The Resource Guy

I was working with Bertrand McHenry this morning  and we were coming up with new ideas for a blog.  Specifically, he needed to pick a domain name.  We thought about things, wrote things down and inevitably got distracted.  We eventually came up with a name and purchased a domain.  But I know, with some direction, the whole process would be a little smoother.

We should have Brainstormed.

Brainstorming is a great tool for getting to the heart of your ideas.  It lets you focus on the creative side of your brain.  The process is really simple and can be adapted to come up with ideas for anything.

I use it to come up with topics for my blog.  And that is the example I’ll use today.

Let’s say you have a blog, such as www.theresourceguy.net and you need to come up with a year’s worth of categories and post topics, how would you do that?  You would Brainstorm.

Brainstorming is a process that engages your creative mind.  Don’t spell check, edit or correct your thoughts as they flow onto the paper.  This is the time to let those ideas out as quickly as possible.

First you need to gather a few things.  You need a stop watch or a timer that can be set to 2 minutes.

You’ll also need a blank sheet of paper and a pen or pencil.

You’ll need a quiet place to be with no distractions, noises, phone calls or interruptions

and finally, you’ll need about 2 minutes.

The idea is this:  You are going to write down 12 ideas for blog posts in the next two minutes.

The 12 ideas are going to be your major topics for the next year (one each a month).

When I say go, start the timer and write down whatever you think of for the next 2 minutes.

Go.

Alright, good job.  Now, lets look at that list.  You should have at least 12 topics.  If you have more, that’s great .  If you have less, you’ll be ok.

Take another blank sheet of paper and write one of your topics at the top.

We are going to do the same thing again for 2 minutes, except instead of anything that comes to mind, write down 12 ideas that pertain to this topic specifically.

Timers to two minutes – Ready?  GO!

Awesome.  Now you have 12 topics and one of those topics you’ve expanded into 12 ideas.  These ideas will be the subject of your blog posts for one month.

Now, finish it out with the other 11 topics.  When you are done, you should have around 144 ideas to write about.  They will automatically be arranged in an order that is logical and you should be able to segue between your topics easily.

If you write 144 blog posts this year and your average blog post is 300 words, you’ll have written over 42,000 words – enough to fill an entire book and enough to make you the expert on the subject.

Pick one of your topics and assign it to February and get started.  When March comes, start on the next sheet of ideas.  If you run long or have more to say about a topic, that’s fine, but blog about the new ideas too.

Let me know how brainstorming works for you and post links to your blog in the comments.

thanks and happy brainstorming

-the resource guy

The hardest part of starting something is always the first step.  The first step out the door in the morning, the first step back on to the bicycle, the first step in your new jogging shoes.  These are the tough ones.

Why is that?  What makes getting started so difficult?

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons and how to blast right past them.

First, understand that starting anything new is really doing two things.  One is starting the new thing.  Beginning something new is change.  And change is tough.

The reason why it is called change is the second thing.  You are stopping something else.  Whatever you would normally be doing is your current habit.  Chances are, you have been doing that for a while.  Ask a smoker and they’ll tell you, it is tough to change a habit.  Interrupting a habit is why change and starting something new is difficult.

If you have a set routine everyday and you want to squeeze in a workout, you might decide to get up 45 minutes earlier everyday.  Chances are, the first morning you intended to get up early and hit the gym, you slept till your normal time.  You set the alarm, you had your gym bag packed, you were ready with work cloths to change into.  What happened?

Inertia.

Inertia is the force that keeps everything moving.  Inertia keeps you on the same path you’ve been on for years.  Inertia builds on itself and gets faster and faster the longer you stay on the path.  This is great if you are on the road you want to be on.  But, if you need to make a change, inertia initially works against you.

We have to formulate a plan to overcome your inertia.  Something normal and easy probably won’t work .  We have to bust up your routine and make it easier to switch to the new one.

I have a few ideas and examples for that.

Let’s say you miss that gym appointment at 5:45 am.  That is ok, with time and change, you’ll get there.  Let’s break it down into parts.  Instead of getting up at 5:45 with the plan to be wide awake and working out by 6, let’s just interrupt the sleep cycle.  When the alarm goes off, get up and use the bathroom.  Go back to bed.  The next day, get up, bathroom, sleep on the couch.  The next day get up, bathroom, sit in car.

