Archive for Personal Development
5 Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions
Posted by: | CommentsYes I know it is the end of January and most people are no longer talking about their New Year’s Resolutions or their goals for the year. However, I have found that this is mostly because they are no longer applying themselves with the same level of passion to the goal that was there when they made the New Year’s Resolution. If you have a habit of setting resolutions at the beginning of the year and then abandoning them a few days or weeks later, now is your chance to try something a little different. Imagine how, by just trying something a little different, the course of your life could change for the better when you follow through on your resolutions until you achieved your goals!
Change Your Thinking
With a few basic tips, it is very possible to overcome your habit of giving up on New Year’s resolutions. First and foremost, avoid viewing your resolutions as something to aspire to and then neglecting them when they are seemingly less pertinent no interesting. New Year’s resolutions like goal setting can be enormously self-improving and enriching if you will just find a way to maintain them and their importance to you throughout the year.
Here are some tips for keeping your resolutions (and other goals you set as well):
- Make a commitment. In order for your resolutions and goal to be successful you must be willing to make a firm commitment to change. Believe in yourself, know deep inside that you can, and will, accomplish what you are setting out to do. When you give yourself such unwavering support from within, then you will strengthen that conviction and achieve what you seek.
- Choose New Year’s resolutions and goals that you genuinely want to achieve. Avoid picking a resolution or goal that someone else wants for you that you truly do not want for yourself. Then, make positive resolutions. Focus on all the positive aspects of achieving the goal.
- Share your “give up” goals and resolutions (I’m giving up smoking, giving up drinking etc.) with everyone. When all your true friends know what you are setting out to achieve, they can help hold you accountable.
- Share your “go up” goals (I’m going to be the number one salesperson, I’m going to be valedictorian) only with those that will be supportive. If you have competition for your “go up” goal you might not want to share that goal with those you are competing against.
- Plan ahead. Avoid choosing your resolutions at the last moment. Spending more time planning and preparing for your resolution goals will exponentially improve you results.
- Be Realistic. Achieving your goals relies heavily on continued motivation. By setting the bar too high you risk setting yourself up for failure, which can be profoundly de-motivating and result in a spiral in the wrong direction.
- Set your sights realistically, rather than too high. Do not get me wrong, you should give yourself a challenge, but not so much of a challenge that you cannot not believe in it and end up setting yourself up for inevitable failure. Also, remember you can break down larger resolutions into smaller goals – then focus on that smaller more realistic step!
- If this year’s resolutions are mimicking last year’s (or are very similar), step back and consider why last year’s resolutions faltered. Determine first what did not work last time and why. Then you can plan accordingly to avoid a repeat performance (or lack of performance).
- Write down your goals. When you put your resolutions into writing they become more concrete, you make them real. Put your commitment down on paper, then display your goals where you will see them daily (actually many times a day), in that written form. This way you will be frequently reminded of what you are striving to achieve this year.
- Map out your goals. Just saying the words on January 1st is only a small step. You need to take the next and most often forgotten step. You need to plan the how of achieving your goal. Write out a plan for each resolution that you are going for rather than just hoping for the best.
- Create flexible goals. Remember everything is not going to work out just the way you hope and plan, so be flexible and create flexibility within the goals that you set. Rigid resolutions can throw you off track when something does not go quite how you planned it (and it often will). Try to predict the obstacles you will face, and create a back-up plan for getting around over, under or through those obstacles.
Bottom Line
With a little bit of planning and preparation, you can keep and achieve your New Year’s resolutions. Just like any goal setting process, the key is to be realistic about your goals and the challenges you may face in trying to achieve them. The more realistic and flexible you are, the more likely you’ll be to achieve your goals.
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
5 Ways to become Action Oriented
Posted by: | CommentsOver the course of my time studying and teaching about personal development I have shared many tips on how to get what you want faster than you dreamed possible. In order to become a high performing person myself and teach others how to become the same I have taught everything from goals setting to brain storming to masterminding. However, while all these are true anchors in one’s travel to success, perhaps one of the most important traits of the high performing man or woman is “action orientation.” For if you do not take action all the brainstorming, masterminding and goal setting in the world will not help you. You have to become an action oriented person if you want to achieve your dream, goals and desires. So here are five ways to become an action oriented person.
