Motivation Is The First Step To Success

You will undoubtedly have dreams. Whether you dream of having the perfect house with the perfect car, or you dream of settling down to have a family, even if you dream of retiring by the time you're 40, the one key to success is doing something about it. It may sound obvious but if you dream of retiring before you reach 40 and yet you aimlessly skip from job to job with no hope of progressing a career, it is very unlikely you will achieve your goal.

Set goals and ambitions and write them down on a piece of paper. Make sure that you are always striving to reach those goals. Sometimes it can be difficult to get the motivation you require in order to succeed at your goals but you can use the goals themselves as the motivation you require. Keep your piece of paper on you and if you are beginning to feel downbeat or skeptical about your goals then look at your piece of paper and remember why you are pushing yourself.

Structuring your life in this way, may seem like it loses its spontaneity but that doesn't have to be the case. Find a career you like, set up a business, and have fun doing it but always remember that if a good opportunity crops up you should take it with both hands. It is worse not to try something and not know whether it would have been successful than it is to never try anything.

Presuming you have set reasonable goals you should always be able to see a way to fulfill them. If you set goals that are too difficult you will find it incredibly difficult if not completely impossible to meet your goals. You should try not to alter them if possible, however, we don't know what's around the corner so we can't always plan for it. Don't see this as a failure but take the opportunity to reassess your goals and keep going. 

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"11 Great Reasons why Smiling makes us More Successful!"

First: Our smile shows others people that we are friendly. 
If a stranger approached you and gained eye contact with you and then treated you to a broad smile you will have a fairly good idea that they are being friendly and certainly mean you no harm. 

By contrast we would find it far more difficult to offer trust to the stranger that wears a scowl or unfriendly face features. 

Second: A smile can make people happy. 
When someone treats you to a smile, even a stranger, you usually smile back. For that moment you enjoy a flash of positive communication without saying a word. As you walk through a crowed area such as a main street you can do this hundreds times in a very short period of time. 

When you smile at someone who is not already smiling and they smile back you have brought a moment of happiness into their lives which, who knows, could last all day. 

Third: Smiling is infectious. 
When you spend a lot in the company of someone who smiles a lot you will soon discover that their smile starts to wear off on you. It is hard not to return a smile; most of us do it at a subliminal level without thinking. 

Fourth: Smiling can make you popular. 
Which type of people do you prefer? A person that has a tired and listless face. An expression that may reflect their inner thoughts of boredom and worry? Or, would you prefer someone who is always smiling and shows that they have an enthusiastic passion for life. 

I think for the majority of us the choice would be obvious! 

Fifth: Smiling can help you to make new friends 
In the same way few of us would choice a miserable person for a friend. Lets face it we all want someone who is going to be bubbly and a happy and positive. 

Sixth: A smile is usually returned 
When someone smiles back at you it make you feel good inside. You have just made a short but very positive communication and possibly the first step in the process of getting to know or making friends with someone new.


Seventh: Smiling makes you positive and happy inside.
When you smile it is hard to feel unhappy, negative or sad in anyway. Smiling gives you enthusiasm and drive, it is also habit forming.

Eight: A smile makes you look far more attractive.
You don't see many celebrities or media personalities that are not smiling because if you did it is fairly certain that their popularity would quickly start to drop!

Ninth: Smiling also helps make you memorable to others!
Have you noticed that smiling people are usually far more memorable than those that are not? It is fact that you are 3 time more likely to remember the person that is smiling over the one that is wearing a negative or neutral features.

Tenth: Most importantly, smiling is good for your health!!!
When you are smiling you find whatever you are doing far easier. It releases stress, worry and tension that you may have built up throughout the day. Long term, developing the smiling habit will be one of the smartest things that you can do to improve most aspects of your life.

Eleventh: The effects of smiling can last for hours
Whatever problems and challenges you have in your life, smiling temporary puts them and hold. For a while you forget the problems and become positive, and while you are in a positive state you have far more potential and power to advance and improve your life.

