D'uh! Winning!

A success is a success, whether it's something small or something huge.

The key to having a winning attitude in life is to experience successful situations in life.  The more small successes you experience, the more they will lead to bigger successes.
Think of how great it feels when:

You find an amazing parking spot.
You get the kids to do their chores.
You get a work project done before a deadline.
You get the best seat in a movie theater.
You make a meal the whole family loves.
You had a great workout.

These are all ways you succeed in life, there are a thousands more experiences you have daily that point to success.  You need to recognize the small successes and take note how good they make you feel, this is why a journal is so crucial in life.

Think right now of a period in your life that you consider a success.  Go ahead I'll wait....

How did you feel mentally?  Was it like you were on top of the world?

That's the feeling I want you to have when you feel you cannot accomplish something.  You must stop and think of a successful period in your life, whether big or small and take that confident feeling you had and make it present in the face of doubt.

This is the key to changing your doubtful feelings into actions that will make you grow and succeed.  Soon your mind will have created a habit that leads you from one success to the next.  Winning is a good feeling and the more you feel this, the more you gravitate towards it.  If you presently feel negative and down most of the time, your mind has the habit of feeling that way, so think success.

You will never know till you start doing it with at least one of your fears,.  Go ahead and start, you deserve a better quality of life.

Stay motivated
Shane C

10 Steps that are sure to hold you back.

Every single day it seems like we always hear what we should do to succeed in any situation.  Then we take that information and do the total opposite.
Well, I'm going to give you a small list of what to do if you want to be held back in life and NEVER succeed.  I'll use some reverse psychology, this way if you read how to fail you will do the exact opposite.  I hope!

Here's what you should do to never get ahead.

 Think your way is the only way to do things
You should know what's right, you've tried every other way and nothing works.  Just keep going the way you are.

Always be close minded to new ideas
People have no idea what they are talking about.  These new ideas are not proven, and if they are it takes to much time.

Always talk how everything is wrong
I could do so much better than the people who are controlling that company. 

When thinking of what you'd like in life, quickly tell yourself you could never do that
I can never have nice things, I don't come from money

Never read anything other than newspapers and look at pictures in magazines
Who has time to read books?

Always make sure that any ideas you get are only kept in your head.  Writing them down is pointless
If I write anything down, someone will see it and think I'm crazy.  Plus, I'll remember, I remember everything.

Why learn anything about your profession, your a natural
Everything comes to me naturally, and why would I learn anything the boss is a jerk.  They're never going to promote me.

Always be right.
Just because I am...duh!

Never ask questions
If I ask any questions people will think I'm dumb.  And I don't want to bother anyone.

Blame all short comings on your parents
My parents were poor, so they never taught me how to be good with anything.

This concludes my list.  So if you want to stay back in life, just waiting for great things to happened to you, make sure to follow the rules above.


Stay motivated
Shane C.

The journey

What is your destination?

Have you ever decided you wanted to head up to a beautiful cottage up in the mountains or deep in the woods?  If you answered "Yes!", then you know what needed to be done.  You needed directions to get to your destination and then you had to follow them.

When it comes to life, we should look at it like it's a road trip up to the cottage.  Know exactly where you are headed, and follow the directions on how to get there.  Unfortunately, we are not taught that we need a vision or a goal to strive for in life.  Most people travel around day to day not knowing exactly where they are headed in life. Their main vision is to make it Monday to Friday so they can have Saturday off and Sunday to complain about starting the week all over again.

This is how life should be lead, get a great picture in your head then figure out the direction on how to get there in life. Some visions are just getting to 5pm so we can watch T.V. Then some are bigger! Being a business owner, travelling around the world and others want to cure the sick. The person whom you become on the way towards reaching your goal will be the most rewarding part of the journey. This is where personal development comes in, reading and listening to ideas and methods on how to change your thinking and daily habits will help you take the steps that get you further in life.

There's a quote that says:
 "You can't solve problems with the same level of thinking as when you created them"-Einstein

The more you learn daily, the more you will stimulate your creativity.  Creativity is the primer that activates your mind to take action towards your goals, always seek new methods and ideas.  Ask many questions along the way.

Today or sometime later this week, search for what your major goal is.  Learn the first few steps to get there, and finally go towards that goal.
The more stops you make along the way, the slower your progress will be. There will be so many distractions along the way but it's how badly you want to get to that destination in life that determines the speed to which your reach your goal or vision.
Next time your sitting on the couch watching T.V. ask yourself "Am I getting closer to where I want to go?"
Of course you will have days where you sleep, eats junk food and waste a whole day. As long as you can admit it to yourself, and get yourself going the very next day you'll be alright.  Learning to beat the habit of procrastination can be the biggest accomplishment you make in life.

Success is a journey and not a destination, so always strive to do your best.  The rest of the world like to do things 3/4 of the way then they stop.  Not you, you will go all the way.
Stay motivated
Shane C.

Wasting time?

Are you always busy doing the wrong thing?

There is a principle called the 80-20 rule, the basics of this rule is that 20% of what is done yields 80% of the success you will see.

And this brings me to one one my biggest frustrations in the workplace.  My biggest frustration is when I observe employees spending to much time doing the wrong tasks expecting big results.

This principle goes for any aspect of your life, family, career, health and finance.  There will be 20% of what needs to be done that will bring larger results than any other task.  You may ask:
"How do I know what those tasks are?"
The answer is, it's the tasks that are more difficult to do.  The majority of people do what is easy, this is why the majority of people complain that things are unfair.  If you put your focus on doing the more difficult tasks that YOU KNOW should be done, it will be key to your success.

