Here are the 10 ways to separate yourself from everyone else:

10. Leave Others Better Than You Found Them

The more of an impact you can have on other people’s lives just shows what type of influential person that you really are. You don’t want to be a follower but instead a leader that influences those around you to make them better people as well. Those deeds will go unforgotten by the people you have influenced. You can make the world a better place by giving your friends and close ones a better direction then they had before you.

9. Face Your Fears

Time and time again we have seen some of the greatest stop themselves from doing something because they are afraid to do so. People who try to avoid certain things because they are scared will never be seen as extra ordinary because that is a trait of the normal people. Face your fears and fight them to surpass them or else you will never know the outcome. No one has ever given it their best and regretted it. The only thing you should fear is being mediocre.

8. Take The Plunge That Others Wont

You don’t want to live your life by following others and always doing what others expect you to do. You should be living your life the way you truly desire. Be that person known for being willing to take risks even when harsh criticism and opposition is imminent. Surpass expectations and never become stagnant. People will respect you for this.

7. Always Question The Status Quo

The popularity of one particular method or lifestyle is not necessarily indicative of its efficacy. Norms evolve over time due to the brave individuals willing to challenge the status quo. You can either be the one who changes it or the one who gets stuck regretting that you didn’t. Be the one that creates change in the world.

6. Be Humble

Sure, being arrogant can provide humor on occasion, but it is rare that one finds extremely arrogant individuals that he or she highly respects. Despite your vast success and accomplishments it is imperative to maintain a conscious awareness of your humble beginnings. Remember, the loudest person in the room is the weakest.

5. Don’t Take Life Too Seriously

We cannot express to you how many times we have seen people take life way so seriously that they miss opportunities to enjoy it to its full potential. Life is short, and indeed you do only live once, so remember to enjoy yourself as you work through the motions of your journey. Be present in the moment.

4. Keep Your Word

Today, trustworthiness seems to be inexistent. Many individuals seem willing to commit to a task from the onset only to waver as the hardships mount. Your reputation is everything, and one of the best things you could be known for is your trustworthiness and keeping your word. The last thing you want is to be deemed a bullshit artist.

3. Think Better

This one basically explains itself. Be a step ahead of everyone else. Think faster, better or more efficiently.

2. Never Be Defeated

Be as stubborn as you can possibly be and never take a loss with a nonchalant attitude. It is imperative to maintain the drive to win in every possible competition. Being the best means that you refuse to accept failure, and this will spur you on to excel beyond the capabilities of the masses. Be at the apex of life and surpass those who have deemed loss acceptable.

1. Have The Best Story

Life is all about the experiences that you compile during your journey. The one who ends life with a compelling, eventful story of progression is the one who has been the most remarkable. It’s all about the story. Will someone retell yours after your gone? Contemplate that throughout the day, and if not, make the necessary changes to ensure that someone will.

Remember, you are always a product of your own thoughts.

Nobody likes making mistakes. But, unless you want to go through life as a complete recluse, you are guaranteed to make one every now and them. If you learn from mistakes correctly, they can propel will you forward.

You must also realize that mistakes are an essential part of self-improvement. Don’t be overwhelmed with guilt and regret, analyze how you can learn from them.

Apologize With Dignity

If you’ve made mistakes that harm other people, it is important to offer a dignified apology. Be clear that it was an unfortunate incident that will not be repeated. A good apology can go along way to restoring trust.

If you don’t apologize, out of embarrassment or unwillingness, the offended person will hold it against you. If your apology is sincere, the other person is likely to forgive you.

It is more effective to apologize in person, rather than through a curt email. However, once you have apologized, it is mistake to repeatedly say sorry for the same mistake. Some people keep apologizing over and over again. This becomes irritating. It is better to sincerely apologize once and then move on.

Don’t Be A Perfectionist

If you go through life afraid to make a mistake, you’ll spend most of your life doing absolutely nothing. There is no harm in making mistakes, it is an essential part of going forward. The more responsibility you take on, the more likely you will make mistakes.

If you feel the need to avoid mistakes at all costs, it becomes a psychological barrier to taking risks. If you make a mistake, don’t retreat into a shell.

Don’t Waste Time Trying To Justify Mistakes

Unfortunately, it is our natural instinct to try to justify our actions. When you make a mistake, the initial reaction is to blame someone else.

