Getting stronger

Have you ever seen someone with great muscles?

We tend to idolize their beauty, sure we tell people around us that it doesn't look nice but deep inside we wish we had those great muscles.

The one thing we often don't come to understand is that the person with muscles was once weak.  They put in work day-in and day-out, lifted weights and ate the proper foods so their body could be shaped that way.

The main point I'm trying to get across is they were once weak, through hard work they got to a point of beauty and strength that is now admired.

Every master was once a disaster.

I love that quote, I'm not sure who said it but I do know that to achieve top levels in life, you need to be weak before you can strengthen.  If you feel weak and powerless at this point in your life and you feel you can never achieve a point of success you are right!  You will only be weak till you take the first step to get stronger in whatever you choose to do.  You must work harder than the rest to be noticed and get what you want.

If you feel weak and powerless think of that person with muscles, they had to start by lifting five pounds before they could lift one hundred pounds.  Flex your mental muscles to get yourself started on what you want to become, then do it day-in and day-out.


Stay motivated
Shane C.

Sabotaging success

Here a few scenarios I would like you to read, then ask yourself if you are guilty of committing any of them.

-Are you trying to lose weight but when you feel stressed you enjoy your favorite comfort foods to bring on pleasure?

-Do you have an early morning workout, but because you love watching late night TV your to tired to train in the morning?

-Do you have a full day ahead of you that requires all your focus but you stay out all night with friends only to wake up with a fuzzy head and an upset stomach?

Are you a sad depressed person with the goal of happiness, yet when you feel down you shut the world out?

These are some common things that sabotage success.  Instead of feeling a little uncomfortable getting closer towards your goal, you choose the easy pleasures to escape the uneasy feeling that comes with what you are striving for.
Deep down you know you know these behaviors hurt your progress because you always regret doing them shortly after.  The reason we all do this is we love pleasure, and we want it NOW!  When you really think about it why would you ever want to hold out on pleasure.

A behavior that brings on instant pleasure is fine if it happens once or twice a month, it becomes more of a problem when it happens 1-2 times a week. Think about if your on a weight loss program and 2-3 times a week you eat sweets because you had a rough day at work, unfortunately this will not match up with your weight loss goal.

So what do we do about it?
Step number one is know exactly what behaviors are keeping you from success.  Sit down and write out anything you kick yourself in the butt for doing more than you would like to do.
Refuse to get to angry with yourself, just know it's become a habit and that you must stop doing it to achieve success.

How do we stop doing a habit? 
We replace it with a healthier habit, something that will preoccupy our mind and be more constructive such as:
Exercise
New hobbies
Reading
Find positive people to discuss your goals with (like minded people)
etc...

New constructive activities will turn into habits that will become pleasurable when done often.  Like your bad habits they are learned behaviors, you will learn to do them often when you stay consistent.

Write down what stressful things in your life lead you to do bad things. 
When you understand what triggers your destructive behaviors, it will become much easier to to understand why you seek instant pleasures that hold you back.

The road to success is not easy, it's a long road.  The rewards and pleasures you will enjoy once your big goals are achieved are what you have been dreaming of.  Keep up a positive attitude, knowing you can do anything you put your mind towards.  Obstacles are meant to be overcome, they are not there to stop you.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Do what others won't

The key to being a little better than the rest, is to do what the rest are to lazy to do.

This goes for everything in life such as personality, work, relationships and even what you choose to learn. Anything that will lead to something positive in life will be worth working towards.
The majority of people know exactly what they should be doing but choose to put it off for another time.

What is the best use of my time?
Always ask yourself this question?  And the key time to ask yourself this is when you find yourself being lazy.  When you figure out the best use of your time, take a small step towards what should be done.

Have a list.
Always have a list of the most important tasks that need to be done.  This list can be small chores to do daily or it can be a larger list that requires many small steps to complete.

Knowing your working towards greatness.

Always keep this in mind when your questioning if something is worth doing.  "While I'm doing something constructive, someone is being lazy."  Always know deep inside that are being proactive while "the rest" or "your competition" is at rest.

Success is not an easy journey, this is why so many people want to attain it. Success will only be rewarded to the ones who work towards it. 

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Life beliefs

Today, the topic I'll discuss is beliefs.  We all have them and they either get us ahead, but mostly they hold us back from our potential.  It's the reason why we are not getting to where we would like to be in our lives financially, emotionally, etc...  Always question your beliefs and how you've come to believe them.
In my life, I've told myself over the years I was changing my beliefs. If I told myself my sales goal was to be a certain amount of sales per month I would do everything I could try and get to that goal, except look at my beliefs. So I would write down my goal and tell myself daily I was going to reach a certain amount of sales per month. Something funny was happening though, I wasn't getting where I needed to be. I could never seem to improve on my past goals, I could see no improvement. It was a pattern, I would start off like a rocket only to go back to my old ways.
Then out of the blue, I figured out what the problem was. I was trying to get to my goal, yet my series of beliefs did not match up with my new goals.
 I had a certain set of beliefs on the following topics in my life that did not meet my goal in a positive way.
1.Self image
2.Customers
3. Products 
4.Economy
5.My industry

These are topics I must keep positive and healthy to reach my sales goals. If I have strong positive beliefs about everything except my customers guess what, no amount of wishing, visualizing or "laws of attraction" will get me closer to my goals.

Every single belief you have has you exactly were you are today. You behave, act and do things according to your beliefs. So here is what I'd like you to do, examine you beliefs and learn how you came to believe them.  Is it only an assumption?  Maybe your belief is bulit from people telling you over and over that something is the way it is.
In my industry I work with people who have the following beliefs:

-The economy is no good in this city anymore.
-Our customers don't have much money.
-Nobody wants to buy this.
-It's raining so business will be bad.
-We can't compete with the prices from up the street.

I always love showing people I'm working with that what they tend to believe is not true.  It doesn't matter which part of the country I'm in, many sales people have the exact same beliefs. When I can motivate and prove to people that their belief systems are totally fictional and only based on negative thinking they slowly change and get more excited, more competitive and their moods tends to improve. A belief can be changed in a year or as little as an hour.

Here is your call to action for today:

1. Examine strong beliefs starting in your career or business. Now ask yourself where did they come from?

2. Are your beliefs based on an assumption, something you've heard as a child or are they 100% factual.

3. Make the realization everything you believe makes you act, behave and do every move you make.

You have the power to change the bad beliefs in your life.
Stay motivated
Shane C.

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.