Road to Success – Goals revisited

There is no greater inspiration and model for success than that shown by the athletes of the Olympics and London 2012.  It spoke to the power of dreams and no one said it better than the oldest living Olympian, 98 year old Sandor Tarics who participated in the 1936 Berlin games. The Olympics has taught him that in life you must always have a dream, a direction you want to go. Without it you are like a ship without a rudder. He said if you don’t succeed, change the dream, (modify it) don’t let circumstances beat you, don’t give up.

Indeed many dreams did come true at the London 2012 Olympics. Usain Bolt had a dream to become a legend. We may argue about whether or not he is a legend, but he had some specific goals and he did achieve them. He became double gold medal winner in the 100 and 200 meter sprint events.

The Olympics gaves up a good opportunity to look at how we set goals the SMART way. Goals that are SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, RELEVANT AND TIME SENSITIVE

Going back to Usain”s goals;

They were:

 Specific – to win double goal medals

Measurable- he definitely took note when he lost to Yohan Blake and made the adjustments to get back on track

Attainable- It was definitely within his reach. He did not set goals for new world records just to win again.( He already has the record).

Relevant- Most definitely. He needed that to be at the top of his athletic career.

Time sensitive – Yes London Olympics 2012

Then as if to confirm  what I have observed, comes Shelly Ann Fraser- Price stating that she has achieve 3 0f her 5 goals for 2012:

1. Defending her Olympic Gold in 100m

2. Become  Diamond League Champion in 100m.

3. Be the fastest woman in the world (10.70sec)

Once again SMART goals st work.

At the end of the games came the call to the youth of the world to prepare to assemble again in 2016 in Rio. As the youth of the world begin to dream of Olympic glory and set new SMART goals, let us revisit our dreams, make adjustments if we need to, set some SMART goals for our selves.

Road to Success – Get Back on Track

“Life always provides us with opportunities for self-correction.”

As I prepared to start my blog writing workshop I found the above quote by Iyanla Vanzant on my facebook feed. It is the truth.

I had fallen off my plan to write weekly blogs just about the time my aunt died just short of her 100^th birthday in May.

In July I took the mid- year evaluation  of myself.

Did I start doing the uncomfortable? Yes

Was I being persistent at it? NO

Truth is the first obstacle in the way or the first excuse we fall back into the comfortable. This blog writing was definitely the uncomfortable. As I thought about starting up comes one of my Linkedin groups with the idea of a blog writing workshop for people who had such a challenge. It was just an idea she had without even a clear plan of how to do it. I didn’t need much convincing to be a part of it.

So I have settled down to continue my ‘Road to Success” series.

Also on my facebook feed today is this status update from “Think and Grow Rich” page:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” – Calvin Coolidge

Its persistence and determination, no lesser stuff than that. It’s what a Usain Bolt would have used to overcome a set back like losing to Yohan Blake in the Jamaica trials and to go on to win Olympic gold in London Olympics 2012.

Are you on track with your 2012 goals?

Take time to evaluate. Celebrate the success so far and fix what’s going off track.

Love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below

Road to Personal Success – If it’s Broke, Fix it.

We are one month into the 2012 with our goals and working our plan. Maybe like me you are praying for guidance for with your daily activities. So what’s next when something just unravels and you realize it’s not working the way you expected. That happened for me last Friday and in the past I would have just become depressed and forgot about it. This time however I thought, what am I to learn from this? Is there a better way that I am to try? Is this setback just to point me in another direction and if so, what is that better way?  Before the end of the morning I had an answer and I started to put in action that very morning. The results of this change were almost immediate and a week later I have had success to confirm that I made the right decision.

As I write this I remember these words from Wallace. D. Wattles- The answer to prayer is NOT according to your faith while you are talking but according to your faith while you are working.So if you are praying for guidance, be aware that your well thought out plan may fall apart and be open to being shown a better way. The HOW is not up to us. We have a plan to get us started but it should not be fixed and frozen. We should fix it and celebrate as we go along. Just don’t try to fix everything at once.

So get started on the not so perfect plan and fix it as new insights come along. Remember to celebrate the successes.
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Peace and Love

Kathy

ROAD TO PERSONAL TO SUCCESS- SURRENDER

Surrender? Really! What does that mean? Am I to forget about my dreams, goals and plans and just do nothing?

I have been mulling over what it means to surrender for some time now. I have this container with about fourteen (14) words that I chose from a book written by Iyanla Vanzant –“ Faith in the Valley.” I have words such as love, Joy, peace, persistence, patience, forgiveness, discipline, change, wisdom, trust, prayer to name some. Each morning I would pick out one of these words and focus on it for the day.

I remember a period when every day, no matter how much I shuck up the container I would pick out the word, “ surrender”.  Wow! Have I not surrendered enough already? What more. Well it has been awhile since I dipped into the container but I did so this week and guess what “ surrender, ”again.

