Do What You Love, Love What You Do

Do What You Love, Love What You Do by: Richard Hanes

Everyone dreams of a life full of love and adventure. But we fill ourselves with reasons not to follow our dreams. Instead of protecting us, they imprison and hold us back. Life will be over before we know it, so now is the time to really live life and love.

In Life Lessons, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler suggest that love is the only gift in life that is not lost and is ultimately the only thing we can really give. Start by loving yourself.

1. Love Yourself. To give love, you must have love. Too often we put conditions on love. Conditions on love weigh it down and keep us from loving completely.

Be Compassionate With Yourself. Don’t judge, criticize or beat yourself up when you make a mistake. Cut yourself some slack.

Nurture Your Soul. Do things that make you feel good about yourself and make you truly glad you did them. Let the love in that’s all around. Schedule and budget for these nurturing activities; pick something that will make you feel great and do it!

Remove Barriers. Let go of conditions you place on giving and receiving love. Give love freely with no thought of receiving love in return. Receive love with no conditions or self-criticism. Remember the Beatles song lyric from The End, “… And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

2. Love What You Do. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience, identifies eight major components of enjoying an activity. His studies on flow suggest an activity is enjoyable when at least one and often all eight components are present.

Completion. We need tasks with sufficient complexity to challenge and stretch us to develop our skills but that won’t overwhelm us.

Concentration. The root of concentrate means to “center”. We need tasks that allow us to wrap our mind around it and be challenged by it. Tasks that are too hard will overwhelm us; tasks that are too easy will bore us.

Clear Goals. Stephen Covey tells us to begin with the end in mind, to know what we’d like to accomplish. A clear goal gives us a specific outcome that our mind can use to discern if we are meeting the test.

Feedback. Feedback allows you to compare your outcome to your goal. It’s a symbolic message that allows you to create order in your consciousness and shift your efforts if your outcome is off course.

Deep, Effortless Involvement. Attending fully to what is happening in the present prevents our mind from filling with extraneous worries, thoughts and distractions. Applying all your relevant skills to meeting challenges focuses your attention completely, so you cease being aware of yourself as separate from your activity. You become one with it; you act spontaneously.

Sense of Control. Developing your skills so you can reduce the margin of error as close to zero as possible and being able to influence a doubtful outcome produces a sense of exercising control in difficult situations.

Self Concern Disappears. Protecting our ego, the image we hold of ourselves as separate from everything else, requires mental energy. Enjoyable activities with clear goals, stable rules and challenges well matched to our skills present no threat to our egos. Immersion in such activity strengthens our sense of being capable.

Altered Sense of Time. Immersion in challenging activity causes how we perceive time to speed up (we look up and 8 hours have passed without noticing) or slow down (like a batter watching a pitch in slow motion). Complete involvement frees us from the tyranny of time and deepens enjoyment.

Pick an activity that has these traits and you’ll love what you do.

3. Love in Service to Others. In A Simpler Way, Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers suggest that any self-expression that is not meaningful to others is irrelevant and won’t survive in a systems-seeking world. So expressing what you love in service to others is your task.
Do What You Love. Identify anything that meets some or all of the eight criteria listed above for loving what you do. What would you do if money were not an object? Let your list simmer on the back burner of your subconscious.

Combine Activities You Love. List without judging the things you love to do and how you might combine them. If you love writing, travel and spirituality, you might consider traveling to spiritual sites and writing a travel guide on how to get there and what to do once you’re there. Or consider organizing, marketing and guiding travel tours there. Be creative; use your imagination!

Serve Others. As you imagine possible manifestations of the activities you love, guide your imagination to ways that serve others. Remember, if you’re going to make a living by doing what you love, you’ll need others to pay you! Make your offering something others want or need!

Love and treat yourself well, learn what you love to do and do what you love in a ways that serves the needs of others! You’ll be glad you did!

Copyright 2005, Fruition Coaching. All rights reserved.
About The Author
Rick Hanes is a life and career coach, writer, outdoorsman, gardener and tireless advocate for living life with purpose and passion. He founded Fruition Coaching in 2004 to lead the fight against leading lives of quiet desperation. Check his website at http://www.fruitioncoaching.com to contact him about rekindling the fire of your life!