“Yes, I drove my car into the wall, but it was all my partners fault for distracting me with her incessant gossiping…”

When mistakes are made, the boss is unlikely to be interested in justifications. We justify mistakes for the sake of our ego. Sometimes it is best to say, very simply — yes, I made a mistake.

Understand Why The Mistake Occurred

Mistakes occur for various reasons. To avoid repeating them, you need to understand the underlying reason.

For example, you may have spoken in anger and haste; the mistake here is to say unkind words. However, what led you to be angry in the first place? Perhaps you were chronically tired, or perhaps you were nursing an unrelated grievance. If you make mistakes because you are permanently tired, try to get more sleep; if you are permanently stressed, look at ways to relax and detach from the stress of work.

Avoid Repeating Mistakes

You should avoid feeling guilty about making mistakes, but at the same time, you should make a resolution to learn from them. If you repeat the same mistakes, it shows you aren’t making progress and causes repeated suffering.

Often mistakes are caused by bad habits. To avoid making the same mistakes you need to break these bad habits. This requires careful consideration and sustained effort to change your way of thinking. However, the sooner you change your habits, the sooner you will avoid making the same mistakes.

Mistakes Are Opportunities To Learn

From your own mistakes you can gain wisdom and accelerate self-improvement. Mistakes, because of their relationship with risk taking, are essential to success. The important thing is to view mistakes as a useful stepping stone to a higher reality and better outlook on life.

Building confidence is not a natural ability for most folks, or so they think. Since today’s super-speed world can seem overwhelming sometimes, dealing with the challenges of life might feel like it requires resources, energy and resolve that are beyond our present abilities.

But have you ever noticed that those who have a large measure of confidence usually manage to handle the challenges of life more successfully, and without the same level of stress that dogs the “unconfident.” In other words, experience suggests that the biggest requirement for success in life may not be our actual abilities, but rather our recognition and acceptance of our abilities.

In a word – confidence. So how do you get that elusive quality if you weren’t born with it? How do you go about building confidence in yourself?

Well, the truth is, that’s a bit of a trick question. We often assume that a confident person was born that way… that he or she had towering, unconquerable confidence from the womb. And that’s only partly true.

Yes, we’re all born with the urge to grow and overcome limits, but most of us very early become disconnected from that urge. We actually learn to be unconfident. We learn what scientists call “maladaptive behavior” which gets in the way of feeling masterful and capable. Yep, it’s learned behavior.

So confidence is the opposite of that. In other words, it’s a habit. An automatic assumption that “I can do it,” whatever “it” may be.

The question, therefore, remains – how do you get it? To answer that question, we only have to look at how very confident people got theirs.

Highly confident people come by their self-assurance in one of two ways. Either they:
………. A) receive encouragement and support from family in their early life, or
………. B) build their own through experience in handling life situations.

And even among the “A” people (those who have all the “right” conditions in their childhood), many still don’t grow up confident. This suggests that the most important determining factor is inside each person, not outside.

You might be surprised at how hard most self-confident people have worked to gain that ability.

So if you’d like to enter that special circle, here are 8 especially effective things you can do to build your own confidence, beginning right now.

1. Find A Role Model You Can Learn From

Choose an actual person to look up to, someone who personifies the qualities you want for yourself. Of course, you don’t want to deify them, because they’re human too, but find an opportunity to ask them how they gained their confidence. Find out what the important factors were.

2. Start To Value Your Own Achievements And Accomplishments

Begin giving yourself credit for the wins you’ve already had. You have assets right now, in your own background. Start appreciating your very real abilities, and you’ll soon recognize that you have a big head start toward confidence right now.

3. Begin Acting More Confidently

Strutting and braggadocio are not true confidence, so that’s not what we mean here. It’s more a matter of stopping some things you’ve been doing. Get rid of your diffidence and hesitancy when presented with choices. Don’t hold yourself back if you have a valid viewpoint or opinion to voice in a meeting. And when starting a new project, stop the waffling, delaying and indecision. Just move forward.

4. Be Well Prepared

One of the ways to get that “I can do it” feeling is by doing your homework. Think things through ahead of time. Find out who has the resources you expect to need in upcoming assignments or projects. Just send your logic and imagination out ahead to scout out the possible things that might happen. Be ready for the future by thinking about it before you get there.

