Let’s talk about success.4.

#3—Take Action

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All talk and no action makes Jack a dreamer boy.

Dreams stay as dreams if you do not wake up. The previous 2 steps were the easy parts where you only write down what your dreams and aspirations are and what are the equipments you need to assist you in attaining those goals.

Now comes the hard part—actually taking the initiative to make those changes and the starting out is always the hardest.

Wake up and tell yourself, ‘Today is going to be different, because I change my life’.

What are the things that you have written down on your To‐Do List?

Start doing them today.

Suppose to call someone? Well, pick up the phone and call now. Make small but definite changes in your life and you will be amazed at how much closer you are to your goals.

Here is a secret tip to a simple yet dramatic way of changing your life—live

healthily. The basis of success is plainly by having good health. After all, what is success if one cannot even enjoy the fruits of one’s accomplishments with a sickly body? There is no use in slogging your body and soul out if at the end of the day you are plagued with illnesses. Of course, there are those that just have bad health and just cannot help it. But if your body is in a good condition (or even if it is not), you should always make an effort to stay as healthy as possible. A healthy lifestyle is a good habit that will make it easier to achieve your goals.

For example, always wanted more time? Start waking up earlier!

We all live with 24 hours a day (unless you live on another planet), so how is it that some people are able to accomplish more than you within the same amount of time? Curb your habit of pressing the ‘snooze’ button whenever your alarm clock rings. Set a goal time for when you would want to wake up. Every subsequent week, set your alarm clock to ring 10 minutes earlier than your scheduled timing till you have finally reached your goal. Use that 10 extra minutes to read the newspaper, go out for a jog, or simply enjoy your breakfast instead of wolfing it down (or even totally forgoing it). A good sleeping cycle is important in keeping a sharp and energized mind prepared for the day’s activities.

Learn to eat healthily too. One way of doing that is to merely have proper meals at the relevant timings. Another suggestion is to have 5 to 6 smaller meals instead of the 3 big main meals. This prevents snacking in between meals. Also, try not to eat 3 hours before you sleep as the food may not be digested properly before you sleep. Studies have shown that food taken just before sleeping forces the body to use its energy on digestion instead of helping you recuperate from the day. This may make you feeling less energized when you wake up. If you do feel the urge to start snacking, try having something healthy like an apple or a handful of nuts. This is a great way of maintain of one’s figure.

One more excellent way to have good health is to exercise regularly!

The good thing about exercise is the vast array of different work outs that you can do to keep fit. From jogging to swimming or even going to the gym or just climbing up and down your stairs, there just so many ways of exercising. So decide on which exercise you would want to try and start working out.

Exercising not only keeps one fit, but it also energizes the mind. By exercising at least twice a week, it helps promotes psychological well‐being. And a keen mind is needed to fuel oneself into reaching their goals.

Turn your dreams into a reality.

Become the successful person you wish to be. All this cannot happen unless you are serious about achieving your dreams. Take risks and do not be afraid to stumble and fall.

Do not just breathe, eat, sleep, and aimlessly watch the days go by. Live life and make your life something worth living for. Be proud of the changes that you are making in your life and believe without a doubt that you are changing your life to be much better than it was before.

So start taking action. Dreams can only become reality if you dare to change.

Become a different person from the one you were yesterday.

Stop complaining about the poor circumstances you are in and your recurrent meetings with bad luck. Choices, not circumstances, determine your success. We do not have to pursue success, because once we start changing the way we live and work towards our goals, success will be attracted to us.

To be continued:

Let’s talk about success.3.

#2—Start Tidying Up Your Life

Once you finish exhausting your list, look through the list carefully once more and see whether there is anything you would like to add or cancel.

Next, start tidying up your life!

Begin by having good time management and start ranking the top 5 things that you want to accomplish within the next five years. The reason why we want only the first 5 things now and rank them in order of importance is because we need to learn how to focus on what is important. Our minds are easily distracted and thus, if we do not concentrate on a few goals at one time, we will easily ‘goal hop’. Once things do not turn out the way we expect it to be and frustration sets in, we will tend to leave that goal unaccomplished and go search for other goals.

Do not worry about the other goals as once you have completed the first few, you can look back at your list and start working towards the rest.

Write the date for five years later on top of the list and put beside it ‘deadline’, i.e.

deadline: xx/xx/2015 (since this year is 2010).

This timeline is a crucial factor in shaping your road to success as it creates a sense of urgency within you. Procrastination is and always will be a big obstacle towards becoming a successful person. Once your mind starts to think that time is not an issue, you will start to wander off the path and leave your goals unattended. By then, it will be hard to get back on track and you would have wasted more time. Thus, one way of minimizing our laziness is to set a time limit for us to accomplish our goals. Whenever we look back at Reality List, we are reminded we need to accomplish these goals by a certain date.

