Your Loses Count For Nothing...

It’s not what you have lost that counts but what you’ve got left.

-           Bob Gass

Many people spend valuable time and energy that could be put into productive use, talking about what they were and/ or use to have some time back instead of looking for ways to better their lot at that particular point in time. They hold on tenaciously to their past and non- existent properties, resources or even successes that it hinders them from seeing right in front of their noses.

There is someone I know that is always referring to the days when he was a manager of a big Departmental Store and the amount of properties he had and I seriously used to wonder if the story was true considering his present predicament. I see no reason why one should get up there, fall down and want to remain down and only talking about when he used to be up. It seriously doesn’t make any sense to me.

People that engage in such hold- on- to- the- past attitude do so mainly for one reason; refusal to accept the reality on ground. They want to continue to live in a no- longer existent life. Such people find it hard to accept failure because they have a misconception about failing. And gosh, do they continue to fail!

“I get ‘am before no be property” is a saying in pidgin English meaning that whatever had been gotten and lost should not be counted, but only what is on ground. What is lost remains lost and should never be counted.

A father who had just lost a son will not write out ‘I had four children but one is dead’ when filling out Insurance form but will most definitely write, three children. That’s the way it should be with every other thing that is worth counting as possession. What you don’t have, you don’t count!

How To Self-talk And Increase Your Confidence And Success

  In his classic best selling book Think & Grow Rich, Napoleon
Hill says that whatever the man of mind can conceive and BELIEVE,
it can achieve. Hill emphasized throughout his book how important
faith and belief are in achieving any goal you set for yourself.

  So why is belief so important? Henry Ford said it best, "Whether
you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right!" In other
words, your level of belief affects your thoughts, decisions,
behavior and actions. It affects your attitude, the way you present
your ideas and the way you interact with others.

  When you are trying to achieve a goal, your level of belief can
become a self-fulfilling prophecy and make a big difference in the
results that you get.

  Let's say that you are going to talk to potential investors
about a project. If you believe it's not going to work and you
won't get funding, you are going to present your ideas in a much
different way than if you fully believe in your project and truly
believe you'll get the funding. The investors will likely pick up
on your attitude and that could make all the difference. So it
truly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  So how can you build and develop your belief?

  One way is to use self-talk to make positive suggestions to
yourself (Napoleon Hill called it 'Autosuggestion') and mix them
with positive EMOTIONS and FEELINGS as you do it.

  Napoleon Hill was one of the pioneers in describing the
importance of mixing in positive emotions & feelings while using
affirmations, self-talk or visualization.

  Hill said that a mind that is full of positive emotions, or what
he called a positive mental attitude, provides an inviting home for
developing belief and faith. In the same way, a mind full of
negative emotions and attitudes is a toxic environment that
destroys belief and faith.

  In Think & Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill walks you through an
exercise to create a "goal statement" describing in detail what you
want to achieve and what you are going to give in return for it. He
then advises you to read your statement aloud twice daily, once in
the morning and once in the evening while you visualize and imagine
the goal you want to achieve. He also recommends mixing in positive
emotions and feelings as you do this.

  This 'autosuggestion' exercise is a very powerful way to build
belief and confidence and I would highly recommend it to help you
achieve your most important goals.

 Rodger Constandse

3 Ways to Increase Your Planning Skills, Stay Focused and Stop Procrastinating

The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something while maintaining the ability to stay focused on the long term goal. The potential consequences of any task or activity are the key determinants of how important it really is to you and to your company. This way of evaluating the significance of a task is how you determine what your next priority really is.

Stop Procrastinating and Stay Focused
This law says that, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
When you run out of time and the consequences for non-completion of a key task or project can be really serious, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. When you have no choice, when the consequences for non-completion are serious enough, you start early, you stay focused and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the unpleasantness that would follow if you didn’t get it completed within the time limit.
Rule: “There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do.”
It has been estimated that the average person in business today, especially managers in the age of cutbacks, is working at 110% to 130% of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. Everyone has stacks of reading material they still have to go through. One study concluded recently that the average executive has 300-400 hours of reading and projects backlogged at home and at the office.
What this means is that you will never be caught up and planning skills are more crucial than ever.. All you can hope for is to stay focused and be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.

Deadlines Are an Excuse
Many people say that they work better under the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, years of research indicate that this is seldom true.
It is much better to better your planning skills, and then build in a sizable buffer to compensate for unexpected delays and diversions. However much time you think a task will take, add on another 20% or more, or make a game of getting in done well in advance of the deadline. You will be amazed at how much more relaxed you are, and how much better a job you do when you stop procrastinating.

Increase Your Planning Skills
There are three questions that you can use on a regular basis to help you stay focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule. The first question is “What are my highest value activities?”
This is one of the most important questions you can ask and answer. What are your highest value activities?

First, think this through for yourself. Then, ask your boss. Ask your coworkers and subordinates. Ask your friends and family. Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be crystal clear about your highest value activities before you begin work.

The second question you can ask continually is, “What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?” This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. It is one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you, and only you do, that if done well, can make a real difference?

Every hour of every day, you can ask yourself this question and there will be a specific answer. Your job is to use planning skills to be clear about the answer and then to start and work on this task before anything else.
The third question you can ask is “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”
This is the core question of time management. Answering this question correctly is the key to stop procrastinating and developing better planning skills. Every hour of every day, there is some task that is the most valuable use of your time at that moment. Your job is to ask yourself this question, over and over again, and to always be working on the answer to it, whatever it is.

Do first things first and second things not at all. As Goethe said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.” The more accurate your answers to these questions, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities, to stop procrastinating and to get started on that one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time.

My Mentor Writes Again,
That's Brian Tracy