5. Always Be Polishing Your Skills

It’s not all that hard to feel confident when you already know you have all the right skills and abilities for the job ahead. This lets you face new situations with a relaxed body and mind. In a word, confidence. And that brings us to…

6. Know How To Relax

If you want to build confidence, you need the ability to relax yourself and avoid wasting energy on tension or worry. Being more relaxed that other people in the face of unexpected new situations is the mark of self-assurance. Others naturally tend to look to you for leadership if you seem less threatened by new developments. Conversely, those who feel unprepared tend to be tense and ill at ease. Any way you can separate yourself from those negative feelings will signal to others that you are the confident one in the group.

7. Don’t Set Yourself Up To Fail

When you first set out building confidence, make it easy to accumulate a winning record. Set relatively small, achievable goals at first. Take the easy victories; pick the low hanging fruit. Sure, having huge, sky-high goals is inspiring, but when you’re first beginning to build a new habit of confidence, it’s vital that you don’t bite off something that ends up choking you. Even moon rockets lift off from the launching pad slowly for the first few dozen meters. It’s only as they gain altitude that they gradually build up the amazing speeds able to carry them to the moon.

8. Congratulate Yourself For Every Win

If you’ll pat yourself on the back every time you have a success – even a small one – you’ll learn to value your own efforts. And you’ll begin seeing yourself as a person who can always get things done.

You’ll start meeting every new situation with the thought that “Yes, I can do that… of COURSE I can do it.” You build up a habit of expectation for yourself that will be priceless for the rest of your life.

Naturally, this is going to take some time. So be realistic in your goals, and be patient with yourself as you learn this new skill.

Follow these 8 tips, and it won’t be long before you’ll know that, yes, of course you can have a better life as you go about systematically building confidence for yourself.

For the past few years, we have been writing blogs on human factors that affect our judgment and how to guard against them. I have reviewed a number of human factors that can cause us to make errors and discussed approaches to reducing or preventing these errors.

Some of theses human factors can become an issue in our day-to-day lives, depending on both our attitude towards the day and the task at hand.

The countermeasures to these human factors may require us to set some personal goals. In my human factors workshops, we discuss goal setting as a way to make changes in our habits and lifestyle. With any occupation, career or lifestyle we should always be setting goals.

Recent studies show that only two percent of North Americans ever set goals in writing and of those goals set in writing, 60 percent of those goals were achieved in the first year. What a success rate!

A goal is “an aim or purpose”. It is a plan. Something you expect to accomplish according to a typical dictionary definition. I prefer the following definition: “A goal is a dream with a deadline”. We need goals to reach our full potential in life. Once we establish goals, we have to be excited about our dreams. Only with the excitement of realizing your goal will you be able to do your best.

To create the excitement and an attitude to achieve your goal write down your dreams, set the goal. We have to set goals that challenge us, but they have to be reachable.

Here is an easy to remember method for setting goals. In setting goals we have to be SMART:

• S – Specific – goals must be specific and clearly identify your target

• M – Measurable – determine how you are going to see progress

• A – Attainable – it is within your capability

• R – Realistic – goals should be just beyond your immediate grasp

• T – Timely – create time lines

In order to achieve our goals, it may be necessary to change our attitude, comfort zone, people we associate with, and even our jobs. Some of the changes are quite critical. We have to admit we need to get out of a rut and make the necessary changes.

Setting Goals

1. Decide what you want.

2. Make a list of everything you would like to accomplish with no limitations.

3. What would you go after if you were guaranteed that you could not fail?

4. Write out a detailed explanation of why you want each of your goals and what achieving them will mean to you.

5. Build a plan for accomplishing your goals.

6. Read it three times a day.

7. Set the date of accomplishment.

8. Think of it often (start asking yourself: Is the direction I am taking today helping achieve my goal?).

9. Dream and imagine.

10. Do three things everyday towards the goal.

11. Stay positive (read and listen to positive things daily).

12. Act as though you have achieved it (conceive – believe – achieve).

So for some, a deterrent to setting goals is change. If we have been working with the same company for years, associating with the same people, and don’t seem to be able to achieve what we want out of life, then it may be time for some radical changes. We need a new lease on life, a paradigm shift if we want to achieve some of our goals. You’ll have to take it the next step beyond putting down your goals in writing if you want to achieve the results you want.

Set a time line with a clear definition on how to achieve the goals you made. Imagine trying to earn a college degree while attending evening classes without a goal. We need a clear idea on what degree we want and why. We have to chart out a clear course we need to take to get there. If we do not have this clear vision, as you can imagine, we could be wasting a lot of time and effort.

