Keeping the Faith

We all have to learn to deal with setbacks. They are part of the process of achieving success. Without setbacks and failures you never really grow and to be truly successful we must constantly grow and expand.

So how do you handle the times when it seems like nothing is working right and you get the feeling you are heading down the wrong path. The best way to handle these times is to go back and review the work you did in the beginning.

Look back at your values, goals and mission. Remember why you want the successes that you want. Renew the spirit within you to go after the success you want. We all have an inner genius that is waiting to shine, just let it lose.

Take some time and review your plans and write down some new reasons why. It can be just re-wording the why you already have. This exercise will help you reinforce the reasons in your mind and renew your energy. The struggles you are facing are just there to make you stronger and better prepared for your success.

The best wines are produced from distressed grapes. Wine producers have learned over the years that they can produce the best wines from grapes that have been stressed and taken almost to the point of wilting on the vines. They regulate the water supply to their grapes to cause the grapes to endure the stress of the dry climate and force them undergo enormous amounts of stress on the vine so they can produce their best wines.

We are just like the grapes and the universe is applying the stress to us so we can produce a better product. We must undergo these challenges so we can reinforce what it is we want and why. So keep your chin up and keep working on the constant improvement that make us all successful.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Goals Take Time

In the Focusing on Success program, our goals play an important role in our success. We have written goals, a mission statement, and all the intentions of making those goals a reality. Now if you are like many people, you get all these things together and start working on them. You work at it diligently for weeks, months, even years and nothing seems to be happening. You start wondering why is this not working? Am I wasting my time?

While these thoughts are common, you have to learn to disregard them. If you are constantly wondering why you have not met your goals, you will receive just that, not meeting your goals. You have to keep in mind that the universe takes time and getting to a high level of success takes time. This doesn't mean it won't happen or you have the wrong goals, it just means you are not ready yet. Many times the universe is giving you the experiences you need to be able to handle the success you dream of. Realize this and you will understand why it takes time.

Take for example the many professional athletes that get out of school and jump into a career earning millions of dollars at an early age. We all know athletes can't perform at the professional level for a very long time, maybe 5 to 10 years. These instant millionaires have a level of success and riches that many dream about. But where are they 15 years later? Well, an alarming amount of them are flat broke with no plans for their future. Why? When they became so successful at a young age, they were not ready to handle the success and once they could no longer compete in their profession they reverted right back to the level of success they had without their sport.

Don't let this happen to you. Be patient, be consistent. Remember the constant incremental improvements. Build your success for the long term.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Believe In Your Goals

As we discuss often here, in order to be successful, you have to have goals. Not only do you need to have goals, they need to be written out and reviewed on a regular basis. What are your goals? Are they written and posted somewhere that you can see them often?

One of the biggest mistakes that I often see people make when writing and developing their goals is not making them believable. When you develop your goals they must be something that you look at and say "I can do that." If not there will always be that voice in the back of your mind saying "Yeah, Right." If you are currently working a 40 hour a week job making $50,000 per year and you write down a goal to be making $500,000 per year next year it's will be hard for you to believe it. Each time you review your goal, you will be thinking, "there's no way I will do that." And what about all of this Law of Attraction stuff? Didn't the secret say all I need to do is believe and it will come to me? Well that's partially true, the universe will provide you with what you desire. However, if you just go through the motions of writing out a goal and deep down inside you don't believe it won't happen.

Now if your working in a job making $50,000 per year and one of your goals is to make $500,000, that's fine. The part that would be hard to believe is that you are going to accomplish this in one year. Also, it will be hard to believe if you don't have some type of plan to make it happen. Let's look at it this way, here is an example. Let's say this person currently works at a printing shop taking orders and running the presses earning $20 per hour.

Bad Goal: I will earn a salary of $200,000 dollars in 2010.
Now-in his current situation, he will have to work a lot of hours to earn that kind of money

Better Goal: I will open my own printing business and earn a $200,000 salary by 2015.

Now this goal is easier to believe, it allows time for the drastic increase in salary and also tells how. Using a goal like this, we can now break the goal down into several smaller steps like:

In 2010 I will work extra hours and spend additional time working at the print shop so that I can learn about the business and earn an extra $6,000 dollars to put towards starting my own print shop.
In 2011 I will use the money I saved to start a printing business on the side while still working in my full time job, allowing me to earn an additional $1,500 per month.
In 2012 I will use the money I saved to open my own print shop with first year's sales of $300,000.

And the process continues on with details each year about how to improve the business. I know this example is a little stretched, but I hope you get the point.

