Top 10 Powerful Words to Keep You Motivated

No matter where you are on your life journey, setbacks can cause disappointment and a loss of momentum.

Whether it’s a new career you’re working towards or an overall appreciation of life, every step towards fulfillment can seem financially, emotionally, or psychologically draining from time to time.

To boost your confidence, here’s a list of the top 10 power words and tips to keep you motivated and passionate, no matter what life throws your way:

1. Purpose. Whenever you’re feeling discouraged or disappointed, always remember your original purpose. Reminding yourself of the original reason for venturing down your path in the first place will help refresh your mind when things go awry.

2. Planning. Though you may think that you’ve done enough planning towards the fulfillment of your goal, thinking it through again will help eliminate aspects of your plan of action that may be causing you setbacks. Put all your thoughts down on paper, from the smallest details to the larger movements.

* Being able to see the timeline of your mission will help you focus on taking one step at a time to reach your goals.

3. Acceptance. Accepting that you’re a human being who’s bound to have ups and downs is absolutely crucial to your success. Without this self-acceptance, you’ll be subject to a foggy mind that’s unable to think positively, clearly, and innovatively.

* Acceptance of what hasn’t worked in the past helps you gain a better knowledge of what will work in the future.

4. Reward. When your motivation starts to wean, it’s crucial to give yourself rewards along the way. This is one of the best ways to stay motivated on your path to success.

By giving yourself a taste of what you’re working for – whether it’s financial freedom, career responsibility, or your dream lifestyle – you won’t feel like you’re working so hard for nothing. This refreshes your mind and helps you work more productively.

5. Health. You know what this entails: moderate exercise, a healthy diet, and 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Feeling worn-down will make it almost impossible to pursue your goals and vision with the same clarity and vigor you had when you first set out.

* Take care of your basic needs first, and you’ll be strong enough to pursue your dreams.

6. Motivation. Research motivational books, CDs, and seminars. Sometimes hearing motivational tips from a different perspective can greatly motivate you to act and succeed.

* Find a source or two that touches you in some way and keep them close for those moments when you feel discouraged. After all, we all get discouraged at one time or another.

7. Organization. Ever feel depressed and worn out, and then you clean your surroundings and instantly feel more focused and motivated? The same applies to your goal. Organize and clean house when it comes to the operation of your goal.

* Organizing yourself gives you a fresh start and a feeling of clarity. In doing so, you’ll be able to attack your short and long-term goals more vigorously and effectively.

8. Refresh. Refresh your plan with something new. It could be a different tactic, setting, or career. Whatever it is, break out of the pattern you’re in and try something new. Even if this new tactic doesn’t yield positive results immediately, at the very least it will make you aware of the availability of your options.

9. Networking. Reach out to people in your industry or those who share your life goal. You can do this a number of ways: check out local clubs, find a plethora people online, or talk to existing contacts that may have already succeeded in your goal.

* Having someone to voice your struggles, questions, and experience to will invigorate you to keep moving forward.

10. Action. Taking action, despite doubts and setbacks, will further your progress. By moving on, despite any pessimistic thoughts, you will motivate yourself by the sheer momentum of doing something proactive to change your circumstances.

Whenever you feel like your progress has stalled, or you simply want some quick inspiration, look to these 10 powerful words and strategies to spur you on. You’re sure to find something to get you back on track toward success!

How To Make Decisions You Can Live With

Making decisions in our lives – whether it’s what to eat for lunch or where to find your next job – can seem overwhelming. Each decision carries with it a result and a chain of events that may dictate the course of our lives.

For those of us who consider every decision as life or death, day-to-day decisions can seem impossible!

To help you discover the finer points of decision-making, here are some valuable tips on how you can make decisions that you can live with every day:

1. Map out your decision. Start by evaluating the decision to be made. What are the details? By mapping out exactly what your decision will entail as far as consequences and results, you’ll be on your way to making an informed decision that you can live with.

2. Weigh pros and cons. This process is tried and true. Make a list and evaluate the pros in one column against the cons in another. Include short and long term consequences as well as positives and negatives.

