Skip to main content
Select Language:

The Secret to Your Success in 2014

2014 new year ahead

As 2014 has swiftly arrived, we are brought to that time of the season when most of us take to planning and plotting the next 12 months of our lives. If you’re already considering your to-do lists and new years resolutions, then you’re on the right track, but you’ll need to be careful in making your plans in order to be sure that you’re able to use them to your advantage!

Set Goals

The first rule of making progress in anything you do is setting goals, allowing yourself to always have a finish line in sight. This provides a boost in motivation during those moments when slogging forward seems impossible, giving you something tangible to work towards at every moment.

Whether you’re planning positive changes to your work or personal life, take note of the things that you want to achieve by the end of the year, and what you’ll need to do in order to get there. With these goals firmly in heart and mind, you’ll have just what you need to propel you in the right direction.

But wait…

Set Reasonable Goals

Goals are great, but what if those goals are only barely achievable? Like a high-risk gambler, you stand to gain the most when you meet sky-high expectations, but your chances of any success at all are well below par.

In order to limit your risk of perceived failure, be sure not to aim too high when setting your goals. Take the time to consider your history and your present circumstances, planning to hit milestones that are within reach instead of shooting for the stars and coming up short.

That’s not to say that you’ll never reach the stars, mind you – only that you’ll need to get to them in incremental steps.

Set Reasonable, Incremental Goals

Alright, you’ve got goals set that are useful, reachable, and will serve to take your endeavors to the next level throughout 2014. With the whole year plotted out ahead of you, it may seem that you’re ready to close the books on another successful year planned and get started with the heavy lifting.

 Not so fast.

You may feel particularly pumped up about achieving your goals now, but what about that inevitable day when inspiration is lacking and your goals seem further away than they did the day before? Whether it’s a day, a week, or a month away, that time will come, and you’ve got to narrow your plans even further if you want to get yourself on the right track without fear of hitting a serious bump.

Overarching goals are a necessary thing when you’re taking in the big picture, but life isn’t a big picture; on the contrary, life happens minute by minute, and that means that you’ll also need a more focused view. In order to achieve maximum momentum and build the kind of habits that lead to long-term success, be sure to set incremental goals that take you from point to point towards the place you visualize yourself being at the end of 2014.

No matter what your goals are and what aspect of your life they apply to, good planning and hard work will get you there – good luck!

What are your plans to make 2014 the most successful year of your life? Let us know in the comments below the specific routes you’ll be taking towards improved finances, better health, stronger relationships, and increased happiness, helping others to follow in your footsteps!

 

Happy New Year!

For Your Freedom,

harvsignature

Embrace Your Inner Warrior

man in white standing in field

Most people in our culture are pretty far removed from the realities of what we generally think of as “warriors.” In a pop-culture kind of way, the idea evokes images of swords, shields and ancient wars.

I think it’s important to seriously embrace the concepts behind what it means to be a warrior, and not the part about swords and shields. I’m talking about mental preparation—focus and awareness of mind, body and spirit so the warrior can be optimal to do what needs to be done when the moment calls.

We don’t experience quite the same intensity in our daily lives, but on some levels we do. The point isn’t about what the “warrior” is going to do; it’s who the warrior will be that will direct the action.

The definition we use of warrior is “One who conquers oneself.” The path of the spiritual warrior is not about power over others but power over yourself; being your true self. Only then can correct action follow, and the warrior’s way is the way of action.

It’s not just big actions in big moments. It’s about developing a habit; a bias toward action in your everyday life, and being able to reach your dreams because of this. Fear is what holds people back—fear of failing, or some perceived ridicule or pain for failing.

One of the most basic principles of the warrior is to be willing to make mistakes. The most successful people are willing to mess things up every now and then! They don’t take mistakes personally as an affront to their self-worth. They use mistakes as their primary form of learning.

You’ll get feedback based on action, and then you can make corrections. You go back to more action, maybe more mistakes, and make more corrections until you get it right.

But what happens in the feedback loop for a lot of people? We make mistakes and beat ourselves up unmercifully. In our society we have such a stigma on “failure” that we’re not willing to do anything, especially anything big we really want.

