7 Good Habits of Highly Successful People

Successful people are where they are today as a result of their habits.  Your habits determine fully 95% of your behavior.  Everything that you are or that you will ever accomplish will be determined by the quality of the habits that you form. By creating good habits and becoming goal oriented you can become successful and live a prosperous life.

Successful People Maintain 7 Good Habits

Success in human life has been studied by the great thinkers and philosophers for at least 2500 years.  I have personally studied the subject for more than 30 years.  What I have found is that the very best people have good habits.  I have identified seven habits that you need to develop if you want to perform at your very maximum in everything you do.

Be Goal Oriented

The first is to become goal oriented. You need to be a habitual goal setter, and dedicate yourself to working from clear, written goals every day of your life.  All highly successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know exactly what they want, they have it written down, they have written plans to accomplish it, and they both review and work on their plans every single day.

Be Result Oriented

The second habit successful people develop is result orientation.  Result orientation is made up of two practices.  The first is the practice of continuously so that you become better at what you do.  The second practice is that of time management, which means setting very clear priorities on what you do and then concentrating single-mindedly on the most valuable use of your time.  All really successful people are intensely result oriented.

Be Action Oriented

The third major habit you need to develop is that of action orientation.  This is really the most important habit for material success.  It is the ability to get on with the job and get it done fast.  It is your ability to develop and maintain a sense of urgency, a bias for action.  Fast tempo in whatever you do is essential to your success.  You need to overcome procrastination, push aside your fears and launch 100% toward the achievement of your most important goals.  The combination of goal orientation, result orientation and action orientation, in themselves, will virtually assure great success.

Be People Oriented

The fourth habit you need is people orientation.  This is where you put relationships in the center of your life.  This is your decision to cultivate within yourself the habits of patience, kindness, compassion and understanding.  Virtually all of your happiness in life will come from your ability to get along well with other people.

The good news is that you can become a wonderful human being in your relationships with others when you decide to.  And, as Aristotle said, the only way that you can learn any habit is by practicing it on a regular basis.  The more you practice being a truly excellent person in your relationships with others, the more you will internalize those qualities and actually become that person.

Be Health Oriented

The fifth habit successful people develop is health orientation.  This means that you must fastidiously watch your diet, and always eat the right foods in the right proportions.  You must exercise on a regular basis, continually using every muscle and joint of your body to keep it young and fit.  And finally you must have good habits of rest and recreation that will enable you, in combination with diet and exercise, to live to be 80 or 90 years old.  Remember, your health is the most important single thing you have, and it is completely subject to the habits that you develop with regard to the way you live.

Stay Honest

The sixth habit is that of honesty and integrity.  In the final analysis, the character you develop as you go through life is more important than virtually anything else.  Honesty means that you practice the “reality principle” in everything you do.  You are completely objective with yourself and with the world around you.  You set very clear values for yourself and you organize yourself around your values.  You develop a vision for yourself and then you live your life consistent with your highest ideals.  You never compromise your integrity or peace of mind for anyone or anything.

This attitude of honesty is critical to your enjoying all of the other good habits that you are developing.

Be Self-Disciplined

The seventh habit, and the one habit that guarantees all the others, is that of self-discipline.  Your ability to discipline yourself, to master yourself, to control yourself, is the most important single quality that you can develop as a person.  The habit of self-discipline goes hand in hand with success in every area of life.

Every one of these habits, being goal oriented, result orientated, action orientated, people orientated, health orientated, honesty and self-disciplined can be developed.  You are where you are and what you are today because of your habits.  Your habits have been developing, mostly accidentally, from the time you were an infant.  Today you can take complete control over the shaping of your character and personality, and everything that happens to you in the future, by making the decision, right now, to define and to develop the habits that will lead you to great success.  And when you develop the same good habits possessed by other successful people , you must and will enjoy their success as well.  Your future will become unlimited.

Thank you for reading this post on creating good habits and becoming goal oriented. Please share this article with others and comment below!

http://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/seven-good-habits-of-highly-successful-people-goal-oriented/

Read More

Developing a Positive Real Estate Mindset

Real Estate is no different from any other business in that it consists of service providers and customers. That is one of the most important things to remember when approaching your real estate career. You have a service to provide, and people need that service.

This is a simple business property: Supply & Demand.

Knowing this, you have an edge over your competitors. It isn't about scrounging for your next client because you know there are people out there who need your help. It's about letting people know that you offer a service - real estate - and that you are available to them.

It's important to get into the service mindset because otherwise, your business is worthless. If you don't exist to help other people, then you have nothing to offer your community. This is the first step toward developing the proper real estate mindset.

The second is to identify the qualities that make a great realtor. Do you have those qualities, and if not, can you acquire them? This is the time to take a good, objective look at the way you conduct business, and to make any appropriate changes.

These are the qualities of a successful real estate agent with the proper mindset:

· Positive
· Aggressive
· Approachable
· Professional
· Friendly 

All of these qualities combine to make an attractive business solution. When you meet with clients and prospects, you should radiate these qualities, which will help make others comfortable with putting their business in your hands.