You need to break up the habit you currently have.  What you are doing is interrupting your current pattern.  At first, this will confuse your body.  It will not be easy.  After a week, you should be waking up at the new time automatically, if you are being true to the deal.

The next week, get up, load the car and put it in reverse.  If that’s as far as you get, great.  But, if you got this far, that is the first step.  It really is almost as easy to drive to the gym as it is to park the car and unpack everything.

I think you see the point, and I am not trying to patronize, but I think we don’t realize what a ‘simple’ change entails sometimes.  If we break it up into the smallest components, it becomes possible.  Not easy.  Possible.

If you are starting something new after work, this is tough too.  We get home from a hard day and we want to unwind in front of the tube for a bit.  Usually, that stretches out till bed time.  It didn’t use to, but as time marched on, we got worse and worse about it.  Now we are overweight and a risk to our own health.  This is a hard one to change.

We need another pattern interrupt.  It’s another easy one – stand up.  While you are unwinding from work, instead of relaxing on the couch, stand up.  Do it.  Watch tv standing up.  Whenever the tv is on and you want to watch it, be on your feet.  I guarantee two things will happen.  One, you’ll watch less tv and two, you’ll start doing stuff and moving around while the show is on.

Eventually, you won’t get home from work and plop down on the couch, you’ll just start milling about.  Then, you can use that time to work out or start your side business.  You have just broken another bad habit.  Congratulations.

Post your own pattern interrupts.  Tell me about the habit you needed to change, how you did it and what you replaced it with.  I am excited to start this adventure with you.

thanks

- the resource guy

The greatest success stories I read are usually about one person overcoming one task with a singular focus on one result.  That’s a mouthful, but let me illustrate what I mean.

Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, is a success story I’ve come across more than once.  His story would lead us to believe that he tried over and over again – around 10,000 times – to create the electric light bulb.  And the light bulb was his single purpose.

The message in the story seems to be to dedicate yourself completely to one purpose and push through until it happens.  Push until you succeed.

I recommend a different strategy.  I think Edison would as well.

Edison was an inventor.  Not just of the electric light bulb, but of all sorts of amazing things.  A quick check of the wikipedia shows that he invented all sorts of things – the telegraph, the first industrial research lab, the fluoroscope, and tons of other inventions and patents.  Edison didn’t just work on one thing, he had an entire team of people working on all sorts of things in that field.  He never completely devoted himself to the light bulb.  He devoted himself to inventing all sorts of things.

I think this is important to point out.  You can be a success in more than one area and you can be an entrepreneur and keep your day job.

The only difference is the time it will take you to get where you want to go.

To be successful at your new venture, you must practice.  If you want to build the best bulb, be prepared to make a lot of them.  It’s the same with anything.  The more time you allow yourself to practice, the more experience you will build.  Eventually, you will have those years of experience and the know-how to make your dreams a reality.

We need to realize something about juggling multiple ventures.  If you only practice part time or occasionally, it will take several years to get the same results that someone who is completely dedicated to it can get in just one year.

If you only devote one hour a day to something, it will take 8 days to make one full day.  It will take eight times as long giving one hour a day to get the same results as someone who can give a full 8 hours each day.

For the most part, this is good news.  It means that with dedication and practice you can get what you want.  It also is a little hard to hear.  It sets your expectations and your time frame back a little bit.

But, it’s also important to remember that most jobs do not take one whole year to master.  Most of your endeavors can come into existence within a year with only one or two hours a day devoted to it.  You can get into triathlon shape giving only one hour a day to that goal in less than a year.  I’ve seen it happen over and over.

Do not count yourself out of your own dreams simply because you do not have the financial resources to devote 100% of your energy to them.  Remember that you can juggle your current job with your future career.  It will take longer, but if it is what you really want, it can happen.

Very few of us are able to devote 100% of our time to one goal and most of the people who can do so because they have someone else working the day job, providing income and support.  If you have that I suggest devoting your time completely.  If you don’t, give it one to two hours per day.  You will get through it.