Make sure that you goals are believable. We would have never reached the moon if we didn't believe we could do it.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

Understanding Your Values

As we have discussed several times, values are the underlying foundation on which we build. Our values control our minds which in turn controls everything else. In order to be successful, at least successful as we define it, you must clearly understand you core values and keep your wants and desires aligned with them.

So, today we are going to discuss just how you can understand that core values that make you tick. Today we are going to take some time and work through the following exercise to develop your core values.

We want to look at our values for each fundemental area of our lives. You will want to start with a clean sheet of paper or new page in your journal. At the top of the page write down the first area as listed below. Then under that heading, start writing all the things in that area that you value. Keep it to one or two word entries. Keep writing them down for five minutes for each heading. After you finish one area, writ ehte next heading and repeat the process.

Headings:

• Wealth
• Health
• Mind
• Relationships
• Spirituality

Once you have completed writing all your values for each heading it's time to start prioritizing them. To do that, take some time to review each entry under a heading and circle the three most important ones. Then prioritize each one by writing a 1,2, or 3 next to them. Complete this step for each area. Now, turn to a fresh page and write the number one. Under this heading write down each of the number one values from each of the five areas. Now take the next 20 minutes to review the five number one values and prioritize them. Re-write these values in order. These are your key values.

Now that you have your core values, start working on the remaining values. Write out all the number two values and prioritize them then repeat with number three. List these out in order. These are your secondary values.

Now you have taken the first step in understanding and realizing your values. I recommend writing or typing these out neatly so that you can keep them handy to review on a regular basis. I have mine written on the second page of my journal so that I can reveiw them weekly.

If you need some help with this exercise, there is a great template at www.morningcoach.com. Get some help if you need adn while you are there check out some of the other great things they have to offer.

Cheers to Success!

Tony Booth

What is Focusing on Success

We all know that it is no secret that if you want to be successful at anything, you must have goals. Corporations provide them for employees, coaches provide them for their teams, and parents provide them for their kids. We all have them in various forms. Some have them written in detail and others just have them in their head. Well no matter what you goals are, the only way to reach them is by taking steps towards making them a reality. Focusing on Success is a system for helping people take those steps.

If we all have these goals, we does it often seem so hard to make them a reality? Why do we always put off doing the things we know we need to do? We try all the different time management techniques and systems but they just don't seem to work.

The main problem with all these systems and ideas is ourselves. Our own mind will work against us if we do not take the proper steps. If your goals are not aligned with your values you will always be finding reasons why something doesn't need to be done. When you are not truly clear on why you need to do something you will find yourself procrastinating and avoiding the task.

Focusing on Success is a process to clear all those things in your mind that are holding you back. The first step of the process is to truly understand your values. Then make sure that your goals are in agreement with those values. After your goals are clear, we determine and understand why these goals are important. Once you understand the why, it's time to start taking those small steps everyday that moves you closer to your goals. The FOS process provides insight into ways that these actions become second nature and easy to complete.

Imagine waking every morning beaming with excitement about the day ahead and charged to get started on your daily Critical Action Items. It is exhilarating and what's even better is in the evening when you sit and reflect on all that you accomplished during your day.

Follow my blog and you will get the details on how to make this system work for you. Once you do, you will be amazed at how easy it is to get things done. You will be able to have and achieve anything you ever wanted.

Cheers to Success!
Tony Booth

What is Success?

When thinking about success many of us fall into the trap of thinking that success only applies to wealth and fame. We often define success as earning a huge salary, a prestigious career, fancy cars, or fame. This is a horrible trap to fall into. When you look at success this way it is easy for your mind to say "I don't need to be successful to be happy, look those successful people aren't always happy anyway, so why bother."

In the Focusing on Success program we use a much broader approach to success. We define success as:

Success - achieving the desired outcome of our values, intentions, and actions.

By looking at success in broader terms we can apply the definition of success to anything that we desire. In the Focusing on Success program we concentrate on success in five areas; wealth, health, relationships, mind, and spirituality. However, you can apply the program to virtually any aspect of of your life and anything you want to accomplish.

So keep in mind you can use this program for anything from improving your golf score to finding the perfect companion. Just follow the process as they pertain to each thing that you are trying to achieve and you will be successful.

Using the program to improve you health would work something like this;

First, review and set your values as they relate to health. In this respect some of your key values may be health, energy, physical fitness, or appearance.

Next determine your targets/goals. They might look like; "In January I wear a size 4 dress, have the energy to play with my children at night, and provide my body with healthy nourishment."