Positive 

A positive person is a successful person. Guaranteed. Every day when you go to work, you have to forget about the sleep you failed to get last night and the fight you endured with your wife over window treatments. You have to forget about your personal life entirely, and focus on making the most of your day.

Every time you allow negativity to control your professional life, you miss out on opportunities on which you otherwise might have seized. You disappoint a client, fail to perform duties and bring down those around you. Everyone wants to be surrounded by positive people. It's human nature.

A Positive Person:

· Makes an effort to forget about personal issues while working
· Turns negative situations into positive situations
· Gives every client their full attention
· Continues to learn even after they've "mastered" their craft
· Is friendly, knowledgeable and confident in business

A Negative Person:

· Makes excuses for failures
· Blames others for inadequacies
· Puts a negative spin on all situations
· Refuses to learn once they "know everything"
· Is nervous, closed-off and bored in business

Approachable

When you walk into a room, do people feel comfortable coming up to you? Do clients appear at ease when in your company? Can you easily strike up a conversation with anyone who walks through your office door?

If not, then you aren't as successful as you could be. A real estate agent is a salesperson first and foremost, and your livelihood depends on your rapport with other people.

An Approachable Person: 
· Smiles and greets clients warmly for meetings
· Asks clients about life outside of the workplace
· Is friendly and helpful with colleagues
· Uses humor and wit to instill the confidence of clients
· Introduces himself or herself to people in large gatherings

Professional 
Your clients and prospects will not want to work with you if you do not behave professionally. This means dressing appropriately, giving honest answers and being knowledgeable about real estate in general. Your office should be free of clutter and your materials should be filed correctly. When a client asks for something, you should know where to find it.

A Professional:

· Dresses appropriately for all business functions
· Shakes hands with clients and colleagues
· Keeps an organized and neat office
· Can find paperwork and other materials readily
· Keeps client and listing information in accessible places

Friendly 

Just because you are a professional doesn't mean you can't be friendly. Allow your own unique personality to shine through when holding conversations and calling prospects. Feel free to add humor and wit to your conversational skills; this will help people to feel at ease with you.

A friendly real estate agent will always have more clients. Guaranteed.

Aggressive 

This is by far the most difficult quality to master. Aggressiveness should not be mistaken for rudeness; establishing that fine line can take some practice. But don't wait for clients to offer a sale; ask for it! And don't sit around waiting for clients and listings to appear; go get them!

Even if you are the most laid-back individual in your private life, you must be aggressive in your career. This means knowing what you want and going after it. Trust me, clients will respect your aggressive demeanor and will respond to it without even realizing they are.

These are the keys to a successful real estate mindset. Develop these qualities and you will be ready to achieve your goals in real estate. 

Read More

The 7 R’s of Personal Management by Brian Tracy

You can further your personal effort to increase your salary by engaging in the seven Rs of personal management. These seven Rs are: rethinking, reevaluating, reorganizing, restructuring, reengineering, reinventing, and refocusing.

In rethinking, you take time on a regular basis to think about who you are and where you are going, especially when you discontented for any reason. You can ask yourself this question: How much should I earn? and What am I worth? Since everything is changing so rapidly around you, more options are available to you now than ever before. And because it is very likely that you are going to be doing something completely different in a few years anyway, you can begin thinking today about where you want to be in the future. You can rethink and re-plan your entire career, and do it in a way to earn more money.

Reevaluate Your Situation

Reevaluating is the process of standing back and looking at yourself in terms of the marketplace. Whenever you experience frustration, continual roadblocks, or stress at work, you need to take time to reevaluate your situation and be sure that you are on the right track.

Your problems at work may be caused by your not working at the right job for you, or working at the wrong company, or with the wrong people. Your dissatisfaction may be caused by your selling a product or service that is wrong for you, or for many other reasons. Perhaps your heart is no longer in your work. It gives you little or no pleasure. Sometimes, the very best thing to do in a situation like this is to change the work you are doing or the company for which you are working, so that your work life is more consistent with your talents, abilities, desires, and values. Ask yourself, what is my future with this company?

Reorganize Your Life

In reorganization, you examine your daily activities and question whether or not you should do things differently if you want to get better results. Look for ways to work with greater efficiency and perform your tasks more effectively. Continually try to increase your output relative to your input of time and money. Look for ways to earn more money in a more efficient way.

Restructure Your Activities

In restructuring, you continually look at the specific things you do that contribute the most value to your company and to your customers. You focus more and more of your time and talent on the 20 percent of activities that contribute 80 percent of the value of all the things that you do. You concentrate on those activities that represent the highest payoff for everyone involved. This is a how to earn more money.

Reengineer Your Career

In reengineering your personal service corporation, you stand back and look at the entire process of your work, from the first thing you do in the morning to the actual results that you get for your company or your customer. You analyze this process and look for ways to streamline it by reducing steps, consolidating activities, outsourcing parts of the work, and even changing the process completely so that you can achieve the same or better results with less time and fewer resources. Reengineering shows you the way how to earn more. Reengineering is an ongoing process of simplifying your work and your activities so that you can get things done in less time.

