My Essay Blog

What’s the purpose of life and how to I get there? Those are two of the most asked questions on this planet. Have you ever asked yourself something similar to that?

You have something very unique in your life to accomplish, which is very great. Of course, the question that comes after that is, ‘What is it then?’ But that is just about as far as most people will ever go. You may ask yourself this question, think about for a few minutes, come up with no answers, and then just go on with your daily routine.

If you ever want to accomplish your purpose you have to go beyond the ‘What is it’ question. How do you do that?

You first have to realize that you won’t have all the answers in the beginning. If you are waiting for a bolt of lightning to your hit you and reveal to you what it is your supposed to do in life, it will never happen that way.

The first thing you need to determine is what you are passionate about. What gets you so excited that you can hardly contain yourself when you think about it? Or what cause makes your blood boil when you hear people talk about it? Most likely this is the starting point of your greatness.

Why do I say the starting point? Because once you finally have an idea about what you want to do you must then ask, “in what direction do I go?” and “how do I start?” Believe it or not, those questions don’t matter as much as you may think they do.

The second thing you need to do is to simply begin pursuing your passion. Don’t let the question of ‘What direction do I go or how do I start’ stop you from actually starting. Most likely, there is some type of organization, group, or online presence that is doing something very similar to what you have a passion to do. Get involved with these people. They have probably already laid much of the groundwork in developing what you are passionate about. You can then jump right in and start helping them.

By being around these people you will begin to develop and fine-tune exactly what your purpose is. As a matter of fact, your initial purpose for getting involved may change somewhat as you begin to develop your greatness.

That’s why it is not so important to know everything about what you want to do before you start doing it. It’s kind of like this: Imagine you are in Los Angeles and you want to drive to Florida. You aren’t real sure where you want to go in Florida but you know Florida is where you need to go. You have two options:

1. You can research, study, ask people, look at maps, and all kinds of things to try and find out the best way to get to Florida. You are not going to leave until you know exactly how to get there, the dangers involved, the speed traps to watch out for, where to best rest stops are…you get my point. The problem with this is that you will never know everything about how to get to Florida.

2. You can just start driving. You may ask one or two people you meet along the way which road to use and then just go. On your journey you will meet people who will help you with the best routes, and they will even tell you of places they went to and experiences they had on their way to Florida. By the time you get there, you will have gained so much knowledge that you now know exactly where you want to go in Florida.

The point is this, you can sit around and wait for the perfect opportunity to fulfill your purpose or you can simply start out on your journey and, along the way, you will discover and fulfill your purpose.

My suggestion is: just start moving!

“A great title is a work of genius,” said E. Haldeman-Julius in the 1920s.

Haldeman-Julius sold 200 million (really) of his “Little Blue Books.” His headlines were his product, because he sold his books by the title. About halfway through his brilliant marketing career he wrote a book called “The First Hundred Million,” in which he shared some of his secrets…

EHJ had a system.

Most people are familiar with the phrase “thoughts become things,” and in a manner of speaking that is true. However, the more accurate way to explain that concept would be to say that thoughts become emotions.

Emotions in turn drive the machine of your life that creates the things that you think about. The fact that emotions need to be part of the equation is easily verified by thinking back to any time in your life whenever you thought long and hard about having or doing something, but those thoughts never manifested into whatever it was that you were thinking about. For example:

• Many people think very often about having enough money to enjoy certain material possessions or experiences.

• Almost all people give considerable thought to weight loss, physical fitness, or their overall health.

• The majority of people also spend plenty of time thinking about satisfying romantic or other social relationships.

However, despite the massive amount of thought that is dedicated to some or all of those things, it is often the case that we do not have the level of success in those areas that we desire.

The reason for that is because we do not have the appropriate emotional attachment to the things that we want to bring into our lives. When giving thought to the things that we want, more is not necessarily better, since emotionless thoughts have no real power, no matter how many times we think them.

However, a consistent thought about something that also evokes a positive emotional response from you almost always serves to ultimately bring that thing into your life.

In order to illustrate this concept, simply think back to any job interview, health improvement program, date, or other social situation that you were involved in that you felt very positive and confident about. In most if not all of those situations, one of two things happened:

1) You attained or enjoyed the experience of whatever it was you felt positive about, or

2) You realized after the fact that you didn’t really want it after all.

By feeling positive and confident about attaining something, you put yourself in charge of the outcome, as opposed to how a lack of confidence will tend to make you feel powerless to get what you want out of any given situation.

