How strong is your desire?

Over the past few weeks I have had a number of opportunities come to me. I have had to ask myself which is moving me closer to my ideal. Whatever dream you decide to go after, whether it is a family goal or a career goal, you must consciously decide that it is your life's mission. Benjamin Disraeli said, "The secret of success is constancy to purpose." You must go at it obsessively and set high standards for yourself along the way. There is no room for compromise when you are charting a course for your life or your career. It is either moving you closer of further away from your goal. Wes Smith, wrote a humor book called Welcome to the Real World, and in it he offered advice to fresh high-school and college graduates. He had a line in the book that pertains to the situation I faced that night. It said, "Having a drink with the boys after work every night is a bad idea. Notice that the boss doesn't do it. That is why he is the boss and they are still the boys." Wes wrote that line with one particular group of hard-partying young businessmen in mind, and five years after the book came out, he ran into one of them. The guy volunteered that he'd read that line in Wes's book and decided never to go drinking after work again. It paid off, he said. He had risen to a vice-presidency at a savings and loan. So too with you. What thinks are you saying yes to that maybe limiting where you can go? Simply, are you chasing the fire within or are you getting slightly side tracked? www.fraserstirling.co.nz

Do I have to???

I wish personal growth would just happen! I wish I would just get better and money would fall out of the sky. I wish my waist would get smaller even as I sit on the couch in front of a warm fire eating Breyer’s Vanilla Bean ice cream. Oh, how I wish it was easy!

Okay, enough whining, enough dreaming, enough lack of reality. I have it out of my system! The reality is that it is work to grow personally. The sooner we realize that, even lovingly embrace that, the sooner we jump on the highway of success! The fact is that we “have to” do some things!

In order to attain your goals and desires you have to...

You have to know what it is that you want.
Wanting personal growth isn’t enough. Do you want more money? How much? Do you want to lose weight? How much? Do you want a spouse? Who? Do you want to travel? Where? Do you want more freedom in your professional life? What would that look like? Clearly define in your mind what it is that you want! Once you do…

You have to decide that you really want it.
Do you really want it? That is the place to start, really, because I have realized working with people that many of them really don’t want what they think they want once I talk them through all of the issues. Is this what you really want or is it a dream you have to escape something else? For example, do you really want to quit your job and start your own company? Do you want the risk to reputation? The risk of capital loss? Do you want to work from six in the morning until nine at night, seven days a week for the next two to three years? Do you really want it? Yes? Proceed…

You have to be willing to sacrifice to get it.
What will you give up to get personal growth? I know what I have to give up to be able to fit into size 32 pants—mud pie! Now, you may not think that is so bad, but you don’t know how bad I love mud pie! I know that it is a sacrifice for me to get to the gym every day of the week (okay, I usually take two Sunday afternoon’s a month off). I know how much I write the check out for each month to belong to the gym—it would feed a small army. This is sacrifice, all of it. What are you willing to sacrifice to get personal growth in your life? Are you willing? Then proceed…

You have to be willing to be criticized.
Surprisingly, the average person doesn’t like the average achiever. Why? Because they make the average person feel, well, average. They resent that the achiever makes choices they don’t make, even though they could too. And they secretly resent that the achiever benefits from rewards that they don’t. It seems odd, but working with thousands of people over the years I have seen enough jealousy and envy to fill every seat in the Rose Bowl. Can you handle that to various degrees? Then see number five…

You have to decide you want it more than other pleasures.
What is more pleasurable: ice cream every night or a proper weight? What is more pleasurable: sitting on the couch or pounding away on a treadmill? What is more pleasurable: spending your money on the things you want right now or saving for later? What is more pleasurable: getting off at five every night or working endlessly on the weekends? What is more pleasurable: reading a favorite novel or a technical book? What is more pleasurable: four weeks of vacation or one? You get the point. In order to grow personally or professionally, there will have to be a desire to work hard in spite of the pleasures that call your name. And if you work it right, in the end there will be plenty of time to reward yourself with the pleasures of accomplishment. Do you want it more than other pleasures? Really? Then let’s move on…

You have to take a long-term approach.
Why do most people fail to accomplish their personal growth goals? Because they take a short-term approach. They know what to do. They do it for a week or a month, then they quit. Every January the gym gets so busy. Then February rolls around and I have no problem getting on the machines! In order to accomplish your personal growth goals, you absolutely, positively, must view it as a long-term goal. For example, when most people want to lose weight, what do they do? They change their diet until they lose it. Then what? They change it back and gain the weight back. Instead, they ought to say, I am changing the way I eat for the rest of my life and slowly but surely my weight will take care of itself. And it does! Are you capable of seeing your personal goals in the long term? Well then you are ready for number seven…

You have to diligently, methodically and relentlessly work at it.
Every day, every week, every year. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. For 25 years Zig Ziglar has read for three hours a day! No wonder he oozes information! That is diligence. That is methodical. That is relentless! Can you do the same for yourself in the area you want to grow in? Certainly! But will you? That is the question. If you do, you will achieve any dream you set forth for yourself!
You can achieve personal growth! It is entirely possible for you to live your dreams! Put the above to work and you will see them unfold before your very eyes! Just remember, it won’t just happen to you, you “have-to” do some things!