Now that you have your goals you can assign the whys like; I feel more confident in a size 4, I want to develop strong bonds with my children, and I want to help my body stay healthy.

With the Whys in place, it's time to move on to the intentions. For a healthier you, your intentions may be; I will exercise 5 times per week, I will limit my intake of processed foods, I will take a multi-vitamin daily.

Now each day as you review your intentions and set your action items you will have a clear and compelling reason to eat a salad for lunch or take a walk in the morning. It will be easy to accomplish and since you completely understand, you will be less likely to skip that necessary actions.

So find something today that you have been wanting to improve on and give it a try. I look forward to hearing about your successes.

Cheers to Success!

Tony Booth

Remember Why

To really benefit from the Focusing on Success program you need to remember the why. In my previous post I talked about targets/goals and reviewing them daily. This is the first step in remembering why you are taking the actions you are taking.

To start with you need to make the Why as big as you can dream. If you set your intentions and understand why you want to accomplish them it will help you along the way in completing your tasks. I find it works best when I develop my ling term vision and that becomes the 20,000 foot why. As I set out each day and list my critical tasks, they are all associated with my vision. By making all my tasks directly relevant to my vision I am constantly reminded of why I am doing each task. When you understand why you need to do something it is much easy to do it.

The best way to develop your Why is to start with a long term vision of what it is you want to accomplish. After visualizing your dream, think about why you want that particular dream; what will you get out of it; how will it make you feel; what will be your enjoyment? Brainstorm on the reasons why and write down 3 or more along side the vision. This will reinforce your commitment to that particular goal. Now that you have you long term vision, start writing down what you need to accomplish along the way to achieving the goal. Next to each step write down the why this step is important and what it means to the overall goal. If you find that a step doesn't have a why then remove that step. Only focus on tasks that have a why and provide positive movement towards your goal. Now that you have you overall goal and the steps to getting there along with the Whys you are ready to work on your critical tasks. As you are preparing your daily critical tasks you can refer to you steps and goals and the whys of each. This builds a sense of purpose into the task and taht sense of prupose is what drives you to complete the task.

Let's look at the following example:
First start with you goal, write it out then below the goal write the reaasons why.
Long Term Goal: Intergrate the new software program system at work in 3 months
Why;

• I will feel a sense of accomplishment for completing the project 1 month early
• My team will be freed up to start on the database upgrades
• The new software will make everyones work easier
• My team will receive a hefty bonus

Now, break the overall goal into the steps that will be needed to acheive the goal, then add the why.

1. Get software from vendor by Friday - This will allow us to start installation on Saturday
2. Migrate servers over next 30 days - This will allow new system to be ready 6 weeks early
3. Schedule overtime for testing - This will cut the tesing time by 2 weeks allowing us to finish 4 weeks early

Now that you have your steps written out and you know why they are important your individual tasks will have more relevancy. So on day 1 when your first critical task is to verify the delivery date of the software you will completely understand why this is so important.

This is a simplified example, but I hope you can see the difference that understanding the Why can make in your completion of tasks. And let's face, if you are going to be successful at anything at all you have to take action. So the more you understand why you are taking an action the more you will be willing to do it. For the most part, we all know what it is we need to do, it's just actually doing it that presents a problem. Remember, the big shot is just a little shot that kept shooting and if you know why, you will keep shooting.

Cheers to Success,

Tony Booth

Where am I going?

For years I made the same mistakes as many others when it came to my goals. I always knew what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted my life to turn out. I always thought, why do I need to write these things down? That's just taking time away from getting what I want and they are always on my mind. I don't need them listed out to know what I want.

Wow, was I mistaken. Now, I always considered myself to be successful and by definition many would agree. I had my well paying job, lived in a nice house, drove nice cars, and all the other things that many use to define success. What I didn't realize all those years was without my goals written down, they took much longer and a lot more work to reach. The problem was without them written and clear I was losing focus and getting sidetracked way too often.

To get where you want to go you must define that destination. You need to take the time to write your targets down in detail and with time lines and clear definitions. About a year ago I started the practice of clearly defining SMART goals and writing them down. Every morning I sit with my journal and write out my targets and review what I want to achieve. By doing this first thing every morning I find it very easy to get my daily tasks done. Since I know my targets and they are fresh in my mind I know exactly why I am doing each task on my list and the outcome I expect to achieve.

