How to Ask for (and Get) Everything You Want

The best way of getting what you want is thinking about your request before you actually make it.

The big reason many people fail to get what they want is that they are too afraid to ask or they view their requests as all-or-nothing gambits—instead of a series of negotiations and compromises.

But there is a middle ground. Here are strategies to help you begin the “asking” process and avoid becoming upset if things don’t go exactly as planned.

Steps to Success

1. Tell yourself there is nothing to fear except fear itself. Fear of punishment or rejection is why most people hesitate to ask for what they want. They are afraid that going out on an emotional limb will result in humiliation if they fail.

Strategy: Before making your request, take plenty of time to remind yourself of the importance of what you are asking for. Tell yourself the only thing that matters is whether or not you are making good and well-articulated points. By focusing on the merits of your request, not on how you will appear to others, many of your initial fears will fade away.

2. Before you try to sell others, sell yourself. Two of the most important elements involved in asking for what you want—and-getting it—are self-confidence and determination. Unless you believe in your heart that you will eventually win over the other side, you will likely falter or become troubled at the first sign of resistance.

Strategy: An extreme emotional reaction to any hurdle will almost certainly doom your mission, causing the other side to take you and your points less seriously.

Tell yourself from the outset that you may not immediately get what you want. The statement is not the same as saying that you will never succeed, which could hurt your morale and determination. Instead, you are merely facing reality—accepting the fact that you may face a setback. By acknowledging this possibility, you will not be surprised or upset if you are turned down.

3. Organize your thoughts. You can’t expect to get the results you want if the other side doesn’t understand your request.

Strategy: Write out exactly what you want. Then redraft your points until your reasoning is clear, ordered and can be easily related. Practice in front of a mirror, or discuss the points with friends to be sure they make sense and you didn’t leave anything out.

4. When you ask, ask from your heart. Important requests are always better received when those making them are passionate, friendly, polite and firm. Such a stance is difficult to resist. It increases your odds of success... or at least minimizes the chance that your personality or attitude will sabotage your request.

Strategy: Ask in an enthusiastic manner and voice. Maintain steady eye contact to show that you mean business, but also exhibit respect and admiration for the person to whom you are speaking. In general, you stand a much better chance of getting what you want when you make people feel at ease and show them that you are truly excited about what you are requesting.

5. Prepare to deal with resistance. Even if you do everything right, you might still meet resistance. The person you are asking might want to confer with someone else before he/she makes a final decision... or he may want to table his answer, hoping that you’ll retreat from your position once you have had some time to think about it... or he might just say no.

Strategy: If someone resists or challenges your request, be polite and gracious. Do not lose your temper or become discouraged. Instead of seeing the other person’s resistance as a dead end, view it as part of a continuing conversation. Translate every no into a next. Realize a no doesn’t mean stop—it simply means not yet.

6. Learn the art of saying thank you. Whether or not you get what you want, say thank you. Gratitude will leave the other person open to giving you what you want—or more of what you want—sometime in the future.

Strategy: Say thank you directly to the person and follow up with a written note. In some cases, flowers or a gift may be appropriate.

Learning the art of expressing gratitude will force you to focus on the positive. It will also keep you from holding a grudge, which is difficult to hide and only works against you in the long run.

Source
http://www.success.com/article/how-to-ask-for-and-get-everything-you-want

37 Quotes that Will Super-Charge Your Motivation

Have you ever felt the sting of failure so deep that you couldn’t see past the pain to keep moving forward?

Or doubted that you could even achieve what you set out to accomplish?

We’ve all been there.

So reflect on those low moments, but don’t dwell on them or you risk putting out the spark within that drives you. And don’t give up and settle with a mediocre life, always thinking of the “What If’s“.

Separate yourself from the average by staying in the game and reaping the rewards of persistence and hard work with a never say die attitude.

Granted, it’s tough to maintain that attitude, so to help you stay inspired, checkout these 37 motivational quotes that will super-charge you to hit your life goals.

