Some Lessons in Life Mastery

The following is adapted from some audios delivered by none other than Tony Robbins. I hope this inspires you as we move towards Christmas...

The level of thinking that has got us to where we are, is not going to take us to where we want to go. To get where we want to be we have to take on a new level of thinking. To get to the next level we have to look at the world in a different way. One of those is you must perceive yourself in a different way, not just your capability but who you are right now, today! That shift begins the minute you decide to consciously define yourself, instead of letting the environment do it for you.

In order to achieve all that you want ask yourself who would I have to become? More fun, playful, passionate, outrageous, disciplined? What would I do when I wake up in the morning? How would I have to look at myself in the mirror? What would I have to see in myself and in others?  How would I need to treat people? How would I breathe? How would I walk and talk? How would I speak to myself? What would I think about life? What would I believe about myself?

Now imagine stepping into this person and fusing with this person and immediately go out and act that way. Then go out and conduct your life as if you were a public figure. This will make you totally transparent which is one of the qualities of influential people. An increase in the quality of beliefs creates the increase in the quality of life.

Your success and happiness is directly proportional to your level of commitment to Constant and Never Ending Improvement (CANI).

Also, your level of personal and professional success is in direct proportion to your level of commitment to CANI. This has to be measured. We must know that problems are opportunities for growth and it is best to solve them before they exist. We must find the deeper meaning and higher purpose in our perceived problems so that we can move forward and become greater as people. The toughest times of our life provide us with the greatest resources to change our life. Remember to trust yourself and have faith that all is happening for you to experience the truth of who you really are. 

Have a beautiful and powerful day!

The Top 101 Jim Rohn Quotes of All Time

1. Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.
2. Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written.
3. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment
4. Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.
5. Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?
6. Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much.
7. Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.
8. Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.
9. Don’t read a book and be a follower; read a book and be a student.
10. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills.
11. Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.
12. Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.
13. Each of us has two distinct choices to make about what we will do with our lives. The first choice we can make is to be less than we have the capacity to be. To earn less. To have less. To read less and think less. To try less and discipline ourselves less. These are the choices that lead to an empty life. These are the choices that, once made, lead to a life of constant apprehension instead of a life of wondrous anticipation And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To give and share as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can.
14. Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more.
15. Either you run the day or the day runs you..
16. Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.
17. Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.
18. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.
19. Finding is reserved for those that search.
20. For what it will make of you to achieve it.
21. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
22. Get around people who have something of value to share with you. Their impact will continue to have a significant effect on your life long they have departed.
23. Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.
24. Good people are found not changed. Recently I read a headline that said, “We don’t teach people to be nice. We simply hire nice people.” Wow! What a clever short cut.
25. Happiness is not an accident. Nor is it something you wish for. Happiness is something you design.
26. Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.
27. Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
28. How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness.
29. Humans have the remarkable ability to get exactly what they must have. But there is a difference between a “must” and a “want.”
30. Humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease
31. I am a buyer of blank books. Kids find it interesting that I would buy a blank book. They say, “Twenty-Six dollars for a blank book! Why would you pay that?” The reason I pay twenty-six dollars is to challenge myself to find something worth twenty-six dollars to put in there. All my journals are private, but if you ever got hold of one of them, you wouldn’t have to look very far to discover it is worth more than twenty-six dollars.
32. I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.
33. I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me.
34. If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.
35. If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
36. If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
37. If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.
38. If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.
39. If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
40. In America we have the greatest chance for opportunity than anyone else in the past six and a half thousand years. Never in recorded history have so many different gifts from all over the world been deposited in one country.
41. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.
42. It isn’t what the book costs. It’s what it will cost you if you don’t read it.
43. It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you.
44. Its what you dont know what will hurt you.
45. Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.
46. Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.
47. Learn how to say no. Don’t let your mouth overload your back.
48. Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.
49. Let others lead small lives, but not you.. Let others argue over small things, but not you.. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you.. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.
50. Life expects us to make a reasonable amount of progress in a reasonable amount of time. That’s why they make those second grade chairs so small.
51. Make rest a necessity, not an objective. Only rest long enough to gather strength.
52. Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.
53. Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.
54. Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.
55. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
56. My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.
57. One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental “I should” list.
58. One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention.
59. Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.
60. Poor people have big TV’s. Rich people have big libraries.
61. Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.
62. Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done
63. Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
64. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.
65. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.
66. Successful people have libraries. The rest have big screen TVs.
67. Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.
68. The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
69. The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.
70. The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.
71. The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.
72. The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me.
73. The more you know, the less you need to say.
74. The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn’t matter.
75. The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.
76. The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.
77. The worst days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who don’t.
78. The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.
79. There are only three colors, ten digits, and seven notes, it’s what we do with them that’s important.
80. There are some things you don’t have to know how it works – only that it works. While some people are studying the roots, others are picking the fruit. It just depends on which end of this you want to get in on.
81. There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes.
82. Those who will not read are no better off than those who cannot read.
83. Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.
84. To become financially independent you must turn part of your income into capital; turn capital into enterprise; turn enterprise into profit; turn profit into investment; and turn investment into financial independence.
85. We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.
86. We don’t get paid for the hour; we get paid for the value we bring to the hour.
87. We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time… but we get paid for the value, not the time.
88. We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Discipline weights ounces–regret weighs tons.
89. We must all wage an intense, lifelong battle against the constant downward pull. If we relax, the bugs and weeds of negativity will move into the garden and take away everything of value.
90. What is powerful is when what you say is just the tip of the iceberg of what you know.
91. Whatever good things we build end up building us.
92. When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it.
93. Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.
94. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
95. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
96. You cannot change your destination overnight. You can change your direction.
97. You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.
98. You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the season or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
99. You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming.
100. Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.
101. Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out.

