Success Push

I asked Andrea from A Smart Wife if I could get this post from her site because it is so simple, and to the point that I wanted to use it as a reference for a different approach to life and how we see ourselves.  Ann does not write a lot on her blog and I doubt she will ever make a lot of money and fame, but she is a great woman and has given me more help then I feel I deserve sometimes. Without advice like this post I would not be half what I am today.  I hope that my site can give her writing some justice.  Also be aware that Andrea taught herself English and I have done little to no changes to this post.

The Value of You – A Smart Wife (Tips on being smart and being a wife)

I think we have all felt that at some point in our life we don’t deserve to be happy. We are just down about ourselves, or we walked by the mirror looked and said… wow I am ugly! Maybe you are thinking that no one will ever love you or are trying to figure out why your soul mate leaving you. Just a simple thought that you are not worth the effort… Well let me tell you something.

image credit linked

YOU ARE SPECIAL. Why? Just the by the fact we all are, we all have beautiful talents and the most important talent we have is the strength to make things change for good in our life. Oh really?? You didn’t know that? Well it is, you can make your life better on your own, and that is the simple truth.
I do understand things can’t be under our control all the time, but we can control our emotions and thoughts. Have you ever thought before just how amazing life is; just because you can stand, go out, and feel the sun on your face? Have you?…
Don’t ever forget we are humans and mistakes can happen around us, let’s think about the people that are important in our lives. Think about the little details they have done that are special or needed in bad moments. Yes, I am sure you can remember one, because someone thought you worth it, why else would I take my time and write about all this? Well it is simple… I think the about the real Value of you.
So go ahead and dress in your favorite cloth, smile to yourself at the mirror, and say “oh yeah, I deserve to be happy!” Dream again because I know you can make it and the strength is inside you and only you can control it and give a touch of pride and Value to yourself. It is worth the try!

Over this past year I have been learning to grow and think about things in a much different manner then I ever did. I realized that I was not making choices with my heart or my head, but as reactions to things around me and in response to my environment only. In other words I wasn’t defining myself and what I want to be, I was letting me be defined. I have to say that this is my biggest and hardest to overcome fault. I struggle daily to break thru the barriers that are defining me so I can make my own life and my own image. I was a very weak and responsive person for many years living a life that I can only say was lack luster. Then I found a website (called PlugInId) that helped to change my life and let me see that maybe I needed to start living my life, not letting it live me.

To do this I had to change and grow. I liken it to being a kid again and having to grow up all over again. This time I want to do it right so I can do things in this life that I dream of doing.

The biggest part I am working on right now is being a man. To build a great house, you need a strong foundation upon which to assemble all the other pretty things. To build a great man, you also need a solid foundation upon which to add all the other little things that set the real men apart from the others. Strangely enough my girlfriend is the one that got me to write this post. She is all woman and has enchanted my life, and a lovely lady, but she in turn expects that I be a man in her life.

So what does that mean I need to work on? For me it means that…

1. I need to be strong and make decisions that need to be made. I need to accept that I made the choice and I will live and deal with the consequences of those choices. Stop asking all the time if this is right or if everyone is ok with it. John Wayne never asked if anything he wanted to do was ok with the people he was protecting. He took responsibility and did it.
2. Get and stay focused. I should know what is important and not important to me. I need to stop wasting time on stupid nonsense things that won’t get me where I want to go.
3. Understand the importance of family. I need to be the rock that keeps my family and love ones strong and together. I should be teaching my sons about their history and traditions that make my name sake a family heirloom. This should also grow out to my businesses and my ventures. I should be caring for them and give them the same loyalty and protection.
4. Stop talking so much. I know this is a funny one coming from a blogger, but seriously. A real man keeps his mouth shut and makes the words he speaks ones of importance. Have you ever noticed people that don’t talk much get listened too? Think about it.
5. Keep a promise. I have broken a few, but to be honest the ones I broke I should never have made. Now here is where I need to work some. If I made it, whether I should or not I should keep it. “Man of his word” that’s hard to say about people nowadays. How many people do you know that you can take for face value?
6. Respect myself. That means respect others and set a good example to be followed and not seen as weak. Trying not to bring work home so your kids only see you as a father, not as a business man, but as a man.
7. Make my own fortune. Ya that’s in here for all of us. My grandfather was a very hard man from Arkansas and I have heard stories of him sending his kids back to church to give back the free toys. His kids didn’t need handouts and charity, they made a living. I real man will take what his fathers have left him and make it into more if he gets it. Not sit and waits to spend it.
8. Don’t look like a woman or a bum. I have heard that all men need at least 3 suits in the closet and a good barber to talk to weekly. DONE. (btw – learn to tie a tie for Pete’s sake!)
9. Keep it simple and remember that its what is inside you that matters most. Don’t be a show off. Unless you need to use your intelligence to protect yourself.
10. Keep my house in order and don’t expect someone else to do it for me. Pay your bills, throw out the junk mail daily, and put your dirty cloths away. You can run a business if you can’t run your home. Sitting around in your undies and whining about life as the house starts to stink is over.
11. Learn to defend myself, your family, and your home. That goes for your business too. If you work hard for it, chances are you will have learned how to protect and keep it. Stand your ground and be a man.