Doing the Have Tos helps ignite the fire within.

Taking control

I was thinking about yesterdays post and thought that there was still so much to share. How do we get conscious of what we are doing and take control?

• Take 100% responsibility for your life. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who's fault it is. What are you going to do about it? Abdicating responsibility doesn't get you off the hook for making something happen. Instead, it renders you powerless and a victim. Stop blaming and finger pointing and look inside at what you do.
• Get clear about what you want. Just like ancient mariners used the compass to maintain direction during storms, your clearly defined objectives point the way forward when all hell breaks loose. You can steer yourself to clear waters instead of getting dashed against the rocks. The clearer the outcome the better likely you will be to achieve it.
• Purposely look for opportunities. To build your unshakeable mindset, you'll need a little practice. When you are clear about what you want, consciously look for ways to get closer. Soon enough, you'll retrain your brain to show you the best path through. Tune into things you want.
• Pay attention to your dominant emotions. When life strikes, are you drawn to finding blame or to correcting your course? I don't mean for anyone to ignore the emotions that pull us back, but don't give them all of your power. Grieve, mourn, get angry...but then bring your emotional awareness back to possibility. This is huge. Notice what you are feeling, this is a guidance system warning or encouraging us to think more of the same.

Remember my desire is to see you develop a fire that drives you to success.

How to set goals that will motivate you?

It is easy to set goals, but before long they can be discarded and we are back to where we were. So what do you do in order to set goals that are going to keep you moving towards your worthy ideal?

Resolve today to make the coming year the very best year of your life. Resolve today to draw a line under your past and to focus very clearly on your future. Resolve today that you are going to set goals, make plans, take actions and achieve more in the coming year than perhaps you have ever accomplished in any one single year before.

One of the great rules for success is this: "It doesn't matter where you're coming from; all that really matters is where you're going!"

No matter what you have done or accomplished in the past, "that was then and this is now."

The very best days, weeks, months and years of your life lie ahead. The most exciting accomplishments and the greatest achievements are still to come. As Shakespeare said, "The past is merely a prelude."

As it happens, everyone has goals. But some people seem to accomplish their goals far more systematically and with greater assurance than others. Why is this? The answer is simple. People who accomplish goals at a higher rate than the average are people who use a systematic, proven method of goal setting and goal attainment.

Perhaps the two most important qualities of success are focus and concentration. Focus means knowing exactly what it is you want and concentration means having the discipline to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, until it is complete.

If you have these qualities, and both of these qualities are learned through practice, you can accomplish virtually anything. There are no limits on your future if you can focus and concentrate every hour of every single day.

The starting point of setting goals for the coming year is for you to project forward and think back. Practice what we call "Back from the Future" thinking. Project forward to the end of the next twelve months and ask yourself, "If everything happens perfectly, what will it look like?"

The one quality of men and women who become leaders in their own lives and societies, throughout all of history is the quality of vision. They have the ability to visualize. They can see the future well in advance of it becoming a reality. They can then see the steps that they will need to take to get from where they are to where they want to go.

So if your next twelve months were ideal, in every respect, what would happen or, what would have happened, at the end of that twelve month period?
You need to set goals that are multi-dimensional. You need to set goals for every part of your life so that you function like a well-oiled machine, like a balanced wheel that goes around smoothly in every respect. You need goals for your health, for your career, for your finances, for your relationships, for your personal and professional development, for your community and for your spiritual growth. Nothing happens by accident. Everything happens for a reason. And you are the "primary creative force" in your own life. You are the reason. Things are happening in your life because you make them happen, not because you sit around and wait for them to happen.

Here is the basic seven-step model of goal setting. You can use this like breathing in and breathing out on a regular basis to accelerate your attainment of any goal you can imagine for yourself.

Step number one is for you to decide exactly what you want. This immediately moves you into a separate category of people because most people have no idea of what they really want. Clarity is the most important single quality of goal-setting and perhaps the most important single quality of success. Decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Instead of fuzzy goals like more money, better health and happiness, be specific about exactly how much more money you want to earn in a specific period of time and combine that with exactly what level of health and fitness you desire.

