitive environment demands that we step up and be counted. Becoming more successful as a leader, is about developing you presence, know how and skills.
Lack of support for managers leads to leadership problems and crisis of organizational culture. In reality we know it is not like that. Some people call it office politics and not everyone will follow like lambs to the slaughter. No matter how good a leader you are, there are always issues, events or individuals that will let you down as a leader. Acceptance can be one of the most complex endeavors in history, but great acts are made up of simple deeds.

Leadership is not just confined to the business environment. Big conversations that develop real results are just as important in your home and leisure activities, outside of your workplace. If you want to discover a recipe for success, there are some simple principles to follow that focus on behaviour and values.
This is not over complicated, self serving, management psycho babble you read in most leadership books, but leadership plain and simple. How to achieve more as a leader, developing your leadership muscles and focusing in on what you want to achieve in any environment you are called to leadership.
If you have already mastered the power of great questions and you are having robust conversations around performance and delivery. Then you are probably thinking you don't need this. But if waking up on Monday is still often hard, then how do you make it easier to reconnect with your wild side, the side that is deeply human.

This is the chance to reconnect with your true intentions and purpose. Help to claim the life you never planned on, yet was part of you. We have all naturally managed to be good leaders in things we love, so obvious, yet it is so easily overlooked. I guarantee you will not forget this wisdom as you are filled with a new vibrancy and clarity.
7 Simple Keys To Effective Leadership
1. Develop highly committed & competent people through directing, coaching, supporting & delegating.

2. People always need empathy before advice. When people sense they matter they instinctively become more engaged & productive.

3. However great the strategy you should occasionally look at the results.

4. Spend less time trying to motivate people & spend more time trying to hire motivated people.

5. Through cooperation rather than conflict your greatest successes will be derived. Great leaders allow others to perform at their best.

6. Avoid verbally dancing around issues. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

7. Very few great leaders ever get through life without failing sometimes dramatically. So embrace failure. Learn from it & move on.

If you would like to improve your relationships, reduce your stress & increase your happiness visit www.trans-formation.org.uk/blog for more FREE resources.

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Negative Effects of Procrastination

There are many Negative Effects of Procrastination. You may not think about them when you are in the middle of procrastinating.
What ARE the Negative Effects of Procrastination?
The Negative Effects of Procrastination take place in all of your major life areas:

• Relationships with Your Spouse or Significant Other
• Relationships with Your Children
• Work/Business
• Health
• Finances

How are each of these areas affected by your lack of action?
Lets take a look at 5 areas of your life and how procrastinating affects it.
Adverse Effects of Relationships with Your Spouse or Significant Other
You love your partner. You truly do, but does she know it?

Do you keep thinking that you should send her some flowers or take her on a date?

Do you promise that you will do stuff together and you just never get around to it?
Do you promise that you will complete your house to-do list but you keep putting it off?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to think. What are you doing to
your relationship with your significant other?

Maybe she is irritated with you. Then, you become irritated with her.
What could be the big negative effect of procrastination? You break up. Now, if you're not married,
you might think that's no big deal. There are other fish in the sea and so on and so forth. Really?
What happens when you do the same thing to your next partner? Now, if you are married, think about the expense and stress of a divorce.

Negative Side Effects of Procrastination in Relationships With Your Children
If you don't have kids, skip this one and go to the next section. If you do have kids, what kind of example are you giving them? They see you putting stuff off so why wouldn't they put the chores and school work off?
Now, what happens if you have procrastinated in setting up your will and you die? Will the kids go to the person you want them to go to?
If you have loads of debt, because you put off getting your finances in order, what kind of legacy are you leaving them?

Debilitating Effects of Your Business
You know there are a few things you must do in your business in order for it to grow or even get started.
For me they are meeting people, putting out content, and communicating with my list. There are other things to, but nothing will happen if I don't do those three basic things.
Now, imagine you decided that you would write that blog post tomorrow. When you finally do get around to it, how many days did you waste? Is it a month later?
How the heck are you going to build a business if you produce content only once a month?
Not gonna happen.

