Motivation

Where does motivation come from? We all have multiple things that motivate us from friends and family to our children. Our motivating factors take all shapes and forms. But where does the motivation really come from? It comes from within yourself.

Think about it. How can seeing a suffering children motivate you to help them? There isn’t some magnetic attraction caused by these children that motivates you or makes you move. The initiation of all movement comes from within you. This is a key factor to understand. As you go through life and work towards your accomplishments, the only person that can really push you along is you. I can hear people saying, "but my boss motivates me, if I don’t perform I’ll get fired." Well the truth is, all your boss does is push certain buttons that bring thoughts into your mind. In this case the thought of your boss firing you makes you perform but really the thought of the pain of losing the job is really what motivates you. If you didn’t need the job, what would be you motivator?

Understanding this key concept is very important in your success. You also need to understand that the inner motivation is shaped by your values, beliefs, wants and goals. If you look closely at your values and the things that motivate you, you will see a direct correlation between the two. You will find that you are easily motivated to do things that align with your top values. You will also find that the opposite is true as well, you will be less motivated to do things that don’t align with your values.

So next time you are having a hard time getting motivated to do something, review your values and the task at hand. Associate one of your core values with the completion of the task. If it doesn’t fit any of your values then determine if it is something you really need to do. If it is something you can’t avoid then create a different road map that will associate the task to one of your core values. Re-define the task into something that fits into your values. For instance, say you need to finish a financial report for your boss by the end of the day and you can’t get motivated because you really don’t like financials and the work is boring. Stop looking at the report as an exercise in financials find a different way to look at the work that fits you. Maybe one of your core values is knowledge, so look at the report as an opportunity to showcase your breadth of knowledge to your boss. I know this sounds a little fru-fru, but it works. You have to learn how to make the changes in yourself to motivate yourself.

All motivation comes from you and the more you master your motivation the more you will succeed.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Keeping Values Fresh

As you go through life it’s very easy to get caught up in the rat-race and lose track of things. To stay on course you need to keep your values fresh and constantly in your mind. This is a key factor in the Focusing on Success program. The best way to keep your values fresh in your mind is to review them regularly and keep them posted where you can see them.

Having a clear understanding of your values helps you make clear and decisive decisions. When you are faced with an important decision you can reflect on your values to help you make the right choice. We all make mistakes and bad decisions but the biggest mistake is not making a decision or making a decision that you regret later. If all your decisions are in line with your values then there is no reason for regret. Sure, it might still be the wrong decision but you will maintain your integrity with your values.

If your boss walks into your office at 5:00 pm and tells you that he needs your report by 8:00 am (a day earlier then planned) and that same night is your daughter’s school play you now have an important decision to make. Do you skip the play and work late to meet your bosses new deadline or do you tell you boss you have somewhere to be tonight and you will not be able to complete the report in time. There is no easy answer here, but there are consequences. If you tell your boss you can meet the deadline that might hurt your chances of promotion or even get you fired but on the other hand if you miss your daughter’s play, she will be heart broken. Both decisions are wrong with someone but only one decision is right for you. You need to make a value based decision so that you can be sure you make the right decision for you. If I was faced with this problem, the decision would be easy. In my key values, my family ranks higher than my success. I would tell my boss I cannot complete the report on time because of a family commitment. This may not sit well with him but I would never second guess my decision. It is the right decision for me.

So remember, review your values regularly and make decisions that fit you. We are not living our lives for other people, we live them for ourselves.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Multi-Tasking

Are you a multi-tasker? Are you constantly doing 3 or 4 things at a time? If you are, stop wasting time.

