How to Fearlessly Face a Transition

Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
- - Jean De La Fontaine

We're in the season of some of the greatest transitions of our time. Some good: a new year, a new and historic government (in the US), low interest rates. Some not so good feeling...layoffs, resource actions, mortgage and money challenges. Then there are the goal setters, the resolution makers and those who are fed up and had enough with where they are in their jobs, career and lives. It's the "ripe" time to look at the power of transitions to re-create joy, passion and excitement in your life and career.

More and more people are becoming open to the idea of change. They ask, "How could I make it work for me?" Well, certainly gaining a new perspective, experiencing more personal growth and the chance to have something different, is a good start. In a place of stagnation, just the mere thought of what could be can command worlds of energy and forces to line up to give you more of what you want. Why not take even one step toward what you're thinking about and just see what happens? Imagine...

John has toyed with the idea of writing a book for a long time. He questions whether he has the energy; commitment and concentration he needs to create what he most wants. Working with John, we explored how he could get a "taste" of what this could mean. John was willing to begin with blogging on his topic to get his creative juices flowing and test his commitment to sustaining his writing project. Using a free blogging service to contain his costs and feel more comfortable about the investment, he started slowly. Blogging proved to be challenging at first because of the time investment and need for fresh ideas to talk about. He realized that this was a good test of his commitment and also helped to sharpen his writing. As John continued and found his rhythm, he realized this was truly his calling and now had the evidence that this transition to his dream was now a reality. He is now actively building his plan and outline for his soon-to-be bestseller!

Are you willing to take one step, no matter how small, toward you greatest desire? Can you see and feel the action that will increase your energy, renew your passion and pump up your excitement?

In this season of transitions, take that one step and test the waters. You will find your path brighten and light up right before your eyes - I guarantee it!

What is that dream, that deepest held desire that you want to move to? Is it a new career, a new life, a new talent you want to develop, a hobby you want to make money with, a new way of being with friends, family, co-workers? Whatever it may be, identify just one step that can help you move towards it. See how it feels and what next steps "show up" as a result. Then lay out your path, create your roadmap and to transition successfully to all that you desire. (and deserve!)

Chris Makell is The Career Transitions Strategist if you've been laid off, recently promoted or ready to leave corporate. To learn what your next steps must be in this new economy, claim your free special report available at => http://www.HighCaliberLeadership.com

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Develop A Prosperity Consciousness

The starting point of all riches is the development of a prosperity consciousness. You must become a financial success in your thinking long before you achieve it in your reality. Both poverty and riches are the result of a state of mind, and the most important single step you ever take on the road to wealth and financial independence is the decision to change your thinking, to impress into your mind an unshakable belief that you can and will achieve your financial goals. This must happen before anything else happens.

Think And Grow Rich
When I was growing up, I was fascinated by stories of successful men and women and how they made and lost their fortunes, and then made them over again. I read about the importance of a prosperity consciousness in the book, Think And Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, several times. But I never fully understood what it meant until about five years ago. Then it hit me and I've never been quite the same since. Every aspect of my life has improved dramatically, especially in the area of accumulating wealth, since I finally understood what is meant by a prosperity consciousness.

Two Great Discoveries
Here are two of the most exciting principles ever discovered in the long search by mankind for the secrets of health, happiness and great personal wealth.

All Causation is Mental
The first principle is this. All causation is mental. That means that everything that you are or ever will be will be a result of how you use your mind. You are merely a mind with a body to carry it around with. The entire man made world that you see is simply an expression of thought. Your entire life is an expression of your own thinking. And since the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life, if you improve the quality of your thinking, you must, you will, inevitably improve the quality of your life.

The Law of Expectations
The second principle is what we call the law of expectations. This law says that whatever you expect with confidence, positive or negative, becomes your reality. If you confidently expect to succeed, if you confidently expect to learn something from every experience, if you confidently expect to become wealthy as a result of applying your talents and abilities to your opportunities and you maintain that attitude of confident expectations long enough, it will become your reality. It will give you a positive optimistic cheerful attitude that will cause people to want to help you, and will cause things to happen the way you want them to happen.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to practice these principles in your day to day life:

First, start thinking today in a positive, optimistic, confident way about personal and financial success. Continually imagine what differences it would make in your life if you were financially independent. This is the starting point of developing a prosperity consciousness.

Second, develop your own attitude of positive expectations. Look for the good in every situation. Look for the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. Be positive and cheerful about everything that happens and you will be amazed at the difference it makes in your life.