I have a friend who works full time and goes to school at night and online.  She started attending college when she was 18 like everyone else, but life crept in and got in the way.  She had a baby and then another; she got engaged and then separated.  When she was 26, she graduated with an associates degree.  Now that she is 30, she almost has a bachelors.  It has taken her several more years to get there than someone that could devote 100% of her time to the degree, but she still got there.

When she graduates, there is a higher paying managerial job at her current company waiting for her.

Even if you have to juggle and even if it takes a decade, do it.

Time will pass either way and when you look back 10 years from now, you can either see how far you’ve come or you can wonder why you are in the exact same spot doing the exact same thing.

-the resource guy

Being an entrepreneur is not always easy.  In fact, most of the time it takes more work than the standard 40 hour per week job.  Being an entrepreneur is a way of life.  You have to adopt the always be closing attitude to be successful in your new business.

Here are a few ideas that my friends and I use to get the right attitude when building our empires.

The first idea:

Never be too good to do a job.

No matter what it is, never be too good to take that job, just temporarily, to make it.  Are you struggling through the lean months at your current business?  Take out an ad in the paper or put one on craigslist.  Hire out your services.

While you are out there, slaving away, you’ll realize what an opportunity that is.  You get to meet new people, you get to push your main business, you get to impress everyone who wants to start their own business and be a success.  Remember that it is temporary and that you can walk away at any time.

One of my best friends is a realtor.  Not just any realtor, but a highly successful entrepreneur full of amazing ideas for making money.  He is a money making machine.  But, even he gets lean.  When he does, he takes a physical labor job, usually outfitting one of the buildings he just sold with networking and electrical cabling.  The physical work grounds him and it gives his mind a chance to wander and think of the next great idea.  It also reminds him that he doesn’t want to be stuck doing that kind of work when he’s 50, much less through the summer.

This summer, he did just that.  One month later, even with the economy down, he closed a couple of buildings and he’s back in action.

The second idea:

Always be open to new ways to make money and make your business a success.

Don’t let your pride or your amazing idea for one specific thing cloud all the other opportunities available to you.  There might be products or services that are very close to what you have in mind and offering these could make you the kind of well rounded business that a client is looking for.  Or it could take you in another direct altogether.

Another close friend of mine went to school for 10 years and got a PHD in philosophy.  He absolutely wanted to make and produce music while he taught at the university he attended.  While there wasn’t much money in producing acts in West Texas, he did find that he had all the equipment and a knack for making local commercials.  Now, he makes all the tv spots that the local radio stations use.  It more than paid for all that gear and it allows him to continue what he loves to do.  It also let him build up a relevant portfolio.

Remember to look around at related ideas and be open to them.  It never hurts to make more money or have more business.

The third idea:

You are the BOSS.

It’s your work.  It’s your life and your career.

Show up and work.  Don’t slack off.  Be the employee you’d like to hire, even if you are a one man show.  Be that guy you can count on.  If you adopt a professional attitude and take the utmost pride in your work, it will show.  People will seek you out.

The last idea:

Remember to give back.

Nothing says success like taking someone else under your wing and showing them what you’ve learned.  While teaching someone else the ropes, it gives you a chance to reflect and recall all the steps and things you’ve gone through.  Maybe you’ve forgotten something?  Maybe it’s a chance to do some housekeeping?  Or maybe it’s just an opportunity to give and feel good.

Give of your knowledge, time and money.  I know of no better way to show how successful you have become.

Good luck and amazing success to you,

- the resource guy

A lot of the posts that I’ve written have dealt more with the big picture and the attitudes necessary for success.  But, there are other more practical sides to being successful and getting what you want.

Shopping is a fun exercise for some of us, but for others, it can be daunting.  Which tv should you buy?  How much should you spend for a new computer and will it meet your needs?  My family and friends ask me these kinds of questions a lot, so I’d like to help you figure that out and get the best deal possible.

First off, what sort of computer should you buy?

This is a major question, there are lots of options and the prices range from a few hundred dollars to the thousands.  The answer is really simple.  Unless you game or do high end graphics (in that case, you know what computer you want), you want the base model.  That’s right.  For blogging, twittering, checking email, surfing the net — the base model, the cheapest one, is all anyone needs.