The Real Key To Happiness, Peace of Mind and Massive Success.

The Real Key To Happiness, Peace of Mind, and Massive Success by: Rick Miller

Do you know the secret that allowed 100% of the world's wealthiest people to become successful?

Amazingly though, even if you read all their books, attend their speeches, or even ask them in person, you'll probably never discover the one true secret of their success.
Why?

Because they probably don't even know themselves ...
They're too caught up in what they do each day. They may be totally unaware of why almost everything they're involved in becomes a success.

Would you like to know their secret?

Listen closely:

All truly successful people live in alignment with their passions ... they're fulfilling their purpose in life. They're living their own dreams.

The famous theologian William Barclay once said, "There are two great days in a person's life--the day we are born and the day we discover why."

Most people, regardless of religion or lack of religion, instinctively feel that there's a higher purpose to life ... and that if they could determine their mission in life, they'd be much more happy and satisfied.

Once you start to follow your passions and mission in life, the Universe (God or Nature, depending on what you believe) seems to start helping you achieve your goals, often by presenting startling opportunities for you ...

In a recent interview with Chris and Janet Attwood, they revealed a remarkable tool that'll help you quickly determine your purpose in life--The Passion Test.

(Note: To access the Attwood's complete audio interview for free, see end of article)
The simple test, a series of probing questions that you ask yourself, will quickly help you identify your top passions, what's really important in your life.

According to Janet, "The number-one reason people don't get what they want is--is they don't know what they want."

Once you discover your passions and align your life with them, success comes quickly and automatically.

What's more startling, she found that every single highly successful person who's taken the test (Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, T. Harv Eker, Dan Poynter, to name a few) already are accomplishing their top passions.

Undoubtedly knowing your passions speeds up the path to success.
Most importantly, she also revealed ways to help you realign your life to help you follow those passions.

The one key ingredient in reaching any goal or accomplishment is that you must totally love and enjoy whatever you are wanting to appear in your life.
It has to be your dream, not someone else's.

Do you really want a million dollars or would you rather have someone to love and be loved back?

Do you want that mansion or would you rather travel and not be tied down to any geographical location?

Only you can decide ...

After taking the Passion Test, I was profoundly changed in the way I view my life.
For me, I discovered that my number one passion is gaining dynamic health, my number two passion is improving myself, and three is mastering the guitar.

I realize now that I've put those desires on the back burner while I worked totally on survival goals (you know, making money and dealing with life's obstacles).

With that in mind, it's clear to me that I've missed out on a lot of joys that accomplishments in those areas would have brought me.

So I have a lot of work ahead of me to bring my life back into alignment with my most important passions ...

What about you? You owe it to yourself to discover your passions. It'll help you to become a success in all areas of your life.

Copyright 2005 Rick Miller
About The Author
Rick Miller is a Certified Master of Web Copywriting and co-founder of List Crusade. For free access to Chris and Janet Attwood's entire interview, along with 51 other audio lessons from top Internet Marketing and Self Help Gurus--go to: ==> http://www.ListCrusade.com/rickm.html

Get Inspired About Your Career

Get Inspired About Your Career by: Richard Hanes

Do you linger in bed long after your alarm goes off on work mornings? Do you dread Sunday nights because they lead to Monday mornings? Do you watch the clock and wonder if the day will ever end? Do you look outside your workplace and ask, “Is there more to life than just this job?”

If you suffer from any of these symptoms, it is time for you to create a new career! In her CD book, Advanced Energy Anatomy, Carolyn Myss, Ph.D. lays out a seven-step process for bringing an idea to physical creation. Here’s that seven-step process applied to creating a new career inspiration.

1. Get Inspired. Inspiration comes from the Latin words that mean, “to breathe in”. To infuse your career creation with life, passion, and excitement, ask yourself,

What would I do if money were not an object?

What did I love to do as a child but left behind?

What activity do I do so intently that I don’t notice time passing?

Am I interested in turning down the road not taken at a past career fork in the road?

Dig deeply, don’t censor your answers and write each inspiration on a separate piece of paper.

2. What Do You Think? Run each of your inspirations through your head! Ask,
Can I see myself doing this?

Does it make sense?