Reinvent Yourself Regularly

In reinventing, you stand back from your work and imagine starting over again. Imagine that your job or industry disappeared completely. Imagine for a moment that you had to move across the street or across the country and begin your career or your business all over. What would you do differently? Where do you want to be in your career in three to five years? What changes would you have to make in reinventing your business to create the future that you desire? Ask yourself how much should I earn?

One of the best ways to reinvent yourself is to determine what it is that you really enjoy doing more than anything else, and then to begin figuring out how you can find or create a job doing more of it.

Refocus Your Energies

The final R stands for refocusing. This is really the key to the future. It is your ability to concentrate your energies single-mindedly on doing those few things that make all the difference in your life.

In most cases, people are unsuccessful because they spend too much time doing things that contribute little to their lives. They spend more and more time doing things that have less and less value. On the other hand, highly successful people do not do a lot of things, but the few things they do, they do extremely well.

This seems to be the secret to great success and achievement in every area of life.

Become a Master of Change

The advantage of practicing the seven Rs is that they allow you to regain control over your present and future. With a sense of control comes a feeling of personal power, greater self-confidence and self-esteem . When you focus on these techniques you learn how to earn more money, feel happier, and have control of your own life and future, rather than allowing them to be determined by the unpredictable winds of change.

- See more at: http://www.cambodiagreat.com/2013/08/the-7-rs-of-personal-management-by.html#sthash.rF36Y6B9.dpuf

Read More

Lewis Schiff: Why Some People Are Rich and Others Aren't

To understand how some people become wildly successful in business and why others fall flat, I spoke to Lewis Schiff. Lewis is the author of the new book, Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons. He is also the  executive director of Inc. Business Owners Council, a membership organization for Inc. Magazine’s top entrepreneurs and owners of closely-held family businesses and maintains a blog about behavioral entrepreneurship on Inc.com. Schiff has also co-authored The Influence of Affluence: How The Rich Are Changing America and The Armchair Millionaire.

In this interview, Lewis talks about how the priorities of the middle class are different from the ultra rich, his seven principles that all successful entrepreneurs follow, the skills professionals need to focus on in order to succeed and more.

How are the priorities of the middle class different from the rich?

This is a great question that goes right to the heart of the matter. The middle class would prefer to remain in their “comfort zone” rather than prioritize wealth creation. For the self-made rich, following the steps that lead to wealth is more important than being comfortable.

A simple example: It’s a common myth that “you have to have money to make money.” Most of the 400 self-made wealthy I surveyed for Business Brilliant would prefer to have other people invest in their ideas. Why? First, it’s a good filter to see if others agree that the idea is worth pursuing; second, it helps the entrepreneur preserve their own capital. The middle class are less willing to ask other people for money because they fear being rejected or, if they find an investor, fear of letting that person (often a friend or family member) down. The self-made wealthy ignore this concern.

What are the seven principles practiced by the ultra successful entrepreneurs?

Do what you love, but always follow the money. This is in contrast to what the middle class believe which is. Do what you love and the money will follow.

Save less, earn more. This is in contrast to what the middle class believe which is that you can save your way to wealth by cutting back on life’s luxuries. The self-made wealthy are too busy trying to earn more money to worry about saving their pennies.

Imitate, don’t innovate. The middle believe you need a big idea in order to become wealthy. The self-made wealthy know that it’s the excellent execution of ordinary ideas that really creates wealth in America.

Know-how is good, “know-who” is better. The middle class are much more likely to rely on skills learned in school while the self-made wealthy are more likely to rely on leveraging opportunities that can be found by serving groups of people who need each other but don’t know each other.

Win-Win is a sure way to lose. Self-made millionaires are masters at negotiating. The middle class don’t seem to appreciate the value that negotiating can create and they certainly don’t know how to do it well!

Spread the work, spread the wealth. The middle class seem to be overly committed to shoring up their weaknesses in order to be well-rounded in their work. The self-made wealthy tend to focus on being good at a few things and delegating everything else that they’re not good at.

Nothing succeeds like failure. Based on my research, the middle class tend to pull back just when they’re about to be successful. That’s because most success stories are preceded by business failures–often crushing failures. Quitting after a setback squanders the opportunity created by adversity and the self-made wealthy know that persevering in the face of adversity is the key to success!

What three skills should professionals focus on to stand out and achieve career success?

1. How to ask for more and how to negotiate better.
2. How to develop their strengths and delegate their weaknesses.
3. The importance of perseverance in the face of adversity.

Does selecting the right friends have an impact on your success? Why or why not?

Social contagion is real. If you spend time with people who smoke, you’ll probably smoke, too. If you hang out with people who exercise, you’re more likely to exercise, too. If you want to be more successful, you must spend more time with people who are more successful, as well. Identify a mentor inside or out of your office. Minimize your time with people who view work as a burden. Put yourself in situations where you are  the least successful person in the room and soak up everything around you.

What are a few attributes you don’t need in order to be business brilliant?

First, be willing to accept that the way you’ve been doing things may no longer be sufficient to help you realize your goals of financial security and will probably leave you a long way from achieving true financial independence.