There are a few stores I’d recommend to get your new pc at.
If you can wait, online is the way to go:

Newegg http://www.newegg.com has great deals on laptops and desktops.  They also offer free shipping and no tax for most of the US.

Dell Deals and Dell Outlet both have good prices, but expect to pay shipping and tax.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/us/segments/bsd/smart_values?~ck=ln&c=us&cs=04&l=en&lnki=0&s=bsd

http://www.dell.com/outlet

As far as retail stores goes, the way to go is Fry’s Electronics.  They have the best selection of computers.  Get the cheapest one.  Also, take a look at Sam’s, Costco and Walmart.

Don’t spend a lot of money on your pc.  You can get a decent laptop for $500 or less.  If you wonder if it will be obsolete in two years, the answer is yes.  Same goes for the $2500 Macs.

The best electronic deals at a brick and mortar store are at two places.  Fry’s and Sam’s.

Both of these stores have a small section of returned and refurbished items.  If you need a TV or a large appliance, I recommend checking out these sections.  I know of a guy who bought a 47 inch LCD tv for under $400.  It was in perfect condition and the current model at the time (over $1700 retail).

Get a membership to Sam’s or Costco.  It will save you tons of money and more than pay for itself in the long run.

Comparison shopping:

The other side of shopping is knowing what you want specifically but searching for the best deal.  I used to use pricewatch to do that, but now I use Google Shopping.

http://www.google.com/products

It is amazing.  Just type in what you want (it helps to be specific) and it will pull up all the listings for that item.  It also includes ratings and reviews of each seller.

Another way to save some cash is Ebay.  It makes the list, but it doesn’t make it very high.  For most entreprenuers, ebay is way too time consuming.  You’ll have to watch 4 or 5 of the same item to get the best deal and you’ll have to be willing to let it go, as some of the items creep up to near retail prices.  If you are patient and do not need the item any time soon, it can be a good way to shop.

I’ve saved my favorite online marketplace for last.  Craigslist.  Craigslist is wonderful.  You can find someone selling just about anything you want, if your market is large enough.  If you want to increase your searching area, you’ll need some help.  I recommend craigspal.  It will search for items in multiple areas and give you a list that links to each one it found.  Be aware, some people that post to craigslist hate to ship items, but it is well worth checking out.

http://craigspal.com/

I hope this helps you guys in hunting for the best deal and finding what you are after.  If you have questions or other places that you like to look, please post them and we’ll all benefit.

-the resource guy

We all get stuck on the way to our goals.  It’s important to keep our sanity in the process;  it’s important to remember to relax.  This is a process and it won’t and can’t happen in one day.

Whenever we hit a brick wall or an obstacle, we have a tendency to push harder.  This is our natural reaction to an obstacle, but pushing forward will only wear us out and add stress to our lives.

We need to learn how to pause and pull back from the problem.

Remember this is your goal, it’s your life, and it’s not supposed to be stressful.  Treat it like your heart’s desire, because it is.  It’s special.

If you are stuck staring at your outline or staring at your half written blog, tell yourself that it is ok to stop.  It is ok to put it down and come back to it.

Take a break.

The best thing you can do is get your mind off of it.  Let yourself get away from the problem entirely.  Don’t think about it, don’t find excuses, just let it go.  Think and do something completely unrelated.

Your mind will let you know when it is ready and tell you exactly what it is you need to do to get back on track.

All you have to do is give it some space.  That’s it.  All your mind needs is a breather.

So, go get some food, take out the trash, clean out the garage and think about something else while your mind works in the background.

You’ll know when it’s time to come back.

My friend hit writer’s block one morning a few weeks ago.  He was super excited about writing and had made it a habit in his daily routine.  The night before he hit the block, he spent some time figuring out where he was in the process of creating his book.  He counted his words and figured out how many more chapters it would need to be perfect.

Maybe doing that put pressure on him or maybe he was just hungry, but the next morning he couldn’t find his muse, his inspiration.  He surfed the internet for an hour or so and nothing came to him.

He gave himself permission to do something else.  He went to breakfast and ran a few errands.

Before he could get home, his mind was already busy communicating the inspiration he was looking for.