Do I think I can do it?

Am I willing to think about it?

Be honest in answering these questions, and record your answers on each idea’s page. Rule out the inspirations that don’t survive here.

3. What About Your Will? Run each of the surviving ideas through your will! Your will houses your mental capabilities for choosing, intending, wishing and desiring. Ask yourself,
Will I be able to do this?

Am I able to communicate it?
Am I able to make the right choices and decisions to do this?
Again, write down your answers for each idea. Narrow your list of ideas once more to the ones you believe you’ll be able to do, communicate or make the right choices for.
4. What Do You Feel? Run your survivors through your heart! Ask yourself,
How do I feel about this?
Does it feel right to me?

Can I follow my heart on these inspirations?

Write the answers to these questions for each idea; rule out the ones your heart isn’t into.
Here’s where the going gets tough. The first four steps are energetic. They’re ephemeral, they don’t affect your physical life, and they’re cheap and easy. The next three steps involve assessing your surviving career ideas in the physical world.

5. What Will Others Think? Run your surviving inspirations through your self-esteem. Ask yourself,
Can I endure criticism for this choice?
Will others think I’m foolish?
What if others laugh at me?
Write your answers for each of the surviving ideas and go to the next step.

6. Can I Afford It? Run your surviving inspirations through your financial life. Ask yourself,
What will it cost to change?
Can I live on what I could make in this new career?
Can I learn to live with less?
Record your answers and go to the next step.

7. Am I Willing to Deal With My Fears? What, you have no career ideas or inspirations that survived? Congratulations, you have met your fears!
Relax, you’re not alone!

It’s important that your mind, will and heart are all aligned, or you’ll run into problems. Careers your mind likes but your heart doesn’t will be short-lived. Careers your heart might like don’t even get consideration if your mind allows its fears to stop you dead in your tracks. Your will doesn’t have clear direction if your head and heart aren’t aligned.

Run each of your inspirations through your mind, will and heart. Release those inspirations that don’t have energy in all three of your mind, will and heart. You won’t have enough energy to try them effectively. Hold onto the inspirations for which your mind, will and heart are aligned.
Run those inspirations through your self-esteem. Ask yourself,

Do I have the guts to pull off this career change, even if others disapprove?
Can I grow up and not need others approval to change?
Am I willing to change my social group to pursue this new career?

Now that you’re feeling bold and independent, run the ideas that survived through your financial screen again. Weigh your desire for a career that satisfies you with your need to remain unchanged economically. Ask yourself these tough questions:

What economic changes must I make in order for this career to be feasible?
Would living more simply (read: less expensively) feel better if I felt better about my career?
What expenses that help me cope with my current career won’t be necessary if I change?
What’s more important -- feeling good about myself or having things?

Finally, take the hardy career inspirations that remain and ask,
Can I see myself putting this inspiration into practice?
Am I ready to birth this career inspiration into the world?
Am I ready to share the energy of my career idea with the world?

Shake the tree of your fertile imagination and see what career inspiration falls from it. Some ideas are ripe for picking; others need a bit more time on the tree to ripen. Hold onto those inspirations that didn’t survive – you’ll want to review them when you change careers next time!

Copyright 2005, Fruition Coaching, All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Rick Hanes is a life and career coach, writer, outdoorsman, gardener and tireless advocate for living life with purpose and passion. He founded Fruition Coaching in 2004 to lead the fight against leading lives of quiet desperation. Check his website at http://www.fruitioncoaching.com to contact him about rekindling the fire of your life!

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Setting Goals That Empower the Business Owner

Setting Goals That Empower The Business Owner by: Terry Strom

To succeed to the greatest extend possible, you need to set goals. But those goals must be reachable and stretchable. Reachable so you will believe that you can attain them, and stretchable so that when you attain them, you will have moved forward. I feel you need a monthly goal, a six month goal, a yearly goal, and even a three year, five year and 10 year goal. If you have ever played darts, you know that it is impossible to play without a target. Therefore, you need a target when you play the game of life and business.