Second, be willing to put yourself in positions of vulnerability. The first time you try these business brilliant techniques, you may fail. That’s ok and to be expected.

If you are prepared to try those two behaviors on for a while, you have what it takes to pursue your own business brilliance!

Dan Schawbel is the author of the upcoming book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press, Sept 3rd). Listen to his Promote Yourself Podcast on iTunes for more interviews and career advice.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/03/28/lewis-schiff-why-some-people-are-rich-and-others-arent/

Read More

Failing Forward: Transforming Mistakes into Success

by J.D. Roth)  @http://www.getrichslowly.org/

Sometimes the best personal finance books aren’t about personal finance.

In June 2006, for example, I shared a brief reviewof Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. Ostensibly this book is about creativity and overcoming procrastination, but I found its lessons valuable for pursuing my financial goals. Last year I read Mastery by George Leonard. On the surface, this book has nothing to do with money, yet it’s one of the best books about money I’ve ever read.

John C. Maxwell’s Failing Forward is another of this ilk. It’s not meant to be a personal finance book, yet I’m willing to bet that more of you can improve your financial lives by reading it than by reading The Automatic Millionaire or Personal Finance for Dummies (though these are both fine books). Why? Because books like Failing Forward apply to your entire life rather than just one part of it.

Failing forward
I clearly remember a period during the late 1990s during which I felt like a failure. I felt washed up. I felt like I was sleepwalking through life, accumulating debt, eating too much, working in a job I hated. Every time I ate a hamburger or bought something on credit — or worse, bought a hamburger on credit — I felt this failure meant that I was a failure.

But what I eventually learned was that failing at one thing is not failing at all things. And, in fact, failure is a necessary part of growth. Life is filled with trial and error. In order to walk the path to success, you need to make some wrong turns along the way.

What I learned, to use John C. Maxwell’s terminology, was to “fail forward”, to use each mistake to make myself better. He writes:

One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind. [A successful baseball player] doesn’t look at an out that he makes and think of failure. He sees it within the context of the bigger picture. His perspective leads to perseverance. His perseverance brings longevity. And his longevity gives him opportunities for success.

There’s a reason that one of Get Rich Slowly’s core tenets is: Failure is okay. As I was paying off my debt, I made lots of mistakes. I still do. When I bought my Mini Cooper, for example, I didn’t do everything I could have done to get the best deal possible. That’s okay. I try not to let mistakes drag me down. Instead of focusing on the things I did wrong during that transaction, I remember that in the Big Picture, I’m doing awesome. And I’ll try to use my mistakes to do better next time.

Seven ways to fail forward
In Failing Forward, Maxwell writes that there are seven key abilities that allow successful people to fail forward instead of taking each setback personally. Successful people:

1. Reject rejection. Successful people don’t blame themselves when they fail. They take responsibility for each setback, but they don’t take the failure personally.
2. View failure as temporary. “People who personalize failure see a problem as a hole they’re permanently stuck in,” writes Maxwell. “But achievers see any predicament as temporary.”
3. View each failure as an isolated incident. Successful people don’t define themselves by individual failures. They recognize that each setback is a small part of the whole.
4. Have realistic expectations. This one is huge. Too many people start big projects — such as paying off their debt — with the unrealistic expectation that they’ll see immediate results. Success takes time. When you pursue anything worthwhile, there are going to be bumps along the way. And remember: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
5. Focus on strengths. This was one of the biggest lessons I took away from Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek. When I interviewed Ferriss last year, I asked him to expand on this idea. He told me: “Focus on leveraging and amplifying your strengths, which allows you to multiply your results. Fix any fatal weaknesses to the extent that they prevent you from reaching your goals, but perfection isn’t the path to your objectives; finding ways tocater to your strengths is.”
6. Vary approaches. “Achievers are willing to vary their approaches to problems,” Maxwell writes. “That’s important in every walk of life, not just business.” If one approach doesn’t work for you, if it brings repeated failure, then try something else. Maxwell is saying that to fail forward, you must do what works for you, not necessarily what works for other people.
7. Bounce back. Finally, successful people are resilient. They don’t let one error keep them down. They learn from their mistakes and move on.

These seven points form a firm foundation for dealing with failure in all parts of life, including personal finance. As you pay off your debt, as you learn to invest, as you cut your spending, remember that some failure is inevitable. But you are not your mistakes. Own them, learn from them, and move on. Continue to pursue your goals.

Stepping stones to success
Maxwell peppers his book with anecdotes from celebrities, entrepreneurs, and famous people like Edison and Mozart. He uses their stories to illustrate how successful people don’t let failure trap them; they “fail forward” instead. He also cites scientific research and shares stories from his own life.

Failing Forward is a motivational book, one that helped me break out of a funk and put me in the right frame of mind. Reading this helped me realize — again — that failure isn’t an end. It is, as Maxwell notes, just a stepping stone to success.

Read More

Theodore Roosevelt's 20 Key Elements of Leadership...

