Tag: success

Taking Action: The cure to fear

Action cures fear. The more you do, the less you fear. Don’t spend time thinking or overthinking about a worst-case scenario of something that has not happened and is not likely to happen.

If there are major consequences to your actions, take the time to think about the best way to approach the situation. Be serious and focused, do your research, read, talk with experts, get advice. But eventually, you have to make a decision with the information at hand. At that point, give yourself grace no matter the outcome. You did everything you could and were thoughtful in your approach.

If there are NOT major consequences to your decision, stop wasting time worrying about it. Time spent worrying is time taken away from enjoying life.

Let your body lead (how to artificially produce confidence)

Act confidently to think confidently. This then feeds itself and turns into a never-ending cycle. It’s like the old adage says… Fake it until you make it.

It’s amazing what your body can trick your mind into believing. You can know what you’re talking about, but if you act meek or shy, if you don’t keep good posture, a smile on your face, or walk tall, if you have a limp handshake and don’t look people in the eyes, you’re not inspiring confidence in yourself. People around you see it and you feel it. It’s tough to get out of that cycle. People will be less likely trust you with big decisions, and if you run into the wrong people, they’ll look to take advantage of your lack of confidence.

Meanwhile, if you act confidently, speaking with purpose (loud, but not too loud; crisp; relatively quickly, but not too fast; with energy and enthusiasm, but not so much as to annoy the other person listening), keep your head up, your shoulders pulled back, look people in the eyes, you dress the part, and you genuinely sound like an expert, you’ll see much more success. People will be drawn to you.

Bottom line: act how you want to feel. Your body will lead the way.

Maturity is doing what is best for you, not necessarily what feels good

Prioritize what is important to you. Every decision you make has short-term and long-term consequences. Most of the time, if you can do what’s best for the long-term, you will eventually win. Sometimes that means delaying gratification (not doing what is fun/feels good right now). Dave Ramsey calls that maturity.

Work smarter, then work harder

Work smarter, then work harder. It takes both to become the best at your profession.

Take the 80/20 rule first. 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your effort. This is where the “work smarter” portion comes into play. If you ignore the 20 percent of the work that is getting the most results, you’ll be working tirelessly and seeing almost nothing in return. So make sure you are smart about where you are focusing your attention.

From there, you have to work harder if you want to achieve excellence. The first 80 percent of the results should come relatively easy just by doing the right things. But if you truly want to be in the top 1 percent, you’re going to have to work really hard in addition to working smart.

Make sure you are working in this order though (smarter then harder). You don’t want to work really hard and feel like you’re going to burn out because you’ve wasted all of your time and money…Once you get 80 percent of the results, you will have stabilized your income enough so you can afford to take on greater challenges.