Lastly: Smiling is FREE!
You are never going to run short of smiles and will always have enough to go around. When you weigh up the positive points of smiling it is a no brainer decision to do far more smiling and share them with as many people as possible.

Keep smiling. 

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The High Cost of Doing Nothing

Cost is sometimes a difficult term to define. Here, we are not simply discussing cost as it relates to selling price, but ratheropportunity cost. The web site, "Mentors, Ventures and Plans" defines opportunity cost as "The loss of the next best alternative whenever a decision is made involving two or more options". "Investing in Options" defines it as "Choosing the best alternative means that you can't choose the next-best alternative. Opportunity cost is the next-best alternative that must be sacrificed in order to get something else you want. Opportunity cost can be thought of as the road not taken." Inactivity, ordoing nothing, is usually the highest price paid and is often associated with great opportunity cost. Inaction is usually the worst decision one can make, made from a base of fear.

Many of us will freeze when facing decisions. For some reason, decision making becomes complex, paralyzing and even painful for many people. It should not be this way. Making a decision is simply the act of choosing between alternatives. You must learnto weigh the implications of each possible decision and choose the outcome that is best for you and all others involved. For example, when your telephone bill comes due, you may choose to pay it or not. There are real obvious consequences for both actions. The situation becomes more complex however, when our human emotions enter the picture. For instance; you are offered a new job and must decide to leave your current position and move your family to a new location, hundreds of miles away.

What we often fail to realize, is that delaying important decisions or simply not making a decision at all, are actions that often impact us with the highest opportunity costs and worst case scenarios. Inactivity, or the lack of a decision, is actually a decision made, although one seldom made in our best interests. In this case, we unfortunately transfer over control of our lives to external forces and circumstances. We are now positioned to be at the mercy and decision-making of others. This is not your best scenario. There are often unusually high costs associated with doing nothing. 

Decision making is actually a skill set that can be learned and refined. Like all skills, entering into a new area as a novice requires practice and application in order to see improvement. Keep in mind that you will indeed improve! Start small, with less important decisions involving less than crucial outcomes and gradually make more decisions on matters of greater importance. Soon, you will have few if any issues with making decisions. Learn to start small and work your way up, gradually extending your comfort zone in this area. A by-product of learning these new skills is that your confidence will surely improve as well.

Decision making need not be frightening. Think of it as a process that is your own, shedding any external pressurethat others may be applying. Take your time, get your facts and choose the outcome that works best for you. Do not allow yourself to fall victim to the high cost of doing nothing. 

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How to be the Most Memorable Person at Networking Events

Most of the people I hear from hate networking. They go only because they know they "should," but it's like pulling teeth for them. 

If you've experienced the usual clammy grip of fear when it's your time to introduce yourself, the following may help you feel more at home, make deeper, more lasting impressions, and attract voluntary referrals from many of the other attendees. 

First, if you want to take some of the pressure off, it can help to consider your first half-dozen events to be nothing but practice. 

It helps even more if you go specifically to listen and get to know who's there, rather than to "sell" your own story. So take along your business cards, but dump your nice four-color 12-page brochures. There's a better way to make powerful impressions. 

Here's an example that happened to me on Monday. 

My wife does a lot of work for an NGO here in Japan that helps North Korean refugees, but I have little direct participation, other than running their English language website ( http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com ). 

This past Sunday, we flew over to Seoul for the three-day North Korean Holocaust Exhibition to be held at the Parliamentary building. 

The event started with the usual speeches and ribbon-cutting. Then the main organizers all split off, doing individual interviews with journalists. The regular attendees wandered around viewing the exhibits. And those who were there to gather information or disseminate it began mingling, meeting and introducing themselves. In other words, this turned into a networking event.

