5 MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS...

Once you have set your goals, the next step is to brainstorm ways to achieve your goals. Develop an action plan to map out the steps you will take and the resources you will need to achieve your goals.

1. Put your goals in writing.

Writing down your goals makes them more concrete and helps you to commit to them. Don't write down your goals and then throw the piece of paper in a drawer. Post your list of goals somewhere where you will see it every day.

2. Consider why you want to achieve your goals.

Why is a particular goal important to you? Write down the reason why you want to achieve a goal. It will be a good reminder when you are tempted to slip and avoid doing the hard work it may take to reach your goal

3. Determine what resources you need in order to achieve your goal

Resources can be things, like a reliable vehicle to get to work each day; or people, such as your business network; or information, such as tips for writing a great resume.

Determine the resource you will need to achieve your goal. What resources do you have and what ones do you need to get? How will you get access to the resources that you don't have already? Write down your answers to all of those questions too.

4. Determine the steps you need to take to reach your goal.

An effective way to do this is to imagine you have already achieved your goal. Find some quiet time and really picture it fully. Close your eyes and imagine that you have accomplished your goal. Where are you? What are you doing? Who is with you? How do you feel?

Now, start at the point in the future when you have reached your goal, and work backwards. What did you do just before you reached the goal that caused you to achieve that goal? Write that down. What did you do just before that, and before that? Write it down too. Work backwards from your goal to your current circumstance detailing each step you would have taken before you moved another step closer to your goal. When you finish this exercise, you'll end up with an effective road map that will help to lead you to your goal.

5. Allow some flexibility for unexpected circumstances

Once you have set your goals and implemented your action plan for achieving your goal, you will likely find that you need to make adjustments along the path to your goal. By all means, allow yourself the flexibility to alter your strategies for reaching your goal if you find a better way. That's good problem solving.

However, be honest with yourself if you're changing your original plan. Are you making a change because the new strategy is truly better, or are you not following through on your original plan because it's challenging and you're looking for an easier way out? If that's the case, revisit your reasons for wanting to achieve the goal in the first place. Do you still want to achieve that goal? Do you want to achieve the goal enough that you're willing to continue to commit to the hard work?

Be flexible with your plan, but be skeptical of your motivations any time you make a significant change in the plan.

Achieving life and career goals doesn't often happen without a solid action plan. If you implement these ways to achieve your goals, you'll be well on your way to creating and achieving exactly what you want in your life.

Lisa McGrimmon

HOW TO SET PERSONAL GOALS AND THE PIECES OF ADVICE THAT MATTERS...

Life can be lived in two ways - with joy and contentment or pain and suffering. The choice as to our destination is just a result of what we do along the way and what we have done to start the race in the first place. And life, indeed, is a race. Just as much as there is an endpoint, there is also a beginning. To have good results, it is very important to set personal goals.

Goal setting, according to someone, is different from a dream in only one aspect it has been written. Yes, writing down what you want to achieve is the secondary step next to knowing what you would want to do with your life. When you finally got a pen and paper and have written down all the things that you want to do, then you are empowered to achieve them. By writing down your goal, you are telling your brain that it should work upon what you have put there.

Writing also needs rewriting. Every once in awhile, there could be circumstances that would change what you have originally written. Even if the situation remains the same, it is necessary to review and to rewrite what you have written. Reiterating to the brain that you want something makes it actively work upon the idea.

Perhaps, it is best to consider that goal setting is not focused on careers alone. You could set your mind into something more, like attitude improvement, making a relationship work after almost giving up, giving something back to your community, or even dieting. All of these require discipline and an unending commitment.

Another important thing to remember when preparing to attain the set goals is to have an achievable timeline. For example, dieting usually takes awhile before results can be seen. So what would make dieting realizable for you? Maybe you could begin with ¾ the amount of what you usually eat on the first week. Eventually, you could decide to cut down your food consumption into half. Then it would be easier to take out the unhealthy food that you eat such as those that have fats and you could begin to cut down on your carbs as well.

Now you have the first three rules: knowing what you want, writing and rewriting, and setting a realizable timeline, it is now time to go to the fourth rule tell your goal to everyone. Although you maybe tempted to just keep your personal goals to yourself (you might argue that after all, they are personal), do not. Telling your friends and relatives that you have a certain goal makes you work harder to achieve it. And they can help you.