You need to be honest with yourself, however, when considering whether or not you truly feel positive and confident about attaining something. Strongly desiring something does not equate to feeling positive or confident about acquiring it. Everyone wants whatever they consider to be financial, health, or social success, but actually believing that we will attain it is another matter entirely.

It is this difference between giving a high quantity of thought to something vs. giving a high quality of thought to something that is ultimately the deciding factor in whether or not we attain it.

High quality thoughts about something are thoughts that evoke a consistent positive emotional response in relation to that thing. These thoughts fill you with the belief that &ndash sooner or later &ndash you will attain whatever it is that you are thinking about.

Compare that to the thoughts that most people have about attaining their desires. You will see that often people’s thoughts about their dreams tend to evoke negative, disempowering emotional responses, such as doubt, fear, uncertainty, concern, lack of confidence, etc.

Rarely in history has anything of note been accomplished by someone thinking of how scared they were about whether or not it was actually going to happen. Disempowering thoughts such as fear do not tend to manifest positive results.

That is not to say that fear or similar feelings are not part of the process, because often they are. However, they are used only as tools to bolster the confidence and belief level of the person involved, as squashing disempowering feelings has the immediate effect of causing us to feel empowered! If you have ever faced down a fear, then you know this to be true.

The bottom line solution to using the power of your emotions as the fuel for self improvement is to make a conscious recognition of how you feel about something that you want to accomplish.

If the thought of improving your finances, your health, your social life, or any other area of your life causes you to feel anything other than positive and confident, you must embrace the fact that you have mental roadblocks that need to be cleared before you will achieve success in that area.

Those roadblocks can then be cleared by engaging in whatever activity will eliminate those negative feelings. That may include getting educated about what it will take to accomplish your goal, it may mean practicing affirmations or visualizations, it might involve doing research on the topic, hiring a professional to help you, or even something as simple as voicing the disempowering belief to yourself.

Once the dark things in our subconscious are brought into the light, they are often seen to have very little actual power over us, if any at all. Ferret out your negative, disempowering beliefs by being 100% truthful with yourself about how you feel about something that you want to attain.

Once you have recognized whatever it is that is causing your negative feelings, drag it kicking and screaming into the light, eliminate it, and you will leave yourself with nothing but positive and confident feelings about your ability to succeed. Then you will do exactly that!

Ralph Waldo Emerson said &ndash We become what we think about all day long. This couldn’t be any truer. What do you think about all day long? Who’s going to win on football on Sunday? Do you think about what you’re going wear to Sally’s party or who Nicole Richie is dating? If you think about trivial things all day long &ndash Don’t be surprised if your life turns out trivial.

You can’t think about ridiculous, trivial things all day and then once in a while when you’re in the mood say, “Oh yeah… and I really want to be successful.” According to Emerson &ndash just start thinking about success all the time and it will soon come. Emerson fully understood the law of attraction. The law of attraction is the secret to all great successes. It says that you attract what you think about and focus on.

You can start harnessing the power of the law of attraction today. I don’t care if you have the flu, you have two broken arms and 2 broken legs &ndash there’s something you can do today that will make you successful before you know it. Start spending a lot of your day just thinking about success. Read and listen to every motivational program you can find. Start using visualization and filling your mind up with thoughts of success instead of worrying about what Jay-Lo and Britney are wearing. C’mon &ndash if your mind is filled up with garbage most of the time, you’re going to become garbage! It’s as simple as that. Think about what you want long and hard enough and it will come - Action will follow. In the same way though &ndash think about what you don’t want and it will come. If you sit around all day and think — I don’t want to end up poor, fat and sick, inevitably you’ll end up poor, fat and sick. The mind knows what you fill it up with. Even if your intention is to avoid something &ndash if you think about it enough &ndash it’s likely to end up in your life. So don’t think about negative things. Don’t think about what you don’t want or what you want to avoid.

Think positively and only about what you want. Your thoughts become your reality. If you want an amzing life, you must think amazing thoughts. This is not some mystical nonsense. Quanum Physics has proven this to be an absolute fact. Our thoughts radically effect our reality. Try it out for a week. Can you do it for that long? For one week, I want you to be very careful about what you think about. Think big, think positive and know that you will get what you think about. Don’t let anyone distract you from this for this one week. Avoid negative people for this one week. Only think positive thoughts and dwell on what you want in your life and watch your life start to transform before your eyes.