Seeing the pros and cons before you on paper will make the matter at hand seem all the more evident as far as how you should make your decision. In your evaluation, give more weight to the pros and cons that carry more weight in your life.

* The quantity of pros or cons does not equal the quality.

For example, if one of your main priorities in life is to make more money, listing “make more money” on your pros column should count for more than one of the cons in the other column.

3. Become informed. Find out all of the related information you need to make your decision. Being better informed through research or talking to others will help you make a decision you can live with.

4. Consider your motives. While evaluating your list of pros and cons, consider what motives may be contributing to the points you added in both columns. Revise or weigh accordingly. For example, can the con on your list be attributed to your lifelong fear or is it merely situational?

* In the case of fears, perhaps facing your fears should be part of the decision. Facing the fear may be a pro as opposed to the fear being a con.

5. Give yourself a deadline. When faced with an important decision, we tend to delay making the ultimate choice. By giving yourself a deadline, you will have no other choice than to decide one way or another.

6. Look at the decision as part of the bigger picture. Is this a small or large decision in the course of your life? Decide which and evaluate accordingly. If it’s small, perhaps you’re spending too much time and consideration on it. If it’s larger, how will it fit in with the rest of your life goals?

* By examining the decision for what it is in the short and long-term, you will better understand how the decision affects the bigger picture.

7. Recognize the relativity. Many tough decisions can carry with them irrevocable consequences, but more often than not, there is always more time and more opportunity to make the decision again. Worrying needlessly about one decision is futile.

* Most decisions only determine your short-term circumstances in the relative present. In most cases your decision can be altered in the future when circumstances are different or you’re in a different stage of your life.

Following these tips can transform decision-making from a stressful process into a process that gives you more confidence and control in your life.

Embrace decisions as the good thing that it is, and the result will be a happier, more confident you!

How To Adjust To New Changes In Your Life

If you speak to any grouping of people concerning change, usually 9 out of 10 of them will tell you that they do not enjoy having to reconstruct things in their lives. Change is not easy for most of us an humans because we are by nature, creatures of habit.

You want to continue living in a certain routine once you have conditioned your body and mind to function in that way. This makes you feel comfortable with your surroundings and decisions.

Even if you don’t like change, there are ways to make healthy lifestyle changes easier. There are also tools you can use to welcome change into your life, even when you’re entering new uncharted territory.

Here are 3 ways to make lifestyle changes easier for you:

1. Determine Pros and Cons. If you know you need to make changes in your life and you aren’t looking forward to doing so, you can do a simple exercise that will make the change easier to handle.

Take a sheet of paper, and on one side write “Pros,” and on the other write, “Cons.” On the corresponding side you will write the pros and the cons of the change so you can see what the benefits and drawbacks might be.

* You may realize as you complete this exercise that the very thing holding you back is the fear of change itself.

Seeing the pros and cons will help you realize how it will benefit you to make the change. This allows you to warm up to the thought that change actually might actually be a good idea!

2. Incorporate the Change Gradually. Another way to make lifestyle changes easier is to work up to them.

For instance, if the healthy lifestyle changes that you need to make center around ceasing your habit of smoking and drinking you may not want to quit cold turkey; instead you can work up to it. Stop drinking every night with dinner, and then stop drinking for a few days at a time. You can do the same thing with smoking so that you aren’t fighting the lifestyle change.

* Preparing yourself both physically and mentally helps you to ease the change into your daily routine.

3. Use Affirmations. Another way to help make lifestyle changes easier is to use positive affirmations. Positive affirmations are statements that encapsulate the way you would ideally think or behave.

You can either create your own affirmations or look for statements that others have created. The key is that you find an affirmation that speaks to you.

* Words are powerful and, when you repeat the same words over time, they continue to resonate through your mind. When the words are positive you’ll find that you can tap into the positive thought anytime or anywhere.

If you’re worried about making a healthy lifestyle change, you don’t have to be. Instead, you can remind yourself why you want to change by saying something like, “Change is healthy. I do not get stuck in the same routines.” When you repeat this often enough, it becomes your response to the anxiety you feel. This makes changes easier for you to handle.