Your goals need to be reachable do-able, because if they are too hard to attain or too far away, you may just look at your goal and say “whoa, that is too far away to look at and I don’t believe I can do it”. Therefore, you can’t get inspired by that goal, and as a result you will not spend the proper time and energy working on it, which means it will not happen. Then, when it does not happen, you create for yourself a failure, which lowers you self confidence and decrease your personal power for future goals. In cases like this it is much better to set smaller more attainable goals for yourself. Therefore, when you attain the goal, you will have moved forward and created a success for yourself that increase your self esteem and therefore it also increases you personal power for future successes.

You are your biggest and most influential critic of yourself, meaning that if you fail in your own eyes you can hold it against yourself 24/7 in the most negative way; which can play tremendous havoc on your ability to believe in yourself. The problem that occurs with people that continue to create goals that they don’t attain is that they stop believing themselves when they set a goal. Therefore, each time they set a goal that little (or big) voice inside them says “what makes you think you are going to compete your goal this time, you have not completed the other goals you set?“

I have a saying I use went putting together compensation and incentive programs for sales teams, “you get what you reward”. Well this also works with goals you set for yourself as the business owner. Therefore be very careful with the goals you set. If you set goals that do not inspire and excite you, you will not put the energy and effort needed into completing those goals.
As an executive business coach for business owners, I work with the business owners to set goals that are very personal which will have a direct result in bettering their life. I do this because I have seen too many business owners set up goals that may have seemed noble, but had very little potential personal benefit to the business owner, and therefore, it did not inspire them to action. Below is one of the examples of a personal goal I used to get my first direct sales company up and running.

When I started my first direct sales company my wife and I set a very personal goal that ended up being very motivating for both of us, and it was a lot of the reason for our early success in that business. When we started that company, my oldest son was 19 months old, and my wife was eight months pregnant with our second son. She was a teacher and wanted to come and be home with our sons, but we could not afford for her not to work at that time. However, I knew how very important it was for my wife to be home with our children, so I made a goal (and a commitment to my wife) that within one year I would get her out of her job. The goal was a very personal, specific, and attainable (although stretching) for us; and as a result it worked. My wife came home from work within one year, and has never gone back to work (and my oldest son is almost 18); and our direct sales company was extremely successful by the end of that first year.
Goals should be set in a stair step fashion that build on each other and lead to the completion of a major goal. Meaning you set your key goal for 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years, etc. Then you set shorter term and intermediate term goals that lead to the completion of the key goals. By doing this, you always have a reachable and attainable goal in close reach to where you are so that you don’t get discouraged when looking at the key (long term) goal. The personal story below gives a perfect example of keeping reachable goals constantly in front of you as you strive towards your major goals.

I used to take this run when I lived in Glendora in Southern California. It was located about 15 miles east of Pasadena where the Rose Bowl parade takes place. The run I took went up in elevation 3000 to 4000 feet to the top of a ridge (long term goal). It was about a nine mile run one way, and then you had to come back down that same nine miles. It had a lot of curves and was quite steep. I’d start running and I’d look up at the next flat spot where it curved and went up further, and I would say to myself “oh my gosh, that is such a long (steep) way up”. Just by looking at the steep elevation gain to that next flat spot were it curved to go up further
(intermediate goal) would make me want to give up right then. Therefore to lessen this feeling of wanting to give up, I learned to start looking at my feet instead of the steep jogging trail ahead of me. This helped me greatly, because if I looked at my feet, my feet only went up the steep hill a little bit with each step (short term goal); and then if I just kept looking at my feet eventually I’d get to that next flat spot that curved to go up further (intermediate term goal). Once I reached that flat spot I would get a little bit of success which would give me a euphoric feeling because I had attained that intermediate goal (a small success). This euphoric felling would then propel me to the next flat spot that curved to go up further (next intermediate goal). Then I would continue to go from flat spot to flat spot (intermediate goal to intermediate goal and small success to small success) using the same technique until I attained my long term goal (the end of my uphill run at the top of the ridge).