This time I do believe I am a little clearer on what’s required of me here because I am focused this year on non-resistance.  It’s non- resistance or surrender to the burning desires of my heart and to God’s pure intention to guide me to fulfilling these desires. It is being obedient to the insights and guidance I receive and to ACT now. It means I should not get caught up into trying so hard to figure out the how and the details, but in prayer and in stillness just have the faith and trust that I am being guided and I will be shown how. It means, I should not get too attached to the outcome and beat upon myself if it is not how I think it should be. If it’s not the outcome I expected, not to dwell on it, but learn from it and let it go. At the end of the day find the things to give gratitude for and move on.

So for now, it’s about starting the day with prayer and stillness and seeking guidance for the day. At the end, review the day and learn from it, then give thanks and in prayer and stillness, release it.

I would definitely love to hear from you on this one. Please leave a comment below. If you find it interesting please share it with your friend. Also please leave your email address to get my newsletter.

Peace and Love

Kathy

Road to Personal Success – Lets Do it Now!

“Time like an ever rolling stream,

Swept all her sons away…”

Two lines from that old church hymn, which sums it up very well. In this ever rolling stream of time, what are you doing? … splashing around!.. floating along.. . fishing… swimming with the current or against it?

The good book tell us there is a time for everything under the sun and I am making a very conscious effort this year to making sure I do have a time for everything.

We plan so carefully for the year, the month, the week and the days rolls around and… not today. Even this blog post on “time” almost got put back and would have been at another time in my life.

I am focused now on making each day, each hour count for something. If I can get the day right and put the priorities up front, the year will be okay.

So I am putting myself back in school with time periods. Instead of 40 minute periods, I am using 2 hour blocks and put in the activities I want to get done in these blocks. Now this may sound easy but not quite so for me. There is still a lot of fine tuning to be done. One thing is for sure, you get to really look at your day and it is amazing how much time is just rolling along and how you can get caught up in the flow.

I am becoming my own master and I will obey my own command. Its time to write my blog post and that I do.  Even as I structure my days I have to be true to my “unstructured, go with the flow self” so I have put in a few blocks of time for that too!

“Time is a most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it” –Jim Rohn.

Please share with me how you deal with this issue of time. Would love to hear from you if you have it well organized or if you are working on it like myself.

Drop down below and share your comments. Please leave your email address to get my newsletter .Also please share with your friends if you find this post interesting.

Peace and Love

Kathy

The Road to Personal Success – Doing the Uncomfortable

There are some goals that elude us every time and become like a recurring decimal on our goals list every year. They are the ones that require us to do the uncomfortable. So we keep putting off the actions we need to take to achieve success, yes we procrastinate. They say procrastination is the thief of time and so it is, because before you know it, 2012 is gone and you haven’t made the first move.

So why don’t we do the uncomfortable?   One word, FEAR.  Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of I don’t know what. So we delay, make excuses, and wait for a more perfect situation.  We do the comfortable and easy tasks first and leave the uncomfortable ones for later or tomorrow, which never comes. We procrastinate.

So this year I have a burning desire to achieve certain goals and I am focused in on doing those uncomfortable tasks that stand in my way.

I have been working on overcoming this procrastination and here is my list.

1. ACT NOW in spite of the fear. In other words, just do it. The more you do the action the less fearful you are.
2. Remind yourself often, especially before you take action, of WHY you want to achieve this goal. This will give you the energy and the sense of urgency to do it. Especially, focus on the end result.
3. Nibble away at it. Break really difficult tasks into smaller ones. This makes it look easy and as you work away at it consistently, before you know it, you are done. This has worked well for me e.g. in writing reports and other documents.
4. Plan overnight for the day ahead. This really helps you to deliberately put the difficult tasks that are aligned to your goals, right up front.
5.  Remember you can only act in the PRESENT. NOW. Nothing gets do in the future.

Please share some of the ways you have used to overcome this habit of procrastination in the comments below.

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Peace and Love,

Kathy

You have the Goals and the Plans – Examine these 5 keys to your success.

This week between Christmas and the New Year, some of us are looking back as we prepare to go forward to 2012. Well how did we do in 2011 with those goals? This is a good time to recall our successes with gratitude.  So what about those goals that we started on but did not finish or did not attempt at all?

The late Jim Rohn has identified some chacteristics, which he says are necessary for success. Top of the list are of course big dreams and well defined plans. He cautions, -we must have big dreams.

Let’s assume we did well on these two areas, the other elements I will put in the form of 5 questions so you can assess how well you are doing in these areas:

1)      How did I deal with setbacks? Did I quit or did I regroup and try again?

2)      How did I deal with disappointments? Did I work pass them or did I give up?

3)      How did I deal with challenges? Did I attack them and work through them?

4)      Did I put in the time? Did you have a clear appreciation of the time and stuck to it?

5)      Did I push myself to do the uncomfortable until it became comfortable?

How well we are doing on these 5 will be key our success. Identifying  the ones that are holding us back and commit to do the personal development to get the skills to move pass them  and on to our success. I personally have a few to work on, the biggest one being;  “ pushing myself to do the uncomfortable”. I have the books to read and the plan to take on the uncomfortable, which include building an online business and utilizing social media, common place to some but uncomfortable for me.

I would be happy for those of you who have any of these challenges, or who have worked to overcome them, to share with us. Please tell us how you dealt with these 5 areas. please drop down below and give us your comment.

Best wishes for the New Year!!

Peace and Love

Kathy