We all have had our times when we would answer yes to all the questions above. If you still do then you need to review your actions and get control of your focus. It’s a known fact that our brains function better when focusing on one task at a time. I can hear all the multi-taskers saying “oh no, I am better when I multi-task.” Well you might be capable and successful at multi-tasking but you are not as efficient. Try this little test for yourself and see how you do. Take out a sheet of paper and at the top write column 1 and column 2. Get a stop watch to time this exercise. Now fill in column 1 with the letters 1 to 26 and column 2 with a through z. The first time you will write a number in column 1 and the corresponding letter in column 2 (1 – a, 2 – b, etc.). Write down the time it took you to complete this. Now the second time you will complete each column separately starting with column 1 then column 2 (1,2,3….a,b,c). Write down the time for this part. Now compare the two times. You will have completed the second exercise much quicker. This is just a part of how the mind works and is why you should avoid multi-tasking as much as possible.

In the Focusing on Success program we work on learning how to put all of our focus into the task at hand. When you start working on your Critical Tasks you need to block out all interruptions and focus only on the action item. Once you complete an action item you can take care of all the emails and phone calls that need to be answered. Then move on to the second task and do the same thing. Once you get the habit of doing this you will see how much easier it is to get those action items complete.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Keeping the Faith

We all have to learn to deal with setbacks. They are part of the process of achieving success. Without setbacks and failures you never really grow and to be truly successful we must constantly grow and expand.

So how do you handle the times when it seems like nothing is working right and you get the feeling you are heading down the wrong path. The best way to handle these times is to go back and review the work you did in the beginning.

Look back at your values, goals and mission. Remember why you want the successes that you want. Renew the spirit within you to go after the success you want. We all have an inner genius that is waiting to shine, just let it lose.

Take some time and review your plans and write down some new reasons why. It can be just re-wording the why you already have. This exercise will help you reinforce the reasons in your mind and renew your energy. The struggles you are facing are just there to make you stronger and better prepared for your success.

The best wines are produced from distressed grapes. Wine producers have learned over the years that they can produce the best wines from grapes that have been stressed and taken almost to the point of wilting on the vines. They regulate the water supply to their grapes to cause the grapes to endure the stress of the dry climate and force them undergo enormous amounts of stress on the vine so they can produce their best wines.

We are just like the grapes and the universe is applying the stress to us so we can produce a better product. We must undergo these challenges so we can reinforce what it is we want and why. So keep your chin up and keep working on the constant improvement that make us all successful.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Goals Take Time

In the Focusing on Success program, our goals play an important role in our success. We have written goals, a mission statement, and all the intentions of making those goals a reality. Now if you are like many people, you get all these things together and start working on them. You work at it diligently for weeks, months, even years and nothing seems to be happening. You start wondering why is this not working? Am I wasting my time?

While these thoughts are common, you have to learn to disregard them. If you are constantly wondering why you have not met your goals, you will receive just that, not meeting your goals. You have to keep in mind that the universe takes time and getting to a high level of success takes time. This doesn’t mean it won’t happen or you have the wrong goals, it just means you are not ready yet. Many times the universe is giving you the experiences you need to be able to handle the success you dream of. Realize this and you will understand why it takes time.

Take for example the many professional athletes that get out of school and jump into a career earning millions of dollars at an early age. We all know athletes can’t perform at the professional level for a very long time, maybe 5 to 10 years. These instant millionaires have a level of success and riches that many dream about. But where are they 15 years later? Well, an alarming amount of them are flat broke with no plans for their future. Why? When they became so successful at a young age, they were not ready to handle the success and once they could no longer compete in their profession they reverted right back to the level of success they had without their sport.

Don’t let this happen to you. Be patient, be consistent. Remember the constant incremental improvements. Build your success for the long term.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Setting your Mission

A mission is a very important element in your path to success. In order to get there, you need to know where you are going. This applies to virtually every aspect of life and your personal mission is no different. You will never become the success you dream of without some type of mission.

Everyone needs to develop a vision of what their mission in life is. This vision needs to be converted into your mission and you need to develop a mission statement. Just like successful corporations develop a mission statement so that employees know what they are focused on, so should you. This mission statement will provide you with support and guidance as you progress through life. Your mission statement should be reviewed each morning when you are working on your Current Focus and Critical Action Items. This will help to reinforce the why in everything you do.