I know that a lot of people might not agree with all the things or even any of them, but we all have to live life our way.  For me, I couldn’t keep doing things the way I was. I was tired of giving up dreams cause it was against the grain. I was tired of being so dependant on things out of my control. I had to take a stand and take my life back. This is my way. (BTW – Thanks Glen!)

For Most of us the 1000 hour rule to learn something new is not anything we have not heard of, but few of us rarely try to follow it before we give up on real change. I know it seems like a long time, but if you really want to change your life, is it really too much to ask?

OK, I understand that 1000 hours can seem like over kill, so maybe we should look at a more common rule of thumb for change. 21 Days to break an old habit. If you google “21 Days” you will find lots of programs based off that number. To stop smoking, lose weight, or just breaking a habit it takes 21 days, and that time does seem much more reasonable. It works too, but if you look at that number and consider that real change is both breaking old habits and making a new one, you will see that we are back to the same amount of time required.

21 days equals 504 hours, so depending on the type of change you want to make, you really need to look at the hours spent, not the days. Learning something new is no different then breaking the old habit you have of sitting and thinking of learning something, and then learning it. It is the same thing. IT IS CHANGE!

If you want to stop a bad habit, chances are that the habit is something like smoking. Well, that is something you would be doing during the whole day, so you can count all those hours a day. If it’s something like getting fit or learning to write however, that’s where you need to look at the hours a day you actually spend doing it through the day. If you want to get proficient at writing then you would need to spend about 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for 1 year to get there. Anything less and you are giving up before you even had a chance.

So…. go into it knowing this time line and if you really want to learn that new skill, language, or change a major part of your life. Make sure that you give yourself the time you need to make it happen. You will always have set backs in life and when you are trying to learn something new you need to face it head on and be prepared for it. That way you can succeed at the change and be much happier for it.

We all do it and that’s just part of life. What you don’t want to do is let it ruin your day or (and this happens) your career or job. Being in a bad mood is no fun, and it makes your life worse in every aspect if you don’t get out of it. That bad mood can also cost you your reputation at work, with friends, or even your family if you’re not careful. I work very hard to try and be positive as much as I can and to always see the bright side of things, but still it happens. I have not always been able to say that life is good to me.

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I got a lesson the other night and I thought that it might be a good lesson for all of us. Most people that know me know that I have lots of energy, but still I am pretty soft spoken. My father, who is a Director of safety for a chain of Casinos, is a respected man and is very quite also. I can’t say that I have ever heard him raise his voice. I have however found that if I am very frustrated I can tend to raise my voice. I did the other night talking to my better half and got a quick reminder that, “You don’t need to yell to be heard!” She is right too, there is no reason that you should need to raise your voice at anyone, let alone someone you love. Now, I am not talking about raising it to be heard over a loud noise kind of yell. I am talking about the sharp and sometimes painful remarks made to a love one at a high level of volume when you’re upset “yell”. (Figured that was technically a good way to say it) If you care about the emotions and feelings of the person you are talking to, or that person is important to your lifestyle (aka Client). You need to keep that volume in check.

So, what can we do and why do we do it in the first place? Being heard is one the most important parts of leading the life we want to live. When we think we are heard, we feel that someone is at least trying to understand, and that gives us the opportunity to really interrelate and work to make things the way we want them to be. When we don’t get that response or we are too emotional to understand and accept that feeling of being understood we try to force it. That usually means we YELL!

That night Ann told me very calmly. “I love you, but you don’t have the right to yell at me and I will not listen to it. So before I get mad and yell back I am going.” Then she was done, no more talking until the next day. I knew right then that I was in the wrong and she was right. She takes very good care of me and has been a blessing in my life and I should treat her that way.

When we feel it coming we need to get control and make our emotions work for us. No one is perfect, but there are a few things we can do to help.

• 1. Before speaking sharply, try pause for a moment. In taking at least one breath before responding, you give yourself a moment to decide if the battle is worth it, if maybe you have been unclear, if there’s another alternative, if you can use a more patient voice, or if you can ask a question instead of issue a command.
• 2. Define what you think it means when someone really hears you. Knowing what you need to feel or believe before you get into this situation will help you to deal with it in a better fashion. You can even tell the person that you don’t think is listening what you need.

• 3. Try asking yourself some questions to diffuse tense feelings when they’ve erupted. I am listing a few, but try thinking of as many as you can. If you need to, post it close by to help. When working in a tense environment it might be very helpful.
  • Do you feel like you have a hot and pressurized volcano inside of you?
  • Is it frustrating to do what you are doing and can you do something else?
  • Would you like to have a choice if you switched places?
  • Is it that important to be heard at this moment? (In my case it wasn’t)

• 4. If you cannot stay calm enough to go on with a discussion without yelling then maybe you need to leave the space or the situation. If that’s not possible or practical, then take a small break to allow some distance. Just say, “Can you hold on I need a few minutes before I can discuss this anymore?” or if its your child maybe its time for a timeout.

