Recently, I have received a few emails from people who are down on their luck and wanting advice on turning their life around.  I thought I would   turn my answer to that question into a blog post so it helps others as well.

First of all, realize that you CAN turn your life around right now. Change happens in an INSTANT. What most people fail to realize is that you need to make the changes and then give it some TIME.

Imagine you are flying on an airplane from Seattle to Florida (west coast to east coast) and just as you are about to get to Florida you want to go back so you the pilot turns the plane around and starts flying back. You wouldn’t expect to snap your fingers and automatically be back in Seattle would you? It’s going to take you 6 hours to get back but you WILL get back. Using this analogy most people turn around and head back and give up when they aren’t back in Seattle in 30 minutes! Give it some time!

In life, many people want instant results. That just isn’t how it works. You can change your DIRECTION in an instant but you have to give yourself time to get to your new destination before you decide to quit. Here are two tips for changing something in your life right now:

1.       Make a decision RIGHT NOW to change something in your life that you are fed up with. Change it RIGHT NOW. Change your direction right now but give yourself some time to get to your new destination.

2.       Surround yourself with motivated, positive, uplifting people. This will work wonders in your life. I won’t do business with anyone who is not positive because it’s just not worth it. This goes for social media as well. Find like minded positive people on Twitter and communicate with them. Unfollow those that are negative.

I will talk more change in future blog posts. Please share your experiences of change in the comments on the blog!

SUCCESS – You have got to want it more than the next guy (or gal!). Plain and simple.

Everybody wants to succeed at some level, but it’s those who hustle, work their butts off, and unfailingly move forward towards their goals who usually achieve them. You have to crave your goal. If it doesn’t get you excited, keep you up at night and get you up early in the morning, you don’t have the right goal.

Should Versus MUST

Are the actions that you need to take to reach your goal on a daily basis a “should” or a “MUST“? If it’s a must, almost nothing will stop you from achieving them. The problem is with the “should” which is where most people fail. I should lose weight, I should do a blog post today, I should do this or that. As Tony Robbins says, most people should all over themselves! Don’t let that be YOU.

If you want to succeed in life, banish the word “should” from your vocabulary.

Here is a quick goal setting formula that I use:

1. Make sure that you have a goal that completely energizes you, makes it hard to go to sleep every night and springs you out of bed excitedly EVERY SINGLE MORNING.

2. Start at the end of the goal and work your way back to develop an action plan that will give you actions to take on a daily basis to achieve your goal. Make SURE that these actions are “MUSTS” and not “shoulds”. Schedule them and knock them out every single day.

3. Every week or so, evaluate your progress and see if there are other people, resources, or things that you can leverage to achieve your goal even sooner.

4. When you achieve your goal, and you WILL, celebrate! You are one of the few who took action and changed your life. Now imagine what else you could accomplish? Just about anything is possible if you are committed and it’s a MUST!  

In case you are wondering why there is a picture of a Pug at the top of this blog post, it’s because pugs LOVE food, they will do almost anything for it. If you have that same attitude about what you want to achieve, you can’t fail.

In Business, You Have To Want The Ball

 

Business is tough; you are either winning or losing on a daily basis and whether you are the CEO for a fifty billion dollar company or an online marketer working from your home office you need to have the right attitude and mindset in order to grow your business and win. I am going to use a basketball analogy here…you have to want the ball when the game is on the line.

Michael Jordan had it. Kobe Bryant has it. Kevin Garnett has it. When the game is on the line, they want the ball and more often than not, they end up getting the ball and winning the game. There are those other players out there, they don’t want to take a chance on missing the game winning shot, they don’t want to make any waves, they would rather someone else take the risk.

So, which type of person are you most like when it comes to business? Hopefully you want the ball and you want to take risks and make waves. If not, change your mindset or get out of business because you will lose.

Everyone should take steps to protect themselves financially with the economy the way it is right now. Am I scared? No way. I actually believe that the economy is nowhere near as bad as they make it sound on the news and even if it is, there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity out there anyway.

That being said, people are constantly asking me what they should do because they are paralyzed with fear.

First, you must get rid of the fear. Take action on the things you can control and don’t worry about the rest.

Three Things You Can Do Today:

1. Make as much money as you can. Look for lots of ways to make money including Ebay, Craigslist, starting a business, etc. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money and this is definitely a good time to purchase real estate and stocks so you should definitely consider that type of purchase.

2. Save as much money as possible. Make sure that you are responsible with your money. This step is easy to do but it’s also easy not to do.

3. Learn a new skill. By learning a new skill, especially if it’s a skill that is in demand or that could help you in business, you make yourself more valuable to the marketplace and you get a little more control and leverage with every new skill that you learn.