If you are really dead serious about a certain goal, perhaps a little meditation could also help. Many a great civilization in the past has turned to this practice to make them think more deeply. A quiet moment every now and then would greatly help in clearing away thought cobwebs. Sometimes what deters you from reaching your purpose is a distraction. Any type of distraction could be taken off your mind through quiet pondering.

These are just pieces of advice. You can create your own rules when it comes to setting your own goals. Be focused; enjoy the journey towards your goals. But above all, following what your heart tells you is what counts most.

To hone your personal goal setting and to improve your life in all areas, follow the link in my resource box now.

By: Kevin Tyler Smith

How to Create a Great Attitude in 5 minutes?

Do you have a poor attitude? Do you want to get rid of it -- fast? It's very easy to develop a great attitude. You just need a little brain fine tuning. You can turn your saturnine disposition into a happy and sunny outlook within minutes. Here's how....

What is a Great Attitude?
There are two poles of attitude -- a negative, unhelpful attitude or a positive, helpful attitude.

A negative attitude is considered unhelpful because it will:

a) make you feel moodier and more unhappy;
b) sour your relationship with other people (or just attract other negative people to you);
c) lower your motivation and energy;
d) sabotage your life.

A positive attitude is considered helpful because it will help you to:

a) feel happier;
b) get along with others better;
c) have more energy and enthusiasm for your life;
d) and hence, be more successful.

From those generalizations, the obvious choice is to develop a positive attitude. It just has more going for it than the opposite pole! But there's a problem...

The Challenge of Being Positive
Trying to be positive all the time takes a big effort, and it is unbalanced. Have you ever been around someone who you can tell is forcing themselves to be positive? God, they are exhausting, aren't they? Everything is up and just dandy -- but you can tell this whole persona is an act, a tower built on quicksands. You can tell it is going to crumble and fall apart. No, forcing yourself to be positive when you don't really feel positive is counter productive. It will make you sick. But there is a solution. There is a way to feel naturally buoyant and positive about your life...

Great + Attitude = ?
So if pushing yourself to be more positive is not the way to a great attitude, what is? There's a clue in the words. Push them together and what do you get? Gratitude! Yes, that's it. You can get rid of your crappy attitude by making a slight adjustment in the way you look at the world. We are like accountants that look at our lives and judge (or account) all the things that are going on. With a crappy attitude we are life's losers and we look around and confirm it to ourselves by 'counting' all the rubbish things that happen to us. You get more of what you focus on, and so with a negative attitude you simply find more and more reasons to justify feeling negative about life. Now if we look at that as a process that starts in the way we focus our minds, we realize that we have the ability to change the focus and get a different result. Instead of working for the prosecution and looking for reasons why we should punish ourselves, we can work for the defense and look for reasons why we deserve to be happy and free. You can continue appraising your life and counting the negative events (which tells your mind that you want more of these). Or you can refocus and start counting all the wonderful things and events that take place in your life. If you do the latter, you will discover a great secret...

The Secret of the Attitude of Greatness
The mysterious secret of gratitude is that it has the power to turn negatives into positives. Something that with your crappy attitude you judged to be negative can be transformed instantly by gratitude into something wonderful and worthy of appreciation. Thankfulness transforms your world. It's like going from a monochrome world to a world of rainbow color. Imagine how people could transform their attitudes to relationships, jobs, families, finances, health, if they came from asking, what do I have to be thankful about here? Crappy attitude asks what's wrong with this picture. Great attitude asks what is right and wonderful and what can I feel grateful for in this picture?

The Building of the Great Full-ness
At a basic level, we want to feel well-fed rather than starving. We want our lives to be fulfilling rather than empty. We want to have a rich emotional love life rather than a barren, loveless life. We want to be rich and prosperous rather than poor and desperate. The way to fill this great emptiness that many feel is with a great full-ness -- and that's what gratefulness does. Start becoming an accountant for the many wonderful things in your life. Count them up and fill your mental treasure house. What you appreciate 'appreciates' in value and grows. What you show an interest in, pays 'interest'. So start where you are and start simple. You are alive, you're breathing -- wahoo! Look around you and start to just say Thank you. You can thank God, or you can thank Life, or even thank yourself. "Thank you for being alive. Thank you for this air that sustains me. Thank you for these warm clothes. Thank you for the breakfast that I just enjoyed. Thank you for this computer that allows me to access wonderful new ideas and information from all over the world. Thank you for my family, friends and loved ones." And so on...

