Being Grateful and Present

Two men look out between the same bars: one sees mud, one sees stars.
-Frederick Langbridge

We’ve all heard the popular words of Robert Eliot – “Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.” It would be silly to argue these words, as they ring true to most ears. Worrying about the small things will usually get you nowhere, but what about appreciating the small things?

What are some things we take for granted everyday which could benefit our lives a little more if we appreciated them more?

The key to appreciating these moments is to concentrate on them, rather than letting your mind wander onto other matters. When eating a good meal, truly savour the tastes and the company instead of worrying about the dishes to wash up after you’re done. When phoned by a friend, wonder at the conversation and the marvels which allow you to connect with that friend from a distance, instead of worrying about which bills you haven’t yet paid or how many free minutes you’ve got left on your mobile contract. If you have to walk somewhere, enjoy the colour of the sky, the song of the birds – all of the sights and sounds of the natural world or even those native to a city.

Even seemingly menial tasks can be enjoyed in this way. When washing up after a meal, enjoy the work itself. Concentrate on getting each dish sparklingly clean and on the warm soapy water instead of thinking ahead to what you’d rather be doing. You’ll probably find the whole experience much more enjoyable this way.

The key is to concentrate on the here and now and enjoy this moment, rather than focusing on what has been or what is to come. Each of these small things joins together in the chain which becomes your life, so don’t sweat the negative ones and focus on the positive ones.

Don’t mortgage your present on some future perfect

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

When thinking to the future today, it is often tempting to imagine a utopian environment for yourself. Everything will be perfect tomorrow, or the day after, or 10 years from now, won’t it?

It can also be easy to get bogged down by worries and hidden obstacles along your path. You get caught up in the “what if” scenario, which is never a nice place to be. The truth is that we can never know what the future holds, so why box yourself in one possibility or another?

The past is gone, and we can never change it. All we have for certain in this world is the tiny, fleeting, gift of a moment which we call the present. While it is always important to look to the future, the present is where the hard work, dedication and staging area is for all of our future accomplishments.

If you let yourself get carried away with making plans that you’ll never carry out or by complicating your path with needless worry, you’ll taint the most important moment – this one. After all, if you let the present slip away, it will be lost to the past – and we know we can’t change that, don’t we?

Don’t give yourself a reason to regret this moment tomorrow. My advice to you today is to seize this moment, be bold, and do positive work for yourself now.

The future will stretch out before you, a wide and expansive path, continuing over your horizon.

Step Up or Worn Down?

It is easy to succumb to stress in today’s economic climate.

Downturns can be a trying time, but the emotional tax is often not necessary. The problem with worry is that it accomplishes nothing. The key to tackling your worries is to look at the situation objectively and calmly.

Ask yourself some serious questions:

1. What am I accomplishing by worrying?
2. Can I change anything about this situation?

If you answer these questions honestly, you’ll often surprise yourself. For question 1, the answer will usually be “Nothing.” For question 2, you’ll either come up with a yes or a no. If your answer is yes and you can change your situation, then why are you worrying about it? Shouldn’t you be out there doing something rather than fretting about it? Wouldn’t affecting positive change in your life do more for you than sitting around? If your answer is no, then why worry? You can’t accomplish anything by worrying about that which you cannot influence.

History teaches us that success during recession is not impossible. The saying goes “fortune favours the bold”, and in the case of economic recession, this is especially true.

The individuals and companies who took advantage of the Great Depression did so by making bold decisions, by diversifying their interests and by being creative. They didn’t accomplish these things by worrying.

Will you Step up?

We Create Our Own Luck!

Ever meet people who say that success has everything to do with random luck and not much more?

I know I’ve come across lots of people who believe that luck is the essential ingredient to success, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not!

People who say success boils down to luck typically are people who are jealous of those who achieve success.  They have this idea that luck randomly occurs willy nilly!  But that’s not the case at all!

You see, luck is far from a random thing!  We create it ourselves when we make the choice to choose success! Remember my interview with my friend Lorne Cousin and Madonna

Success is a choice!

Successful people are successful because they choose success!

They choose to be successful.

They outwardly reject anything that isn’t success, and don’t rest until success is firmly within their grasp.

When people make a choice to pursue success and persist until it is theirs, they attract into their lives situations and circumstances that will help them make that success happen.

