Think about this: If your work life and career were ideal, what would they look like? What one discipline could you develop that would help you to achieve it? If your family life were ideal, what would it look like, and what one discipline would help you the most to make it a reality? If your health were perfect in every way, what disciplines would you have that make it possible? If your financial situation were ideal today, what one discipline would you have that would help you the most? Why aren’t you already as successful as you would like to be, and what one discipline would help you the most to achieve all your goals? What one skill could you develop that would help you to realize more of your goals? If you could wave a magic wand and be completely disciplined in one area, which one discipline would have the greatest positive impact on your life? Name three people, living or dead, who you most admire and describe one quality of each of them that you respect. Determine the most important virtue or quality in your life that you strive the most to practice or emulate. Identify those situations in which you feel the most confident, in which you feel like the very best person you could possibly be. What situations give you your greatest feelings of self-esteem and personal worth? If you were already an excellent person in every respect, how would you behave differently from today onward? What one quality would you like people to think of when your name is mentioned, and what could you do to ensure this happens? In what one area do you need to be more truthful and practice higher levels of integrity than you do today? Resolve today to accept 100 percent responsibility for everything you are and for everything you become. Never complain, never explain. Look into your past and select a person or incident that still makes you unhappy today. Instead of justifying your negative feelings, look for reasons why you were partially responsible for what happened. Select a relationship in your past that made you unhappy, and then give three reasons why you were responsible for what occurred. Select one person in your past with whom you are still angry and resolve to forgive that person completely for what happened. This act will liberate you emotionally. Accept complete responsibility for your financial situation and refuse to blame any financial problems on anyone else. Now, what steps are you going to take to resolve that situation? Accept complete responsibility for your family situation, with each person, and then take immediate action to improve your relationships wherever there may be problems. Accept 100 percent responsibility for your health. Resolve today to do or stop doing whatever is necessary for you to attain excellent all-around health. Resolve today to “switch on” your success mechanism and unlock your goal achieving mechanism by deciding exactly what you really want in life. Make a list of ten goals that you want to achieve in the foreseeable future. Write them down in the present tense, as if you have already achieved them. Select the one goal that could have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to achieve it, and write it down at the top of another piece of paper. Make a list of everything you could do to achieve this goal, organize it by sequence and priority, and then take action on it immediately. Practice mindstorming by writing out twenty ideas that could help you achieve your most important goal, and then take action on at least one of those ideas. Resolve to do something every day, seven days a week, to achieve your most important goal until you are successful. Continually remind yourself that “failure is not an option.” No matter what, resolve to persist until you succeed. Make a decision today to invest in yourself and get better, as if your future depends on it—because it does. Identify the most important skills you have that determine the quality and quantity of results you get at your work, and make a plan to get better in each one. If you could wave a magic wand and become absolutely excellent in any one skill, which one skill would have the greatest impact on your earning ability? Whatever your answer, set that skill as a goal, make a plan, and work on it every day. Set excellent performance in your work as a goal, and then determine exactly what you will need to do every day to join the top 20 percent or better in your field. Look ahead three to five years and determine the new knowledge and skills you will need in order to lead your field in the future. Then start acquiring them today. Select the top person in your field, the one you admire most, and use him or her as a role model for your own development. Commit yourself today to lifelong learning, and never let a day go by without getting better in some area. Identify your three biggest fears in life, right now. What are they? Determine what you would do in each of these situations if you were guaranteed of complete success. What actions would you take? What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt? What would you do differently if you were guaranteed success? In what three areas of life and work do you most experience the fears of failure and loss? What steps could you take immediately to confront and eliminate those fears? In what three areas of life do you most experience the fears of criticism, rejection, or embarrassment? How could you confront these fears and overcome them? What one great goal would you set for yourself if you knew you could not fail? What would you do differently in life if you had $20 million in the bank, but only ten years left to live? Identify one area in your life in which you need to persist even harder to achieve your goal, and then take action in that area. Identify a goal in your life that you did not accomplish because you failed to persist through to completion. What steps could you take today to succeed in that area? Identify one big goal that you achieved because you persisted and refused to give up, no matter how difficult it became. Decide on your major definite purpose in life, the one goal that, if you achieved it, would have the greatest positive impact on your life. Write down your