This article is about health problems and how some people let these problems get them down too easily. By thinking in a more positive way they are more likely to see a positive outcome. I hope you enjoy the read.

I once had a neighbour who was about sixty-five. She was such a negative person, very rarely smiled and seemed to moan about almost everything. Her name was Nancy.

When I first moved to this particular area, I tried to make friends with the people who lived close to me. When I first met Nancy she kept saying how ill she felt and about how her back was playing her up. I went away from this meeting feeling quite sorry for Nancy.

Around two weeks later I bumped into Nancy again. I aked her in a very positive and upbeat way, how she was. I wish I had not bothered as I then had to listen to all of her problems. She did not have one happy thing to say. Over the next few years of living by Nancy, I actually went out of my way to avoid her.

I have to admit that I also used to feel sorry for myself. I grew up with a speech impediment known as a stutter. I often used to wonder as to why I was given this problem. It did not seem fair to me as I believed I was a really nice person. I would often think as to why god had not given Craig the impediment as he was a nasty piece of work.

I lived with the stutter until the age of twenty-two and then began to have a change of attitude. Instead of looking at people who I thought were more fortunate than myself, I started to read and hear about people who were far less fortunate. By watching the news on the television, I saw some images and heard stories from other countries which made me realise how stupid I had been. I may have had a stutter but compared to other people in the world I am very fortunate.

When people ask me how I am, I always give a positive answer even if I feel terrible. I try and walk around with a smile on my face and am now living life to the full. I have also managed to overcome that horrible stutter.

People like Nancy could do with having the same change in attitude and they may find they have more visitors to their house and that some of their ailments disappear.

Change is the key to our success and to our financial future. Often in our own lives, however, change is something we fiercely resist. Even when achievement sits on our doorstep, we’re still too comfortable to make an adjustment. The very first place to look for transformation is within. When you take ownership of yourself, your life and your income, you are on your way to harnessing success.

I learned early in my life that if things needed to change, it was up to me to change them.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Jim Rohn, who inspired me to new levels of success and happiness. When I first met Mr. Rohn, I was sitting at a dinner table with ten other people. I grabbed a seat near him and just wanted to listen to his words of wisdom and conversation. When a lull in the conversation arose, I was caught off guard when Mr. Rohn asked me about my goals, dreams and aspirations. In response, I began to talk about many of the roadblocks I had experienced in my pursuit of success. I listed all the reasons why I wasn’t able to achieve my goals and dreams. I let him know who was to blame and insisted none of it was my fault. I thought I had made a pretty good case and then the hammer dropped. Jim looked at me and said, “Kurt, for things to change, you must change, and for things to get better, you must get better.” That brief moment in time changed my life forever. It was then that I realized that everything I wanted in life is on the other side of change, not the other side of excuse. I also realized that no matter the excuse (good or bad), it would not produce results.

If you want to make the same kind of transformation in your life, the first thing you have to do is take an honest look at yourself and where you are. You can’t make changes if you won’t acknowledge what needs to be changed. Where are you starting? What is your current situation? If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be? It is only from honestly assessing where point A is that you can develop a well-defined, well-planned route to point B. Then the next obvious thing to determine is where or at what point B is located. In other words, what exactly are you aiming for? What do you want?

Now is not the time to be timid.

Don’t shortchange yourself because you want to be “careful” or “reasonable” or you don’t want to “rock the boat.” Shoot for the stars! You’ll define the path to get there, but first you have to know what exactly you’re even trying to reach. In other words, you must begin with the end result and then work your way backward. You have to know exactly where you want to go and what you need to change to get there. Sometimes, people are actually afraid of being “too” successful. To be brilliant or amazing might actually be a scary proposition. As success comes into sight, you might feel a lot of responsibility weighing down on you. So, how successful should you be? How healthy should you be? How wealthy should you be? How strong should your relationships be? Consider the following powerful quote from Nelson Mandela:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

&ndash 1994 Inaugural Speech

We are unique creatures. In spite of the seeds of greatness that lie within us, we seem to program ourselves to do the least amount possible to get by. That is, we often do only what is necessary to survive. I see this tendency with my students at the local university all the time. Their mentality is: What is the least amount of work I can do to pass this class? They are paying top dollar to get their education yet rarely do you see a student take advantage of all the learning that is at her/his disposal. We see symptoms of the same mental laziness, lack of progress and resistance to change in the workplace, too:

What is the least amount of work I can do to get a paycheck and not get fired? When we are in this lazy mindset, we can’t find happiness, and as a result, our souls start to rust.