Source

http://www.daimanuel.com/2013/12/10/the-top-101-jim-rohn-quotes-of-all-time/

John C. Maxwell: Are You Stretching toward Your Goals or Just Coasting?

You should keep pushing—and pushing hard—to the finish line.

John C. Maxwell

http://www.success.com/article/john-c-maxwell-are-you-stretching-toward-your-goals-or-just-coasting

Swimmer Michael Phelps is arguably the greatest American Olympian and one of the greatest competitors of all time. In the 2008 Beijing summer games, Phelps won eight medals—all gold—to break the record for the most hardware ever captured in a single Olympiad and become the most decorated Olympian in history.

But it is the race that almost blew his winning streak that captivates me the most. It was his seventh contest, the 100-meter butterfly, and Phelps trailed for literally 99.9 meters of it. In the last fraction of a second, Phelps thrust his arms into one final, mighty stroke. Meanwhile, his Serbian competitor, Milorad ˇCavi´c, coasted the final few inches. Almost implausibly, Phelps tapped the wall first, beating ˇCavi´c by a mere one-hundredth of a second.

Most of us won’t experience such a heart-pounding, dramatic moment in our lifetimes, but we do make daily choices to either stretch or coast toward the finish lines we create for ourselves through personal goals. They’re often small decisions—routine things we don’t think about a lot—but they have the power to determine much of our success.

Reaching a finish line can be as simple as completing an “almost done” project or initiating a long-delayed and difficult conversation. Unfinished business can be disastrous. It drains your mental energy. It derails your goals. It impacts how you feel about yourself. And, critically, it can undermine your reliability in the minds of others.

Simply put: Procrastination is the enemy of progress.

Life is full of moments that require one more stretch to achieve success. If you don’t have the discipline to persevere, well, you’re going to end up like Phelps’ competitors—looking up at the winner from a lower podium (or worse). In the words of economist Thomas Sowell, “Doing 90 percent of what is required is one of the biggest wastes, because you have nothing to show for all your efforts.” Instead you must develop the habit of staying committed and finishing strong.

Here are some suggestions to help you do that:

Engage in brick-by-brick thinking. I confess: I  have very little patience. I tend to want instant results. Still, I understand success requires daily progress. How do I solve this dilemma? With daily disciplines. I practice what might be called “brick-by-brick thinking.” My friend Henry Cloud, Ph.D., says, “All success is built and sustained just like a building is built, one brick at a time.” I practice regular disciplines every day, and these small, incremental actions turn into tangible steps toward success.

Amplify the reward. When you don’t feel like doing what you should, then focus on why finishing is important. The why can keep you motivated even when you lack desire. Motivation is fickle. You can’t depend on your emotions to keep you committed to your goals. So envision your end result and keep it in the forefront of your mind. How will you feel when you accomplish your goal? Why is it important to you? By focusing on the answers, you’ll stand a much better chance of reaching your goals.

Build structure and systems around your goals. Great intentions don’t get me very far. I need systems. They make it easier for me to stay disciplined. I have an insatiable hunger to learn, so I read every day. I want to stay fresh, so I file great quotes and illustrations every day. I had a heart attack in my 50s, so I exercise by swimming every day. (Phelps’ Olympic records are safe, by the way.) My life is filled with systems that move me forward and push me to reach my wall.

Surround yourself with support. Over the years I  have found that I am most successful when I tap into a network of people who support me and encourage me in my goals. When I need business advice, I talk to my brother Larry and my company’s key businesspeople. When I want to launch a new venture, I talk to my CEO, Mark Cole, and members of my inner circle. When I am ready to write a book, I meet with my creative team to brainstorm and vet ideas.

If you want to succeed, surround yourself with people who will help you, encourage you and, when necessary, hold your feet to the fire. Remember to choose wisely—your success largely depends on the company you keep.

Quitting isn’t an option. A great start is important, because all’s well that begins well. But it takes much more to reach your goals. I tend to think of it like farming: You can prepare the land immaculately and plant the seeds just right, but if you don’t water, fertilize and cultivate as you go, then you wasted your time by planting the crop. Remember the reward that awaits you—the fruit you will harvest—and it will help get you through the times of hard work in the “summer.”

When I was a kid, my father always told me, “When you made the choice to start, you made the choice to finish. It isn’t two choices… It’s one.” He taught me early that if you aren’t careful, quitting can become a habit. The good news is that finishing can also become a habit when you practice diligence in all that you do.

There’s an old saying, “The fortune is at the finish line.” It’s absolutely true. Why did Michael Phelps aggressively reach for the wall at that critical moment? Because he had practiced finishing strong every day of his life. And that made the difference between gold and silver.

Let’s learn from his lesson. And let’s remember that, oftentimes, the only thing separating us from success is a few inches. So don’t let up, and reach for the finish line!

Source

http://www.success.com/article/john-c-maxwell-are-you-stretching-toward-your-goals-or-just-coasting