Each day you must take the time to review your goals and understand what it is you want to achieve. Keep these goals in your mind throughout the day and it will help to keep you focused. With the complete understanding of why you are doing what you have to do and the rewards you will find it easy to start getting things complete. You will be compelled to complete each and every task and you will approach them with great excitement. Try writing your goals daily in a journal before compiling your list of critical tasks. Then when writing your critical tasks indicate how they affect your goals. You will be amazed at how excited you will be to work on them.

Cheers to Success
Tony Booth

Set Intentions

Now that you have your goals set and you know why you want to achieve them it’s time to start figuring out how you are going to achieve them. This how will become your intentions and will be your guide to setting you actions. While setting you intentions you need to look at each goal and determine what it is you intend to do to bring about the realization of that goal. This is the “how” part of your goals.

If your goal is to run the New York marathon you will need to sit down and determine how you will prepare to achieve this goal. You intentions may be;
· I will start working on a marathon training routine
· I will eat healthy and take care of my body
· I will perfect my running techniques
· I will increase my strength and endurance levels
These intentions will now become the frame work for guiding your actions. As you develop your intentions, it helps to add action steps to help guide you in the future. In the example above under the marathon training routine you might add;

I will start working on a marathon training routine

• I will run 5 days per week
• 3 times per week I will increase my overall distance by 5%
• 2 times per week I will run at various paces to build my stamina

As you determine your actions each day you will review them against you intentions to avoid any conflicts. When you have defined you intentions you will take actions daily that fit within your intentions.

Take some time to review each of your goals and develop you list of intentions. Depending on the goal, this list could be one or two intentions or could be a long list of sequential intentions. These are like small mini goals that you will do on a regular basis. So today, set out your intentions and start to make you dreams a reality.

Cheers to Success!
Tony

PS: My examples of a marathon training routine have no foundation and are not intended to provide any guidance on running a marathon. I have a hard enough time running to the mailbox.

Develop the Why

Have you ever wondered why your dreams always seem to be out of reach and no matter how hard you work you never seem to reach them? The problem could be the “Why”. A common mistake made by many hard working people is setting goals and visualizing their successes without ever setting the “Why”.

For instance, you might set a goal to earn $200,000 per year. You can set your goals up with the proper action steps and follow all the best practices but you goal will always be out of reach without a “why”. You need to set the reason why you want to earn $200,000 per year. What will that income provide you, what will you do with the money, why should the universe provide you with that income?

By defining the “why” we want to obtain certain goals we give the goals real meaning. This is what changes dreams into goals. Any goal set without a why remains a dream, a target that you really will not reach for. When you know the reasons for obtaining a goal you will be committed to seeing that through and taking the necessary steps to make it a reality.

So as you review what it is you want to accomplish be sure to incorporate the reasons why you want to accomplish it. Take some time to determine why you want to achieve the things you want to achieve. Take time now to go back to the targets that you set and develop the “WHY”.

Cheers to Success!
Tony

Define Targets

Now that you have spent some time to determine you true values you can move on to defining your success targets. The next step to Focusing on Success is setting your goals/targets. In this step you need to clearly define what it is you would like to achieve. Take some time to sit down and dream about you success. Visualize into the future and determine what it is you would like to achieve and start writing down your goals. Remember to be sure and write SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely).
· Specific: Be sure the goals you write are specific. Your goal should not read “I want to live in a large house”, it need to be specific like “I want to live in a 2,500SF home set on 5 acres of property.”
· Measurable: Make sure the goal is measureable. Similar to the example above, the 2,500SF now becomes the measuring stick by which you will compare your results.
· Attainable: Make sure that your goals are something that is reachable. For instance, if you are a 5’-6” tall, 40 year old male and you set a goal to become the starting center for the New York Knicks; that is an un-attainable goal. That doesn’t mean that you should not set a goal to be part of the New York Knicks franchise, it just means you need to set your goal for a different affiliation. You might determine that you want to be a talent scout for the New York Knicks.
· Realistic: You goal must be realistic. That can mean many different things depending on your goal and your current situation. The main thing to keep in mind here is, is you goal believable? Do you truly believe you can accomplish this goal?
· Timely: When setting your goals you will always need to set a timeline for reaching those goals. The timing can range from days to years, but you need to have a timeframe. Keep things in the relative near future for best results. I recommend having long term goals (5-10years) as broad objectives and more detailed goals set in 90 day time frames. These short-term goals can be sub-goals of your long term goals.

The goals you set are what will guide your actions in the future so don’t take this step lightly. The goal setting process is a must if you want to achieve a high level of success. Now, go have some fun, dream big, and write out some amazing goals.

Cheers to Success!
Tony