It came so fast, he had to pull over and write it all down. He wrote page after page, sitting in his car.  Tuesday morning traffic zoomed by, unaware of the greatness being created.  He got home, and put it all into his book.  It was the perfect few pages that made the rest of his book possible.

Sometimes, we need to pull back just a little to keep our sanity.  And usually, it leads right around the obstacle.

Pull back the next time you get stuck.  Go do something else. Then send me your story about how you overcame your obstacle while cleaning out the garage or found the answer in the produce isle at the grocery store.

-the resource guy

A routine is a series of steps, a regular course or procedure that we do every day.  Routines are automatic.

We brush our teeth, shower and get dressed every day.

We eat 3 meals a day and sleep at night.  We go to work 5 days a week.

These are examples of our routines.  These are routines that were created over time and took a lot of enforcement, usually from our parents, to get started.

Our parents got us out of bed 5 days a week at the same time every day for years.  This taught us about the working world and it’s routines.  We’ve had twelve years of practice and possible 4 – 8 more in college working on that one routine and still, some of us are late for work.

We learned to groom and to feed ourselves at an early age also.  Our parents ate at a certain time and I bet they still do.  You might eat at about the same time, this is due to your routine.

The routines we created in our childhood years are the easiest to do.  They are already automatic.  They happen without much thought or extra energy.

Our goals and working towards them needs to be just as automatic and just as routine.

It takes 21 days to make or break a habit.  That means for 21 days, when you work on establishing a new routine, your current routine will fight you.  It will want you to do what you have been doing for the past 20, 30 or 40 years.  It will be uncomfortable, at first.  After 21 days, your body will adjust to the new routine and make it a habit.

Once it makes it a habit, it will be hard to go back to the old way and it will be easy to stay on the course you have picked out for yourself.

This is how to make that happen.

First, you need to figure out what sort of time and what time of day you can devote to your new goal.

Maybe it’s after the kids are in bed at 9:30 every night and maybe it’s only 45 minutes.  That’s ok, that’s a great start.

Next, we break it down into chunks.  We probably wouldn’t be able to make the whole 21 days in a single leap, so we cut it up into more manageable segments.

Make a commitment to think only about your goal at 9:30 pm every night for 45 minutes a day for only 4 days.

Do it for 4 days.  Anyone can commit to four days.

You might wonder what do I do every night for 45 minutes?  Think about your goal, think about achieving it and brainstorm ways to get there.  I guarantee if  you do this, you will be on to the planning stages of your goal in less than four days.

On day 5, take a look at what you have done.  Have you hashed out a plan?  Do you have an idea, a dream of where you will be once you reach your goal?  You should have a very clear picture of it in your mind at this point.

Make another commitment.  This time make it for a week.  Now, you’ll have to deal with weekends, other activities, maybe even out of town travel.  Still, keep your 45 minutes a day and try to keep the same schedule.  If you need to adjust the time, do it here, but stick to the new time.

Now, it has been 11 days.  you have put nearly 10 hours into working on nothing but your goal.  You should start to see some changes in your life.  In fact, your new goal might have spilled over from its 45 minute time frame into the rest of your day.  That is ok.  Make the phone calls and do the work you need to do on your goal.

Ten more days to make the habit permanent.  Make another week long commitment, another 7 days.

After your second full week and 18 days total, you have only 3 more days to go to make it permanent.  Here is the time to reflect on what you’ve done toward your goal.  You should know by now if your heart is into it and you really want to make this a reality in your life.  If so, the next 3 days are easy.  the next 3 days are not even on your mind.

You are already thinking about how to modify the rest of your life.

After 21 days, you have created a habit.  You have added a routine of your choosing to your life.  This is more than some people accomplish in their entire lives.  Congratulations.

Good luck with forming habits and creating routines.  I am on day 14.  What day are you on?

-the resource guy

There’s no way around it, sooner or later on the path to your goal, you will encounter defeat.

From all the material I’ve read and studied, a lot of attention is given to success and finding the true path and overcoming obstacles.  What about when you simply fail to reach your goal?

What happens when you lose all your momentum and you have to start over?  What happens when your master idea comes up doughnuts?