My Life and Work with Business: Theodore Roosevelt's 20 Key Elements of Leadership...: By James M. Strock , a lawyer and the author of Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership (Random House). He provides leadership  By    development...

Read More

6 Steps To Becoming A Real Estate Agent

April 23 2012

 

Becoming a successful real estate agent is a combination of investing time in education, researching a broker who can help you get your first clients and passing state and national licensing exams. But that's not all there is to the industry. Read on to find out some of the more overlooked aspects of the real estate business.

1. Get EducatedNo matter in which state you live, you must take pre-licensing courses. However, state requirements differ greatly. For instance, California requires three college-level courses. Others (such as Idaho, which requires two courses totaling 90 hours) require a set number of hours of education. Contact your state's real estate commission for your state's requirements for licensing.

Some real estate agencies have specific education requirements. Thus, you may have to take an additional course after being hired on with an agency.

2. Choose a BrokerageA real estate brokerage is the agency or office from which real estate agents and brokers work. Since working with a broker is a requirement in order to practice as a real estate agent, you will need to contact a broker before graduating from your training course. Brokers have at least three years additional real estate training, and can guide you through questions you have when it comes to working in the field, as well as listing and selling homes.

When you look for a broker, think about size of brokerage, its reputation and additional training offered. Check broker reputations by reading online comments, asking friends and neighbors who they've had experiences with and getting advice from your instructor on choosing a brokerage.

Another way to learn more about a brokerage is by carefully crafting your interview questions. This will not only help you gather information, but solid interview questions help the broker determine if you'd fit in well with the agency.

A few questions to ask:

• Does your brokerage require additional coursework?
• How many years of experience do you have?
• Is there someone within the brokerage I can work with a majority of the time while learning?
• What is your client contact style for developing leads?
• How long does it take on average to earn commission checks?

Which answers are acceptable is up to you. For instance, one person may prefer a brokerage that does ask for additional coursework because of a desire for more training before jumping in, while another may appreciate having someone who will work with them every day while learning.

3. Get LicensedReal estate licenses require the passing of state and national exams. In addition, you may have to provide a criminal background check. Between the exam and license fees for a real estate salesperson, you can expect to pay at least $200, thought prices vary from state-to-state.

4. Develop a Real Estate Agent BudgetWhile becoming a real estate agent isn't cheap, it's cheaper than entering many professions. Startup fees are estimated between $1,500-2,000, which should be divided between licensing courses, business cards, signs and advertising and association fees – not counting additional exam fees.

Since real estate is a commission-based business, you'll also need enough money set aside for you to get by for a few months. These are approximations of actual costs because they can vary based on individual choices and state-by-state costs.

5. Make the Realtor/Real Estate Agent DecisionIn order to utilize the title "realtor", you must join the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This is done by choosing an affiliated brokerage as well as attending a set number of meetings designated by your local chapter. (For more, see Do You Need A Real Estate Agent?)

6. Build Your Client/Referral PortfolioThe best way to build your portfolio is twofold: get a mentor, and use your personal network. Barbara Kennon, the vice president of the National Association of Realtors, says the best arrangement for a new agent is to find a mentor in the real estate agency you choose who guides you towards buyer/seller contacts and splits commission. You'll learn the profession from your mentor, while gaining your first commission checks.

Also, asking your friends and family for referrals of people who are considering buying or selling a home is a great way to begin networking. Someone's always looking for a new home, and that referral may get you started in your new business.

ConclusionBecoming a real estate agent is similar to starting a small business. Even though you'll work within a brokerage of established realtors or real estate agents, you need a startup fund for business expenses and to cover several months of personal expenses while you build your client base. Take every step seriously, and you'll have your first "sold" sign up with your savings account still intact.

Read More

5 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Action

By Milan

You're lying on the couch and Teen Mom is on TV.

You don't even care, it’s just noise, because you are procrastinating a task you know has to be done.

This could be a number of things such as a paper, home work, cleaning, or maybe it's a goal you want to accomplish.

The term "getting motivated" is a huge buzz word in the self help community.

It doesn't have to be as complicated as the 'gurus' make it.

Here are some practical steps you can do right now to push yourself to action.

1. Throw your hat over the wall

Do you remember being on the playground in elementary school when some idiot threw the ball over the fence?

Then everyone got together and decided who had to hop the fence and get it? Let's use this example in today's life. Throwing your hat over the wall means completing an action that forces you to get started on a goal.

Let's say you've been wanting to get in shape for awhile but haven't came up with the motivation. Do this right now: go buy a 3 month membership to your local gym.

Congrats, you've just thrown your hat over the wall, now go get it. Look for simple actions that will force you to get motivated to act.

2. Make the consequences unbearable

Did you know most people would rather protect their assets than risk gaining more? This is human nature but sometimes it goes against our best interest.

This technique is similar to the first but stands out on this principle: if you don't accomplish your goal, there will be consequences.

Here's a good example. Let's stick with the exercise theme and say you posted on Facebook how you are going to post pictures of your 'new' self in 60 days. Okay, so now you have a challenge. What will be more painful?

