Welcome to 2012

Lets begin with remembering that in the Chinese Zodiac, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon.

The Dragon is the mightiest of all signs symbolizing dominance and ambition.

So while we have not yet reached Chinese New Year lets take some direction from this.

When I was planning for 2012 I uncovered these tips, about the whole person – body, mind and spirit, that I want to share with you.

Quick Tips

Body:

Are you making bold resolutions on January 1st to “eat more healthy”?

If so, then stop and think small.

Trying to reach any diet goal does not happen overnight.

Create a weight loss plan and work towards your goals every day.

Before long, any excess weight will be gone.

Mind:

Creating a list to clarify your thoughts, resolve any problems or to generate ideas is good for your mind.

For example, take a blank piece of paper and draw two columns.

In the left column, write down any specific issues or question you have.

Then in the right column beside each issue or question, write your answers.

This not only helps you to become better organized, but provides you with a checklist to hold yourself accountable.

Spirit:

Not everyone finds the holiday season to be a joyous occasion.

In fact, the holidays can be depressing and extremely stressful.

So much so, that you may become irritable and grumpy.

Don’t let this happen to you.

A quick way to improve your mood and to lift your spirits is to surround yourself with people who have a positive attitude.

So now that the planning is out of the way lets start living in 2012ikoni

Grow or Stay in Your Rut

“You can only grow
if you are willing to ?feel awkward and uncomfortable
when you try something new.”
Brian Tracy

You are a success!

“I live for those who love me,
for those who know me true.”
George Linnaeus Banks

It’s hard to believe we are nearly at the end of another year.

Even though time might fly, don’t fall into the trap of chastising yourself for all the things you haven’t done… focus on all that you have achieved instead.

So how about making a list – your real success list.

Take a couple of minutes to write down all the things you have achieved in the year so far.

Real success isn’t just about life’s big successes, it’s about the little ones too, so think about all
the different ways you have honored your values over the year so far;

• maybe you spent more time with your family,
• focused on getting fitter,
• spent less and saved more,
• focused on thinking positive thoughts and staying present to the moment.

The more successful you feel, the more successful you will become, so focus on the real success you have achieved in your life and get ready for a brilliant 2011.

Don’t save the best until last!

“The best thing to hold onto in life, is each other.”
Audrey Hepburn

Do you sometimes find that the end of the week comes around and you have done lots of ‘work’, but none of the things you wanted to do for the people in your life.

So often the pressured nature of modern working life means that your life outside of work takes second place.

But it shouldn’t… it may be a cliché, but wishing you had done more at work is rarely a dying wish.

So this week, don’t allow the people that matter most in your life to be pushed to the bottom of your to-do list.

Make your loved ones your priority; give them your time and your energy and give it to them before your exhaust yourself taking care of all the other stuff that fills up your life.

Create Your Life

“Your life will be defined, as much by the things you say no to, as the things to which you say yes.”
Anon.

When you are trying to create your best life, it can sometimes be hard to resist temptation to settle for an easier, safer, more secure or simply faster option.

Having a choice isn’t a bad thing; a rich and interesting life will always be filled with options, and compromises are an essential part of getting what you want out of life.

What matters, is that even if you do decide to accept a compromise, you use this opportunity to adjust your plans, not to give up on them altogether.

So today, when faced with a decision, ask yourself, ‘will taking this path feel like a good compromise, or will it leave me feeling compromised’.

Once you know the answer, you can say yes or no to the the option presented, safe in the knowledge that you are still pursuing your best life.

Did you know that 95% of everything you do is determined by your habits?

From the time you get up in the morning, to the time you go to sleep at night, your habits largely control and dictate the words you say, the things you do and the ways you react and respond.

Successful, happy people have good habits that are life enhancing.

Unsuccessful, unhappy people, have habits that hurt them and hold them back.

One of the most powerful positive habits you can develop is the regular practice of zero based thinking. On a regular basis, ask yourself this question:

“Is there anything in your life that, knowing what your now know, you would not get into again today, if you had it to do over?”

For example, is there any relationship – business or personal – that you would not enter today?

What about your business?