I encourage you today to read more of previous blogs and think about which human factors may be negatively affecting your judgment. Establish countermeasures in your work habits to prevent their negative influences on your work. And, set some new goals for yourself that will help you in your profession. To set exciting, challenging and productive goals, pick a goal, and dream a dream because life has more in store for you than you could dare to imagine.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

1. Approve Of Yourself.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behaviour and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your Limitations May Just Be In Your Mind.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.

3. Lighten Up And Have Some Fun.

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more light-hearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement.

4. Let Go Of Anger.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release Yourself From Entitlement.

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If You’re Taking A Different Path, Prepare For Reactions.

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks. They might just go: “OK”.

7. Keep Your Focus Steadily On What You Want.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t Focus So Much On Making Yourself Feel Good.

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. One of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do What You Want To Do.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life.

“Thinking is the hardest discipline of all.” ~ Thomas Edison

Thoughts have power, are under your control, and can be used wisely or unwisely. Accurate thinkers accept no type of thought, until it is carefully analyzed. Clear thinkers are the masters of their emotions.

Accurate thought involves two basic fundamentals. First you must separate facts from information. Second you must separate facts into two classes (The important and unimportant.) Accurate thinkers allow no one to do their thinking for them.

We have all heard about Mind Over Matter. Mind Power is essential to everything we do. Your ability to cut through the clutter to make great decisions is based on it.

By now, I am sure that everyone reading this has heard about the Law of Attraction. Mind Power is the creative energy, that makes it all happen. The more you can focus your mind and concentrate your attention on whatever it is that you want to create, the easier it is to achieve the results you desire.

Focus and Concentration

Perhaps the two most important qualities of success are focus and concentration. Focus means knowing exactly what it is you want and concentration means having the discipline to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, until it is complete.

If you have these qualities, and both of these qualities are learned through practice, you can accomplish virtually anything. There are no limits on your future if you can focus and concentrate every hour of every single day.

The best test of your mind power is your ability to concentrate and focus on something for a specific period of time. The longer you can hold your focus on something without being distracted the better.

Develop Decision Making Power

Our decisions shape our lives. Whether we rise to great success or head down to failure, it comes from the decisions we make (and the actions we take). We all make some decisions all day long, consciously and unconsciously… about important and not so important things. The fact is the decisions we make always give us some results and consequences.
Clear and accurate thinkers are the masters of their emotions.

According to Brian Tracy, there are nine disciplines you can develop that will improve every area of your life. We have learned that every exercise of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline at the same time, just as every weakness in self-discipline weakens you in other disciplines as well.

It has been said that there are three types of people. There are those who think (The small minority); there are those that think they think, then there are those who would rather die than think.

• Take time to think though the critical issues and problems in your life. Put aside long, unbroken chunks of time, thirty, sixty and then ninety minutes. Peter Drucker said that, “Fast people decisions are usually wrong people decisions.” In addition, fast decisions with regard to your family, career, money or any other major issue are usually wrong decisions.
• Sit quietly for 30-60 minutes to think. Practice solitude on a regular basis. “Go into the silence.”
• Whenever you practice solitude for more than thirty minutes, you activate your super conscious mind and trigger your intuition. You get it right from the “still, small, silent voice within.”
• To think better, take a pad of paper and write down every detail of the problem situation you are facing. Sometimes, the right thing to do immerges as you write down the details.
• Aristotle once said that wisdom (The ability to make good decisions) is a combination of experience plus reflection. The more time that you take to think about your experiences, the more vital lessons you will gain from them.
• Go for a walk or exercise for 30-60 minutes. Very often when you are exercising, you will get insights or ideas that help you to think better and make better decisions.
• Talk your situation over with someone else who you like and trust, and who is not emotionally involved. Very often, a different perspective can totally change your viewpoint.
• Always ask, “What are my assumptions?” What is it that you are assuming to be true about the situation?
• What if your assumptions were wrong? What if you were preceded on the basis of false information? Always be open to the possibility that you could be completely wrong in your current course of action. Be open to doing something completely different.

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If you learn to trust your gut, you will go far. Everyone is born with base instinct. It’s what allows man to survive initially. As you go about life, you might be tempted to over think things, which may drive you into the wrong direction. When you learn to follow your intuition, you may well find that you’re heading straight for success.

Think About Your Gut Feelings

In order to understand intuition, it may help to recall a situation where you had a gut feeling. Maybe you’ve met someone at work who seemed nice enough but they turned out to be a troublemaker. Later you told yourself that as soon as you met them, you just felt like something was up.

