IM Focused!

The forumula is as follows …

Goals + Positive Attitude + a Plan + Belief + Action + Accountability = SUCCESS

The following was my thought process as I worked through the formula on my drive home …

Goal Setting

Research has proven that only 3% of the population takes the time and effort necessary to write down their goals. This same 3% earns more than the remaining 97% combined.

Although this should be reason enough for you to have goals and write them down, I understand there are quite a few things that are possibly holding you back. I am not saying it’s “ok” to make excuses, I am simply saying there are reasons.

Let’s face it there are far more people in the world that will discourage you from thinking big, then there are that will encourage you to “reach for the stars.”

Since this is the case, we are basically conditioned to think small. We may intitially have a high goal, but by the time we share it with a couple people, we end up chipping away at it and whittling it down to something very small. Knowing this, I understand that, although dreaming big and setting goals should be easy, it really isn’t, due to the fact we’ve got so many people trying to drag us down.

Positive Attitude

Looking at things in a positive light is another thing that would be easy if it wern’t for the high amount of negativity we are faced with each day. Those same people who are telling you, “You can’t do that,” are the same people trying to have you catch their “negativity disease.”

There are far more people who seem to enjoy drama and whining about all the bad things that “happen to them.” These people will naturally have negative events repeatedly happen to them over and over because that’s what they focus on all the time.

I believe that each of us should mentally and physically divorce ourselves from negative people. It doesn’t matter if that negative person is your parents, siblings, or even your spouse. I know this may sound harsh, but unless you want to experience a lifetime of negativity, you need to surround yourself with positivity. I know this is a difficult thing to do, but you owe it to yourself.

Heck, if a friend of yours was in an abusive relationship you’d beg them to get out of it and think they were nuts if they didn’t. Surrounding yourself with negative people is EXACTLY the same thing as staying in an abusive relationship. DON’T DO IT!!

Have a Plan

Creating a plan is probably the easiest part of the equation so this is the part we’ll focus on the most. When you’ve set your goal, no matter how large or small, it should be quite easy to sit down with a piece of paper and outline all of the activities you’d need to accomplish in order to achieve that goal.

When you are writing your plan you should include every activity you can think of and be as specific as you can.

Believe You Can

If you happen to have kids, what do you tell them when they say, “I can’t do that!” I don’t know about you, but when I hear that I don’t like it!

My typical response is, “You can do anything you set your mind to.” I’m sure I’ve made this statement a million times without thinking about it because I was brought up in a positive environment where my parents supported me and encouraged me.

I understand that the majority don’t have this same type of environment, and I’ve already pointed out how we are basically surrounded by negativity. These circumstances make it very diffiult to set big goals, and in most cases believe we can accomplish even small goals.

The challenge with this is inline with the old phrase, “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, YOU ARE RIGHT!”

If you want to succeed you MUST BELIEVE YOU CAN!

Take Action

Besides creating a plan taking action should be the easiest step of the formula. The challenge is, due to all the obstacles I’ve discussed thus far, we are conditioned to question our ability so much that we have a hard time finding the motivation to take action. After all, why do the work if there will never be any reward?

You need to spend enough time on your plan that you know if you take action, you will receive the results you are looking for. Following that you need to stop making excuses and start making progress. If you don’t you’ll be sentenced to a life of mediocrity, and in my opinion, that’s a huge waste of your talents.

Be Accountable

Most people are afraid to tell anyone what they are looking to accomplish because they are afraid either:

1. The person they tell will laugh at them and tell them they can’t.

2. They don’t believe they’ll follow through with their statement.

The bottom line is they are afraid of failing and being mocked for doing so. It is one thing to keep your plans private and be accountable to yourself. It is a completely different story to surround yourself with positive people who will encourage you once you’ve announced your goals and plans. The only trick is to have the ability to find those positive people, and as we’ve pointed out, that can prove itself to be quite a challenge with all the negativity in the world.

So how do you overcome all these obstacles?

The best way to overcome these obstacles is focus on the easiest parts of the formula and leverage those elements to accomplish the rest.

If you are currently earning $30,000 per year and set a goal to increase your income to $100,000, that can be quite daunting. Plus if you knew what it took to earn $100,000, you’d already be doing it.

But …

If you set a goal to spend one hour each day educating yourself within your industry, you would increase your worth in a BIG way, and when you bring more value, it is impossible to not be rewarded. I understand your current boss may not ever pay you that much, but if you increase your value … the word will spread. Opportunities will open up for you. BELIEVE IT!

Speaking of believing it …

Although it might be very difficult to believe your income will increase from $30,000 to $100,000 … it is totally believable that you can spend one hour educating yourself within your industry isn’t it? Of course it is!

If you knew that your goal was to have the large pay increase, but you focused on the action goals you set, you will begin to gain confidence and belief since you’ll be accomplishing goals every single day. This will have an incredible impact on your positive attitude, your belief, and pretty soon you won’t be able to take enough action. It is infectious!

The last piece is finding the positive people to hold you accountable. That’s where my little experiment comes into play.