When writing a mission statement don’t worry about getting too detailed, save that for your goals. You should keep you statement brief and to the point. I recommend a one to two sentence statement that provides an overview of who you are and what you do. One way to think about it is “What would I like people to say about me when I am gone?” Your mission statement can be an “I am” statement or if you prefer it can be in the third person. The main point is to develop your mission and write it down. Below are some examples of personal mission statements.

“I am a successful business person, loving family member, and respected member of the community that is extremely energetic and active, always helping others and creating successful businesses.”

“Tom is well-known in the community for all the help he gives to others, respected by his co-workers for all his success in the computer programming field. Tom enjoys time with his family in their 5 acre ranch.”

How you structure you mission statement is not what’s important here. It’s the substance that’s important. Let your mission statement be something that inspires you each morning. Let your dreams go wild and write it down. You deserve to be anything you want and do all the amazing things you can dream of.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Believe In Your Goals

As we discuss often here, in order to be successful, you have to have goals. Not only do you need to have goals, they need to be written out and reviewed on a regular basis. What are your goals? Are they written and posted somewhere that you can see them often?

One of the biggest mistakes that I often see people make when writing and developing their goals is not making them believable. When you develop your goals they must be something that you look at and say “I can do that.” If not there will always be that voice in the back of your mind saying “Yeah, Right.” If you are currently working a 40 hour a week job making $50,000 per year and you write down a goal to be making $500,000 per year next year it’s will be hard for you to believe it. Each time you review your goal, you will be thinking, “there’s no way I will do that.” And what about all of this Law of Attraction stuff? Didn’t the secret say all I need to do is believe and it will come to me? Well that’s partially true, the universe will provide you with what you desire. However, if you just go through the motions of writing out a goal and deep down inside you don’t believe it won’t happen.

Now if your working in a job making $50,000 per year and one of your goals is to make $500,000, that’s fine. The part that would be hard to believe is that you are going to accomplish this in one year. Also, it will be hard to believe if you don’t have some type of plan to make it happen. Let’s look at it this way, here is an example. Let’s say this person currently works at a printing shop taking orders and running the presses earning $20 per hour.

Bad Goal: I will earn a salary of $200,000 dollars in 2010.
Now-in his current situation, he will have to work a lot of hours to earn that kind of money

Better Goal: I will open my own printing business and earn a $200,000 salary by 2015.

Now this goal is easier to believe, it allows time for the drastic increase in salary and also tells how. Using a goal like this, we can now break the goal down into several smaller steps like:

In 2010 I will work extra hours and spend additional time working at the print shop so that I can learn about the business and earn an extra $6,000 dollars to put towards starting my own print shop.
In 2011 I will use the money I saved to start a printing business on the side while still working in my full time job, allowing me to earn an additional $1,500 per month.
In 2012 I will use the money I saved to open my own print shop with first year’s sales of $300,000.

And the process continues on with details each year about how to improve the business. I know this example is a little stretched, but I hope you get the point.

Make sure that you goals are believable. We would have never reached the moon if we didn’t believe we could do it.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Understanding Your Values

As we have discussed several times, values are the underlying foundation on which we build. Our values control our minds which in turn controls everything else. In order to be successful, at least successful as we define it, you must clearly understand you core values and keep your wants and desires aligned with them.

So, today we are going to discuss just how you can understand that core values that make you tick. Today we are going to take some time and work through the following exercise to develop your core values.

We want to look at our values for each fundemental area of our lives. You will want to start with a clean sheet of paper or new page in your journal. At the top of the page write down the first area as listed below. Then under that heading, start writing all the things in that area that you value. Keep it to one or two word entries. Keep writing them down for five minutes for each heading. After you finish one area, writ ehte next heading and repeat the process.

Headings:

• Wealth
• Health
• Mind
• Relationships
• Spirituality

Once you have completed writing all your values for each heading it’s time to start prioritizing them. To do that, take some time to review each entry under a heading and circle the three most important ones. Then prioritize each one by writing a 1,2, or 3 next to them. Complete this step for each area. Now, turn to a fresh page and write the number one. Under this heading write down each of the number one values from each of the five areas. Now take the next 20 minutes to review the five number one values and prioritize them. Re-write these values in order. These are your key values.