• Are there any of your current products or services you would not offer today, knowing what you now know?
• Is there a market to which you are selling that you would not enter?
• Are there customers you would not take on?
• Employees you would not hire?
• Processes you would not adopt?
• Channels of distribution you would not use?
• Sales and marketing strategies you would not follow?

Have you invested time, energy, emotions or money in any relationship or venture to which you would not commit today, knowing what you now know?

If you answer “yes” to any such question, there automatically follows another obvious question:

Why are you still involved in this relationship, strategy, investment or whatever?

No one with a degree of common sense begins something that does not at least appear to make sense.

When we enter a relationship, hire an employee or make an investment, we do so because we are convinced it will benefit us.

Over a period of time, our needs change.

So do our circumstances.

What made sense yesterday may not necessarily make sense today.

Yet often, we are so busy that we fail to recognize these changes and, out of habit, we find ourselves perpetuating an outdated or outmoded status quo.

In applying zero based thinking, you expose these habitual parts of your life.

Then you can ask a second question:

What are you going to do about it?

Normally, there is one answer: eliminate it from your life. Then move on.

This practice of zero based thinking and taking appropriate action requires courage and commitment.

You must be brutally honest in your self-assessment. And you must be resolute in your determination to change.

Begin now, and make it a habit to regularly ask yourself the zero based thinking question,

“Knowing what I now know, is there anything I would not get into again today if I had to do it over?”

Then take action to eliminate these from your life.

The results can be quite extraordinary, as you eliminate negative, non-functional or even dysfunctional aspects of your life, replacing them with new, positive aspects.

You will have higher energy. You will enjoy greater peace of mind. And you will be far more productive.

The purpose of this blog post is to help focus your attention on those areas of your life that will change your life forever.

This act of observing – focusing upon – these critical life elements ensures maximum return on your investment of time and energy.

Why you ask – well because you are worth it

The Highway of Passion

“When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that
deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible.”

Let me ask you a very personal question – Is this you :

You have :

a 9 to 5 job getting a good pay,

you have a great family and

all’s well with your world [as you see it].

But deep inside, you know and feel like you’re going nowhere.

The job is not going up either.

You are really stagnating in your career both mentally and spiritually.

Something is missing.

Passion.

The one character that textbooks and instruction manuals and company procedures will never talk about.

Everybody is in such a hurry to get you to fit perfectly into the machine like a well oiled gear wheel, that they actually forgot you are a living, feeling human being.

Even you have forgotten this.

Ask yourself this.

What if I had a million bucks in the bank, what kind of work would I be doing?

Would I chuck this humdrum job and move on to something really exciting?

Like something that I have always wanted to do?

Then ask yourself – why am I not doing that right now?

Is it because of peer pressure or because I don’t want to move out of my comfort zone?

Don’t want to rock my boat?

You are half asleep in your boat already and in a few years, you could be put out to pasture! – permanently

If the boat rocks now, you could be jerked awake and come to your senses.

Your passionate senses.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, millions of people lost their jobs.

Many of them took up new vocations and suddenly found that they were finally following their dream.

Many of them are now highly successful in their new found professions.

You don’t have to wait for dire straits to rock you out of your present mediocre life.

You can decide right now, that you want to live and work passionately and make your life worthwhile.

The Highway of Passion is an amazing ride.

And Prosperity is just one of the landmarks on this route!

Get ready for the ride of your life!

more to come – check back regularly

Communicate with Confidence, Clarity & Credibility in Every Situation

Communication happens in many ways.

You need to learn to recognize the Secret Gems of Communicating that will ensure you get your message across effectively.

There are so many ways that we communicate with others that we need to decide which combination of methods to use – whether it be the spoken or written word, body language or visual images, multimedia methods like television, video, cd and dvd and of course the internet.

Secret One – The Spoken Word

We take speaking to others for granted because we do it every day.

However, far too many people fail to realitize just how easy it is for others to misunderstand us (and then we blame them for getting it wrong!)! So we need to improve our communications with others – whether it’s face to face or over the telephone – so that our message is understood.

Secret Two – The Written Word

Being the basis of business communication, it is essential that we master the skills of using words effectively. We need to learn how to communicate better using letters, memos, reports, proposals, notes, summaries, agendas, minutes, discussions and email.