You being sore from the gym or the embarrassment of you shirtless on Facebook? What scenario can you create to make the consequences of not accomplishing a goal more painful than taking action?

3. Envision 

There was once a man who was very fast and would race people for money in his small village. One day another man approached him and challenged him to a race. The challenger asked the fast man just how he was so fast. The man answered, "When I'm racing, I picture a wolf chasing me.", "Ah" replied the challenger.

They both lined up 200 yards away to begin the showdown. Bam! Went the gun and the two started off. The fast man was ahead at first but then from the corner of his eye the saw the challenger blow past him and cleared the finish line right in front of him.

After the race, the fast man approached him and asked how he was so fast. The challenger replied, "Well you see. When I run, I picture myself chasing the wolf".

Envision the feeling of actually accomplishing your goal and then chase that feeling like the wolf.

4. Set aside something until you accomplish the mission

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes to just go without something is a great motivator. If I told every woman that they could not eat chocolate until they've lost 5lbs the gym would be a massacre.

What's something that you really like that you could give up?

Could it be no more internet browsing until you've written your term paper? This is a great way to build willpower as well as motivate.

5. Start the snowball

What does every large snowball have in common? They were all started by a single snowflake. This is a momentum builder.

What small task can you do right now that you can keep building on until you've conquered your goal?

This may be hard because if you lack the motivation to do anything in the first place. So use one of the other tactics first then implement this one to get going.

Let's say you want to start a pet grooming business. It may seem overwhelming at first. What would be the smallest action you can take that you can build on?

How about reading a pet grooming book or just seeking out potential rental space?

Once you do take action however, you'll see the momentum carry you to the finish line.

 

Web: http://www.goalsontrack.com 

Read More

Why Do Some People Succeed Where Others Fail? Implications for Education

1. Richard B. Gunderman, MD, PhD

1. ¹From the Department of Radiology, Indiana University Medical Center, 702 Barnhill Dr, Rm 1053, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5200. Received May 3, 2002; accepted May 13. Address correspondence to the author (e-mail: rbgunder@iupui.edu).

 

Next Section

© RSNA, 2003

 

Never give in. Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.

—Winston Churchill (1)

 

Everyone wants to succeed, but few people take the time to study success. Similarly, everyone dislikes failure, but few people invest the time and energy necessary to learn from their mistakes. Often we are too busy basking in the glory of our triumphs to think through what we did right, or the pain of failure is sufficiently intense that many of us want to “move on” and “put it behind us” as soon as we can. Yet those who want to improve their chances of success can ill afford to disregard the issue of why; despite seemingly equal levels of intelligence and education, some people succeed where others fail.

 

A substantial amount of educational research indicates that how learners understand success and failure exerts an important influence on their level of achievement (2). In this editorial, I outline several parameters according to which high achievers tend to differ from low achievers. These parameters are derived in part from a psychologic approach to motivation and performance referred to as attribution theory (3). While some factors in the larger equation of achievement may be difficult to alter, each of us can revisit and perhaps revise our understanding of what makes a person successful. In so doing, we can help learners such as medical students, residents, fellows, and even practicing radiologists enhance their opportunities for success.

 

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors

The factors that contribute to or detract from success can be assigned into two categories, extrinsic and intrinsic (4). Extrinsic factors flow from decisions made by people other than learners and include their expectations, reactions of praise or blame, and any rewards or punishments they may offer. Intrinsic factors, by contrast, arise from learners themselves and include their expectations, their level of desire to succeed, and their sense of whether or not they were challenged in a meaningful way. For example, learners tend to feel a greater sense of pride in their achievement if the task they face is a moderately difficult one, as opposed to one that they regard as very easy. Learning effectiveness is enhanced when learners approach tasks with a high degree of intrinsic engagement and a reasonable expectation that they will perform well.

 

It is important to present learners with tasks that challenge but do not overwhelm them. If they feel that they never had a chance or that they did not need to push themselves at all in order to succeed, they are not likely to benefit substantially from the experience. In medical student education, for example, it is important to operate from a clear sense of what students at each particular level of training might be expected to know and to tailor learning tasks accordingly. For example, in a course for 2nd-year medical students, discussions of imaging findings might include questions about key points of anatomy and pathology. In reviewing the same case with 4th-year students, by contrast, greater emphasis might be placed on the clinical setting in which the examination was performed and the management implications of the findings.

Enabling and Disabling Learning Environments

Different learning environments can dramatically alter what learners expect of themselves, as well as how they evaluate their performance. If people are confronted with tasks for which they have no means of preparing, they are less likely to feel pride in their work, even when they happen to succeed (5). Because learners are more likely to fail in situations for which they lack preparation, confronting learners with questions for which they are not prepared can prove counterproductive, producing discouragement and reducing the motivation to learn. To put this principle into practice, educators should structure learning experiences in such a way that learners recognize the relevance of their own preparation.