This also teaches you the importance of time management.

A successful person always knows how to manage their time. Time does not stop for anyone, one blink of an eye and its one year later only to find that we have been wasting our time away and have completed nothing worthy to be proud of. Keep a dairy or organizer and write down the things that you need to do if you have trouble remembering. Therefore, pace yourself and always be wary of how much time there is left. When you have good time management, you will not find yourself racing against time but instead, enjoying the rewards of your new found reality.

Look at the top 5 items on your Reality List and take another piece of paper and write down the things that you will need to take a step closer towards those goals.

This will be the ‘To‐Do List’.

These can be in terms of the time required, amount of money needed, or even new skills to be learnt. You may not be equipped with any weapons to fight a war, but to be able fight a war in the first place; you would need to know what weapons to bring and then source for them. The same rationale applies to becoming successful.

If I want to own and drive a car in five years time, what can I do to allow myself to have the capital to buy the car in the first place?

Does my salary in my current career permit me to do so or do I have to take a second job, or maybe quit and source for a new job so that I can finally own my owe car?

Or maybe you wanted to start up your own business. So write down the equipment you need to get this business going. It could be more networking contacts, capital, finding a place to lease, so on and so fore. By doing this, you will start to realize how you are going to get about getting the funds needed. For example, for the start up capital, you could start by asking for loans from your family or friends, and if that does not work out, you can try out bank loans.

Deciding on what are the relevant skills needed is vital part in reaching your goal. So think clearly and ponder upon the skills that you lack. You may not necessarily go and learn that particular skill from scratch, but rather go and outsource it to someone with that expertise. Learning how to liaise and network with people is crucial as it saves a lot of time for you to do other more important things. Remember, it is not good to be a jack of all trades, as normally you would be a master in none.

Change your attitude towards your current lifestyle. Do not be afraid of hardships as ‘no pain, no gain’. Your goals are only impossible if you do not wish to sacrifice your time and effort to achieve it. The path towards success is often filled with numerous obstacles and dangerous terrains that will impede the weak‐hearted from moving on. Failure is inevitable and the important thing is to learn from past mistakes and transforming into a better person.

For all this to happen, you have to welcome change, be open‐minded about it. If your current lifestyle is hindering you to proceed on with your dreams, then change your lifestyle. Of course it is easier said than done, thus writing what you wish to change is a good reminder for you to refer to whenever in doubt. Pin that piece of paper on the fridge, or on your bathroom mirror, just somewhere obvious.

By tidying up your life, you start to paint a clearer picture of what it is you really want and what steps you are going to take in turning that picture into a reality.

To be continued….

Lets talk about success . 2.

1—Be Ambitious

All successful people start off with this first step, which is to simply dream, and dream BIG.

Every invention, masterpiece, goal, and inspiration comes from dreaming and wanting to make a difference in their lives or the lives of others. Becoming a successful person is no exception.

So put on your dreaming caps and start dreaming today. Take some time off and find a nice quiet corner to sit at where no one will disturb you. Find a piece of paper (not scrap paper!) and begin writing down all your desires and wants, and I mean ALL. Now, let us call this the ‘Reality List’. This is purely because everything written down on that list is going to become a reality, and not stay as a ‘dream’.

Make sure that you write it down neatly (or as tidy as you can be) as you will be referring back to the ‘Reality List’ often. One major distraction in achieving your goal is to find that you simply do not know what they. It is a turnoff to try and decipher your own messy list and more often than not, people would just give up there and then. Hence, a simple solution to deal with your messy handwriting is to type the Reality List out by using a computer.

So write down what you want to achieve in the next 5 years.

What are your inspirations, things that you want to achieve for not just tomorrow, but in long term. Where do you see yourself standing when that time comes? Driving your new Ferrari car or being surrounded by a loving family living in a pretty cottage by the sea?

As someone once said, ‘If there’s a will, there’s a way’, so do not be afraid to be ambitious!

Do not let your current circumstances limit your dreams.

Circumstances can and will start change, only if you desire so. Thus, do not be mindful if some of things on your list may seem impossible or ridiculous.

Dreams are boundless and remember, so is your determination. If you really want it, it will become a reality.

Be as detailed and creative as possible and generate as many dreams as you can. Do not restrict yourself to just one piece of paper. Human beings are more than capable of accomplishing numerous goals in their lifetime.

So start pouring all your dreams unto that piece of paper!