For me there were plenty of times growing up where I’d be tested in different classes at school. My gut feeling would tell me to answer one way, but then I would over think and then answer a different way. Often times when the tests were returned, I would realize that my gut feeling was right! I should have gone with the initial answer.

There’s an important lesson to be learned here about intuition. It’s that as you get older, you become more likely to over analyze your feelings. Sometimes an in depth analysis is needed, but sometimes it can be standing in the way of you and success. From now on make an effort to trust your first instinct, and see where life leads you.

Taking Action

When you trust your intuition, it’s a good thing. It’s not just because you’re most likely making the correct decision either. It’s also because you’re going with that first feeling and you’re taking action. Finding success is very much about taking action. Think about all the time you spend thinking about the things you’ve done, or what you plan on doing.

Many people spend their lives talking about or only dreaming of their true goals. It’s those individuals that do something about it that actually reach them. So when your instinct tells you to turn in a certain direction, perhaps you should see where the road leads.

Even if you feel like you’ve made a mistake by taking that road, chances are that you’ve learned a good lesson in the process. This failed attempt shouldn’t be treated as failure either. This is because it may be a necessary step for you to take in order to find your way to success. In that sense, your intuition was likely right all along.

How Your Intuition Helps Others

When you go with your gut feeling, you can also be helping others in the process. It’s also a skill that you can work on in order to develop your intuition. When you become good at this skill, you’ll make a more effective leader, which can be another stepping stone on your way to success.

When you approach any social situation in life, think about your initial grasp of that situation. If you can understand how someone is feeling just by the way that they’re looking at you, you can more than likely help them quickly and efficiently.

When you trust your gut in social situations, you’ll become a more likeable and effective communicator. This is because people will know that you understand them and you’ll be able to roll with the punches when plans change and you discover that you need to be a little more flexible.

Remember that your gut feeling will not always be right, but more often than not it will be right. You need to know and trust yourself and you’ll find success.

1. Focus

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”

Nothing is more critical than focus. If you fail to reach your goal, it is because somewhere along the way your focus was “broken.” Focus is power; a focused person can accomplish more than 100 individuals who are merely interested.

2. Realize That Decisions Decide Destinies

“It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”

More than anything else, your decisions decide your future. Its how you play the cards that you’ve been dealt that matters most. Decisions decide destinies! The decision to further pursue your education, the decision on who you marry, the decision to start your own business, the decision to just sit around and make excuses; your life is a result of the decisions that you’ve made.

3. Recognize The Path To Success

“The truth of the matter is that there’s nothing you can’t accomplish if: (1) You clearly decide what it is that you’re absolutely committed to achieving, (2) You’re willing to take massive action, (3) You notice what’s working or not, and (4) You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way.”

Wow, what a quote! This is the path to success.

Anybody can make excuses and say “you have to be lucky to succeed,” but the truth is, we all have the power to succeed, however we’re all not willing to do what it takes to succeed (that’s the difference). Most prefer to sit on the side-line, or play Monday morning quarterback.

4. Raise Your Standard

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming. If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.”

In life you get what you accept and what you expect. What do you expect from yourself? Do you expect to be average; do you expect to live an average life or to have an average job? What are you accepting? Are you accepting living paycheck to paycheck? Are you accepting barely getting along?

To succeed you must raise your standard, you must begin to see yourself differently.

5. Major In Major Things

“Most people fail in life because they major in minor things.”

Give your time and attention to what matters most. Dedicate your life to doing big things; leave the little things to someone else. Learn to think big, to act big, and your life will take on a new direction.

Major in major things!

6. Do What You Know To Do

“You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.”

Chances are you already have enough information to dramatically transform your life from the inside-out; you’re just not putting that information into action. It’s not enough to possess knowledge, you must act on what you know in-order to change your destiny.

7. Learn To Follow The Leader

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”

There’s no sense in re-creating the wheel. Find someone who’s succeeding and do what they did. If it worked for them, it will work for you. Follow the leader, think like the leader, act like the leader, and you will become the leader!

Thank you for reading and be sure to pass this article along!

1. They Didn’t Use Excuses.

We all have two voices. There’s the voice that tells us to work hard, to focus on the task at hand and to finish it before we move on to the next. And to finish it well.

We also have the voice that tells us to take a break, to think about what’s on TV, or to visit a site that we like to visit that entertains us – whether it’s ESPN.com or facebook.