And yes, some may call that luck.

But at the end of the day, it’s simply what happens when you decide to choose success for yourself.

The ‘luck’ doesn’t come automatically.

It comes when one consciously chooses to focus on success!

Success truly is a state of mind. Many successful people will tell you that their journey to success began when they formulated a vision and a goal in their mind.

Initially they have the idea of what they want, and then they really begin to visualize what it would be like for that idea to become a reality.

They create in their minds pictures of that success happening in their lives, and they get excited about it!

They take the time each day to think of the attainment of that goal…and they feel good about it!

This keeps them passionate about the attainment of that goal!

And in entertaining these thoughts of success attainment, those favourable scenarios, opportunities, etc, come about.

It’s when luck or magic happens!

But as you can see, it doesn’t happen randomly!  The ‘luck’ happens when we choose success.

Put it to the test for yourself today!

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive  coaching programme starting spring 2010 more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

You just have to want it Bad Enough and then Take Action!

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~George Bernard Shaw

Now, let’s face it!  You’re going to have a very hard time finding anybody in the world who will say, “You know what. I don’t want success!”

At the end of the day, everybody wants success.  And it can be success in any area of your life – it’s not necessarily the desire to have loads of money or material possessions.

Success can be something like being happy with your job and having a happy, loving family.

As simple as success may be to define, the truth of the matter is, many people don’t consider themselves successful.

Many people don’t think they’re really living the life they truly want.

So why is it that these people aren’t living the life they want?  Why is it that most people aren’t successful?

It’s simple!

They just don’t want it bad enough or they settle for what they think they can have!

Too many people are quick to whinge.  They’re quick to complain.

They’re quick to get down on themselves and get down with the people they’re talking to.  They’ll blame absolutely everything for their lack of success.

But the thing is, they do nothing to achieve the success they want!

And it’s because they just don’t want it bad enough at the end of the day!

One very wise many by the name of Brian Buchner once said, “The key to success is to just want it bad enough. If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to get it.  All other factors are irrelevant.  Upbringing, IQ, genetics, environment and possessions – all don’t matter.  It comes down to drive.  If you have the fire, then you’ll get what you want, guaranteed.”

Now isn’t that something to chew over?

It’s pretty easy to really want something isn’t it?

But you have to want it enough, to be able to make the success happen.

If you want something – and I mean, really, really want it – then the circumstances, the situations and opportunities conducive to you having it, will come to you!

If we focus on the thing we really, really want, then we won’t be able to help but notice all of those great opportunities that come our way, to help us achieve the materialization of our goals.

It’s like when we meet somebody with a certain car we really like.  After we meet that person and see their car, it seems as though every second person on the road is driving one of those cars!

It’s because we focus on it!  We see things conducive to it!

If we want something bad enough, things will just happen in our lives to help us achieve it!

The key is to want the success enough, to notice the opportunities that arise and act on them!

Start really wanting the success today and I guarantee you’ll start to see results!

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive  coaching programme starting spring 2010 more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

Take 100% Responsibility 100% of the Time!

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”  ~Joan Didion

Ever come across people in your life who just whine and complain all the time?  Now I’m sure you have.  In fact, I’m sure we can think of at least five people we have come across in our lives who are notorious for the complain game.

These people complain about their health, their relationships, their lack of money, their jobs…virtually everything!

And it is often these people who aren’t living lives of success.  These people typically look at successful people and just think they’re successful because they’ve used somebody or done the dirty to get there!

The bottom line is…

…the complainers don’t take full 100% responsibility for their lives!

They look at disappointments and blame other people and situations!

They look at failures and put the blame on everything else but themselves!

These people are masters of the ‘cop out’!  They without fail, fail to take full and 100% responsibility for their lives.

They don’t achieve success, because they’re too busy being victims!

Now, sometimes in life we really can be victims!

We can come on hard times.  We may have had abusive parents, or perhaps we had an illness that nearly claimed our lives.  Hardships come to us quite often in life.

But we choose to respond to those hardships.  We can choose to see the gift in a hardship and take advantage or we can choose to be a victim.

If we were a victim to somebody who wronged us in the past for instance, we can take responsibility NOW and decide, “Yes!  I know what happened to me in the past was wrong, but I’m going to take responsibility right now to create for myself the life I want and deserve.”