Some lifestyle changes are harder than others to become accustomed to even when we desire to make the changes. Many times just one of these tips will help you to implement the change, while other times you may need to use a variety of methods to feel at ease about the change.

Use the “pro and con” method to see the benefits. Then bring the change in gradually while you accept it through your affirmations. These techniques will help you feel confident so you can enjoy the benefits of your new lifestyle.

Using Your Goal Setting Mastermind Group

If you take the time to chat with any number of truly successful people, you will find that the key to their success usually comes from knowing how to tap into the resources of other, when they themselves are limited by their own personal resources. Usually this resource comes in the form of insider knowledge which can be leveraged into great results.

But there is a simple reason why this works so well. Achieving goals is not a solitary process and help in some form is often needed to make the process easier. There are any number of ways to reach what you have determined is success, but an excellent way is to develop your own support team, your mastermind group, or find a group of like minded individuals to enhance your goal achievement.

Keep in mind that you are not reinventing the wheel here. Just because you have a goal doesn’t mean that everything has to be done the hard way in order to claim it as yours. Few original ideas remain in this world. It is your personal take on them that makes your goals unique.

In order to make reaching your goal a simpler process that doesn’t have you pulling your hair out or feeling like you have to do everything all by yourself, create your own support team. This is a group of people that can be counted on at different times to help you reach the end of your goal. The team can consist of anyone that you trust implicitly to have your best interests at heart.

Start with those closest to you. Family members can take an interest in your goal. To make it official, have them sign a contract that states they will assist you in specific ways during the achievement of this goal. These contracts are like pacts between people to support one another.

You might find that family members are willing to help, until they have to tell you the hard things. Instead they may sugar coat or even down right lie to you about something for fear of hurting your feelings. In that case, family members are perfect as your pep team. They can be there to cheer you on and pick you up when you are down in the dumps about your goal.

Next, call on the help of friends. It isn’t necessary to give them all the details about the goal but ask them to check in on you from time to time in an effort to keep you focused on the goal. That doesn’t require specifics just a willingness to be a caring partner in the process.

Church groups can help achieve goals as well. Become a part of a prayer group to increase your spiritual strength as you undertake this goal. For religious individuals, the spiritual component of the support team is an integral part of achieving their goals and should not be left out.

Another great way to get support in reaching your goals is with a mastermind group. What is a mastermind group you might ask? It is a group composed of people who are all working towards the same or similar goal. They may be taking a different path to get there, but each person in the group is united in the fact that some day they will all achieve that goal.

These groups can be found on the Internet or you can create your own if you have the time and the drive. Mastermind groups are helpful for business and personal goals. They share ideas, experiences, resources, and motivation to help all members get to the next level of completing their goals.

Everyone in the group has a common goal and realizes that many heads are better than one. Mastermind groups form alliances that can be helpful and productive beyond just your current goals too. If a goal is particularly trying at times, it is a tremendous relief to know that someone else out there knows exactly how you feel.

These groups are also great for being honest with you when it comes to the hard times of achieving your goals. Members won’t be afraid of hurting your feelings, like friends or family might be, and will simply tell it like it is. Sometimes, whether we like it or not, that’s exactly what we need in order to overcome hurdles and get to the finish line.

The Winners’ Mindset Or Losers’ Outlook

What is the real difference between good and great? What separates those who lose and fail from those who walk the path of true success?

Those two simple questions could unleash and avalanche of answers with so many different perspectives and from so many different source that it’ll literally make your head spin. But after you cut through all the hype,  all the foolish ideas, all the latest concepts,  fads,  and doo-hickies, you end up at one simple conclusion that has endured the test of time and is still as powerful today as ever.

You realize that the only true difference is the mindset.

I was reading a story today by Dan Wetzel from Yahoo Sports about a football player named Sean McHugh whose story seemed to start from one of the most difficult places in his life and career, and progress to a most blessed state that most people would envy.

Sean’s had a young family, his wife was pregnant and as it turned out was having complications, he has just moved into their first home,  then all of a sudden, he got a call that seemingly turned his world upside down.