I think this is what separates successful people from those who are not.

It’s important to realize what a failure is.  Let’s take a look at failure.

Failure means we were not able to complete the task at hand due to poor execution or from a lack of understanding of the processes required to complete the task.  Either way, more information and more skill is needed.

The average person takes failure at face value – the proof that the little voice in the back of his mind is right.  He should go back to his day job and work a second job.  Someday he’ll get that big house and be driving that amazing car, right?  The average person dismisses all the other information that failure brings and holds on to the negative idea that failure is bad.

The first thing we need to do is stop associating failure as something that is bad or our fault.  Placing blame, feeling bad and apologizing for mistakes does nothing in the long run to get us closer to our goal.  We must stop apologizing and feeling bad for our mistakes immediately.

Everybody fails and everybody makes mistakes.

The second thing we have to do is realize that there is a lot of information in failure.  There is more to learn from a failure than from a success.

We need to listen to what the failure is telling us.  Chances are its telling you the very next thing you need to learn to get past the obstacle and on to your goal.  In failure lies the next piece of the puzzle.  Without failure, you would never know the path to success.

We have to understand that failure is an opportunity.

Failure is also proof.  It is proof that you are able to put your goals and plans into action.  It means that you are doing something different than all the other masses of people that let their dreams stagnate.  You are a person of action.  Failure is the proof of that.

What distinguishes the successful person from the average person is not that he failed, it’s what he did with that failure.  The next step is the important one.

The successful person took the failure and figured out why it happened.  He didn’t feel bad about it, apologize or let it change his overall goal.  But he did remain flexible to what the failure had to teach him.  He gained new knowledge, learned new skills and met new people to help him get closer to his goal.

As he gained these skills and learned more about his goal, the process brought the goal into even sharper focus and the desire for the result increased.  This is exactly the opposite reaction of someone who stopped at their first failure.

The successful person fails again and again.  Each time, he learns more about his goal, changes his course slightly and learns what he needs to keep going.  The goal keeps getting closer.

When the goal is finally reached, the successful person realizes that all those failures were a necessary part of achieving his goal.  He sees how he has grown as a person and become better than he was when he started.  This is the penultimate point of goals.  Personal growth.  The master designer wanted us to grow.  So, in order to achieve our goals, we have to.

Failure not only equals success, it also equals growth.

Make sure you see your obstacles for what they are and be open to new paths and opportunities for growth.

If you do, you will achieve more than just your goal, you will grow as a person.

-the resource guy

Limits are artificially imposed restrictions.  Everyone has run into their limits.  These are ideas or thoughts that tell us we need to stop, the road ends here.

If you’ve ever compromised, you’ve run into a limit.

Limits are important; they can keep us grounded to reality.  But, sometimes limits are just that – artificially imposed walls between us and our goals.  Destroying limits then becomes a useful skill.

There are several amazing stories of people who overcame their own natural limits.  Helen Keller, Anne Frank, Lance Armstrong.  The list is long and impressive, but your limit does not have to be physical and huge to make it enough to stop you.

There was a young boy who was gifted.  He was smart as could be.  The counselor called his parents and said he was reading at a high school level and doing middle school math – in the first grade.  Immediately, he was switched to honors classes and began doing very well in all subjects.  When he got to the 4th grade, he started having troubles with math.  Even through high school he couldn’t quite get the math right.  Everything else, he was still sharp and true.

He had overheard his parents one night, while he was in the 4th grade, talking about his math issues.  “It’s unfortunate, the boy just can’t do math.”  “He gets all the lousy math teachers.”

These thoughts stuck with him and were reinforced as he continued to do poorly in math and continued to blame whatever math teacher he had at the time.  Other students got it from that teacher, but that was not enough evidence to override the limiting thought that he was bad at math and that his teacher was to blame.

His SAT scores reflected that as well.  The English and writing parts were through the roof, but the math section was abysmal.  Most colleges were impressed but kept him on waiting lists due to his math weakness.

Eventually, he changed his major from a science to an art degree to avoid the heavy upper level maths.

A self limiting idea, something he overheard from his parents when was just 8 years old, was enough to change his college major and manipulate his entire future.

We must be very careful of the limits we impose or allow to be imposed on ourselves.