Most people are unconsciously preoccupied with the fear of failure. It is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. And the fear of failure can work on you unconsciously by blocking you from setting clear specific goals. Why? Well, if you don't set clear, specific goals, then you can't fail to achieve them. So your subconscious mind is actually protecting you by helping you to avoid failure.

You must resist and overcome this tendency by having the courage to be bold and specific about exactly what you want. This is step number one.

Step number two is for you to write it down. Only three percent of living Americans, or adults anywhere for that matter, have written goals. Everyone else that thinks about a written goal and plans to write them down, someday. But they never get around to it. Most people spend more time making a list of groceries before they go shopping or planning a vacation than they do in planning their lives. But again, this is not for you. Success begins with a pad of paper, a pen and a few minutes of your time. One of the most important keys to success is to "think on paper."

All successful people "think on paper." And here are two important points. If you cannot write it down clearly and specifically on a piece of paper, then it means that you are not really clear about it yourself. Perhaps you don't even want it. What is worse, it may be that you are afraid that you may not attain it. Nonetheless, a goal that is written down is merely a fantasy or a wish. A goal that is clearly written and described on a piece of paper takes on a power of its own, it is now something concrete that you can touch and feel and work with.

The second principle of writing goals down is that something miraculous happens between the head and the hand. When you actually write a goal down, it is as if you are programming it into your subconscious mind and activating a whole series of mental powers that will enable you to accomplish more than you ever dreamed of. By writing it down you intensify your desire for the goal and you increase your belief that the goal is possible. You begin to expect to achieve the goal and you start to attract people and circumstances into your life that are consistent with the attainment of the goal. Writing your goal down is one of the most amazing of all goal-setting skills and it is a key to your success.

The third step is for you to set a deadline. If it is a large goal, set a series of sub-deadlines. A deadline acts as a "forcing system" on your subconscious mind and begins to move you toward your goal rapidly while it moves your goal toward you.

Sometimes people ask me, "What if I set a goal and I don't achieve it by the deadline?" The answer is simple. Set another deadline. Remember, a deadline is a guess-timate of when you will achieve it. Sometimes you will achieve your goal well in advance of your deadline. Sometimes goals will take much longer than you expect. But you must have a target time before you set off.

It is like making a reservation at a restaurant. You may be five minutes early or five minutes late, but you always have a specific time for which your dinner is reserved.
The fourth step is for you to make a list of everything you could possibly think of that you will have to do to achieve your goal. The more comprehensive your list, the more motivated you will become, the more intense will be your desire and the more you will believe it possible.

One of the things that hold people back is even if they get to the point of a written goal; they do not take the time to lay out a list of all the little things they will have to do to get there. And with additional experience, you will add new items to your list until it finally becomes complete.

The fifth step of goal setting is for you to take your list and organize it into a plan. A plan is really quite simple. It is a list organized by priority and importance. You decide what you will do first and what you will do later. You decide what is more important and what is less important. And most of all, you decide upon the one thing that is more important than anything else that you can do immediately to begin moving more rapidly towards your goal.

Step number six is for you to "take action!" This is the big killer for most people. They are procrastinators. They have great ideas combined with great hopes and dreams. They may even get to the point of writing down their goals. But when it comes to taking action, they always have a reason or excuse to procrastinate to put it off until a later time. However, as the Bible says, "Faith without deeds is dead."

It is when you launch toward your goal that you begin to feel the desire and power that goes along with goal setting. And once you have launched toward your goal, it is much easier for you to continue moving in that direction.

Step number seven is for you to do something every day to move you toward your major goal. Never let a day go by without you engaging in some action that helps you move another step in the direction of what you really, really want in life.

Remember, you can't hit a target that you can't see. And if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. The simple seven step act of deciding exactly what you want, writing it down, setting a deadline, making a list, organizing the list into a plan, taking action on the most important item on your list and then doing something every day towards your goal will change your life and your future in ways that you cannot even dream of today.

Focus

What a delight when we know what we want? Too often we wander around looking for something to fill the night in with. Nothing on TV, so I will look till I find something that tickles my fancy.
Oh how much more powerful to say...I want this and or that...let me make, create and or find i. Too often we are letting oters live and make the choices for us. What am I wanting? Is that what i desire...to just sit and fill in another night. here in New Zealand the sun light hours have been moved. Therefore it is lighter later at night. Lets use this time to sow the seeds for something worth while.
It maybe a walk on the beach with a loved one. It may be a game of the back lawn with the children. It may a phone call to a distant friend. Then again it maybe you can sepend 30 minutes walking around the block rather than sitting reading the paper. This is yourlife. Stop living in yesterday and in the pitty party system. Make it happen. No one but you is going to make it happen. This is your day. This is your moment. Don't wonder what if? Make it happen. Become clear abou what you want and make it happen. Are you unsure of what to do? Then set the target closer and make small steps and as you gain momentum you can shift the target back.
We have one shot at life. Lets make it count. lets stop just filling time and space and start making it happen.
This is my day and this my life
Great Clip about focus:


Till next time.

