Deep Diving Out Of Procrastination

Procrastination - we're all guilty of this. You wouldn't be human if you didn't. So just why do we procrastinate at times? Recent research has revealed that we put off things that we don't like to do. In psychobabble - task averse

When we have tasks to do that we consider unpleasant, unenjoyable, boring, frustrating, difficult or that we resent we are more likely to put these off and avoid them if possible.

This just seems to be common sense and logic so far. What else has the research uncovered? Come on Frank, get to the good stuff!

Okay, you've twisted my arm. The other thing that is important to note from the research is that the way we look at these tasks change over the life of the task. Early on, the more meaningful and purposeful the task is to what we imagine in our lives, the higher we rate that task as enjoyable. Later in the life of that same task what might make them aversive is not having them defined properly.

So, based on the above we might find ourselves needing to have different strategies to finish off the tasks that we have given ourselves!

In very plain English, imagine you have decided that you are going to lose 10Kgs by going to the gym. In the early stages, motivation is quite simple because you still have the main goal in focus. Come day 3 of getting up early for the gym... different story!

What's in it for me?

Simple. We can take this knowledge and apply it accordingly. If you need to get yourself motivated early on in a project, task or goal - make it more meaningful to your overall life goals. This should give you the kick-start that you need at that point in time.

When you find yourself beginning to look at the tasks in front of you with dread later in the project, perhaps remind yourself of what that small piece actually means to you as part of the bigger picture. Secondly, at this part of the journey - make sure that the tasks are clearly defined and structured so that there are no gray areas or uncertainty. Break down any complex task into more easily managed ones.

One Final Thought

Perception is reality.

Thinking that tasks are boring will make them boring.

Thinking that tasks are going to be hard will make them hard.

If you can change the way you look at the tasks in front of you, you will actually change your own behavior.

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Why Your Ability To Focus Is Your Personal Power

What's focus?

Easy, focus is simply your ability to put 100% of your energy, attention and effort in just ONE thing at any single moment.

Being able to focus is a power, it's your ticket to extreme productivity, peak performance and extraordinary levels of achievements.

Without focus, Usain Bolt couldn't have become the fastest human sprinter ever.

Without focus, Michael Phelps couldn't have dominated the Olympics and earned 28 medals in total.

Without focus, Kevin Hart couldn't have become the world's highest-paid comedians in 2016.

So if you also want to achieve your big audacious goals, then master your personal power of focus and use it to your advantage.

Here are the 4 key takeaways of your focus power:

#1 Prioritization

One thing successful people have in common is their ability to concentrate.

They don't multi-task but instead work on one thing at a time. With a particular goal in mind, they work through the action steps towards achieving it, one step a time.

They also tend to concentrate on the most important tasks that are high leverage and relevant to their goals instead of minor incidental ones.

If you're a business owner, then you must know how to delegate or outsource effectively so that you reserve your scared hours to focus on the major impactful ones. Prioritize your action items first and dominate the most important one first thing in the day.

#2 Visualization

Anyone can train their focus muscle as long as they are willing to reprogram their mental thinking and mindset.

However, no one can truly focus if their thoughts are occupied by negativity, fear, self-doubts and self-judgments. You have to be an optimistic because it's in the moments when you think you can that make things become possible.

Positivity is a powerful element of focus as you star to imagine what's possible for you, you activate the reticular activation system to look for clues, cues and signs of how you can accomplish things.

This visualization is a powerful weapon that's going to catapult your success and allow the subconscious mind to work in your favor.

Really want to have better focus right? Then visualize yourself being focused and productive on a regular basis until practice makes permanence.

#3 Productivity

As obvious as it sounds, your ability to focus is directly correlated to your productivity. The magical experience of flow sate can never be reached until you have laser focus of attention.

This powerful productivity technique comes into force when you are engaged in an interesting, stimulating task that requires you to be challenged to use the skills and knowledge you have, as well as to learn new ones.

While you're engaged in the task, you'll feel energized, elated and lose all sense of time Without focus, you will never get into flow.

#4 Achievement

As Napoleon Hill said, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

You must first believe that you can before you stand a chance to succeed. Whatever your goals and desires are, it is important that you set challenging yet realistic goals.

This will provide you with enough challenge to keep you motivated and interested, but not so easy that you'll become bored and lose interest. Additionally, by believing that you can achieve them, you are creating a positive mental attitude.

All in all, your focus is your personal power.

The extent to which you fully utilize it on a regular basis will determine the level of success you are able to break through. Stop multi-tasking and let's unleash your powerful focus within today!