Secret Three – Body Language

Even when we are sitting still our body language is communication with all those in our presence. Unknowingly we are giving off powerful messages of our feelings and attitudes.

Learning the secrets of body language we will be able to influence the outcome of important events in our life.

In our ever more diverse cultural world, it is vital we become aware of the different ways many view the invisible signals that we give off.

Secret Four – Gestures

Gestures and other non-verbal communication such as posture and facial expressions are critical building blocks of communication.

We need to learn a range of gestures to practice that will have a dramatic positive effect on our ability to communicate with confidence, clarity and credibility.

Secret Five – Listening

The two-way nature of communication is often ignored because both sides have failed the skill of effectively listening to the other party’s point of view.

Learn to identify and rectify sloppy listening techniques.

By knowing how and when to eliminate ‘Passive’ listening, constant interruptions and prejudice, two way communications will take on a new and powerful part of our life and business.

Secret Six – Questions

The right questions, asked the right way, open the door to knowledge and understanding.

The art of questioning lies in knowing what questions to ask and IMPORTANTLY, when to ask them.

To communicate with confidence, clarity and credibility we need to learn the skills of choosing the right question, phrased the right way, asked with confidence and authority so that we learn the information we need to be effective in business.

Secret Seven – Taking Notes

Forget relying on our memory when we learn to master efficient methods of recording speech or condensing written communication.

We need to discover the latest techniques of mind mapping, speedwriting, and the use of color enabling us to make effective notes that dramatically improve our ability to make use of the mountains of information that pass over our desk each day.

Can you say “I love you” any better?

Slow down for a few minutes to read this. It is so worth it.

What Love means to a group of 4-8 year olds . .

Touching words from the mouth of babes.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, ‘What does love mean?’

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

‘Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired…’

Terri – age 4

‘Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.’

Danny – age 7

‘Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss’

Emily – age 8

‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.’

Bobby – age 7 (Wow!)

‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,’

Nikka – age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)

‘Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.’

Noelle – age 7

‘Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.’

Tommy – age 6

‘My mommy loves me more than anybody You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.’

Clare – age 6

‘Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.’

Elaine-age 5

‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.’

Chris – age 7

‘Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.’

Mary Ann – age 4

‘I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.’

Lauren – age 4

‘When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.’ (what an image)

Karen – age 7

‘You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.’

Jessica – age 8

So what you think? – did it bring a smile to your face ?

Personal Growth Means Change

I recently mourned the death of one of my buddies.

As I listened to the great comments made by so many others as to the kind of person he was, and the life he had lead, I stopped for a moment to look inside myself to see who I am.

I realized that there is enormous room for growth in my life.

Is there room for improvement in your life?

Let us take a moment to learn how we can grow to become the person we hope and have the potential to be.

We all want to be the best that we can be.

We sometimes see others and admire certain characteristic traits about them.

We have read volumes of self-help books in hopes of fine tuning ourselves.

True many of these books help but self-growth goes way beyond reading books.

It means we must stop wishing for change and becomes proactive in creating the change.

Self-growth or personal growth is about change and the change begins with us.

In order for change to take place within you, you must first define your objectives.

Know what changes you want to make.

You are aware of the qualities you want to throw out of your life.

Here’s an idea write them down.

Here are some ways to begin to do some introspective work to help you to define the changes you want to make in your life.

• Make a list of some habits you wanted to change
• Do you know how you are seem?

  Try to get a feel of how others think of you.

  Make a note of how you want to be seem and how to can change your behavior to achieve that

• Make mental notes of how you treat others.

  Do you walk away feeling good that you have treated that person you met fairly.

  Do you feel good when you walk away?

• Think back to criticisms you have received in the past.

  Do you think there may have been just some little truth to them?

  Are you objective enough to see the true you?

• Speak to an objective friend or family member you trust to be fair and honest with you.

  Get some feedback on how you are seen

• Look at the behaviors of those you admire and note them down.

  Do you see those same characteristics in you?

• Make a note of behaviors you see in others that you dislike and look within to see if you share any of those traits.

  Try to be objective.

  Make a list of the ones you want to change

So now with these notes its time to do something – I’m talking about taking action !!!

more on this in a later post —-