Getting rid of limits is pretty easy, once you understand that they are just thoughts that only reside in your head.  No one else in the entire world is thinking about your limits.

The only mind you have to change is yours.  Let me emphasize that.  The only mind you have to change is yours.

First you have to recognize a limit.  Why did you stop short?  Did something inside say it was time to stop?  Was there a rush of fear or a sensation of imminent failure?

This is the limit, but it is still a little hidden.  Take a step back and ask why is it time to stop, why am I feeling fear, what is holding me back?

Wait for the answer and take a look at the reason.  If your reason is based on old or faulty information (like the overheard conversation by an 8 year old), drop the limitation immediately.  Know that it is simply wrong.

This will take practice and the toughest part is analyzing the limit.  Once you can do that, even if you can’t find a reason for the limit, you’ll know that you can safely push past that limit every time.

Limits will no longer stand in your way.

I heard an analogy of this once.   There was a mom who was riding four wheelers with her boys and friends in the desert.  They were racing up sand dunes and down again into a valley.   Mom was not too keen on the whole four wheeler idea, but went along and stayed at the bottom of the valley most of the day.  When it was time to leave, they headed up the steep wall and out of the low area.  Mom couldn’t get up the slope.  She would run it up about half way and then stop and slide back down.  Again and again, up halfway and slide back down.

One of the other parents on the trip rode down to assist her and he noticed something about her.  When she got half way up, she clamped down on the brake as hard as she could.  She stopped all her own momentum.  She was doing this automatically, out of fear.  He pointed this out to her and the very next attempt; she stayed off the brakes and made it up to the top easily.

The limit doesn’t have to be big, but unless we are aware of it and can realize that it is completely unnecessary, we’ll keep putting on the brakes at the wrong time.  We’ll hit the brakes right before success happens.

Let go of the brakes, let go of those limiting beliefs and hit the gas.

-the resource guy

If you are anything like me, goal picking, day dreaming and planning for the future builds up a lot of excitement inside you.  This is positive, constructive energy, but it is also frenzied energy.

Frenzied energy is hard to get a handle on.  Let’s say you are getting excited about organization and specifically, you want to bring order and organization to your home.  This is an amazing goal that will help you in all other aspects of your life.  An ordered and organized house is a reflection of an organized mind.  Successful people are organizers.

With that in mind, you set out to start Saturday morning and you find the closest drawer or closet and begin hammering away.  Clothes are flying and papers are stacked into throw away and keep piles.  Old shoes in pile A, old T-Shirts in pile B.  Things are progressing, but it is tiring and the piles are not sufficient.  You start to notice this is more like spring cleaning and less like actually getting organized.  Several hours later, still in the same closet, you look around to discover you’ve only increased the mess and there’s no order in sight.

You just spent all your new found energy on one small area of your goal and didn’t get much done.  Now, tired and later in the day, you’ve lost the drive to do anymore.  Your house continues unorganized.

There is another way.

When we first get that amazing tinge of new energy, that new motivation to get something done, we need to take a step back.  We need to take a look at the goal and think.  Where is the best place to start?  Do I have all the tools I’ll need to get to my goal?  Do I have all the knowledge I’ll need to end up where I’d like to be?

If not, start there.  Make a plan and a list.  Do a little brainstorming and figure out what tools, resources and knowledge you’ll need.

If we started with a plan for organizing the house, it would have gone more like this:

Create a goal to get organized
Stop and take stock of the current situation
What does my house look like?
What part needs the most attention?
How do I want my house organized when I am finished
Create the image of the completed house in your mind – room by room
Find other examples, friends, online of your ideal living situation
Acquire the tools and information you need to get it done
Address and directions to the Goodwill
Store List
Trash bags
Organizer
New shelving unit
Cleaning supplies
Find a good starting place
Set time limits (30 minutes per room)
Start in one room
And so on…

By organizing our thoughts on our goal before beginning the goal, we spend our energy more effectively.

It’s great to be excited about your goal and it is an awesome feeling.  If you can take a step back and focus that energy, you will be much more productive and achieve your results in a shorter time span.

I wish you good luck, success and an organized closet.
-the resource guy