We'd love to meet you. Why not join our FREE private Facebook Community at www.masteringsuccess.group

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Top 5 Reasons Why You're Not Living Your Dream

1. "I'm too old to make a change."

Maybe you're over 30 and settled in your career. You don't even want to think about making a move somewhere else. Besides, at this point in your life, you're supposed to be doing what you want, right?

For some reason we seem to think that we have to "act our age". But what does that mean? Where is there a definition of what it means to be a certain age?

The next time you think you're too old to make a change, think about Colonel Sanders and Wally Amos. Age is truly nothing more than a number.

2. "I need more money."

You might have dreams of owning your own business. You automatically think about all the money you'll need to do that. Just the thought of it overwhelms you and stops you in your tracks.

Using money as a reason not to change is just another excuse. Sure, it does take money to start a business. But who says we have to have all the money at once? Sometimes just the process of planning out our dreams makes what seems impossible, possible.

When you start to visualize your dreams, new opportunities open up for you. You may even find options that don't require that much money.

3. "I'm afraid to make a change."

You may have made a career move in the past and things didn't turn out like you expected. Maybe your boss didn't treat you well or you weren't challenged enough. Now you might be afraid to make the same mistake again.

Fear can take over and paralyze us. The funny thing is that most of the things we fear generally do not become a reality. When we come up with reasons why we can't make a move, we are just avoiding true happiness.

Basing your future on events that happened in the past is a sure way of stopping yourself from growing. It's best to learn from the past so that you can move forward.

4. "I don't have time to try to live my dream."

You may be so focused on your daily duties that you don't stop to think about your dreams. They might be buried deep within.

Some of us have spent so much time trying to make a living that we really don't have a life. We haven't taken the time to learn what we are passionate about.

Listen to those inner voices. Acknowledge the ideas that keep popping into your head. Make note of what you do in your spare time. Ask yourself if you would do these things even if you weren't getting paid. Or, ask if you would do them as a hobby even if you won the lottery.

5. "I don't think anyone will approve of my dream."

You've been thinking about making a change in your career. But what will people think of you? Will they believe that you can be successful? Will they be waiting for you to fail?

We often sabotage ourselves by worrying about what other people think of us. A family member, co-worker, or friend passes judgment on our dreams. All of a sudden, that's enough to stop us from moving forward.

You have the right to do what makes you happy. As long as you are not hurting anyone, including yourself, go for it. You might upset some people in the process. But, ultimately, it is your life.

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8 Daily Challenges to Quickly Turn Your Life Around

If you currently feel like your life isn’t going the way you want it to, and you’re struggling to wake up every morning, knowing that what you’ve got going for right now is not to be looked forward to, then this is for you.

Here are 8 daily challenges for yourself, in order to quickly turn your life around at 30 years old, 40 years old, it doesn’t matter how old you are.

1) Stop watching T.V

As Bill Gates once said, “T.V is not real life”. Sometimes I think that people spend more time focused on what’s going on in the fictional world of Television, rather than their own life.

It just doesn’t make sense. Sure it’s a good thing to relax and T.V has that entertainment value to which you can relax to, but when it starts to overtake your own life, that’s worrying. Life is precious. Focus on your own personal stuff that you’ve got going on, and don’t get caught up in the world of Television.

The people you’re looking at on your T.V get paid to act, and they most likely love what they do. You can’t get lost in the world with them because they’re the ones who aren’t wasting any time.


2) Never stop looking for new opportunities

Some people find a job that they’re relatively happy with, apply, go for an interview, get the job and then stop looking for anything better. Once they get themselves a job, they can’t see a reason to keep looking for others. Why would they need to? They have a job now.

But what if there’s a better, more suitable job out there, that you just haven’t spotted yet. One that you’d absolutely love, rather than just mildly enjoy. If you stop looking, you’ll never spot it.

Never stop looking for new opportunities, because that’s how you end up becoming stuck in a rut, that you just can’t get out of. There may not be any more opportunities for you if you forget to look for even a short while.


3) Become an early riser

You should know by now that becoming an early riser is a very powerful way to change your life. Going from waking up at 11am, to waking up at 5:30, is an incredible difference. 5 hours and 30 minutes to be precise. Just think how much more can be achieved in that time.

That’s enough time to start your own business or project on the side, as well as having a full time job. And if you still think it’s not, you must be tripping. There are so many people who have managed to get out of the 9-5 grind by getting up early and working on their own thing before heading to the office to do some work for somebody else.

Even if you don’t want to wake up early for that particular reason, it gives you time to workout, process your thoughts, get things ready for the day, relax a little, you name it.

No, it won’t be easy at first. Which is why I recommend you start by setting that alarm for half an hour earlier, then repeat that gradually over a few weeks, and soon you’ll be waking up earlier without even having to think twice.