The challenge is that we often don’t see the consequences of our behavior fast enough.

Time ticks by, and by the time we’re even aware of how off course we’ve gotten, years have flown by. We live in a society where we want the quick fix, the easy way out.

Unfortunately, however, that is not how life works. If it takes someone five years to gain twenty pounds, why does someone else think he can completely lose it in a couple weeks? Another example is fast food. We know it’s not good for us, and yet hey, nothing bad happened today after I had that super-size order of fries. The consequences of the unhealthy food will take time to manifest, but in the meantime, the instant gratification of a fast and delicious meal now overpowers concerns about the future that, in the moment, seem immaterial. Imagine if every time you ate at a fast food restaurant the consequences were immediate. You took a bite and felt a bulge near your midsection. If that were the case, it wouldn’t take long before you changed your ways.

There are thousands of habits and patterns in our lives that fit the instant gratification scenario. Another example is debt. So what do we do when we’re constantly confronted with such difficult choices: immediate pleasure versus future gain? What do we do about it? You would be very wise to make a habit as soon as possible of analyzing your life on at least a weekly basis. Determine what you want to change now, not after years of reinforcing the wrong habits. The saying goes, “Old habits die hard” and it’s really true.

Stop destructive cycles now before the strands that bind you become impenetrable rope.

Without changing your action, your wishes and hopes will only be whims that never go anywhere. It’s time for you dreams to start to bear fruit!

So, are you ready to welcome change into your life? Good! Remember, as Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Once you have recognized the need to change and have embraced the opportunity to change, then you will need to start organizing your plan of action. Think backward. What is the big picture? What are the major phases within that big picture? What are the steps within each phase that will move you from one point to the next? It is worth pointing out here that you must be careful not to let the opinions of others dissuade you. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before&ndashyou’ve gotten yourself all excited and pumped up, you tell someone you really care about all your great plans and they barely listen or care. Or worse, they start pointing out all the reasons why your plan isn’t going to work or why it’s a bad idea. Crash! You can’t remember the last time you felt so deflated.

I’ll admit that it is hard to stay focused and persistent when people spit on your dreams. Fear of failure, fear of what others will think&ndashthese are totally normal feelings. But you can’t let them debilitate you. Napoleon Hill said, “The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys his power of imagination, limits his individuality and takes away his self-reliance.” You are destined for greatness. Follow your heart not the useless criticism and discouragement of those who have forgotten how to live and dream.

So many people assume that if they don’t try, then they can’t fail. If they don’t try, no one will criticize them either. The tragedy of this mindset is that they will fail by virtue of never having even attempted to succeed. George Shinn once said, “Growth means change and change involves risks, stepping from the known to the unknown.” I have always loved the phrase “jump and the net will appear.” Consider the fact that most of the fears we face in life are not life-and-death matters. And yet, we are so gripped by our fears that it’s almost as though they were life-and-death matters.

The next time you feel yourself paralyzed by fear, stop and honestly assess your feelings.

What is the worst thing that could really happen? Are the possible setbacks really life-or death situations, or are they just opportunities to learn and grow, even if they are sometimes unpleasant or painful? Reflect on the fact that almost all successful people have their stories about where they came from and what they had to go through to achieve success. What’s more, it’s rarely a rosy picture. It might also be worth asking yourself what the worst thing is that could happen if you do nothing. Chances are the consequences might be more severe in the case of inaction versus action. Either way, there is a price to be paid. Do you want regrets or do you want results? We say no to some things because we are saying yes to other things. You just need to be sure you know what hangs in the balance either way. Sometimes it is the realization of the imminent, stark reality hitting us in the face that provides the momentum for change. Whatever the motivator is, just don’t let fear stop you from forging ahead.

In the quest towards achieving success and accomplishment in our lives, a systematic plan of action is needed. Without a plan even the greatest of efforts will be ineffective, eventually degenerating into frustration and wasted time. A guided plan allows one to utilize his/her talents and competencies to the fullest, by focusing them in a coordinated and strategic manner upon a specific outcome. The power of concentrated effort should never be underestimated. A strategy that one should immulate from the world of sports, is that in competition one should always seek to “play his/her game”. One should never be forced into the position of trying to be successful by operating under conditions strategically benificial to the opposing team. In other words, in seeking to achieve success in today’s competitive environment, a professional should design an action plan around his/her personal strengths and competencies. Play to your strengths and not to your weakness.