Take action! Successful people trust themselves. They’re willing to take the chance.

Break out of the prison of the conditioned mind and come from true choice in the present moment. That’s power. Power is when you don’t have to be who you were yesterday, or two years ago, or whenever.

You have to be present in the moment and come from true choice. If you don’t come from the moment and can’t trust yourself, then you’re coming from your programs of the past.

Be whatever you have to be at the time. Being unattached to thoughts and beliefs means you can be free to be whatever you need to be right now. That’s the way of the spiritual warrior.

Now it’s your turn! What do you want to do in your life that you are waiting for the right situation?  What would happen if you actually went for it right now? Do you have any experiences in embracing your “spiritual warrior”?

Your feedback is very valuable so make sure to leave a comment and start a conversation with the other T. Harv Eker community members!

For your freedom,

harvsignature

Getting What You Deserve

business man holding number 1

Whatever’s coming at us in life – is it happening because we somehow deserve it? Did we ask for it?

Sometimes it’s our blueprints that limit what the Universe brings into our lives. People unconsciously punish themselves over something that happened a long time ago but they haven’t forgiven themselves. Or they feel guilty about actually getting what they want. Sometimes there’s a part of us that feels like we don’t deserve more.

Other times, things happen out of nowhere; extreme challenges hit us out of the blue, and if we’re honest with ourselves, there’s a part of us that will ask, however briefly, “What did I do to deserve this?”

How we think about what we get in life—the meanings we attach to events and circumstances—will impact the quality of our lives. So it doesn’t pay to give too much credit to the Universe when things go right, nor too much blame when things go wrong and we don’t get what we want.

Success starts with us and our attitudes—and we’re grateful when the Universe gives us a nudge in the right direction.

We have the power to ask for and get what we want. People who are successful at it are considered “smooth-talkers,” with just a hint of resentment behind that tag, as if they’re just lucky to be born with the gift of gab.

There does seem to be some people that are better at it than others, but the power of persuasion is a learnable skill. If a kid in a marketplace can do it, for heaven’s sake so can you!

Most people, though, either go into a negotiation assuming that they’re going to get raked, and either don’t bother trying to negotiate out of fear or talk themselves out of getting the deal they want by not believing they can get it or deserve it.

That’s actually a big thing for a lot of people—the belief that getting what they want must mean that they’re taking something away from someone else. Of course that’s not true—the best negations are win-win scenarios.

In business and in life, ask for what you want! What’s the worst that could happen? The other person says no? So what if they do? People are so afraid of receiving “no” into their lives they don’t even try.

The best negotiating tool is the truth. Let the other person know how you’re feeling. The idea of good negotiations is to work together so you both get what you want and you both feel good and you feel the deal is fair.

When you ask someone, “What do you want?” they’ll usually tell you what they want. When you ask, “What do you think is fair?” they’ll usually tell you what they think is fair and balance your part of the equation.

Don’t get attached to the whole thing, and it’s actually a lot of fun. There’s a feeling of success that builds confidence once you become good at it, but there’s also a sense of fulfillment when you actually get what you deserve.

And as the saying goes, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you can negotiate. Let the Universe sort the rest out for you.

Tell us your experiences with stepping outside your comfort zone to get what you want. Was it a business experience? A personal experience? We want to hear from you!

Facing the Consequences

iStock_000011255264XSmall

One of the most impactful words in our language is consequences—this concept that action means something because it creates reactions, results: consequences. When we think of “facing the consequences,” that usually means something “bad.”

Likewise, inaction has consequences in that if we don’t do certain things that can also affect our lives, and sometimes with the greatest negative consequences.

However, there can be good consequences when we face up to the choices and decisions that we’ve been putting off. Every change in life happens when our mind collides with a new idea and goes off in a different direction. Once that happens, there are an infinite number of possible consequences that can happen.

In this sense, it’s pretty elegant but simple proof that you don’t necessarily have to be super smart to create the possibilities you want—though education, intelligence, and wisdom can’t hurt. You don’t have to be super-certain—though confidence and courage help more often than hinder.

