How I moved from Whining to Winning in life, and increased my happiness and doubled my income! Part
In my previous two posts I have talked about the change in my mindset. I cannot claim any new wisdom here; everything I’ve done is the result of reading the works of very intelligent individuals such as John Maxwell and others.
One of my favorite quotes is from Robert Ringer, author ofMillion Dollar Habits, who says this: “The world is saturated with intelligent, highly educated, extraordinarily skilled people who experience ongoing frustration because of their lack of success. Millions of others spend their lives working hard, long hours only to die broke…. Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific simple habits that always lead to success.”
Wow! It sounds too simple doesn’t it? We all have a routine, a series of habits in life: we get out of bed in the morning, perhaps put on a pot of coffee, maybe have breakfast and watch television news shows, etc. we do these things without thought – why not make successful behavior part of our daily routine?
There are several things that I have discovered about developing a success oriented routine:
Successful people are willing to pay the price necessary to win. Remember the old saying, “Everyone wants to have written a book, few people want to put in the effort necessary to write one.” Several years ago I was discussing with a friend the fact that it would take four years of night school to finish their degree. “How old will you be in four years if you go back to night school?” I asked. “Twenty seven,” they replied. “And how old will you be in four years if you don’t go back to night school?” I asked. Get the point?
Success oriented people focus on their strengths rather than on their weaknesses. Recently I talked to an individual who had attempted to enter the real estate sales field. To be honest she had not done well; she found that she wasn’t the ‘people person’ that she needed to be. Yet she loved real estate – helping people find the home they wanted and working through all the legal and financial arrangements necessary to make that happen. Her solution? She became part of a real estate sales team: other team members did the selling: she guided everyone through the ‘hoop’ jumping until the sales transaction was completed.
Success oriented people understand that outward success is built upon a strong inward foundation. The inner foundation is built upon discipline and attitude.
It takes Discipline to change a lifetime of negative thinking: it is said that it takes 30 days of doing a particular task regularly until it becomes a habit. Your greatest struggle will be in teaching your undisciplined mind new ways of thinking.
Change your Attitude. I believe it is Henry Ford who said, “If you believe that you can do something, you are correct. If you believe that you can’t accomplish something, you are also correct.” You see, if you believe that something can be done, there is a distinct possibility that you can accomplish it. But if you believe that you can’t do something, you automatically have made it impossible.
Success oriented people know when to quit and when to continue. If you are trapped in a job you hate, if you’re struggling along with too little income; it’s time to make a change! (That doesn’t mean you just quit your job without a plan, but you need to be working on a plan).
As children most of us enjoyed books or movies with fairy tale endings, but the reality is that most happy endings require a lot of hard work.
I had to change the title on this series. I started out saying that I had doubled my happiness and doubled my income. but that wasn’t true; you can’t quantify happiness. Yes, my income did double and has continued to increase. More importantly, I wake up each day seeing the opportunities that lie ahead of me.
if there is one thing that I hope to accomplish by encouraging people to start their own businesses, it will be that self-employment is a door opener to personal and financial independence. I started out with a 36 week newsletter series; I think right now I’m up to over 35 newsletters in the series, with more to come. If you want to break out of the rut, escape the cubicle, these newsletters will give you some practical personal and business-related information.