My Mentor,

Brian Tracy

What Constitutes a Good Life?

The ultimate expression of life is not a paycheck. The ultimate expression of life is not a Mercedes. The ultimate expression of life is not a million dollars or a bank account or a home. Here's the ultimate expression of life in my opinion, and that is living the good life. Here's what we must ask constantly, "What for me would be a good life?" And you have to keep going over and over the list. A list including areas such as spirituality, economics, health, relationships and recreation. What would constitute a good life? I've got a short list.

1) Number one, productivity. You won't be happy if you don't produce. The game of life is not rest. We must rest, but only long enough to gather strength to get back to productivity. What's the reason for the seasons and the seeds, the soil and the sunshine, the rain and the miracle of life? It's to see what you can do with it. To try your hand, other people have tried their hand; here's what they did. You try your hand to see what you can do. So part of life is productivity.

2) Next are good friends. Friendship is probably the greatest support system in the world. Don't deny yourself the time to develop this support system. Nothing can match it. It's extraordinary in its benefit. Friends are those wonderful people who know all about you and still like you. A few years ago I lost one of my dearest friends. He died at age 53 - heart attack. David is gone, but he was one of my very special friends. I used to say of David that if I was stuck in a foreign jail somewhere accused unduly and if they would allow me one phone call, I would call David. Why? He would come and get me. That's a friend. Somebody who would come and get you. Now we've all got casual friends. And if you called them they would say, "Hey, if you get back, call me we'll have a party." So you've got to have both, real friends and casual friends.

3) Next on the list of a good life is your culture. Your language, your music, the ceremonies, the traditions, the dress. All of that is so vitally important that you must keep it alive. In fact it is the uniqueness of all of us that when blended together brings vitality, energy, power, influence, uniqueness and rightness to the world.

4) Next is your spirituality. It helps to form the foundation of the family that builds the nation. And make sure you study, practice and teach. Don't be careless about the spiritual part of your nature, it's what makes us who we are, different from animal, dogs, cats, birds and mice. Spirituality.

5) Next - here's what my parents taught me. Don't miss anything. Don't miss the game. Don't miss the performance, don't miss the movie, don't miss the show, don't miss the dance. Go to everything you possibly can. Buy a ticket to everything you possibly can. Go see everything and experience all you possibly can. This has served me so well to this day. Just before my father died at age 93 if you were to call him at 10:30 or 11:00 at night, he wouldn't be home. He was at the rodeo, he was watching the kids play softball, he was listening to the concert, he was at church, he was somewhere every night.

Live a vital life. Here's one of the reasons why. If you live well, you will earn well. If you live well it will show in your face, it will show in the texture of your voice. There will be something unique and magical about you if you live well. It will infuse not only your personal life but also your business life. And it will give you a vitality nothing else can give.

6) Next are your family and the inner circle. Invest in them and they'll invest in you. Inspire them and they'll inspire you. With your inner circle take care of the details. When my father was still alive, I used to call him when I traveled. He'd have breakfast most every morning with the farmers. Little place called The Decoy Inn out in the country where we lived in Southwest Idaho.

So Papa would go there and have breakfast and I'd call him just to give him a special day. Now if I was in Israel, I'd have to get up in the middle of the night, but it only took five minutes, ten minutes. So I'd call Papa and they'd bring him the phone. I'd say, "Papa I'm in Israel." He'd say, "Israel! Son, how are things in Israel?" He'd talk real loud so everybody could hear - my son's calling me from Israel. I'd say, "Papa last night they gave me a reception on the rooftop underneath the stars overlooking the Mediterranean." He'd say, "Son, a reception on the rooftop underneath the stars overlooking the Mediterranean." Now everybody knows the story. It only took 5 - 10 minutes, but what a special day for my father, age 93.

If a father walks out of the house and he can still feel his daughter's kiss on his face all day, he's a powerful man. If a husband walks out of the house and he can still feel the imprint of his wife's arms around his body he's invincible all day. It's the special stuff with the inner circle that makes you strong and powerful and influential. So don't miss that opportunity. Here's the greatest value. The prophet said, "There are many virtues and values, but here's the greatest, one person caring for another." There is no greater value than love. Better to live in a tent on the beach with someone you love than to live in a mansion by yourself. One person caring for another, that's one of life's greatest expressions.