How Does Procrastination Affect Your Health?
What if you have skipped having your regular check ups? Then, one day, you find a lump on your breast. The doctor tells you that either it's too late and you are going to die or you have to have a mastectomy.
You keep putting off eating healthier until tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow never comes because you die of a heart attack.
Do you get my drift?

Negative Effects of Procrastination on Your Finances
Imagine you keep saying that you will pay your bills tomorrow. Now, mind you, you actually do have the money. You just keep procrastinating on paying them.
Well, boys and girls, as my mentor would say, "That's when your bills have bills."
Some of those late payment fees can be upwards of 35 bucks! How many a month are you paying because of your procrastination?

So what do you do now?
I suggest you write down five things that you have been procrastinating in each area of your life.
Then, set some time aside and do them.
Make a game out of it. How?

• Put on a song and see how far or how much you can do in one of your areas affected by Procrastinating.
• Get a buddy. Tell someone what you are going to do and have them hold you accountable.

Those are just a few suggestions of how to get rid of the "negative effects of procrastination". Brainstorm and find some more.
Please share on Facebook and Google +. Let us know in the comment sections your negative effects of procrastination.

Procrastination can really destroy your life if you let it. Why are you procrastinating?
If you want tips, tricks, and strategies on stopping procrastination, visit Tracey Hausel's blog at http://traceylhausel.com/category/procrastination/. If you'd like to be coached by Tracey contact her at http://traceylhausel.com/coaching/.

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Social and Personality Development

The interesting question: is it the genes or the environment? Hereditary factors include the abilities of the intellect, fine, and gross motor skills. These are innate in us as we have them encrypted in our genes from our parents. The environmental factors are those that influence us as we continue to grow and mature through the people that surround us after birth. These are also the customs, norms, traditions, rules and cultural biases that we adapt in our life and the community which defines who we are as we age. These and the few experiences we have and how we deal with other people are few of the critical factors that contribute to our personality development.

Improvement of social skills is an inner motivation. If you feel like there is a need for you to develop and improve in the way you interact with others, then there are a lot of available resources to help you do so. Imagine having all that confidence and the ability to manage all the stress and anxieties that one could encounter in handling difficult social situations; it sure is handy to learn how to excel at social and personality development.

You can also develop the art of starting an interaction or conversation with anyone you meet, effectively handle awkward instances and situations, gracefully accepting rejections and treat them as constructive criticisms. Effectively reading others' body language could also be developed. By learning all these, you would notice a positive change and boost in your confidence and self-esteem. Below are some great tips on how you could get started with your social and personality development.

The first step in the development of your social self is your own awareness of your ability to interact with other people. This gives you the baseline on what to improve in order to get you started. This awareness will arouse your sensitivity in other people's behavior, which will lead to self-modification from negative to positive experiences in a given situation.

The second step is the acceptance of one's responsibility and suppressing the fear of apologizing. Acceptance of insensitive actions and judgment of errors will bring about positive changes accordingly.
The third step is incorporating positive body language, which is extremely important in communication as well. The saying 'action speaks louder than words' is very true in the art of communication. Your words and actions should match so as not to encounter a difficult time in socializing with others.

The fourth step is to become a great listener. Great listening leads to better social skills. Fight the urge to immediately react and take time to listen to what the speaker is saying to avoid premature criticism or suggestion.

This author enjoys giving insights to others. For more personal development insights, visit: http://www.my-personaldevelopment.com

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Perseverance and Motivation

Perseverance is defined as "doggedness: persistent determination!"
These are some pretty strong terms. "Doggedness," tends to paint a picture of a big German Shepherd dog enjoying and protecting his bone. Just listen to him... chew, chomp, chew, chomp. He is determined not to quit and it sounds like he's really enjoying it because he is still going strong even after an hour. That's perseverance! By the way, never get between a dog and his bone! :-)

Accomplishing dreams depends on the same kind of determined perseverance. Perseverance is the winning element that separates the mediocre achievers from those who are extremely successful and stand out in our society. Imagine combining perseverance with passionate motivation, when working toward a goal. This combination becomes a sure-fire winner that demands nothing less then over-the-top success. Remember the dog and his bone? Well, don't ever get between the motivated, persevering achiever and success.