goal clearly, make a detailed plan of action to accomplish it, and then tell yourself that “failure is not an option.” Make a decision today that you will persist until you succeed, no matter what happens, because “I am unstoppable.” Resolve to set and achieve one important goal, overcoming the inevitable difficulties, problems and setbacks you will experience, and to work at it until you succeed. Repeat this process over and over until persistence becomes a habit. Make a decision today that you are going to become one of the top 20 percent of people in your company—and your industry. What should you or could you do differently? Make a list of everything you do in your job and then identify the three tasks that contribute the greatest value to your work and company. Set a new work schedule for yourself and begin to start earlier, work harder, and stay later until it becomes a habit. Identify the most important results you are expected to achieve in your job, and then work on those results all day long. Determine the person who is the best dressed and groomed in your company, and then resolve to use him/her as a role model for your own appearance. Decide today that, from now on, you are going to actually work all the time you are at work and that you are going to develop the reputation for being the hardest working person in your company. Develop a sense of urgency. Resolve to move fast when you are given a job or opportunity. This can change your life. Ask yourself, “What results are expected of me?” and then concentrate single mindedly on getting those results every day. See yourself as the leader of your organization and ask yourself, “What kind of a company would this company be if everyone in it were just like me?” Create a clear, exciting vision for yourself and your organization based on success and excellent performance. Identify the most important people in your business world and determine how you will have to behave toward them to get them to perform at their best. Resolve in advance that, when the inevitable crisis occurs, you will respond in a calm, controlled, and intelligent manner. Clarify the exact values and principles you believe in and stand for, and then share them with the people around you. Treat each person around you as if he is competent, valuable, and important. This is the key to gaining the loyalty and commitment that you require as a leader Stand back and look at every area of your business, as if you were an outside consultant. What changes would you recommend? Imagine you were starting your business over again today. Are there any products or services that you would not bring to the current market? Identify the 20 percent of your products and services that account for 80 percent of your sales and profits. How could you sell more of them? Project forward one, two, and five years in your business. What are the trends? What will your customers be buying in the future? List three ways you could improve your customer service to ensure that customers buy from you again and tell their friends. List three ways that you could attract more and better qualified leads from your marketing and advertising activities. List three ways that you could make more sales to the prospects you attract or that you could attract more and better prospects. See yourself as the president of your own personal sales corporation, completely responsible for sales results. This is the attitude of the highest paid salespeople. Set clear, written income goals for yourself for the next twelve months as well as goals for each month of the year. Determine exactly how much of your product or service you will have to sell in order to earn that desired income. Determine how many individual sales you will have to make, based on your average size of sale and amount of commission earned. Determine how many prospects you will have to call on, based on your current experience, to make this number of sales. Dedicate yourself to continuous improvement in sales by reading each day, listening to audios in your car, and attending sales seminars. Spend every minute of every sales day getting face to face with people who can and will buy from you in the near future. Make a decision today to take complete control of your financial life, get out of debt, and achieve financial independence. Determine your net worth today. Add up all your assets, subtract all your debts and liabilities, and calculate the exact number. Set up a separate bank account and begin saving at least 1 percent of your income as you receive it every month or paycheck. Make a list of all your debts and begin paying them off, starting with those carrying the highest interest rates. Calculate the exact amount that you will need to be financially independent at the end of your career and then set this as a goal. Set specific financial accumulation goals for yourself for each month, quarter, and year for the rest of your life. Practice frugality in spending by putting off and delaying every expenditure you possibly can until you achieve your long-term financial goals. Make a decision today to become absolutely excellent at time management. Work at it until it becomes a habit. Before you begin each day, make a list of everything you have to do that day. As new tasks arise, write them down before you act on them. Organize your work list by priority by using the A B C D E Method over and over until it becomes a habit. Identify your A-1 task each day and resolve to work single-mindedly on that task until it is totally complete. Identify the one task that only you can do and that, if you do it well, can make a real difference. Determine the 20 percent of your tasks that can account for 80 percent of your results, and then discipline yourself to work on them most of the time. Every minute of every day, ask yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?” and then discipline yourself to work on only that task until it is complete. Solving problems is like solving mathematical equations: It is learnable with practice and repetition. Start by determining the biggest problems facing you today. Accept complete responsibility for solving the problems you encounter in your daily work, and