Through this example you see how you can use short term goals to reach intermediate goals, which help you reach your long term goals. However, the greatest thing about successfully meeting a goal is the awesome feeling of empowerment and the release of endorphins (natural pain killers created by your body), that made me feel awesome for hours later. Therefore, when I would get to the top of that ridge I would feel great and unstoppable for hours after that run (and a little tired). But to do this, I had to start with completing the short term goals, then the intermediate term goals, and then finally the long term goals. In the same way, you can use this technique with your business in order to meet the goals you set for yourself and you company, and to create the self confidence and empowerment that comes with completing those goals.
Lastly, it is extremely important to reward yourself when you complete a goal. You must have smaller rewards for the short term goals and larger rewards for the longer term goals. However, you must make sure that you do not give yourself the appropriate reward until you have completed the associated goal. Moreover, the rewards you set must be something that excites you and inspires you to action for it to be effective. It could be as simple as going out to dinner at a special restaurant when you complete you short term goal, or a weekend at a exciting resort for completing your intermediate range goal, or an awesome Caribbean cruise or a sports car for completing a long term goal. Whatever rewards you set for yourself, have fun with it, so that it will truly be a motivator for you.

Copyright 2005 Terry Strom

About The Author

Terry Strom is a business coach, author, and professional speaker in the areas of motivation, sales, and communication skills. He has spoken in front of over 250,000 sales professionals, and has been the Vice President of three corporations. You can contact him at www.optimizeyourcompany.com.

5 Tips to Eliminate Overwhelm & Accelerate Action

5 Tips to Eliminate Overwhelm & Accelerate Action by: Beth Tabak

The more you get up to bat the more you develop skills. Each time at the plate is another opportunity coming your way. The more you take action the more you will advance. Whether the game is your sport, career, business, home, or taking a risk one thing is clear. The more you take action, the greater your skills become, and the more you achieve. Below are 5 tips to eliminate overwhelm and accelerate action.

Maintain a Clear Path~ Imagine mowing your lawn by just wandering around mowing wherever you see grass at any given moment. Can you imagine how long it would take? Studies are now acknowledging multi-tasking to be multi-debilitating. The more you create a clear track of what needs to be done while fully focusing on one thing at a time, the faster you can move forward on it. See the resource below for help with this.

Microstep to Success~ Overwhelm is paralyzing. Start by microstepping. Take tiny steps to progress. Do what you know you can do (even if it seems ridiculous). I know I can clean out 1 drawer. I know I can put on my workout clothes and walk to the street. I know I can sit down with pen and paper for 15 minutes to ponder my book idea or begin a business plan. Microstepping will move you forward, build momentum and confidence.

Set Time Deadlines~ Setting deadlines when you begin a task helps maintain pace. It prevents the regret of, “where did the day go?”. Time is a valuable asset to be cared for. When beginning decide how much time you will allow, and focus to complete within that time. Set times during the day to manage tasks that would normally interrupt you such as e-mails, phone calls, and co-workers. When interruptions are inevitable, set a boundary by deciding the time you will allow for the interruption.

Schedule the Significant Stuff First~ We are so responsible that we cast aside the things that will make the biggest impact in our lives. Or maybe it is fear that holds us back. In any event, add the important things to your schedule as a priority and move towards what you want.
Systematize~ Consistently look to create systems to save time. Remember how time is saved by having a system to mow the lawn. When something new goes in a cabinet something old comes out. Return calls and check e-mails at scheduled times daily. Throw junk mail in the trash immediately. Give your items a home so nothing is ever lost. Schedule blocks of time to handle tasks in the various roles you hold. Automate. Keep a running list of items you need and errands, then handle at once. Systematizing with regard to a person’s strengths and passions is even more advantageous.

Resource~ You are welcome to use the complimentary Get Things Done Task List. Send a blank e-mail to GetThingsDone@aweber.com, confirm your request in the follow-up e-mail, and you should receive it in minutes.

This is the time to step up to the plate. Put the breaks on overwhelm and accelerate action by taking the first step… Starting Now!

Copyright 2005 © Beth A. Tabak, All rights reserved.

About The Author

Beth Tabak is a Business & Life Coach, columnist, & owner of Starting Now. She coaches small business owners and professionals to step out in a big, bold way to grow beyond limits, and create the life and business they keep thinking about. See what’s in it for you at http://www.startingnowcoaching.com.
startingnow@houston.rr.com

first post about self improvement.

Short and sweet: "If you aren't busy being born, you are busy dying" Robert Zimmerman (Dylan)

Let's get busy being born and keep getting better.

Tim Phelan