- SET ASIDE TIME TO THINK AND PLAN
Action oriented and successful people set aside time to think about their goals and dreams, to plan their next steps and ways around potential obstacles and of course to set priorities in all these goals, dreams and next steps. All this thinking, planning and priority setting enables them to focus on taking action on the important tasks and execute large chucks of work far faster than the people that spend that same amount of thinking, planning and action time on activities that do not take them closer to their goals – assuming that those people even know what their goals are. - GET INTO THE ZONE
One of the benefits of that thinking, planning and priority setting is that you will be focused on high value tasks as your next steps. When you take action on your high value next steps continuously you will get into ‘the zone.’ All of us have experienced it at one time or another – that state when things just seem ‘to come to you’ with minimal effort. You feel clear of mind and almost euphoric as everything you do seems effortlessly accurate, and just want to keep going. - STAY ALERT AND AWARE
Keep a mindful eye out for some of the interconnected ways that people and circumstances can be leveraged to help you achieve your wants, dreams and desires even faster. Remember that one of the fastest ways to get what you want is to help others get what they want. So while you are in ‘the zone’ use that heightened state of creativity and mental precision to spot ways you can help others reach their dreams. I find that these unselfish acts always find their way back – with interest. - HONE YOUR SENSE OF URGENCY
I can hear the question now “How do I get into the zone Tracy?” Well one of the quickest ways is to hone your sense of urgency. Your sense of urgency needs to be impatient, for that is when it will motivate you and drive you to get things done. Your sense of urgency when impatient will stoke that inner drive or desire you have to reach your goals. When you have a sense of urgency and begin taking those next steps towards your goals, dreams and desires you will find yourself in ‘the zone’ far more often than you ever had before. - Be prejudice against procrastination
I do not like to lean to the negative but when it comes to procrastination, negative is what we need to be. When you hone your sense of urgency you will become very negative to procrastination and lean more towards being action oriented. You will find yourself talking less about when you want to do and actually doing it. You will find yourself coming up with ideas and next steps (probably back in step one) and immediately want to do something with that idea – so do it!
Okay now that you have the five ways to become action oriented what can you do now?
- Pick one goal, dream or desire that you have and jump into it right now. Yep right this very minute. Heck I don’t even mind if you stop reading this post to do that – your dreams are WAY more important than this post.
- Ok well your still here. Hopefully that is because you want more advice not because you don’t have dreams and goals. Anyway the next thing you can do is take these five steps EVERY single morning so that they become a habit. Then you will be realizing your dreams, desires and goals fasters then you ever imagined!
Think Successfully & Take Action
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
Personal Development a Brief History
Posted by: | CommentsAt the risk of prompting you to say “DUH,” I will start this off with the obvious… Self-help and personal development is not new to humankind. In his book “First things first” Steven Covey notes that literature on wisdom dates as far back as 2500 BC, some using this as validated of their version of fundamental human needs. Some have looked at the poetry of Hesiod as an early adaptation of eastern wisdom. Writings from the ‘mirror or princes’ genre has a long history in Islamic and western renaissance literature. Of course let us not forget the proverbs from across the ages that embody practical advice for all humankind, for all cultures, and all types of peoples, to follow; whether for success or just for the enriching, soulful feeling of doing what is right to, and for, those we encounter during our stay on this big blue planet.
I have read and heard some say that the current self-help or personal development ‘movement’ was launched by Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) with his publication of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” in 1936. Carnegie, after trying and failing at a number of careers became interested in success and its connections to self-confidence, self-esteem and personal values. He studied this topic of years and as a result has sold over 50 million copies of his books on this topic since.
I personally am lucky enough to have an original printing of “The Law of Success” by Napoleon Hill, a protégé of Carnegies. This hardcover book has a copyright date of 1937, with the previous version’s copyright date being 1928. I put all this in here to say again that self-help and personal development is not new. Actually those that want to learn this very personal arena of development and self-help have been listening to those willing to teach from centuries, and those willing to teach will continue to do so as long as there are people like you and I willing to learn.
What is it that you would like to learn in your personal development quest?
What questions to you have that are currently unanswered?
What answers have you found that you have benefited from?
Please take a moment and comment below on the answers to these questions – I am sincerely interested in hearing your thoughts/experiences – take a moment and be a teacher to those willing to learn.
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s Top Motivated Coaches and Author of Success Atlas Programs
History is a Learning Tool
Posted by: | CommentsHistory is a great learning tool. You can read the biographies of great men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others, learning from their actions and more importantly from their mistakes. As I write these posts I am sitting across from a wall of book that I have bought, read, re-read and studied over the course of the past three decades. These books include but certainly are not limited to; goal setting, writing skills, presentation skills, sales skills, consulting skills, relationship skills, memory building, computer programming, how to be a better parent, how to get everything you want faster than you thought possible and well you get the idea, the list goes on and on and on.