then think about the solutions. Define your biggest business or personal problem clearly. Write it down. What exactly is the problem? Why is this a problem? Could it be an opportunity in disguise? If so, what opportunity or lesson could this problem contain? What else is the problem? Perhaps the real problem is something else, something you might not want to face? What are all the possible solutions? What else could be a solution? Select the best solution that is available to you right now, and take action immediately Identify the areas of your life in which you feel the happiest and the most in control. How could you expand them? Identify the areas of your life in which you feel controlled by other people or factors. What could you do to resolve these situations? Identify those areas in your life in which there is a gap between your current levels of accomplishment and what you would really like to achieve. What could you do to bridge these gaps? Identify the most pressing needs you have today that are not being fulfilled. How could you begin to satisfy these deficiency needs? Identify those activities that give you the greatest feeling of personal happiness, your “peak experiences” in life. What could you do to increase these moments of happiness? Identify those areas in life in which you feel the most discontented. What steps could you take immediately to resolve these feelings of discontent? Define “happiness” for yourself. What does it mean? What would have to happen for you to feel truly happy? What could you do immediately to create this situation? Idealize with regard to your health: If you could wave a magic wand and make your health perfect in every way, how would it be different from today? Resolve to make the rest of your life the best of your life. What is the first thing you should change or do? Get a complete medical examination and ask your doctor for advice on how to enjoy superb levels of physical health. Then follow that advice. Determine your ideal weight and set it as a goal. Use the goal-setting process you learned in Chapter 4 to make a plan to achieve it and keep it there for life. Use mindstorming (described in Chapter 4) and write out a list of at least twenty answers to the question, “What can I do every day to enjoy superb levels of health and energy?” Review the health habits and research discussed in this chapter and give yourself a grade ranging from one to ten on how well you are practicing them. Decide on one specific action that you are going to take immediately to ensure that you live to be age eighty, ninety, and beyond. Today is the day! Make a decision that you are going to achieve the best physical condition of your life in the months ahead, and then take action immediately. Get a complete medical examination so that you know your condition and limits before you begin. Start walking thirty minutes each day, preferably first thing in the morning or, if not in the morning, right after work. Join a gym or health club, pay for a year, and make an appointment with yourself to work out five times a week, sixty minutes each time. Hire a personal trainer and have him/her guide you through an exercise program that includes aerobics, strength, and flexibility exercises each week. Invest in a treadmill, a LifeCycle, or an elliptical machine and put it in front of your television so you can exercise as part of your home and family life. Start gradually and work up slowly, resolving to exercise for several weeks before you notice a major difference. Be patient, persistent, and determined. What is the most important single action you could take, right now, to increase the love and harmony in your marriage or relationship? What disciplines or practices could you develop that would improve the quality of your marriage for the other person? Identify one behavior you could engage in that would improve your communications in your marriage. Sit down with your spouse and ask him/her for ideas for things that you should do more of, less of, start, or stop doing. Identify the two qualities that you most admire in your partner. Identify the areas in which you and your partner are the most compatible. Identify the most important values that you and your partner share. What two qualities would you like your children to identify with you by observing your behavior? What two qualities would you like most to instill in your children, and how could you achieve this? If you were an excellent role model for your children, how would your behaviors be different, starting today? What mistakes have your children made that you should forgive and forget about, starting immediately? What actions are you going to take immediately to spend more time with your children? What actions could you take to instill the quality of truthfulness in your children? How could you encourage and reward your children so that they practice greater self-discipline, self-control, and self-mastery? Make a list of the most important friends in your work and personal life. What could you do to make them feel better about themselves? Identify the first thing you could do in every meeting or encounter to make the other person feel important. Resolve to make each person feel more valuable and worthwhile because he or she spoke to you. Practice nonjudgmentalism in all your relationships. Always assume the best of intentions on the part of others. Imagine that each person you meet has only a short time to live and you are the only person who knows. Find something about each person that is impressive to you, and then tell the other person how impressed you are. Imagine that there is a hidden camera and microphone recording every interaction you have with other people. How would you behave differently? Take the forgiveness test: Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? Identify the people from your past who you feel have hurt you in any way, and then make a decision today to forgive them and let go of those negative feelings. Find reasons not to justify your negative emotions of blame or anger, and instead, use your intelligence to accept responsibility. Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and then resolve to let go of any thoughts or emotions that disturb you in any way. Begin today to read something spiritual and uplifting each morning before you begin your day. This habit will change your life. From now on, refuse to take things personally. Ask yourself how much it will matter five years from today.