So make sure in your busy day to remember the true purpose and the reasons you do what you do. May you truly live the kind of life that will bring the fruit and rewards that you desire.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Boost Your Productivity

Push to the Top
All successful people are very productive. They work longer hours and they work better hours. They get a lot more done than the average person. They get paid more and promoted faster. They are highly respected and esteemed by everyone around them. They become leaders and role models. Inevitably, they rise to the top of their fields and to the top of their income ranges, and so can you.

Everything is Learnable
Every single one of these tested and proven strategies for managing your time and doubling your productivity is learnable through practice and repetition. Each of these methods will eventually become a habit of both thinking and working.

The Payoff is Remarkable
When you begin applying these techniques to your work and to your life, your self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect and sense of personal pride will go up immediately. The pay off for you will be tremendous, for the rest of your life.

Make A Decision!
Every positive change in your life begins with a clear, unequivocal decision that you are going to either do something or stop doing something. Significant change starts when you decide to either get in or get out, either fish or cut bait.

The Vital Quality of Success
Decisiveness is one of the most important qualities of successful and happy men and women, and decisiveness is developed through practice and repetition, over and over again until it becomes as natural to you as breathing in and breathing out.

Why People Are Poor
The sad fact is that people are poor because they have not yet decided to be rich. People are overweight and unfit because they have not yet decided to be thin and fit. People are inefficient time wasters because they haven't yet decided to be highly productive in everything they do.

Become An Expert
Decide today that you are going to become an expert in time management and personal productivity, no matter how long it takes or how much you invest in it. Resolve today that you are going to practice these principles, over and over again until they become second nature.

Action Exercises
Here are two steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.First, hold your own feet to the fire. Resolve to start earlier, work harder and stay later. Don't let yourself off the hook.Second, become an expert in time management. Learn and practice time management techniques every day until they become habits.

By My Mentor
Brian Tracy

Create Large Chunks of Time

This strategy requires a commitment from you to work at scheduled times on large tasks. Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete. Your ability to create and carve out these blocks of high value, highly productive time, is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life.

Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
Start Immediately on Number OneSuccessful salespeople set aside a specific time period each day to phone prospects. Rather than procrastinating or delaying on a task that they don't particularly like, they resolve that they will phone for one solid hour between 10 and 11 AM and they then discipline themselves to follow through on their resolutions.

Many business executives set aside a specific time each day to call customers directly to get feedback. Create Specific Amounts of TimeSome people allocate specific 30-60 minute time periods each day for exercise. Many people read in the great books 15 minutes each night before retiring. In this way, over time, they eventually read dozens of the best books ever written.
The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and specifically schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task.
You make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them. You set aside thirty, sixty and ninety minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks.

Create Preplanned PeriodsMany highly productive people schedule specific activities in preplanned time slots all day long. These people build their work lives around accomplishing key tasks one at a time. As a result, they become more and more productive and eventually produce two times, three times and five times as much as the average person.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, organize each day to create large chunks of time you can use for key task completion.

Second, make a written appointment with yourself to work on a key task at a specific time.

By My Mentor
Brian Tracy

Unlocking Your Creativity

I began studying creativity more than 20 years ago. I thought it was an ability that was possessed by a few, especially intelligent people, such as artists and writers and scientists. But as I delved further into the subject, I came to a remarkable conclusion: I am a genius! Not only that, but you, too, are a genius! In fact, probably 95 percent of the population has the capacity to function at exceptional levels. Creativity is as natural to human beings as is breathing in and out. Everyone is creative to a certain extent. People are highly creative because they decide to be highly creative. It’s no miracle. Creativity is like any human faculty; it can be developed with practice and strengthened with constant use.

If you improve things in small ways, you are engaging in small acts of creativity. If you make major breakthroughs, and improve parts of your life in extraordinary ways, you are demonstrating high levels of creativity. And the amount of creativity you use in your life is largely up to you.

If creativity is improvement, in what areas do you want to use it? The answer is simple. You want to use your inborn creativity to improve the parts of your life that are most important to you. You can use your creativity to improve your relationships, to increase your income and improve your business, and to assure yourself higher levels of health and happiness. With that definition, you can see clearly that you have opportunities to be creative from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night.

Creativity is like a muscle. If you do not deliberately and consciously flex your creativity on a regular basis, it becomes weak and soft. It loses its strength. If people criticize you for your ideas, or if you have concluded that you are not particularly creative, you will tend to be more passive and submissive and look to others for new and better ways of solving problems and achieving goals. However, if you start to practice creative thinking, along the lines that I’m going to share with you, you will be absolutely amazed at how smart you really are.