I know it’s a short list, and it doesn’t always work. I am not asking anyone to become a sissy and not stand up for what they believe in. I do believe strongly in being able to defend myself and practice regularly at the dojo, but I have also learned that having the tools to handle a situation always helps. To be honest some of these won’t work for you and that’s ok. Just take some time to think about it now and make your own list.

I have to say that over the past 8 months I have turned my life inside out and upside down. Heck, I even probably spun it around a few times and the one thing I still continue to struggle with is the feeling of getting over-whelmed. Yes, even though I am a life coach and a business consultant; I am human and I struggle with this. Even when I wasn’t doing all I do now I had the same feeling in my gut fighting all I tried to do and making it hard to even lift a finger to push forward. That feeling literally can grab you by your feet and suck you straight to the ground keeping you from doing anything you want to do.

However, I learned how to deal with it and move on. It can still slow me down and cause me to be a little late on a deadline, but it can’t beat me anymore. I recently got a new client that is feeling this along with some self confidence issues and I wanted to pass along the tricks I have learned to get past this and get moving. This is not a step by step as much as it is the things I do and some tips to try.

• 1. Will Smith said this one time in a very emotional and inspirational speech to kids at a Nickelodeon award. Running, if you run you learn that your mind and thoughts and body will try to convince you that you need to stop. In running you learn to push past that point and keep going. It’s all about just moving forward and not listening to the voices saying you can’t.
• 2. Pick something you can get done easily and do it. Get your mind going and feel that feeling of accomplishment. I like to tackle my mail, and email. Make getting it done and answered first priority and then just do it. Once I am done I can rejoice in the feeling of accomplishment and move on to something else, but now I have some steam behind me.
• 3. Take a moment to breath and center yourself. I learned from a good friend that its important to take a few minutes every morning for myself. I personally take 15-30 minutes every morning and meditate. If I have a lot to get done and I am afraid I will miss my workout. I will go run for 30 min, and then take a long shower to relax and think. Your mind sometimes sees everything you have to get done as one big task. If you take a minute and center yourself it will allow you to focus on something and start to dig out of it. Don’t let you mind tell you its 1 big task. You have to take control and center it and yourself first.
• 4. Lots of life coaches will tell you don’t do it tomorrow, do it today. Here is the catch! If you’re not going to do it today, then don’t put it in the list of things you need to do. If on the other hand you are going to make that change and do that task, put it on the day’s to-do list. What I am saying though is just don’t stack all you need to do this month on to your plate for things to get done today. A little quote I have heard over and over that is said a little in all the above. “part of handling the stress of our modern age is learning how to stay totally in the present”

It’s a short list, but I made this as a tip if your just finding yourself a little over whelmed from time to time. If you find yourself dealing with this a lot, maybe its time to look into some time management help. That unfortunately would be another post.

My top nine suggestions for being successful at what you do. Whatever it is that you do.

I know, time and time again we see these lists about how to do things, and this one is probably no different other then it’s the list I follow and a very simple one at that. This list is posted on my wall and I read it every time I begin to wonder if I am doing the right things in my work and life. You can use this list for anything you want to be successful at. I have tried to write it with the thought of working on your own in a job you love. If you follow it, you will in some way be a success.

This does not mean that you won’t be if you don’t follow it. I know a lot of my friends that live off the normal path and work for themselves look like they are parting and living life free. However; all of them are good at what they do and work hard on it.

1. Figure out what the word successful means to you. Yes, believe it or not we all see this as something different and this is the very first thing you need to figure out. For me, it is being able to live my life, my way. For you, it might be to be a great parent or to write a book.
2. Do what you love for a living. If you hate your work the day drags and never seems to end well. You will never do a good job at a job you hate.
3. Find “that thing” you like to do, that other people will pay you to do. Sounds easy, and to be honest it usually is. Look at all the things you like to do, then go down the list to see which of those things people can do for a living and you can get paid to do it. There you have it.
4. Be the best at what it is you love, and work everyday to do that one thing better then anyone. Not saying you will always be the best, but your work will be better for working that hard.
5. Don’t waste your time. If you do something for fun and relaxation, make it fit into the things that will help you achieve your goal. Does not mean you can’t live your life happy and free; just try to make your time count.
6. If you have clients, and I bet you will of some kind. Be their partner and not the enemy. As a writer I see many other writers fighting their publishers at every turn. Be positive and work for your clients like they deserve.
7. Never do anything then your best work. Even if the pay is less then you wanted, give your best work. Some of my best work has been for little jobs I did for fun or to help a friend and they usually have nice returns later down the line.
8. Whatever it is you decide to do. Become the Master. Don’t try to do a little of everything. Find your thing and do it like no other.
9. If you charge for your work. Charge what you are worth, not less, and certainly not more. I don’t think that this one really needs much more said. If you are new to a profession you need the work.

That’s pretty much it, and to be honest I feel a few of them are closely related, but that is my point. It is not hard to do what you want in life and make a good living at it, and be successful. It is scary for most of us to cut that tie to the normal corporate world and 9-5 jobs, but if you can follow this list, you can make a go at whatever it is that is calling your name. Even if you use this list just to be a successful parent, it still works.