I would like to see as many people set goals and accomplish them as possible over the next 30 days. This will be powerful since it takes a person 28 days to begin a new habit. If we work together for the next 30 days, everyone that participates will have created some very positive, powerful new habits.

We can use technology to bring together a group of positive people for encouragement and accountability.

Here is how it will work …

If you don’t already have a Twitter account, go to the page and set one up. This will take you less than 3 minutes. Set a goal (doesn’t matter how big or small) and create a plan containing three daily activities, which if completed, will help you reach this goal. Post these three daily activity goals individually on Twitter and include “#accountable” after the post. When you’ve accomplished these daily action goals, post it on Twitter and include “#accountable” after it.

Everyone that is participating in this experiment will have the ability to do a search on #accountable within Twitter, and monitor each participants progress. Knowing that other positive people will be monitoring your results should instill a sense of importance to your action goals. Plus you’ll now have a new core group of positive “cheerleaders” on your side encouraging you to succeed. I look forward to your participation and more importantly, some incredible success stories over the coming month!

It’s quite ironic; the things that we find easiest to concentrate on are the things that are not beneficial to the job in hand! But the simple fact that you can concentrate on these things merely shows that you do possess concentration skills, however, they’re just not that well honed… yet.

Stop, just for a minute and think about how important your thoughts, your focused thoughts are? These thoughts play a crucial role in your everyday life, and in everything you are. Imagine the effect that learning to improve your concentration skills to pinpoint accuracy, to be able to focus right in on what you actually want to, and streamline your logical thought process, imagine, how that could actually positively affect your life.

A sharper, more focused you.

The person who spends hours in the gym, training their body and taking their physical fitness to a higher level feels an exhilaration in their improved level of ability and is ready and able should they ever need to use it. Not much use if your mental fitness is comparable to a couch potato!

Remember: your brain is a muscle that needs training and regular exercise too.

A Useful Concentration Tip:

In the middle of trying to do your paperwork and you’re fed up? Try the Five More Rule.

What is it? Simple! Do FIVE MORE math equations. Read FIVE MORE pages. Work FIVE MORE minutes.

As I mentioned before, your brain is a muscle that is trainable. Athletes build physical stamina by pushing for those extra five sit-ups, squats, whatever, and get their “second wind” AFTER their willpower is screaming stop.

The concept is identical. Your mind is screeching “I’m bored… switch on the TV.” Yet by making the conscious effort to continue and think “Five more minutes work,” you can somehow gain your “second mind” and stretch your concentration, and increase your mental endurance.

Wrong! 

That’s what they (the media) want us to believe.  So what’s a person to do? In order to stay focused, and not get rattled by all the doomsday naysayers, a person needs to develop mental strength.  How you ask?

Here are three simple (but not easy) techniques to assist you in developing mental strength.

1.) Ask yourself, “What DO I have?”  By taking inventory of all you have you are focusing on the “good” and not the “bad.”  That is, you are acknowledging your abundance and not your lack.  Sure, you may think you don’t have anything…compared to what? If you’re reading this then you have a computer and internet access, or at least access to them.  There are thousands of people that would LOVE to be able to not only get access to the Internet, but to be able to read the words.  Come on, think about all that you have in order just to read this article. Focus on what you have!

2.) Ask yourself, “Does this really affect me…right now?” Sure these times may seem to be very scary, but if you ask the question, “Does this really affect to me right now?”  You’ll be surprised at just how little in what the media report affects you today, right now.  Take for example the stock market.  Yes, we have a bear run and many stocks and portfolios took a dive.  But if you absolutely don’t need access to your money, right now, the only effect is on paper.  Looking back on the market you will see that after ever bear run comes a bull run.  Sit tight and ask the question and answer it not from emotion but from logic.  You’ll find that you’ll be breathing easier.

3.) Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” Then be quiet for a few minutes.  The immediate reaction/answer to this question for most people is either “Nothing” or “I don’t know”.  The truth is that there is learning in EVERY situation.  The key is to find the teaching.  By finding the teaching you’ll be better educated and prepared to face this situation the next time.  But really if you’re prepared for the next time, the next time usually never happens.

So, there are three powerful mental strength questions to assist you in staying focused in these chaotic times.  By asking these questions at least once a day, you’ll develop the mental to strength not only the just survive, but to thrive as well.

How do you get around this problem?

For starters, whenever you find your mind drifting away, simply bring your attention back to the task at hand.  It’s better not to beat yourself up about it.  Understand that it’s normal to have your mind drift away.  It happens to everyone.

In fact, in Zen meditation, it’s taught that whenever you notice that your mind has drifted off, simply bring your mind back to focus.  And don’t beat yourself up for losing focus.

Now you know what to do when your mind drifts off.  But is there a way to minimize the number of times that your mind drifts off?

You won’t be able to eliminate your mind drifting off completely.  But you can minimize it.  For instance, if your mind keeps wandering off on figuring out what to eat for dinner, have that figured out before you start working on your task.  Write down what you will eat on a piece of paper if you like.  That way, your mind won’t be bothered on what you should eat for dinner because you’ve already figured it out.

Also, make sure you eliminate distractions that would pull your attention away.  Turn off your cell phone, instant messenger, TV, and radio when you’re working.