So the key message I want to share is this short little post is that while I write to share bits and pieces of knowledge on goal setting, motivation, success (personal and professional); know that it is not JUST my personal take on these topics. I am merely making an attempt to share my personal version of what you are able to do, be and have by empowering yourself via goal setting, motivation, etc. Call it my personal distillation of what I have read combined with what I have experienced over those three decades and in some cases even longer.
But, do not just take my word for it, go out and get yourself another source of information. Read another blog, get a book and another book and even another if that’s what it takes. What I truly want you to do is to find whatever catalyst you need at this moment in your life to sit down and choose your own worthy goal, to set your Success Atlas and begin making it come true in your own life this very minute. Not tomorrow, not next week, next month, next year or a decade from now. I want you to take some step, small or large, to begin making your dreams come true TODAY.
It would sincerely be one of my most honored blessings if someday someone came up to me and said, “Tracy, because of you I….” and they told me about a goal or dream they realized. That they became something that made a difference in their life or they did something that was a dream of theirs.
One day I know for a fact that I will be sitting the front porch of my home, rocking slowing in a rocking chair overlooking my yard. Listening to the birds sing and inhaling the sweet smell of the day. I will tell my grandchildren of some of the things I have done. I will share with them some of the mistakes I have made in the hopes that they will not have to make those same mistakes. Then I will tell them of that person I was able to reach out and touch and move them to live the life that they dreamed, desired and deserved.
When you are sitting in your rocking chair later in life, what stories will you be able to tell?
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s Top Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
You ARE already goal setting
Posted by: | CommentsWorthy goals push, drive and motivate you to do more, to be more and to have more. If I think back to my childhood, I can remember one of my earliest goals in life. I was a small child, and I mean that in stature not just being young. To give you a better vision of what I mean, I was only four foot three inches in the ninth grade. So as you can imagine, many of the bigger boys made not only a goal of but a pastime out of picking on me. I internally set a goal to create situations in my little life that would help me avoid as much of this school yard harassment as possible.
So, how does a small boy accomplish this large feat? I accomplished this goal by breaking it down into three smaller goals. First, I learned from my father (who by the way was six feet three inches tall) that making people laugh was the quickest way to reach inside them. So my first sub goal was to hone my sense of humor. You see, if you can engage a person, and make them laugh, I found they were far less likely to want to mistreat you.
Second sub goal was to leverage a powerful force to my side. What powerful force you ask? Well, let me explain and I am sure you can figure out which one of the primary human drivers I was leveraging for this goal. Every school year (and throughout the summer) I would make friends with some of the more popular and pretty girls. I did this knowing that some of those ‘more manly’ boys would want meet and learn about these girls. Thus, having those lovely ladies as friends gave him and I some common ground. A side benefit of this goal was the obvious ego boost that came with being friends with some of the more popular and attractive girls at school.
Sub goal three was set as a back-up plan…when all else fails you should know how to
1) Run
2) Fight
So I learned both. Why fight? Because you cannot always far enough or fast enough. Why run? Because you cannot always fight your way out. Even though by the time I had gotten into high school I had about three years of martial arts under my belt (no pun intended) – there were times when running WAS and IS the best option. One such time was when I was surrounded by nine guys whom did not like the fact that I had befriended a girl named ‘Tracy.’ Tracy’s boyfriend was in juvenile hall and when he got out they surrounded me as I left school. I am no Jackie Chan or Jett Lee, heck I am not even Steven Segal, so running in this case was the best solution. However, in those times when the odds were a little better I was able to use the martial arts I had learned to defend myself and others. Again a side benefit of this sub goal was the self-esteem, self-confidence and inner calm that come from feeling strong enough to protect yourself and those you care about even when you choose not to use it.
All this goes to show that goal setting has been a part of my life since very early in my life. I am betting that setting goals has been a part of your life from an early age as well, directly or indirectly. Did you have your eye on someone you wanted to date? Were you able to get that first date? Did you see that new TV in the advertisement and figure out how you could make it fit into your budget? Did your child come to you and say how much they really really really wanted you to be at their play/recital/show? You see even indirectly goal setting is already a part of your life.
Now is the time to make it an ACTIVE part of your life and truly compound and reap the benefits that a focused goals plan can get you. It has been said that we are only truly happy when we are actively working towards a worthy goal. And you know what – this is not new news!
You need to set and work towards worthy goals and yes I will be taking you through an entirely new way to set your goals in up-coming posts – but in the mean time you can find many other great tips and techniques for goals setting, (including brainstorming your goals) in previous postb. Let me know your thoughts, questions and concerns!
Think Successfully & Take Action!
Tracy Brinkmann
One of Today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs
