Prioritize

This week I cleared my schedule of all social functions so that I could address the backlog of work and projects that I have. However on any given day I found I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start and often felt demotivated to even start since it seemed overwhelming.

It's not that they aren't important, they problem is they are all important. And that is the fundimental problem right there. I had neglected to prioritize all my various goals and tasks. So everything is more or less of equal importance and the list is truly overwhelming because no matter how much I could possibly do, it would barely make a dent in the list. It hardly seemed to matter.

Once the time is taken to prioritize, things suddenly become a lot clearer. Even if you can only get to one or two items on your list, you know that those are the items that will have the greatest positive impact on your life. Therefore your feeling of accomplishment is much greater and you're not concerning yourself with not having gotten to more trival tasks.

Now this might seem obvious, and it is but have you taken the time to prioritize your goals? Stop for a minute and think about it. If you could only accomplish one life goal which would it be? If the answer isn't immediately clear then you need to clarify that. Rank them in order from more to least important. Sometimes it may be a real toss-up between two competing interests. In this case it might be helpful to write out all the pros for each and weigh them. If your still stuck, just go with your initial gut instinct - Then stick to it. You won't do yourself any favours if you're flip-floping on priorities. If circumstances change you can reevaluate at that point.

Once your have your goals prioritized then act accordingly. Send the majority of the time and effort on your top priority, some time on your secondary priority and occasionally work on lower priorities - probably when your stuck waiting for something to happen in your higher priorities.

The Art of Self-Sabotage

If you're keeping abreast with my concurrent blog - Preston's Path to Prosperity - then you know I've recently met someone that - at first blush - is the very essence of everything I'm looking for in a woman. I won't get into details here except to say she is gorgeous and wonderful.

After our first date I was estactic to have met such a high quality woman. After the second date with everything going very smoothly, I was feeling like the master of the Law of Attraction.

But now, the next day, my subconscious mind is already at work undermining my confidence.

Have you ever wished for something and wondered day in and day out why it couldn't be more like 'X'. Then when for once you actually get exactly 'X' you're feeling it's just too good to be true? That there simply must be something wrong. Some string or catch and you start looking for any tattletell sign of what's wrong with this picture.

That's where I am right now. If she doesn't pick up the phone, does that mean she's lost interest? Perhaps she only wants to be with me because I'm a Canadian citizen and she's not or she assumes I'm well established in life and able to look after her and her child. Looking back on our relationship so far there's no valid reason for me to assume any of that is true, it's merely my own poor self-image working against me.

In his seminar, Bob Proctor said that we must reach 'levels' before we can advance our life. For example, it's unfathomly hard to go from working poor to vertually non-working millionaire in ones mind. Sure they can envision it, but if they were to suddenly have an inspiration of what to do to make that reality they will almost certainly shoot it down as rubbish. Simply because that reality is too far removed from all their past and present references of life. It just can't be that easy. Right? Wrong.

While not every idea is a surefire winner, there ultimately are some of them out there. The people who succeed are the ones who can believe in them long enough to prevail.

For that hardworking poor person striving to get ahead, they need to go after a shorter term goal of something that they can actually fundimentally believe they can acheive. Like reaching middle-class. Surely they know some people living at that level and certainly they can reaffirm that those people are not significantly, if at all, any different than they are. That way when success comes, they can accept it.

Once they become acclimatized to living life at that level they can dream and pursue bigger and better goals.

We must always be on the lookout for those self-limting thoughts and behaviours though.

I recently read that in a study of a couple dozen millionaires that had succeeded from all different walks of life, the one recurring theme amoungst them all was a belief that they could not fail. They did not take reckless, foolish risks, and it would be next to impossible to maintain that beleif system if they did, but whatever risks they took, and it wasn't uncommon for them to risk it all, they proceeded on that unwavering belief that they would find a way to make it work.

Now someone could argue that there would also be a set of people with that belief who tried and failed. This is true. What constantly amazes me is how many successful people have been bankrupt at some point, often multiple times. Bankruptcy seems like the end of the world to most of us but to these people it's merely a stumbling block and they merely try another venture utilizing what they learned in the last attempt.
Again, they've maintained that belief that they will not fail over the long run. They have seen others be successful and figure that therefore, it must also be possible for them to achieve success as well.

This extends into all other areas. It's well documented that pretty much any successful person you can think off dealt with failure or rejection at some point.

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

Therefore if we accept that failure is a part of life but certainly not the end of a voyage we must also come to an acceptance that success is also a part of life and we must learn to accept both in good graces.

So while my concerns might may some basis and should be considered, it's counterproductive to allow oneself to become consumed with looking for reasons why one's success isn't in fact valid.

Remember we attract what we focus upon. So stay focused on how wonderful this success will feel and what future opportunites it opens up while staying mindful of the potential pitfalls.

Guard Your Mind - Part 2

Aside from fears and doubts growing from within our mind we must also be vigilant about those trying to enter from outside.

When you are using the Law of Attraction, you are fixing your attention onto something that hasn't happened and for the most part, something that there's no 'rational' reason to expect to happen, at least not in traditional thinking.

Often family and friends will kindly offer 'advice' on your dreams. Be wary, while some advice my be insightful, too often they are just sharing their doubts and fears with you. Lock those out of your mind! Guard your mind from negative influences. "Practical", "reasonable" and especially "realistic" are all words that often hide what is really just doubt. I assure you, no one who has truly broken from the crowd and achieved outstanding success did it by doing what the crowd thought was practical, reasonable or realistic. No, those people set unrealistic goals, unreasonably believed they could achieved them and went ahead without knowing exactly how they would end up accomplishing that goal - something totally 'impractical'.

But when doubt is dressed as 'common sense' it is all too easy to shallow it and allow it to deter you from your goals. However think about this; by definition 'common sense' is the sense that is common to the masses. So if you want to continue to achieve the same results as the masses then please continue to use the same sense that is common for those results. If you want to achieve greater results then you need uncommon sense. Sense that is use by only an enlightened few.

Where do you find uncommon sense? It all around you but for an start try Six Minutes to Success or one of the books recommended on the right. Or just keep on coming back here.