 

A good example of tailoring the learning environment to foster a sense of preparedness is the use of an environment that approximates the actual setting of the American Board of Radiology oral examination in helping residents to prepare for the oral board examination. If residents have never before been shown cases in a setting where the examiner provides no feedback about performance, they may find the actual examination unfamiliar and unsettling and, hence, perform below their potential. Residents should be encouraged to show one another cases and they should be shown cases by the faculty in a no-feedback environment so that they will not be accustomed to looking for clues from their examiner on how they are doing. At another level, having board examiners pretend to be referring physicians can be helpful as well, by encouraging residents to develop their facility at discussing cases in the environment where it matters most; namely, the care of real patients.

High Expectations and Low Expectations

By indicating to learners the level of effort that is expected from them, educators can further enhance their sense of learning effectiveness. The goal should be to give learners a sense that they are in control of their own destiny. Fostering this sense of self-reliance is not difficult, and yet many educators forego opportunities to do so. For example, medical students and residents should be given a set of performance objectives each time they begin a new rotation, and day-to-day teaching and assessment should be tailored to them.

 

Expectations need not be low, but they should be as explicit as possible so that learners know not only what they should study but also what they should be able to do with what they have learned.

 

Consider a group of 1st-year residents undergoing an orientation to the radiology residency program. One objective of such an orientation program might be that residents develop the ability to recognize and appropriately manage an adverse reaction to intravenously administered contrast material. In order to set the appropriate expectations, they might be told that they will receive not only a lecture on the subject with a set of readings but also an objective structured clinical examination in which various types of adverse reactions would be simulated. With such expectations in mind, they would be able to prepare in a much more focused fashion, paying dividends in terms of their actual level of clinical competence.

Active and Passive Responsibility

One of the traits shared in common by successful people is a sense that they make things happen, as opposed to the sense that things happen to them (6). The key parameter here is the locus of control.

 

Learners who view the locus of control as lying outside of themselves often see little correlation between the choices they make and their level of achievement. When things go poorly, they blame it on bad luck or on actions of others over which they have no control. By contrast, learners with a high sense of effectiveness are likely to regard setbacks not as the immutable will of the fates but as mistakes from which they can learn and improve in the future. They study their experiences, failures as well as successes. Even when others contribute to their difficulties, they look for factors in situations over which they can exert some measure of control and try to devise means to exploit them more effectively in the future.

 

With the critical incident approach, people are asked to recall personally meaningful successes or failures and to explain why things turned out as they did (7). Such an approach can prove very helpful in attempting to evaluate and rank candidates for a position. If residency or faculty candidates respond to such a question with a look of befuddlement and cannot offer any coherent response, this is a good sign that they are not accustomed to reflecting on past experiences as learning opportunities. Similarly, if they portray themselves as innocent dupes or victims of forces beyond their control, this may indicate that they tend to experience events passively rather than taking an active role in creating and influencing circumstances. Successful people, by contrast, characteristically tend to describe events as flowing from decisions they helped to make and are likely to offer reflections on how they would do things differently in the future.

 

How can learners be encouraged to relocate their locus of control within themselves? One means of doing so is by engaging in regular discussions about setbacks and difficulties that they have confronted and how they understood and responded to them. For example, when residency program directors meet with each trainee, they might encourage them to discuss a recent disappointment or failure. What happened? Why did it happen? What could the resident have done to prevent or alter the undesirable outcome? What steps could the resident take to make such outcomes less likely in the future? When learners do not spend at least part of the time looking into the mirror, they miss out on opportunities to learn and grow.

Unalterable and Alterable Factors

Regarding the locus of control as internal does not, however, guarantee that a learner will react effectively to setbacks. Another key factor in how people explain their successes and failures is whether they believe internal factors are fixed or changeable. A common example of an internal factor that many people regard as unalterable is ability. As a result of a few disappointments early in their educational careers, some people adopt a “can’t do” attitude: “I’m just not good in math” or “I have good ideas but I can’t get them onto paper.” Learners who interpret their failures as resulting from their own intrinsic lack of ability are less likely to feel challenged by disappointments and less likely to try to change their approach in the future. Of course, every learner at every level of ability has innate limitations. The problem with invoking those limitations as an explanation for failure is the fact that many learners do so prematurely and with excessive frequency.

 

If the educator’s goal is to help learners improve their level of performance, then shifting their focus from ability to effort can prove very helpful. Consider a junior faculty member who is disappointed by the student evaluations of his or her teaching. One approach to such a situation would be to say, “I’m just not a good teacher, so of course my evaluations are not very good. They should find someone else to teach this course.”

 

A more helpful approach would be to study the student evaluations to determine the source of the poor evaluations. Do students feel that the teaching is not tailored to their level of understanding? Do they feel that a more interactive approach would be helpful? Could a more senior faculty member with a strong track record as an educator sit in on a session or two and provide a constructive critique? What plan could the junior faculty member develop to improve the quality of his or her teaching? By shifting the focus to internal factors over which learners have control, they are empowered to make improvements.