There is always more than one way to the mountain top; a striving professional should ensure that the path he/she chooses, is the one which utilizes his/her talents and skill sets to the fullest.

The acronym A.I.D.E can be used as a tool for the striving professional, in the drafting of a personal action plan. A.I.D.E stands for: Analyze, Identify, Design and Evaluate. A professional should first analyze his/her situation. What are one’s professional aspirations and goals? What stage of his/her career is the professional currently in? What are the future prospects of current and prospective career paths? It is important to fully know the landscape before any journey can be undertaken. Before embarking upon the adventure of a lifetime one should take time to learn the terrain.

The next step in action planning is to identify those skill sets and core competencies one wishes to utilize. For example if a person possesses excellent analytical and mathematic skills one should seek opportunities which require these proficiencies, such as engineering or systems analyst. The identification stage involves much soul searching and should be undertaken in a deliberate and patient manner.

The design stage of the planning processes puts the “gears into the dream”. The design phase is the actual creation of one’s plan of action. During this period the professional determines the specific:

 Activities

 Time Frames

 Outcomes

 Methods

,that will be utilized in the action plan.

The final stage of the A.I.D.E process is the evaluation phase. During the evaluation phase the striving professional reviews and monitors the progress that has been made. This stage of the action plan is very important, for it allows for the rethinking of strategies and the ability to capitalize upon immediate opportunity.

The courage to boldly go, to undiscovered realms of your potential should be rewarded with that which your heart desires. Ensure success by effectively planning for it. Your plan will work, if you work your plan.

-Make it Happen!

Have you ever watched or heard about a person’s success story and believed that you could never do what he/she has done? Or have you seen someone come up with a revolutionary idea and thought to yourself that you can never accomplish such a feat?

If your answer is yes to either one or both of my questions, you probably have self-limiting beliefs and negative thoughts about yourself. These are what I would term as a person’s inner ‘monsters’ and these ‘monsters’ are very common in most people. These ‘monsters’, if not dealt with, will be the main reasons that will cause you to not show yourself enough gratitude for all the accomplishments you have obtained. Conversely when you do not acknowledge your accomplishments enough, you will feel as though you have failed in life and ultimately this will really lead to your failure.

Now then, what are some of the most common inner ‘monsters’ that are hindering you from showering yourself with gratitude? There are probably truckloads of inner ‘monsters’ that everybody possesses but I will only cover the few that I feel are most detrimental to one’s success if not identified early and dealt with.

In my opinion, the single most common and detrimental inner ‘monster’ that is hindering you from showing gratitude to yourself is that you feel you are unworthy of being shown gratitude at all. This alone could have stemmed from many internal or external factors. Some common internal factors possibly include inferiority complex, thinking or feeling that you are useless and can never achieve anything great or be successful. External factors, on the other hand, can come in the form of the people around you telling and taunting you that you are hopeless and can never achieve anything great in life. These internal and external factors, when coupled together, will lead you to think that you have nothing worthy of being appreciative about.

While you may argue that you do feel that you are worthy of being shown gratitude and do not fall under the category of people I have mentioned above, perhaps you are plagued with the mentality that you have not done enough to be able to show yourself more gratitude. You must understand that you do not have to do all the things required before you can start showing yourself more gratitude. As long as you have done what is sufficiently required and accomplished the task, goal or objective you have initially set out to do, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t be giving heaps of credit to yourself.

Now, you will probably be asking ‘what if I have been doing enough but I feel as though I have not given my best, then should I still show gratitude to myself?’ Many people believe and constantly think that they have not given their best in everything that they pursue or hope to accomplish. They keep thinking that they can do a particular task much better and go on to think of ways to improve or perfect their methods without actually considering showing themselves gratitude for the task they have completed. While it is definitely good, and I recommend that you do it too, to constantly upgrade yourself and the methods you employ in completing a task, it is also prudent to note that you must first reflect on your current completed tasks at hand and take the time to congratulate or compliment yourself for completing them before moving on.