Sports teams are a great example of perseverance. The score is 7 to 2 for the visiting team. The losing home team rallies around the coach during a break. The coach's most important task is to motivate his players into a motivated attitude of perseverance. Focus on what was good in the first part of the game and continue in that direction with a renewed passion for winning.

If the home team was asked about their emotions, when the score is not in their favor, they would probably say that they felt discouraged, inept, incapable, defeated and even wanted to quit. Quit, because losing seemed inevitable and they focused only on the negative. Giving in to these temporary emotions is NOT a recipe for success. Successful people NEVER give in to these momentary feelings.

Defeated and negative emotions never linger long. They are extinguished as soon as the focus changes from the negative to the positive. It takes effort to change concentrations from the negative mistakes and failures and pay attention only to the positives of accomplished goals and being a successful winner.

Back to the sports team. The key to their success is perseverance. They didn't give up even when they felt like it. They went out with a new positive attitude and played even better in the last part of the game then they did in the first part. They achieved their goal and finished the game with 17 to 12. The reason for their success? Perseverance and focusing on the positives!

This same perseverance is the key that successful entrepreneurs depend on. After all, that's how they got to where they are now.

Cultivating Perseverance in 4 Easy Steps
1. Make up our mind to continue even though our family/colleagues have already quit.
Often those closest to us try to "protect" us from, what they see as, a mistake. They do everything in their power to discourage us and continually tell us that it is an impossible task.

If we choose to make up our mind that we want to accomplish our dreams, then we need to make some choices that produce the winning results we want. The first step is to limit contact with the well-meaning, but negative influences of short-sighted people around us, until the goal is successfully accomplished.
Keep company with only those who encourage and promote our cause. These people add-value to our life and share our vision. Positive influence is critical when working hard with perseverance to achieve the success that dreams are made of.

2. Always stay focused on the end result of winning - never on set-backs encountered to get there.
It is very easy to keep looking at failure and continue dwelling there. The more time spent focusing on failure, the larger it begins to look. Soon it becomes so huge that it completely over-whelms and intimidates. When this happens, weak-in-the-knees syndrome sets in and causes us to just quit.

It takes just as much energy to see the positive side as it does the negative. Energy should be used wisely and focused only on the positive, while leaving the negative behind. Place a label on the negatives and call them, "Obstacles." The sole purpose of an obstacle is to provide another opportunity in redoing an uncompleted process with some variable changes. Then focus on what went right and continue to persevere. Repeat these steps until the process is successful.

3. Keep track of what works. Learn from others and don't re-invent the wheel.
While working toward that ultimate goal, notice what works during the completion of each task. Re-use the processes on this list of "what works" repeatedly.

When looking for a new procedure, learn from what others did. Follow their example and insert some personalized changes to adapt the process. If it works, great! Keep track of it. If it doesn't quite meet the required specifications, change what needs adjusting and try again. Persevere! Don't quit! Don't see it as a failure, only as an obstacle providing another chance to redo the process.

4. Keep motivation levels at an all-time positive high.
Motivation needs to be our 24/7 companion in order to achieve the success we truly want.

Let's look at the following picture:
Motivation is the gasoline that drives the car. Perseverance is the cruise control that maintains an acceptable level of speed. Negative set-backs is a flat tire or speeding ticket. Success is arrival at the desired destination.

What is the most important element in this picture? Look at the list again and reorder them with #1 as most important and #4 as the least important.
1. Gasoline (motivation)?
2. Cruise Control (perseverance)?
3. Flat tire/ticket (negative set-backs)?
4. Arrival at the destination (success)?

The order we select is very revealing in how we achieve success:
If motivation is the most important, our emphasis is on staying focused and remaining positive.
If perseverance is the most important, our emphasis is on never stopping even if the process is flawed. Continue by changing some variables and try again.

If success is the most important, our emphasis is to get there and not allow anything to stop achievement of it.
If negative setbacks is the most important, our success is in danger of derailment by the slightest little negative event. Success, more than likely, will not be achieved.

We need to learn a lesson from the dog and his bone. Perseverance: "doggedness: persistent determination!"

Visit my website here:
motivation-4-success.com [http://motivation-4-success.com/]

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