I wasn't there to sell anything or to persuade anybody, so I wandered around looking for the people who appeared too intimidated or too shy to mingle. These are the folks who hang back by the wall, or who stand alone looking wistful.
I found two ladies who told me they were doing a paper on refugees, so I led them over to the two main activists (I had exchanged emails with the activists for a couple of years, but had only met them in person minutes earlier).

I walked up, tapped both of the leaders on the arm and said, "Excuse me, but you two need to talk with these ladies. They're doing research on your topic. I think they may be able to help you tell your story." Then I backed away and let them have at it.

Later, I met a German journalist who had just arrived in Seoul as the new correspondent for his publisher. I found out what kind of information he was looking for, then led him over to a lady -- one of the refugees who had managed to escape through China -- and introduced him.

Now, bear in mind, I didn't even know the lady, and neither he nor I spoke any Korean, but I took him over and we tried talking with her anyway. Sure enough, some people nearby stepped right up and offered to interpret. Again, I just backed away and let them work.

Later, these people came back to me, appreciative and wanting more information about our NGO and website.

When you concentrate on giving and on priming the pump, good stuff can flow. People WILL remember you if you go out of your way to spread THEIR name around. Boy will they remember you. 

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Survival

Survival is one of the most demanding and challenging issues that we face as humans!

Survival challenges us through many different issues such as: child abuse, sexual abuse, birth, death, job loss, health problems, low self-esteem, relationship ups and downs, parenting, deceptions, breakdowns, poverty, natural disasters, education, addictions and even our own desires to be strong.

Survival comes in little packages and it comes in enormous boxes. It appears when we least expect it, never letting us prepare for the battle. It hides around corners, waiting to pounce on us. It is constantly testing our inner powers and strength.

To live is to survive and without survival you have no life. Survival is a choice. If you choose to survive, you must fight hard. If you choose to not survive, you will die. Simple!

Survival will change who you are many times. How you deal with your challenge and how drastic the challenge is will determine how much of yourself you manage to keep safe. 

A couple of common phrases that we run into many times in our day is, "Only the strong survive" and, "What does not kill us will only make us stronger". These are very good survival attitudes to practice. We need to be strong to survive. It takes pure GUTS to survive and move forward in any situation. It takes having total control of your thoughts, which is one of your best weapons in the battle of survival. It demands consistent striving to reach your goals, stopping at nothing to meet your destiny.



I emphasize the importance of strength, when battling the war of survival.

To be strong is:

to be able to stand your ground and hold onto your inner beliefs, which will be your best strategy to win the game.
to be born into the survival game without knowledge or understanding of the rules, and still overcome all the obstacles.
to be able to clean the skeletons out of your closet that have been haunting you from your past.
to take control of your life and deal with the monsters, whether it be through telling a story or confronting the monster face to 
to be able to look back at the reasons for your pain and suffering and wave at it as if it were just a car going by.
to be able to smile at a happy memory of a loved one that was taken from you without reason.
to be able to say NO to drugs and misuse of alcohol.
to be able to forgive, forget and let the waters flow under the bridge.
to feel physical pain every minute you are awake, yet be able to smile and ease that pain with positive thoughts.
to look in the mirror and know you are the best, and to believe who you are.
to let go of hate and resentment, when your heart has been deceived or broken.
to push forward when all the negative forces feel like they are pushing you backwards.
to continue tearing down walls of negative thinking, and replace them with positive openness.
to open your heart to another after it was forced to close.
to keep searching for answers to a better you, even when all you want to do is quit.
to look to tomorrow for the sunshine, when the rain refuses to stop.
to give birth to a child, and raise him/her with love and respect.
to embrace growing old and never regretting it.
to study hard and achieve all the knowledge that the world has to offer you.
to not allow the material world to confuse you as to what is really important in life
to be a hugger, not a judger.
to smile when you want to cry.
to Live, Love and Laugh.
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"We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun."

William Glasser

"Love and kindness are the very basis of society. If we lose these feelings, society will face tremendous difficulties; the survival of humanity will be endangered."

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