Three Key Behaviors That Determine Your SuccessWritten by Catherine Franz
Success is a journey and along way, we need to correct our course by unlearning behavior that derails us and invite in a new behavior to continue our success. If you feel you want to change your success, take a measure of your current key behaviors.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listening ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Listening is not a passive activity. It is unfair to person who is speaking to have a person there in body but not in mind. Just because we are person being quiet does not mean we are listening. As a listener we must be in present and taking in speakers message in proper context. It's not time to be thinking about what to have for lunch or your next witty comeback. Be fair to speaker and have a clear and open mind. Active listening requires us to set aside our own agenda, uses our best internal language skills, and takes present energy. The best gift to yourself and to your speaker if energy isn't available is to say so. Yet, due to perception management masks we've learned from society, we don't usually provide this honest feedback. So, we passively listen, like pretending, as a child, to hear, and say something quick, something we think they want to hear, just so we can move on. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Choice ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Power of Choice is energy we send out and is exactly what Universe sends us back. No choice is a choice too. I believe that we are where we are today because of accumulative effect of all our choices. We made thousands of choices each day and we control our lives by those choices. Having ability to choose equals power. When we don't choose, you give someone else ability to make choices for you, whatever they may be, and you give up any possible power with it. Once you realize you have power of choice, life happens for you, not to you!
| | Be Selfish With Your GoalsWritten by Jeffrey Rolo
All too often good-intentioned people set forth goals designed to satiate others rather than themselves. While intent is honorable, results will likely lead to failure. Why? As somewhat provocative title of this article indicates, you need to be selfish with your goals and select ones that mean something to you.Through segments on evening news, magazines, talk shows, radio programming and even advice of family and friends, we are consistently subjected to a whole litany of goals that anyone with half a brain should strive for. If we were to listen to all experts, we would all need to be perfectly fit and rich individuals with at least two college majors under our belt. Baloney. Now I won't deny that there are tremendous benefits to being physically fit, financially well off or highly educated, but let's be honest here – one doesn't require all of above to live a successful and happy life. There are many somewhat overweight individuals that are quite happy to escape annoyances of careful food selection and exercise and instead focus on earning money or spending time with family. By same token, there are many physically fit individuals that see no need to bring in extraordinary levels of income to be happy; they would just as well get by with what they need to live. I firmly believe all of us should constantly strive to improve ourselves, but there is no single blueprint that we should all follow. What might be important to me (business and management) might not be important to you, and vice versa. For this reason, when you are determining which goals you would like to pursue you should always block out wishes of others and select goals that are dear to your heart. This sounds incredibly selfish, but obviously I'm not advocating adopting a goal that would hurt others, and ideally in a committed relationship you and your significant other would share common goals. But when push comes to shove, if you choose a goal for someone else rather than yourself you will do yourself a huge disservice. Take, for example, weight loss. Many overweight people lead happy and successful lives despite their weight; you don't have to be as fit as a fiddle to be happy. Let's say one of these somewhat overweight individuals decided one day to finally buckle under constant societal harping about benefits of weight loss and begin a diet program. What would happen?
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