Get in the flow: I will get in touch with the field of pure potentiality by taking time each day to be silent, to just Be. I will also sit alone in silent meditation at least twice a day for approximately thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the evening. I will take time each day to commune with nature and to silently witness the intelligence within every living thing. I will sit silently and watch a sunset, or listen to the sound of the ocean or a stream, or simply smell the scent of a flower. In the ecstasy of my own silence, and by communing with nature, 1 will enjoy the lire throb of ages, the field of pure potentiality and unbounded creativity. I will practice non-judgment. I will begin my day with the statement, Today, I shall judge nothing that occurs, and throughout the day I will remind myself not to judge. Wherever I go, and whoever I encounter, I will bring them a gift. The gift may be a compliment, a flower, or a prayer. Today, I will give something to everyone I come into contact with, and so I will begin the process of circulating joy, wealth and affluence in my life and in the lives of others. Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of nature: sunlight and the sound of birds singing, or spring showers or the first snow of winter. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether it be in the form of a material gift, money, a compliment, or a prayer. I will make a commitment to keep wealth circulating in my life by giving and receiving life's most precious gifts: the gifts of caring, affection, appreciation, and love. Each time I meet someone, I will silently wish them happiness, joy, and laughter. Today I will witness the choices I make in each moment. And in the mere witnessing of these choices, I will bring them to my conscious awareness. I will know that the best way to prepare for any moment in the future is to be fully conscious in the present. Whenever I make a choice, I will ask myself two questions: What are the consequences of this choice that I'm making? and Will this choice bring fulfillment and happiness to me and also to those who are affected by this choice? I will then ask my heart for guidance and be guided by its message of comfort or discomfort. If the choice feels comfortable, I will plunge ahead with abandon. If the choice feels uncomfortable, I will pause and see the consequences of my action with my inner vision. This guidance will enable me to make spontaneously correct choices for myself and for all those around me. I will practice Acceptance. Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur. I will know that this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. I will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. My acceptance is total and complete. I accept things as they are this moment, not as I wish they were. Having accepted things as they are, I will take Responsibility for my situation and for all those events I see as problems. I know that taking responsibility means not blaming anyone or anything for my situation (and this includes myself). I also know that every problem is an opportunity in disguise, and this alertness to opportunities allows me to take this moment and transform it into a greater benefit. Today my awareness will remain established in Defenselessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view and not be rigidly attached to any one of them. I will make a list of all my desires. I will carry this list with me wherever I go. I will look at this list before I go into my silence and meditation. I will look at it before I go to sleep at night. I will look at it when I wake up in the morning. I will release this list of my desires and surrender it to the womb of creation, trusting that when things donÂ’t seem to go my way, there is a reason, and that the cosmic plan has designs for me much grander than even those that I have conceived. I will remind myself to practice present-moment awareness in all my actions. I will refuse to allow obstacles to consume and dissipate the quality of my attention in the present moment. I will accept the present as it is, and manifest the future through my deepest, most cherished intentions and desires. Today I will commit myself to detachment. 1 will allow myself and those around me the freedom to be as they are. I will not rigidly impose my idea of how things should be. I will not force solutions on problems, thereby creating new problems. I will participate in everything with detached involvement. Today I will factor in uncertainty as an essential ingredient of my experience. In my willingness to accept uncertainty, solutions will spontaneously emerge out of the problem, out of the confusion, disorder, and chaos. The more uncertain things seem to be, the more secure I will feel, because uncertainty is my path to freedom. Through the wisdom of uncertainty, I will find my security. I will step into the field of all possibilities and anticipate the excitement that can occur when I remain open to an infinity of choices. When I step into the field of all possibilities, I will experience all the fun, adventure, magic, and mystery of life. Today I will lovingly nurture the god or goddess in embryo that lies deep within my soul. I will pay attention to the spirit within me that animates both my body and my mind. I will awaken myself to this deep stillness within my heart. I will carry the consciousness of timeless, eternal Being in the midst of time-bound experience. I will make a list of my unique talents. Then I will list all the things that I love to do while expressing my unique talents. When 1 express my unique talents and use them in the service of humanity, I lose track of time and create abundance in my life as well as in the lives of others. I will ask myself daily, How can I serve? and How can I help? The answers to these questions will allow me to help and serve my fellow human beings with love.