Changing a Crappy Attitude to a Great Attitude Now!
The truth is you can change a crappy attitude to a great attitude right now by changing your focus. Instead of rejecting what you find in your life start to look at what you are (or could be) thankful for. Unlike those high-strung, ready-to-implode individuals that force a positive attitude, you will be naturally positive because you have learnt to appreciate and value life. You won't be fighting anymore in a battle of good and evil. Through thankfulness and gratitude you transcend opposites and see a whole picture working for your benefit. This is the way of a great attitude.

HOW TO CREATE POSITIVE WORK ATMOSPHERE?

Positive versus Negative Workplaces

We have all worked in places where we grew to dread getting up in the morning, and a few of us have had the pleasure of working for a boss who makes us feel like we can do anything. Let’s take a look at the differences between a positive and a negative work environment.

Signs of a Negative Work Environment

• The boss is unfriendly.

• The boss is critical.

• There is high employee turnover.

• There is low employee morale.

• People watch the clock.

• People don’t get much performance feedback.

Signs of a Positive Work Environment

• The boss demonstrates interest in the employees.

• The boss has an encouraging attitude.

• Employees like working there.

• There is evidence of company pride and loyalty.

• People know where they stand with their supervisors.

Thousands of books have been written on the subject of managing and motivating people, and as many training seminars are conducted on this subject around the world every day. And yet it’s interesting that even with all of this available information, few companies succeed at creating a positive work environment. Let’s see what’s involved.

Four Key Skills

Creating a positive work environment is based on four key skills. They are:

1. Tell people what you expect of them.

2. Show interest in your team members.

3. Create an encouraging environment.

4. Recognize and reward good performance.

Skill #1: State Your Expectations

Telling people what you expect of them means doing the following:

• Communicating expectations clearly

• Having a specific job description

• Identifying specific performance standards

• Specifying deadlines

• Setting goals

Skill #2: Show Interest in Your Team

What behaviors convey that someone is interested in you?

• Making eye contact

• Calling you by name

• Asking your opinion

• Smiling

• Complimenting your work

• Taking your suggestions

These behaviors convey a lack of interest:

• Ignoring you

• Not knowing your name or not using it

• Not asking your opinion

• Ignoring your suggestions

• Not commenting on your work

• Following your suggestion, but only when heard from someone else

Such signs discourage productivity because they make people feel discouraged, angry, less confident, and stripped of self-esteem.

Skill #3: Create an Encouraging Environment

Most people would agree that an encouraging work environment is one where:

• Your ideas are valued.

• Creativity is encouraged.

• Risks are encouraged.

• Fun and laughter are valued.

• New ideas are rewarded.

• You feel appreciated.

• People thank you for your contributions.

• Flexibility is valued.

• You feel like part of the team.

Creating such an environment results in the following benefits to employees. You:

• Contribute more ideas.

• Feel more committed.

• Look forward to coming to work.

• Are more productive.

• Have increased self-esteem.

Creating such an environment results in the following benefits to managers and business owners:

• Less turnover

• Less sabotage

• Greater loyalty

• Easier to find employees due to good reputation

• Higher productivity

Skill #4: Recognize and Reward Good Performance

A reinforcer is anything that happens, after a behavior, that tends to increase the chances that the behavior will be repeated. Included are such things as:

• Compliments

• Smiles

• Thumbs-up gesture

• Saying “Thank you”

• Public announcement of your achievement

• Positive letter in your personnel file

• Promotion

• Time off

• Special parking space

• First choice on schedule

• Dinner with the boss

• Tickets to an event

• Extra employee discount

• Picture on the bulletin board

• Applause at a meeting

Recognition Guidelines

1. Describe the results you are recognizing. Be specific. It’s important to make certain the employee knows what behavior or accomplishment you are referring to.

2. State your personal appreciation. Say, “I appreciate it.” Adding your personal appreciation makes the compliment feel more genuine.

3. Encourage the person to continue producing such good work. This increases the chances that the person will repeat the desirable behavior.

By: Garrett Coan

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