Now that you have your core values, start working on the remaining values. Write out all the number two values and prioritize them then repeat with number three. List these out in order. These are your secondary values.

Now you have taken the first step in understanding and realizing your values. I recommend writing or typing these out neatly so that you can keep them handy to review on a regular basis. I have mine written on the second page of my journal so that I can reveiw them weekly.

If you need some help with this exercise, there is a great template at www.morningcoach.com. Get some help if you need adn while you are there check out some of the other great things they have to offer.

Cheers to Success!

Tony Booth

What is Focusing on Success

We all know that it is no secret that if you want to be successful at anything, you must have goals. Corporations provide them for employees, coaches provide them for their teams, and parents provide them for their kids. We all have them in various forms. Some have them written in detail and others just have them in their head. Well no matter what you goals are, the only way to reach them is by taking steps towards making them a reality. Focusing on Success is a system for helping people take those steps.

If we all have these goals, we does it often seem so hard to make them a reality? Why do we always put off doing the things we know we need to do? We try all the different time management techniques and systems but they just don’t seem to work.

The main problem with all these systems and ideas is ourselves. Our own mind will work against us if we do not take the proper steps. If your goals are not aligned with your values you will always be finding reasons why something doesn’t need to be done. When you are not truly clear on why you need to do something you will find yourself procrastinating and avoiding the task.

Focusing on Success is a process to clear all those things in your mind that are holding you back. The first step of the process is to truly understand your values. Then make sure that your goals are in agreement with those values. After your goals are clear, we determine and understand why these goals are important. Once you understand the why, it’s time to start taking those small steps everyday that moves you closer to your goals. The FOS process provides insight into ways that these actions become second nature and easy to complete.

Imagine waking every morning beaming with excitement about the day ahead and charged to get started on your daily Critical Action Items. It is exhilarating and what’s even better is in the evening when you sit and reflect on all that you accomplished during your day.

Follow my blog and you will get the details on how to make this system work for you. Once you do, you will be amazed at how easy it is to get things done. You will be able to have and achieve anything you ever wanted.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

What is Success?

When thinking about success many of us fall into the trap of thinking that success only applies to wealth and fame. We often define success as earning a huge salary, a prestigious career, fancy cars, or fame. This is a horrible trap to fall into. When you look at success this way it is easy for your mind to say “I don’t need to be successful to be happy, look those successful people aren’t always happy anyway, so why bother.”

In the Focusing on Success program we use a much broader approach to success. We define success as:

Success – achieving the desired outcome of our values, intentions, and actions.

By looking at success in broader terms we can apply the definition of success to anything that we desire. In the Focusing on Success program we concentrate on success in five areas; wealth, health, relationships, mind, and spirituality. However, you can apply the program to virtually any aspect of of your life and anything you want to accomplish.

So keep in mind you can use this program for anything from improving your golf score to finding the perfect companion. Just follow the process as they pertain to each thing that you are trying to achieve and you will be successful.

Using the program to improve you health would work something like this;

First, review and set your values as they relate to health. In this respect some of your key values may be health, energy, physical fitness, or appearance.

Next determine your targets/goals. They might look like; “In January I wear a size 4 dress, have the energy to play with my children at night, and provide my body with healthy nourishment.”

Now that you have your goals you can assign the whys like; I feel more confident in a size 4, I want to develop strong bonds with my children, and I want to help my body stay healthy.

With the Whys in place, it’s time to move on to the intentions. For a healthier you, your intentions may be; I will exercise 5 times per week, I will limit my intake of processed foods, I will take a multi-vitamin daily.

Now each day as you review your intentions and set your action items you will have a clear and compelling reason to eat a salad for lunch or take a walk in the morning. It will be easy to accomplish and since you completely understand, you will be less likely to skip that necessary actions.

So find something today that you have been wanting to improve on and give it a try. I look forward to hearing about your successes.

Cheers to Success!

Tony Booth