I used to think that you had to be highly intelligent to be creative. Then I found that intelligence is not just a matter of IQ. There are many people with high IQs who got excellent grades in school but who are doing very poorly at life. They are working at jobs they don’t like and earning salaries that are far below their potentials. They probably haven’t come up with a creative idea in years.

Intelligence is a way of acting. If you act intelligently, you are intelligent. If you act stupidly, you are stupid. That’s all there is to it. You can decide to be highly intelligent and highly creative simply by doing the things that highly intelligent and highly creative people do. If you do these things over and over, you’ll soon get the same results. People around you will be talking about how bright and full of ideas you have become.

There are three basic qualities of genius. Since you are a genius, you should know what they are and apply them regularly.

The first quality of genius is open-mindedness. People who are fluent, flexible and adaptive in their thinking are far brighter than those who are rigid, mechanical and straitlaced. The more open you are to new ideas and possibilities, to new approaches and solutions, the more creatively you will function.

Most people tend to fall into what are called "thinking traps." They assume that there is only one right answer to a problem; in reality, there could be several right answers. They jump to conclusions, assuming that because one thing happens, it is the reason for another thing’s happening; there may be no relationship at all between the two events. Sometimes people think that the problem has to be solved immediately; often, the problem can be deferred for some time, and often it will solve itself if left alone.

People think that certain problems have to be solved without spending any money; often, if the solution is important enough, it is a good idea to spend money on it.

Another thinking trap people fall into is thinking they have to solve the whole problem; sometimes, solving just one part of the problem is enough for the time. A final thinking trap is thinking that it is your problem and you are the one who must solve it; often, it is someone else’s problem, and the very best thing for you to do is to turn it over to that person and refuse to get involved.

My Mentor,
Brian Tracy

To Have An Amazing Life You Have To Take Amazing Risks!

Walt Disney's first company went bankrupt. Instead of giving up he headed to Hollywood with twenty dollars and a suitcase to start a new business. He believed in himself and his ideas. It turned out to be a really good risk.

Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore varsity basketball team for being too short. He stuck with the game and ended up one of the best basketball players in the world.

Terry Fox started his Marathon of Hope, running across Canada after having one leg amputated due to cancer. He wanted to raise money for cancer research. Terry never finished the run because cancer took his life. To date more then 400 million dollars have been raised for cancer research in his name.

Winston Churchill did poorly in school for which he was punished. He also had a stuttering speech impediment. Churchill went on to become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and a Nobel Prize winner.

One of the greatest baseball players of all time Reggie Jackson struck out 2597 times at bat.

Each of these individuals teach us that in order to have an amazing life you have to believe in yourself and take extraordinary risks even when everything and everyone around you sends the message that you can't do it.When you take risks you can start big or small according to your threshold of comfort. Some people take giant leaps and others feel more at ease with baby steps as they build their risk taking muscle. It doesn't matter which category you fall into, as long as you are taking risks.

Sometimes you just have to jump into things instead of dwelling or meditating on them for days on end because hesitation may result in a missed once in a life time opportunity. Just use logic and make sure you aren't putting your life or someone else's life in danger.If you find that you want to take more risks but something is holding you back; or maybe just the thought of taking risks has you shuddering, get to the root of issue. Maybe you are holding onto a fear or belief in your mind that is limiting and negative. Perhaps you don't even know what is stopping you from taking the risk, you just know every time you want to step out and try something new, you find yourself frozen and rooted in place.

This is the perfect opportunity to examine your beliefs about risks, failure and making mistakes. Also notice and become aware of your beliefs and thoughts about yourself and your abilities.A person might take a risk and make a mistake, but it isn't a failure until he or she decides that it is a failure and starts beating themselves up about it.

Are you worried about what other people might think of you? How do you measure success? Do you fear success? Are you dealing with lack of self confidence, self worth and deserving? Negative and limiting beliefs in any or all of these areas need to be uprooted, re-engineered and replaced with positive beliefs in order to start moving forward.It's important to believe in yourself and to take risks.

Holding a mind full of positive beliefs will support, encourage and propel you forward. When you start taking risks, jumping on opportunities and accepting challenges amazing things begin to happen; an amazing life unfolds and at the center of that is an amazing person. That amazing person is you.

Esther Bartkiw is a Core Belief Engineering Practitioner, Motivational Speaker, Nutritional Cleansing Coach and Author. She can be reached at 905-630-4471 or by email at esther@changefromwithin.ca Visit her website at http://www.changefromwithin.ca and follow her tweets at http://www.twitter.com/changeisgoodArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Esther_Bartkiw