So far, I have covered three inner ‘monsters’ that have prevented you from showing gratitude to yourself. The next one I will be covering is just as important as the other three but personally, I feel that this inner ‘monster’ is the most overlooked one. This inner ‘monster’ is thinking and believing that your achievement is too small or not important enough for you to show gratitude to yourself. In fact, this inner ‘monster’ is rather contradicting in the sense that you acknowledge that you have achieved something (which is great) yet you feel that it is too small to be appreciative about. We all have definitely achieved much success in our lives, be it learning how to speak when we were young to passing an exam with flying colours. It does not matter how ’small’ or how ‘big’ our successes are (depending on our individual definitions of ’small’ and ‘big’) if we do not actually take the time and effort to actually ponder over them and congratulate or show gratitude to ourselves for achieving them.

By now, you would have probably realised the inner ‘monsters’ that are preventing you from showing gratitude to yourself and how it can affect your success. If you are interested to find out more about how you can overcome and suppress these ‘monsters’, take a look at the resource box below. And always remember that showing gratitude to yourself can go a very long way to ensuring your continual success.

On a recent trip to a conference, I sat next to a woman on the plane who had missed her last connecting flight due to some airline delays. As a result, Margaret was going to miss a bike tour of the Napa Wine Valley, which she had already paid for. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy about it, as she would not get her payment back, nor have the fun experience she was looking forward to since she had business meetings scheduled the following day. She had fretted about it a great deal the night before. Today, however, she had let go, having realized that much worse things could happen.

While on the plane, she was reading a book about college loans. It turned out that the person sitting on her right was an expert on college loans and he consulted with her for about an hour on how to find the best college loan for her daughter.

I was sitting on her left and coached her around her business and gave her a good idea that could potentially make her a lot of money.

After having both of these conversations, she said, “I guess the universe did me a favor by putting me on this flight and here I was kicking and screaming about it last night.”

We put out in the universe what we need and it will do what it takes to give us that. Often it will come in a form that is totally unexpected and not at all like you would have planned.

If Margaret had not let go and allowed herself to be in acceptance about the situation, she might not have engaged in either conversation or learned so much in such a short time.

While the bike trip was not refundable, she got her return in the form of complimentary consulting and coaching that was probably worth more than the cost of the bike tour of the Napa Valley.

Where are things not going like you planned or wanted? Let go and be open to the universe bringing you something you desire in a form that was even better than you imagined.

Would you like to start being more productive right now? Want to stop wasting precious time and move your projects to completion? This article will focus on how to be more productive from this point forward.

The key to becoming more productive with your time is to concentrate your efforts on the task at hand. So how do you begin to concentrate your efforts? The key is to eliminate distractions.

Distractions come from two sources. The first source is outside things, such as phone calls, emails, interruptions from other people and so on. Pick a time when you feel at your peak, and sequester yourself, for a period of time each day, to give yourself a real boost in productivity. Develop your own methods to “hide” from the outside world, for a period of time each day, and you will see your output grow.

The second source of distractions comes from within. Unfortunately, this is the hardest source of distractions to control. It is hard to shut yourself off from yourself. . The key culprit for us is multitasking. Many studies have been done at this point, that show multitasking reduces productivity, instead of increasing it. Our minds can only hold one thought at a time, and switching tasks causes us to lose focus and momentum, and forces our mind to play “catch-up” over and over again. To become more productive, you must master the art of focusing on one thing at a time and give it your best effort and attention, until it is done. If boredom sets in while you are working on your task, give yourself a SHORT break, and remind yourself of what the ultimate objective is for what you are working on and what the payoff is to you.

You need to make sure the task you pick to concentrate on, is in fact your highest priority item. Many of us fall into the trap of staying busy, vs. staying productive. One task may clear mountains of paperwork off your desk ,or you might be better served by moving just one piece of high priority/high payback paper. Use the 80/20 rule to help find the true “gems” in your inbox. The 80/20 rule says that 80% of the gains you receive, come from 20% of your efforts. Find out what that 20% of high payoff project are and make sure you concentrate on accomplishing them first.

And of course don’t forget the basics of time management. Say no to as many projects as you can to help streamline your workload. Try to “cherry pick” projects you know in advance hold high payback potential and try to pass on lower priority projects. Also delegate as much lower payback activity as possible. Calculate the value of your time and try to delegate low value activities, even if you have to pay someone. It is money well spent.

Increased productivity is as close as your next thought. Remember everything counts. Every action you take as well as those actions you don’t take can help you move towards your goal of increased productivity. Constantly remind yourself of your need to be more productive and discipline yourself to do the right thing. Don’t beat yourself if you have a setback, but be certain to reward yourself in someway, for each action that moves

your productivity up a notch.