37 Motivational Quotes

1. “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater their power to harm us.” – Voltaire

2. “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it.” – Muhammad Ali

3. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin

4. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

5. “If you’re going through hell keep going.” – Winston Churchill

6. “Take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

7. “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather

8. “If you’re only willing to do what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you’re willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.” – T. Harv Eker

9. “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” – Mark Twain

10. “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell

11. “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” – Brene Brown

12. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

13. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

14. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee

15. “One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.” – Henry Ford

16. “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.” - Winston Churchill

17. “Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.” – Kyle Chandler

18. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert Kennedy

19. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” – Thomas Jefferson

20. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” – Unknown

21. “Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” – Brian Tracy

22. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie

23. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” – Mahatma Gandhi

24. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill

25. “Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.”– J. Gitomer

26. “Fortune favors the bold.” - Virgil

27. “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” – Marilyn vos Savant

28. “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.” – Buddha

29. “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

30. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

31. “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard

32. “Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. Do not be discouraged if you fail a few times.” – Napoleon Hill

33. “I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.” – Oprah Winfrey

34. “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden

35. “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius

36. “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” – Seneca

37. “There is no education like adversity.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Source
http://addicted2success.com/quotes/37-quotes-that-will-super-charge-your-motivation/

49 Ways to Get Inspired

#1. Do work that pushes you to your edges.

#2. Waste zero time on the past.

#‎3. Focus on being masterful at one thing versus mediocre at many things.

#4. Spend more time around art.

#5. Read biographies of lives greatly lived.

#6. 20X your goals, plans and dreams.

#7. Associate with game-changers, visionaries and titans.

#8. Celebrate how far you’ve come versus the distance still to go.

#9. Cause a little trouble by disrupting the status quo.

#10. Accept the project you fear the most.

#11. Leave an inspirational quote on a stranger’s windshield.

#12. Stop watching the news.

#13. Think a decade ahead rather than a day in advance.

#14. Start a movement.

#15. Wow a customer.

#16. Install a new habit.

#17. Remember that the mother of genius is simplicity.

#18. Know that the thing that is easiest to do is rarely the thing that is best to do.

#19. Speak less and listen better.

#20. Do a dream collage with images of your ideal moments.

#21. Record your ideal day in your journal.

#22. Forgive someone.

#23. Thank someone.

#24. Don’t confuse money with meaning nor income with impact.

#25. Spend the first 20 minutes of your day in exercise (it seriously optimizes brain and personal performance).

#26. Do your “Nightly 3″, writing 3 good things that happened to you during the day that’s ending.

#27. Speak your truth even when your voice shakes.

#28. Join Traffic University and leverage time commuting to learn and grow via audio programs.

#29. Visit a new city.

#30. Discover a new restaurant.

#31. Get good at being alone (you’re the only person you’ll be with your entire life so why not become comfortable in your own skin).

#32. See your work as your craft.

#33. Watch the movie “Searching for Sugar Man”.

#34. Do meetings standing up so they end quicker.

#35. Stop using the words “can’t”, “impossible” and “hate”.

#36. Practice harder (mastery isn’t a natural gift, it’s a daily devotion).

#37. Write handwritten thank you notes.

#38. Publish a book.

#39. Thank a mentor.

#40. Call your parents.

#41. Get out of the office and go invest in personal development.

#42. Stop complaining.

#43. Use social media to uplift, encourage, teach and share.

#44. Less TV. More reading.

#45. Join a mastermind group.

#46. Spend the first 90 minutes of the next 90 days focused on your single largest opportunity.

#47. Remember that for every one masterpiece, Picasso painted 1000 paintings.

#48. Don’t listen to naysayers.

#49. Live like you mean it.

As always, hope these move you to play at wow and dazzle the world by your mastery. 

Source

http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/04/49-ways-to-get-inspired/

The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your Financial Life

There’s nothing worse than a rich person who’s chronically angry or unhappy. There’s really no excuse for it, yet I see this phenomenon every day. It results from an extremely unbalanced life, one with too much expectation and not enough appreciation for what’s there.

Without gratitude and appreciation for what you already have, you’ll never know true fulfillment. But how do you cultivate balance in life? What’s the point of achievement if your life has no balance?

For nearly four decades, I’ve had the privilege of coaching people from every walk of life, including some of the most powerful men and women on the planet. I’ve worked with presidents of the United States as well as owners of small businesses.   

Across the board, I’ve found that virtually every moment people make three key decisions that dictate the quality of their lives.

If you make these decisions unconsciously, you'll end up like majority of people who tend to be out of shape physically, exhausted emotionally and often financially stressed. But if you make these decisions consciously, you can literally change the course of your life today. 

Decision 1: Carefully choose what to focus on.

At every moment, millions of things compete for your attention. You can focus on things that are happening right here and now or on what you want to create in the future. Or you can focus on the past.