In life we’re the victim of injustice from time to time. It could be a promotion that we deserve but don’t get. No matter who we are, we’re going to be treated unfairly at some point. We can either feel sorry for ourselves, or push forward and put it behind us – even use it as motivation.

Nelson Mandela could have used his unjust imprisonment as an excuse to give into his anger. Instead, he used it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and eventually free others.

Listen to your excuses. Understand why you have them. Then figure out how you can use them for good.

2. It Wasn’t Just About Them.

‘Things’ can be a motivator, they can even be a reward, but they can’t be the motivator. The truly successful in life always get there because they created change in the lives of others, not just their own.

If something drives you that is greater than just the ‘ends’, we’re going to work harder, longer, and we’re going to give more of ourselves to our project.

Yes we can make money when we have the primary goal of making money. Some might even use that money for good – which is awesome. But there’s no fulfillment in simply making money. And isn’t that the point?

3. Early Mornings And Late Nights.

People who have achieved true success in their lives have worked for it.

This might come at the detriment of other areas of their lives, such as family or social life. But their mission is first and foremost. Until it’s complete, everything else comes second.

There’s literally no substitute for hard work. Abraham Lincoln said, “Things may come to those who wait… but only the things left by those who hustle.” If you want to be successful, you’re going to have to out hustle everyone else.

4. The Greatest Commodity.

Energy is a huge commodity that is often not talked about. Yes, energy in the sense of fuel and electricity is talked about everywhere, but I’m talking about our own energy levels.

The fact is that the more energy we have, the easier it is to focus, and the higher the quality of our work is.

One of Richard Branson‘s ‘key’s to success’ is staying in great physical shape. So would raised energy levels be the greatest benefit to working out? It may be.

Keeping physically fit gives us greater blood-flow to our brain, enhanced alertness and improved focus. Make training a routine part of your life and increase your chances at success – in every meaning of the word.

5. Principles.

History will be kind to me. For I intend to write it.

Winston Churchill had principles. The difference between him and the rest of us, is that he stuck to his principles at all costs. He didn’t waver when they weren’t popular – an extreme rarity in politics.

What are your principles? All of us should have them, know what they are, and live our lives by them.

One of Apple’s principles is to bring change to the world through technology, and they do it with every product they release.

Identify what principles you have that guide your life through tough times, and when things couldn’t be any better. They shouldn’t change, and at your core, neither should you.

6. Wavering, Yet Unbreakable Faith.

We all have moments of doubt. Even the best of us question if our dream is going to come true. The one thing that separates the truly successful from those who never reach their true potential is an unbreakable faith in the fact that what they’re doing is right.

Even if they have moments of doubt, they’re soon quelled, where other’s listen to that doubt and let it eat them up and finally they quit.

Have your moments of doubt. You’re human. Just don’t let that doubt eat you up. Instead let it motivate you to prove your optimism right.

7. A Reason.

Many of the greatest accomplishments in the world were accomplished by insecure men and women, people who had something to prove to others. A desire to elevate their status and create change that was so strong, that failure is simply never and option.

Abraham Lincoln‘s reason(s) had to do a lot with his view of himself in relation to how other’s viewed him. Where others saw a poor, illiterate boy, Lincoln saw someone capable of achieving more, even if he had to do it completely on his own. He also saw the need for change. A nation that preached freedom wasn’t free. He saw something fundamentally wrong with this and set out to change it. His why wasn’t about him. Which in turn made him one of history’s great men.

Understand why. You have that reason to work when others sleep, to sacrifice a safe life for a risky one with no ceiling. Find it by asking why, and not stopping until you hit your core, emotional reason for wanting to change your status, or the status of others.

8. They Persevered When Others Didn’t.

How does the guy who quit on his dream know how long it would’ve taken him to become a success? He doesn’t. None of us do. It could be tomorrow, or ten years from now.

What separates a lot of the great people we read about in our history books from those we’ve never heard of is the fact that they never quit. Quitting was never an option. They only stopped when they reached their dream. And even then, they created a new mission.

Take James J. Braddock, or even Nelson Mandela, for example. They didn’t achieve their greatness or success early on in their careers or in life like some. They achieved it after surviving. They survived while others literally died, or quit. In their cases it wasn’t just that they were the best, but they were the best because of what they endured. They were the last one’s standing.