Mistakes and Failure

There is a difference between recognizing mistakes and labeling yourself a failure. In a sense, mistakes should be welcomed, because people who never make mistakes have ceased to innovate and learn. Rightly approached, mistakes are learning opportunities that constitute the stepping-stones to success. By contrast, labeling oneself a failure proves psychologically damaging and professionally debilitating. People who believe that they lack ability, that the tasks they face are too difficult, or that they have no control over the course of events in their lives are much more likely to consider themselves failures than people who interpret setbacks in terms of correctable deficits of understanding or effort (8). Perseverance, not genius, is the more characteristic trait of successful people. In one of the most famous and briefest commencement addresses ever delivered, Winston Churchill encapsulated this lesson as follows: “Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.”

 

Many medical students and radiology residents are accustomed to success, which sometimes leaves them at a loss when they are confronted by disappointment. In reflecting on their own level of perseverance, learners must appreciate the difference between the mule and the fox. When the mule tries something and fails, he tries the exact same approach again, only harder. By contrast, when the fox makes a mistake, he too does not give up, but instead of simply repeating the same unsuccessful approach, he tries something different.

 

When Churchill said, “Never give in,” he did not mean that people should never learn or change, bullheadedly banging their heads against a wall until either the wall or their head gives way. He meant that, in attempting to achieve their most important goals, people should bring into play all the experience and ingenuity at their disposal, trying out new and different approaches until they find something that works.

 

In medical education, many of our evaluation rubrics tend to discourage this innovative attitude. Most written tests, for example, tend to encourage conformity, the view that there is only one right answer and every other response is incorrect. Memorization and recall are what we reward. Not only does this tend to discourage the skepticism and creativity upon which future innovation in our field will depend, it can also undermine learners’ future abilities to respond effectively to setbacks. Perhaps not coincidentally, as a student, Churchill graduated at the bottom of his class, in part because he felt that he was being forced into a mold that did not fit him. This world-class writer, artist, and statesman, who won the Nobel Prize for literature and became one of the greatest political leaders of the 20th century, spent most of his youth on the verge of flunking out of school. While we would not want to encourage our medical students and residents to perform poorly on conventional measures of learning achievement, we should bear in mind the importance of encouraging learners to treat setbacks as opportunities and not as a sign that they do not have what it takes.

Caution and Risk Taking

To say that successful people tend to take risks, or that unsuccessful people tend to shy away from them, captures only part of the truth. There are two ways to win a competition. One is by choosing opponents whom one can easily defeat. In choosing this path, people indicate that winning is more important to them than learning to perform at their best (9). By contrast, other people seek to expand and strengthen their capabilities. They are less interested in merely winning than in raising their level of performance. In some cases, such people also have an interest in the performance level of others and seek to help them do their best as well. Comfort and fear of disappointment or defeat can become enemies of human achievement if they undermine one’s willingness to take risks and push oneself and others to higher levels of performance.

 

What risks could learners such as radiology residents possibly take? The following is a short list: Find a problem in radiology’s knowledge base and develop a research project to study it. Develop a lecture or interactive instructional module to teach a fundamental facet of radiology to medical students. Take an evening course in art history, philosophy, or leadership. Write a two-page critique of the radiology residency program. Interview each of the residents or faculty members in the program and compose one-paragraph biographic sketches for distribution throughout the department. Spend a month helping to deliver health care in a foreign country. While such experiences would likely prove worthwhile in their own right, they would also help residents begin to think in broader terms about their mission as learners and foster the ability to look at radiology in new ways.

Individual and Group Learning

Some of the best contexts for learning defy our conventional practices and expectations. For example, our testing and evaluation rubrics focus at the level of individual achievement, implicitly encouraging an individualistic approach to learning. In fact, however, learning in groups sometimes proves a more effective approach. Consider, for example, the study groups that many residents create to prepare for the board examinations. What can we learn from such learner-generated learning environments?

 

1. The rosters of such groups are flexible rather than fixed, allowing members to come and go as they see fit and develop their own ad hoc rules for learning (10).

 

2. Because such groups are small, they are better able to tailor learning tasks to the knowledge level of each of the members, creating a more efficient learning environment.

 

3. The groups turn the typically individualistic focus of medical education on its head and assign learning tasks at the group level, thereby encouraging cooperation and mutual edification.

 

4. The groups provide truly substantive evaluations of what each member does and does not know, and they do so on a regular basis, rather than merely issuing a “report card” at the end of a few months or a year.

 

5. The goal of the groups is not to sort and rank learners but to provide every member of the group an opportunity to learn.

 

6. When the groups identify and correct mistakes, they do so in order to improve each member’s understanding and not to determine who is the best.

 

7. The groups ensure that learners are active participants who assume responsibility for their own learning

and that of other members as well.

In order to achieve something, it is vitally important to clearly understand what one is trying to do. Learners who aim merely to avoid mistakes have sold themselves short. In such circumstances, learning becomes a byproduct of some other pursuit and is likely to be less efficient and less effective. The best learners are the ones who seek out challenges and continue to question and grow throughout their careers. Just as learners need to understand what they are about in order to do their best, the directors of educational programs need a clear vision of what they are trying to accomplish. By looking beyond the most immediate and easily measured parameters of performance and adopting a larger perspective that encompasses nonradiologic and even nonmedical elements in success and failure, radiology education programs can better prepare their learners to realize their full potential

Read More