Where focus goes, energy flows. What you focus on and your pattern for doing so shapes your entire life. 

Which area do you tend to focus on more: what you have or what’s missing from your life?

I’m sure you think about both sides of this coin. But if you examine your habitual thoughts, what do you tend to spend most of your time dwelling on? 

Rather than focusing on what you don’t have and begrudging those who are better off than you financially, perhaps you should acknowledge that you have much to be grateful for and some of it has nothing to do with money. You can be grateful for your health, family, friends, opportunities and mind.

Developing a habit of appreciating what you have can create a new level of emotional well-being and wealth. But the real question is, do you take time to deeply feel grateful with your mind, body, heart and soul? That’s where the joy, happiness and fulfillment can be found. 

Consider a second pattern of focus that affects the quality of your life: Do you tend to focus more on what you can control or what you can’t?

If you focus on what you can’t control, you’ll have more stress in life. You can influence many aspects of your life but you usually can’t control them. 

When you adopt this pattern of focus, your brain has to make another decision: 

Decision 2: Figure out, What does this all mean?

Ultimately, how you feel about your life has nothing to do with the events in it or with your financial condition or what has (or hasn't) happened to you. The quality of your life is controlled by the meaning you give these things.

Most of the time you may be unaware of the effect of your unconscious mind in assigning meaning to life’s events. 

When something happens that disrupts your life (a car accident, a health issue, a job loss), do you tend to think that this is the end or the beginning?

If someone confronts you, is that person insulting you, coaching you or truly caring for you?

Does a devastating problem mean that God is punishing you or challenging you? Or is it possible that this problem is a gift from God? 

Your life takes on whatever meaning you give it. With each meaning comes a unique feeling or emotion and the quality of your life involves where you live emotionally. 

I always ask during my seminars, “How many of you know someone who is on antidepressants and still depressed?” Typically 85 percent to 90 percent of those assembled raise their hands.

How is this possible? The drugs should make people feel better. It's true that antidepressants do come with labels warning that suicidal thoughts are a possible side effect.

But no matter how much a person drugs himself, if he constantly focuses on what he can’t control in life and what’s missing, he won't find it hard to despair. If he adds to that a meaning like “life is not worth living,” that's an emotional cocktail that no antidepressant can consistently overcome. 

Yet if that same person can arrive at a new meaning, a reason to live or a belief that all this was meant to be, then he will be stronger than anything that ever happened to him.

When people shift their habitual focus and meanings, there’s no limit on what life can become. A change of focus and a shift in meaning can literally alter someone's biochemistry in minutes. 

So take control and always remember: Meaning equals emotion and emotion equals life. Choose consciously and wisely. Find an empowering meaning in any event, and wealth in its deepest sense will be yours today. 

Once you create a meaning in your mind, it creates an emotion, and that emotion leads to a state for making your third decision:

Decision 3: What will you do?  

The actions you take are powerfully shaped by the emotional state you're in. If you're angry, you're going to behave quite differently than if you're feeling playful or outrageous. 

If you want to shape your actions, the fastest way is to change what you focus on and shift the meaning to be something more empowering.

Two people who are angry will behave differently. Some pull back. Others push through.

Some individuals express anger quietly. Others do so loudly or violently. Yet others suppress it only to look for a passive-aggressive opportunity to regain the upper hand or even exact revenge.  

Where do these patterns come from? People tend to model their behavior on those they respect, enjoy and love.

The people who frustrated or angered you? You often reject their approaches.

Yet far too often you may find yourself falling back into patterns you witnessed over and over again in your youth and were displeased by. 

It’s very useful for you to become aware of your patterns when you are frustrated, angry or sad or feel lonely. You can’t change your patterns if you’re not aware of them.

Now that you’re aware of the power of these three decisions, start looking for role models who are experiencing what you want out of life. I promise you that those who have passionate relationships have a totally different focus and arrive at totally different meanings for the challenges in relationships than people who are constantly bickering or fighting. 

It’s not rocket science. If you become aware of the differences in how people approach these three decisions, you’ll have a pathway to help you create a permanent positive change in any area of life. 

This piece was adapted from Tony Robbins' new book, Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom.  

Source

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239312

How to Be Happy - Secrets to Happiness

Three Keys to Happiness are make peace with your past, be present and engaged in the now, and be excited and anticipate something positive for the future!