A call and a meeting that ended up with him being fired from his job. Now if you know anything about this type of experience, this can be one of the most frustrating, scary, and difficult times for anyone, no matter what type of work they do…and it was no less different for Sean and his family.

Now to make a long story short, Sean pulled through with amazing results, but I wanted to get to a specific point about this story that stands out so I won’t go into all the details.

The story compared the mindset of the two football teams that Sean worked for and the results they each experienced. The culture and mindset of the losing team was one of “hoping to win” while the culture of the winning team that went on to the Superbowl was powerful expectation.

The winning team lived with the mindset that they were expected to win and would settle for nothing less than coming out on top. Their entire team’s culture was built around this attitude and mindset.

When they practiced, they practiced as winners, when they studied team plays, they did it as winners, when their coaches spoke to the team, they talked to them as if they had practically already won; their energies, their focus, their passion was winning.

Could this have contributed something special to them actually winning?

Definitely. Their mindset created the path for their actions to follow. This became their guiding vision, their passion, their hunger; and anyone who takes this approach to life, whether it is at work, play, business etc, will become almost invincible because they will never settle for defeat, or take no as an answer.

This right type of mindset is what truly separate the winners from the losers…good becomes great simple because it is never satisfied with losing and failure as an end result. Yes, you may indeed hit an unexpected glitch in your path, but having the mindset of a winner will push you beyond any limitation to your desired destiny.

Only you can decide which mindset you will embrace in your life; only you can decide which mental state you will feed by taking the necessary actions that accompany the mindset; only you can decide whether you will live your life in the winners’ circle, or whether you will exist in shameful defeat and the shadows of a loser.

Stuck On Your Life Principles

It is pretty easy nowadays to do the same thing everyone else is doing, believe the same thing everyone else believes and behave the same way everyone else does, and unfortunately, most people live their lives just like that.

They become a poor miserable clone of society that lacks the ability to make a decision to be different and choose to do what, deep down inside, they know is right.

And what is the result of this type of action? – you got it – they end up with the same miserable, frustrated, stressed out existence that the crowd experiences everyday.

The key to breaking this cycle is to live life by a set of standards that will produce the experiences that you desire – that is to live life by a proper set of values or principles. Read more

Never Allow Your Setbacks To Become Your Stop Signs

One movie that I particularly like was Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump had this saying “Life IS like a box of chocolates…you never know what you gonna get” and I believe that he was right. In a box of chocolates, there can bea many assorted flavors that are sweet, chewy, and sometimes nutty. We may not even like all of the chocolates in the box, but we have to deal with them.

There are many words to describe what happens when we don’t get what we want. The most common term used is called “failure”, but even that word is used in the wrong context most of the times. So, we opted for words like “setback” and “stalled.” Read more

Finding Life Fulfillment 101

Here is a quick question for you…

Is Your Life Fulfilling?

Now before you answer yes or no, you de realize that this is a loaded question,but in a good way. To help you answer this question better, I want you to use the scale of your dreams and goals to give you more insight.

During this phases, you’re not going to rely on outside influences such as the thoughts of others or the feelings of society…but you will have to be honest with yourself, after all only you are reading/watching this and only you will know the answer. Read more

Painting A Better Picture Of You

It’s not a mistake that we only see ourselves as a reflection in a mirror. Who we truly are comes from within and not from the outside. If you are feeling in need of a change, maybe today is the day to paint a new self-portrait.

How do most of us gauge our image? We look through the lenses of others. What they see shapes who we are. There is something wrong with that picture for sure.

Let’s think about this for a moment… Read more

Learn To Think For Yourself

One of the first questions an employer asks in an interview is, “Tell me about yourself.” This can often be the worst question in the world for some of us. We will talk about anything else except something pertaining to what we are all about.

Most of the times this is hard because we have never really stopped and thought about who we really are, what we truly want from life, and how we will find true meaning and significance as we pass through this world.

Thinking critically is not only an important life skill, but it is a necessary one for anyone who wants to live a great life. Sadly, it’s one skill that is seldomly taught anymore. Read more