You can make the decision to take full and 100% responsibility of your life right now!

Instead of inaction, do something! Instead of complaining, take action!

Whatever you do, don’t just sit there and pass the buck!  Don’t just sit there and complain until the cows come home about a situation you don’t like!

Address the problem head on.  Solve the problem.  And take responsibility for your life today!

You know what you want out of life.  You know what you want to be happy.

So take responsibility today to make that life happen!

Stop complaining!  Stop passing blame!  Start taking action to make it happen by being 100% responsible for your life 100% of the time!

Because your life is in your hands, only you can make the changes in your life that will bring about the life you want.

I challenge you today to start living your life and taking full and 100% responsibility for yourself and your outcomes.  I guarantee you will start seeing positive results in next to no time!

Spiral of Success programs and coaching coming soon! Click here!

Wide Awake

“The truth will set you free but first it will P*** you off” – Werner Erhard

We do many things to keep ourselves asleep and on auto-pilot in this world , see if you recognize any? Drink, food, buying things, t.v. worrying, sex, work.

All these activities (and I have to admit there is some cool stuff in there to enjoy, bar the worrying,) in extreme keep us separate from that “wide awake” state that is “reality”.  And, occasionally we wake up to ourselves, to others, to the beauty of the world and to what is “real”.

For many of us this “wake up call” comes late but maybe not too late… To Shine, as we are meant to shine, live as we are built to live and love as we are built to love….

Coaching Points

What do you do to keep your self asleep?

When do you feel wide awake to life?

Switch off the auto-pilot and notice yourself today, take a moment to actually be aware of what you are doing  and start creating the life you want NOW!

Spiral of Success programs and coaching coming soon! Click here!

Success: It Boils Down to Commitment!

As you know, I’m a big fan of motivational quotes and I’m also a big fan of Anthony Robbins!

So you guessed it!  I’m going to introduce this blog post with one of Anthony’s really great quotes relating to success.

“Individuals who succeed have a belief in the power of commitment.  If there’s a single belief that seems almost inseparable from success, it’s that there’s no great success without commitment.  If you look at successful people in any field, you’ll find they’re not necessarily the best and the brightest, the fastest and the strongest.  You’ll find they’re the ones with the most commitment.”

You can’t have success without commitment!

See, so many people sit down at the end of the year and say, “Gee, I could have done better in my job or with my weight loss.”  And then they’ll put together a new year’s resolution, in an attempt to avoid having the same conversation with self the following year.

And they might have all the greatest intentions of the world…but they do nothing about it.

Or perhaps they start taking action to achieve those goals, and then give up!

In other words, they lack the commitment to even start or finish in the attainment of a goal.

To become successful at something, you must commit to achieving the success!

So how do you get on track to achieving the success you really want in life?

First of all, you need to decide WHAT you want to succeed at!

What areas of your life do you want to achieve success in?  Perhaps it’s work related, finance related, relationship related?  It could be anything.

Take a moment to make notes of the areas of your life you want to succeed at.

What do you really want?

Once you know what you want, it’s time to DO the stuff you need to do, in order to bring about the success.

You need to plan how to achieve…and stick to it!

Every day you should do something to help you achieve your goals. But you need to get really serious about achieving your goals, if you’re to stay committed to them.

It’s not enough to just write down your goals.  You must – and there are no exceptions – plan the how’s of achieving your goals!

You must create a road map that you can follow, to achieve your desired outcome.

You must commit to its attainment, by doing something every day, until you achieve your goal.

And to keep you committed, you must remain focused on the goals you have set for yourself.

Do this, and you’ll be a long way towards achieving the success you really want to achieve in your life!

Step 4 to Making 2010 Amazing: Keep doing what works til you’re there!

Saints are sinners who kept on going.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

So!  You know that to make 20010 you’re amazing year, you need to decide specifically what you want, take action and pay attention to what actually works.

Then you have to keep working on those things that do work until you reach your goal.
If something you are doing is working for you…
…keep doing it!

You can also try and improve your results by making changes to that process that is working for you.  Tweak it here and there and see what happens.

If you have great results – continue doing that thing or improve the process again for even better results.

If on the other hand you get a bad result, don’t despair!  Remember Mr Edison!