Successful people are successful because they do more things that increase the probabilities that they will achieve the success they want. The probabilities say that if you try enough things in the right ways, eventually you’ll try the right thing at the right time with the right result for you.

One of the things I’ve found with regard to new ideas is that smart people continually move themselves within a stream—where they are connecting with the right people and events serendipitously, simply because of a decision they may have made years ago that brought them to that spot. At some point that person said, “Yes, I think I’ll try this and commit to it.”

They’re in a flow where the people, and the situations, and the ideas are colliding and pin-balling back and forth. The downside to that is it can be over-whelming sometimes, causing paralysis because all these ideas sound good but—jack of all trades, master of none.

The upside is that you can never tell which idea is going to be the one you need at that time. You only know that if you increase the number of ideas, the likelihood or probability that you’ll get the right idea at the right time goes up dramatically.

And sometimes all you need is one new idea to change the whole course of your life. One small change in the ingredients can change your whole world, or maybe impact the world. We’re seeing proof positive of that across a whole region of the globe today.

Bernard Baruch, one of the wealthiest men in America back in the day, started off penniless. When asked what was the key to becoming wealthy he said, “The starting point to becoming wealthy is to decide to become wealthy.” Look at his consequences.

The average self made millionaire goes broke two or three times throughout the course of his or her lifetime, which means there’s hope for all of us. Most Americans start off broke but like it so much they keep going back to it throughout their lives. Break the cycle.

What were some of the most powerful consequences of a decision that you made in your life? What other possibilities opened up for you? Share your experiences with the Millionaire Mind community. We want to hear from you!

https://bit.ly/NewMMI

Faking Out Your Fears

iStock_000009827346XSmall

Our lingering resentments and unresolved conflicts derail what is otherwise a universe that’s waiting to put us on track for success. We just have to open to the awareness that what we say we want and how we unconsciously operate often contradicts one another. If the universe were able to feel, it’d be just as frustrated by our blocks as we are.

Once we open up, we can start resolving past hurts, realizing that the pain may have been understandable for that time, but it’s only going to cause further damage if it’s not attended to immediately. So we mend, sometimes bending to meet another halfway, even if nothing about them has changed. We forgive them not for their sake, but for our own good. We can’t control who they are or how they’ll respond, but we can be effective through our sincerity. If our forgiveness releases them from pain too, bonus!

As important as all of this is though, the root of it all is as natural as our ability to breathe. It’s fear. It’s a part of us. We’ll never get rid of it. No amount of wisdom or experience will ever be enough to prevent it. We just get better at faking it out.

When you really think about it, the mind isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s useful for sure, but only after we’ve attained a certainty degree of emotional maturity. I would go so far as to say also a level of spiritual maturity, but that’s not even the main point. There’s got to be something else within us aware of its control over our mind and emotions. If we let either of those control us, we’re not much better than self-trained apes or temperamental drama queens!

The brain is a tool, but it’s also got … a mind of its own. Its mind is not to make us successful. It’s not concerned about us thriving. Its purpose is for our survival at a base level. Its job is to anticipate what’s coming and preserve our basic needs within that anticipation. In other words, the mind lives in a future reality that doesn’t even frickin’ exist yet! Our mind creates the greatest soap opera script. It makes up incredible stories, usually dramas and disasters that never happened and never will.

The secret to freedom is to realize that you don’t have to believe your mind. You don’t have to believe your story. You don’t have to believe that voice in your head. You don’t have to believe your own thinking. You can simply observe it and say, “Thank you for sharing,” and then take the necessary action you’re scared to take anyway.

One of the biggest mistakes that most people make is waiting for the feeling of fear to subside before they act. It’s not necessary and it’s impossible anyway. Rich and successful people have fear, worries, and doubts. They just don’t let those things stop them.

Don’t resist taking chances. Take them like vitamins. Let go of the brakes. Don’t worry about the bumps and bruises. You can take them. Don’t steer around what scares you. Go over. Go under. Go around or go through. Do something others would be terrified to do. You will feel your chin rise up from your chest and there will be one less thing you can’t do. Just freaking do it!