So getting back to the workplace, if you focus on spending several hours doing a task that is bringing no success to the company you work for, you are wasting your time.  It doesn't mean that task should not be done, it simply means take less time doing it.  It all comes down to priority, spend your time focusing on what needs to be done and spend less time on what you think should be done.

If you don't know what needs to be done you either have not listened to what is important or you can always ask. 


Stay motivated
Shane C.

Shane's happy list

I want you to know life is going to be alright.....
 
When you sit down and watch something really funny like your favorite show or movie, the laughs are the best part.  I enjoy something a little different, it's telling people about what I saw.  You know what I'm talking about, you've done it too were you quote your favorite parts of the movie. And you get super bonus points if your friend quotes and acts out the parts with you.
This is because our minds are these huge warehouses full of memories.  Sometimes, like a photo album, we need to pull it off the shelf to check out some of life's best snap shots.

I want you to come up with a list of ten things that always bring a smile to your face no matter what happens.  Make it a promise list that if your ever feeling a little down you can look at this list a smile or bust out laughing.

I'm away from home quit a bit and sometimes I can get a little lonely. I have a list and I'm going to share it with you:

1. Seeing my family when I get back
2.  Watching my puppy freak out the second I walk in the door
3.  A joke I heard Dane Cook tell about sneezing...I crack up writing that one.
4.  Getting into trouble with my cousins growing up
5.  Monkeys (see even the word is funny)

6.  A few Seinfeld quotes. "HELLLOOOOO!" The talking belly button episode
7.  Phil, from the show "Modern Family"- I just have this feeling I have some of his dumb qualities
8.  Watching AMERICA'S FUNNIEST VIDEOS with the kids
9.  Thinking of times when I laughed so hard I drooled
10. The safe feeling you get when you get back on the streets of your neighbourhood after being away from home.

When I look at this list I feel happy, I smile and laugh and know life is good.

So I dare you to come up with a list of your own.  Put in writing at the top that you must feel good when you look at this list.  Because you know that even though things may seem bad...There are things that are really good in life.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

The right place to look

Imagine you are getting ready to go out for the evening to a dinner with friends that you haven't seen in awhile.  When you get ready to leave and you pick up your car keys... BAM!... the lights go out, total power failure in your home.
This startles you and you drop your keys.  You bend down in the dark swooping your hands back and forth only to hit your keys sending them further into the darkness.  You look for a few more minutes only to get fed up and stand up.

When you stand up, you look out to the street and notice the street lights are on.  Hmmm! You get a fantastic idea at this point, you run outside directly under the street light fall to your knees and start looking for your keys in the street.  Your neighbor comes walking along and calls your name asking: "What are you doing?".  You explain you lost your keys so you need to find them.  Your neighbor being the good person he is, offers to help you look for your keys and for many hours both of you look for the keys in the street.
At this point the story is over..

You may be wondering why would two idiots would be looking outside for a set of keys that were lost inside? You laugh, but we do this all the time.  When we have a problem on the inside of ourselves, we feel it's best to look everywhere else on the outside to get the answers.

We turn to friends, family, fortune tellers, etc.... To look for the answers why we may be feeling the way we do.  This is why if people, work, traffic are getting on our last nerve we feel everything else should change around us, we refuse to accept that we may be the problem.

You must start looking at everything inside of you such as:
Your will power
Your beliefs
Your perceptions
Your emotions
Your attitude

This is the answer to change.  Once you change the way you do things, the people and situations around you will take on totally new roles in your life.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

I wish I could take credit for the story about losing the keys but I do give thanks to Dr Wayne Dyer for providing me with it.

Get out of the dumps!

Are you fed up?  Are you depressed?  Are you always down in the dumps?  Do you sometimes get extremely happy only to bring yourself down thinking about a situation in your life from your past, present or future?

If this is happening in your life it's because you associate yourself to a time or situation in your life.

Let's look at people around you:

Do you know someone is has had a health issue or an injury for quite sometime?  Do they always talk about the illness or injury in most of their conversations?

Do you have someone in your life who always seems to be dieting, yet can't lose weight?  Have you noticed all they do is talk about their weight challenges?

Do you have someone in your life who always complains they're broke?  As soon as they get money it's spent.

This issue comes from associating themselves with the "issues" that plague their lives.  I say "they", but I could be saying "you".

You may not realize that you are associating yourself with negative things in your life, I do it sometimes without even realizing it myself.  The more you are aware of the behaviour you are doing the easier it is to correct.

Here is how the process can be corrected

1.Figure out what in your life is bringing you down to a negative place, whether a person, a past experience, a health issue, etc....

2.Separate yourself from that "issue" in your life by becoming an observer and not a victim in your mind.  This means you are not that "issue" so stop making it the dominating factor that runs your life.

3.Learn to observe when your thoughts go towards this negative "issue" in your life.  You may want to carry a notebook and a pen to document this.

4.Learn to now have focus on what you want in life, without using the "issue" in your statements.

example:
say- I am feeling healthy and I am living life to the fullest.

stop saying- As soon as I start feeling better, I will take care of my body.

It's time to make your mind aware that you are making a change.  You do this by staying focused only on what you want.  When your mind goes to that dark place, say to yourself: "There I go again thinking about it..", then immediately switch your focus.  It may take a few tries, but you will get it eventually if you stick with it...I promise.

What did you learn today?

That you are not run by a person, situation, failure from your past, etc.... You are run by your thoughts and emotions and you have the power to change, almost instantly in some cases.

Stay motivated
Shane C.