Have you hit a road block....feeling stuck?

The other day I mentioned the need for keeping on keeping on. Some days we feel down and like we are doing the same old same old.
Darren Hardy just wrote a great piece which I wanted to share:

I saw something absurd the other day. A highly engineered and specially designed high-performance race car stuck on a 35-mile-an-hour downtown street.

That is not what that car was made for. That is not what its creator (Enzo Ferrari) envisioned for it.

This 6-speed, F140 Aluminum V12, 4700cc engine with 660hp was built to go 0-60 in 3.8 seconds and race at 217 miles an hour (2010 specs). But here it is… stuck.

I see this absurdity every day.

But not only in the streets—in office cubicles, conference rooms, huddled behind computer screens, and dragging luggage through airports.

People who were specially engineered and designed with special talents, skills and abilities who are traveling down the wrong road, with their potential stuck in first gear; trapped and unable to race.

That is not what their creator had envisioned for them either.

Are you…

1. Stuck. Traveling down the wrong road? Are you in a job, company or business that has you boxed in on the slow lane? Is it keeping you from being able to get out of first gear and challenge your greater abilities?

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the road the car is on.

2. Traveling with Pintos? Are you going slow because you are keeping pace with ordinary cars, when you were designed for racing?

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the cars it travels with.

3. Are you even aware that you are a race car? You were specially engineered and designed for speed… to race. You were built for greatness. I’m not kidding. You are a miracle of machinery. Yes, you… the one reading this. It’s likely you have never even experienced half of what your top speed is.

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the one given the responsibility to drive it.

If you ever really gripped the wheel, braced your neck and punched the pedal with all your might… the awesomeness of your innate potential will shock and exhilarate you.

Punch it. NOW!

Its time to refresh ourseleves and get in alignment with the desires in our heart and as a result the passion will start flowing again.

Time

Everything around you and I is made up of energy. Nothing is still. Everything is vibrating. Things vibrate at different rqates. Do you notice how much more attuned you are when your vibration levels are higher? Eah day we have the blank canvas in front of us. We can spend time complaning about what we dont have and what we wish we had...in other words release a negative emotion. Otherwise we can dream of whta we want and do whta we want and start creating the channels within our minds to help bring this into being. Start living the life ont he inside. Stop waisting time looking at the lack. Start creating the life by design. Use your time to create and not compensate.

Blank Page

A new year has well and truely arrived. I hope you are well and are well on your way towards your new year goals. Now that the NY has started I have reduced what I am pursuing. I think in the past one of my down falls has been me casing after too many things nad not honing in after a few really well. This is alos highlighted by Dr Hill who comments that the stronger the fire the bigger the fire. When I am truely passionate about something I will see it through. The blank page represents an idea. Truely master one thing at a time before moving off onto another thing. This was it helps build experience and stil at that level rather than chasing this and that.

some succeed...some fail...why

The successful person knows precisely what he desires, has a plan for getting it, believes in his ability to get it, and devotes a major portion of his time to acquiring it.

The failure has no definite purpose in life, believes that all success is the result of "luck," and moves on his own initiative only when forced to do so.

Too often people blame others for where they are...however one of the traits of the truely successful goal achievers is they reaslise they choose to be where they are.

In the past few days the people of Samoa had to endure something they did not choose. However where they go from now is their choice. Some will see it as a failure and others will see it as an opportunity.

I am presently working with my personal coach and we are putting my life goals into a book. Each of the steps is a chapter in the book. It is a very effective method and I more than willing to share this great approach.

Remember we must be clear about what we want. The clearer we are in our mind the clearer it is out there.We cant afford to be wasting time thinking about what we will be doing..this is done in the planning stages...then it just a matter of doing it.

Lets be on the side that makes the life of our design.

Till next time

Fraze

Rabbit Hole

http://www.myamazinguniverse.com/reckoning/movies3.html
This is a movie looking at the power of our thoughts. It is just under 2 hours. I found that it ran without one stop, therefore a great thing for home broadband. I have tried to locate the film via DVD, but even after emailing the host site i have had to resort to only watching it here online.
Following watching the movie you will not be the same. How could I be the same after watching it. Be prepared to find new things and learn new things and most importantly..change. The things we think about are the things we create. It seems so simplistic...yet the more I study and learn about the theme the more i can see how real and true this is. Everything will stay the same until I change my thoughts and fill my mind with thoughts that will lead to change which which will result in change of actions and different results.