We don’t know when our breakthrough will come. So don’t guarantee your failure by quitting. You can adapt, change, and evolve, but never, never, never quit.

9. Great People Relentlessly Studied Their Craft.

Tony Gwynn and Mike Tyson studied their craft as much as anyone. Gwynn spent hours upon hours studying opposing pitchers. He studied their patterns. He wasn’t the most athletic guy around, but he put his work in to be the best at what he did: hit baseballs.

When people think of Tyson, they think of an animal, but what we fail to see is the student. No one studied boxing like Tyson did. Watched more film than anyone in the history of the sport. He was a student first, a fighter second.

These great athletes studied film, but how can we perfect our craft?

Using myself as an example; much of my job has to do with writing, and obviously fitness. So, I study those two things. I read books about how to become a better writer, ways to connect with the reader, and I simply read great books written by authors who are much better at writing than I am. If you’re in sales, read and study sales. If you’re a marketer, then do the same with marketing.

Being a drone that simply goes through the motions is no way to achieve greatness. Assuming success is something you want, you have to study your craft, whatever it may be. Learn it inside and out. Build a wealth of knowledge. It’ll help you create great, inspiring, and unique work.

10. Risk.

No risk, no reward. Yes it’s an over-used, cliché of a phrase. But it’s true. Those who have achieved real success have often risked the most to get there.

There have been billions of people throughout history who have had the ability to achieve greatness, whether it was the talent or smarts, they had it. What they didn’t have was the guts to risk the life that they were living. They also didn’t have the work ethic to see their talent realized.

The greatest tragedy in life is wasted talent ~ A Bronx Tale

Your big, audacious dream might be to marry the girl of your dreams and have a family with her. You risk might be to leave the career that you love in order to support her and your family. Your dream might be to help millions live longer, healthier lives. Whatever your dream is, give it enough of a chance to be realized.

Risk if you truly want to see the reward.
Find your dream. Then risk everything to get it.

Did you know that fewer than 10% of people who set New Years’ Resolutions actually achieve them? How can you ensure YOUR success? Try using the Top 10 Tips below.

1. Write Them Down.

It’s a fact: writing down your goals gives you a higher chance of success.

2. Commit.

Move beyond the land of “good ideas” to the land of true “commitment”. Make the decision that you will show up for your goals. Perhaps you can do a ritual or ceremony to symbolize your commitment?

3. Go Public.

Let your biggest fans in on your new commitments and goals for the year.

4. Get Accountability.

Even better than just letting others in on your “secret” dreams and goals-get some accountability. Meet for lunch once a month with a group that will ask you, “So, how’s it going with your goal?” Hire a Coach. Talk to your best friend or partner. Get some support!

5. Make a Plan.

Ensure success with a step-by-step plan. Start with the end vision of where you want to be and backtrack to where you are today. You’ll find an easy action plan to make your goals a reality.

6. Do An Intuition Check-In.

Before you decide on what you’ll take on for the year, make certain you can answer, “YES!” to the following questions: “Am I the primary reason for setting this goal (vs. your mom, boyfriend, wife, boss, society, inner critic)? Do I feel alive and energized by this goal? Is this goal in line with my life purpose or mission?”

7. Get Real!

If you’re contemplating putting a goal down that you always put down and never achieve, take a second look. Sit with the goal and honesty assess: How will this goal end DIFFERENTLY this year? Is this goal something you need to let go of? How is failing at this goal serving you (do you feel justified, victimized, or like a martyr come year end)? Is this goal masking as a form of self-punishment? What is the good enough reason to truly commit?

8. Focus With Reminders.

Once you’ve written down your goals, created a plan and made sure they are worthy to pursue, figure out ways to remind yourself. Post your goals in the bathroom mirror or in the car. Others put reminders in their blackberries, iPhones or cell phones. Figure out what works for you.

9. Believe and Visualize.

Do you know the story about the group of basketball players who spent one hour visualizing making baskets, while another group actually practiced? The visualizing players had better seasons! So visualize yourself on New Year’s Eve NEXT year with all your goals achieved. What would that look like? How would it feel? Visualize once a day and see the difference it can make in your life. We recommend a daily pause practice- space to simply BE and visualize.

10. Use anchors.

Tie your goal to a habit you already have in place. Perhaps you decide to do your exercise right after brushing your teeth, or practice meditation/daily pause before checking email. Anchoring your new behavior and goals to an existing habit is a great tool for success.

May this year be the year that your goals and dreams manifest with ease and joy!