Keep going and never give up!

Persistence really is KEY when it comes to achieving your goals!

You won’t get to your goal otherwise, so keep on keeping on.  Focus on the positive things that are working and give yourself rewards for that.

For instance, if your goal is to lose weight in the new year, set milestones for yourself.  And once you reach a milestone, be sure to treat yourself.

If you fall off the wagon, don’t worry! Just make sure you get back on for the next day.

What will motivate you to keep on persisting is the achievement of those mini milestones.  As great as that is though, you need to focus on the end goal.

Each day, take a few minutes to read your goals out loud to yourself.  It’s also a good idea to create a positive affirmation and read that out aloud in the morning and in the evening as well before bed time.

The affirmation should be written as though you have already achieved your goal.  For instance, “I am feeling so amazing now that I’m 10 kilos lighter!”

And when you say that affirmation out loud, feel the feelings that come with the achievement of that goal.

By doing this each day, you are staying motivated – and that will help you to stay on track.  It will help you to keep on doing those things that work, until the materialization of your goal!

Have fun with it!

Goal-setting and setting up a plan to achieve the goals shouldn’t be an arduous task.  Make it fun by following the four steps inspired by Anthony Robbins’ famous quote!

And remember this!  2010 WILL be your amazing year if you decide ASAP what you want, take action to achieve it, pay attention to what works and what doesn’t and NEVER give up until you get there!

P.S. I am starting group coaching programme for those that are wanting to make 2010 an amazing year. If you’re interested, please email info@zonedinperformance and put “group coaching” in the subject line and detail what is your “wow” goals for 2010.

Step 3 to Making 2010 Amazing: Pay attention to what works!

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost more than 300 games.  Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed.  I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. . . and that’s why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

Now that you understand the importance of getting specific about your goals and taking action to achieve them, it’s time to elaborate a little more on the action part.

Sometimes in the process of taking action to make our dreams happen, things don’t work well.

We may find that a particular course of action works really well, yet another course doesn’t yield results at all.

Now, this is where people can fall into a pretty significant trap – one that is detrimental to the achievement of a goal.

Many people focus too much on the stuff that doesn’t work!

Say for instance you are really passionate about your £200,000 income goal.  You get what you think is an amazing, earth-shattering idea when you are in the shower (yes – that’s where many of us get our lightbulb moment ideas!) and dry off with every bit of excitement!

You put your energy into the idea that you think can help you achieve your income goal.

But then you find that this idea doesn’t help you at all.  In fact, the idea you had is a real flop!

What do you do about it?

It’s natural to be disappointed, but given the situation there are two things you can do:

1. Be disappointed, yet get back to the task of achieving your goal by implementing other ideas; or
2. Be disappointed and get into a big depression over it…that stops you dead in your tracks!

Unfortunately, too many people do the latter.  They get so down about the outcome of a ‘failed’ idea that they just give up.  The wheels completely fall off!

If you are to actually achieve your goals, option 2 just isn’t an option.

You have to do as successful people do!

You have to pick yourself up off the ground after a disappointing outcome and say, “What went wrong?

What can I do NOW to get on track to achieving my goal?”

It all comes down to how you approach perceived (yes I’m using that word here) ‘failure’.

All of us will encounter ‘failure’ in our pursuit of goal attainment.

But it’s not so much the failure that can make us fall short of our goal – it’s our response to it.

Failure is an OPPORTUNITY for us to assess what works and what does not.  It’s an OPPORTUNITY to help us get on track.

It’s a stepping stone to success.

Imagine for a moment if that wonderful inventor of the incandescent light bulb –

Thomas Edison – gave up after the 100th attempt at getting that bulb to light up?

It took him hundreds attempts to finally make it work.

If he gave up at attempt 100, he would never have achieved success.

The reason why Edison prevailed?  He saw failure as a stepping stone to success!

He even said in his own words, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

Persistence is what will get us to our goal. And we need to focus on the things that work and not the things that don’t.  This way we will stay motivated and on track!

And that’s what you too must do in your pursuit of achievement!

P.S. I am starting group coaching programme for those that are wanting to make 2010 an amazing year. If you’re interested, please email info@zonedinperformance and put “group coaching” in the subject line and detail what is your “wow” goals for 2010.

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