4) If you know what you want, go after it

Why is it that sometimes when we see things we want, we don’t go for them? Or we don’t put in as much effort as we could be doing? I’m sure that there’s been a few times where you’ve seen something incredible, an amazing opportunity that you know you want, but you carry on walking as if it was nothing.

I’m talking about a new career, or a new relationship, some sort of unique opportunity that just shouldn’t be passed up. The reason is usually always because we’re scared. We’re scared of putting a lot of time and effort into something that just might not work out.

This is a terrible mistake. If things don’t work out, you accept it, learn from it and move on.

The negative risks involved are perceived by us to be worse than they actually are. And the possible positive outcome that you’re giving up… can you really afford to pass by it and not take a second glance?

5) Challenge yourself mentally

Mental challenges on a daily basis are important if you are to grow as a person, and in your chosen field of expertise. How do you expect your brain to ever adapt if you’re not giving it a big enough challenge that will push it in that direction.

If you have this dream job that you just can’t quite seem to get right now, don’t keep waiting until the next interview. Challenge yourself mentally on a daily basis that’ll allow you to progress your knowledge on the subject and ultimately give you better chances of succeeding with your dreams.


6) Make 5 new connections a day

You know the old saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”? Well that’s definitely the case in many circumstances, but it doesn’t matter because making new connections is just so easy.


7) Read, watch and follow motivational speakers

I don’t know if you read a lot of books from life coaches, motivational speakers and such, or watch their videos. But you should be doing so. Watching videos on YouTube is not a waste of time if their motivating you and providing you with better understandings of life.

If you’re not sure who you should be following, then check out Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Eric Thomas & Les Brown. That should get you started for now. There are plenty more to come. Watch their videos, read their books, take in their wisdom.

8) Appreciate what you’ve got before it’s gone

Lastly, appreciate what you’ve got on a daily basis, before it’s gone. Change the way you look at things. You may be sitting there, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling like you have nothing to live for, and it’s partially because you’re not realising and being appreciative of what you already have.

Family, a roof over your head, food, water, a freaking internet connection.

Change the way you look at things and be more appreciative of what you have. Don’t take things for granted and you’ll already be feeling happier… because happiness is a choice. You could be living in a bad neighbourhood on a low income, in bad shape and by yourself, but still have a peaceful and happy life.

It doesn’t matter whether you want to turn your life around at 30 years old or 50 years old, just give the above challenges a shot and make a change in your life!

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How to Conduct Your Personal Mid-Year Review

How often do you take the time out to really reflect on how you are progressing towards your goals for the year?

Now that we are at the half-way point of the year, it’s the perfect time to conduct your own personal mid-year review!


Why Conduct a Personal Mid-Year Review?

Conducting a mid-year review gives you the time and space necessary to evaluate your progress towards your goals.

Without taking the time out to reflect, how do you know whether your decisions, behaviour and actions for the first 6 months have helped you move towards where you want to go in your life?

Reflection is one of the most fundamental skill-sets of successful people.

If you are serious about creating your best life and making your dreams a reality, then you need to reflect to ensure you are making the right decisions and working towards them in the most effective and efficient way.
Benefits of Conducting a Personal Mid-Year Review

There are a tonne of benefits from conducting your own mid-year review.

Some of the major benefits include:

• Determine if your actions are progressing you towards your goals
• Determine if you are progressing at the right speed (i.e. will you reach your goal on time?)
• Determine if your goals are still relevant
• Understand the challenges you have faced and what learning’s you can make
• Identify more effective or efficient methods of achieving your goal

The more often you can conduct a personal review, the more effective you will become in your life.


I would recommend that you at least do a 6-monthly in-depth review of your goals. In fact, I encourage you to do it as often as you can. When I talk about these reviews, I’m talking about your ‘big life goals’.
Conducting Your Personal Mid-Year Review

Let me guide you through the process that I go through when I conduct my own personal reviews.

It is a process whereby I ask myself specific questions which help me understand exactly what I can do moving forward to work more effectively and efficiently towards my goals.


Get Yourself Setup

Before we get to the questions, the first thing you need to do is get yourself ready for your mid-year review. No, this doesn’t mean you have to dress up nicely and look pretty, it simply means you need to get yourself in an environment that is conducive for reflection.

So, to get setup:

Find yourself a nice, quiet environment
Have your goals and any other supporting materials with you that you can use to look over
Make sure you have something to write with

One piece of advice on the environment… try conducting your mid-year review away from your ‘normal’ working environment. This would mean getting out of the office, or away from your home and out into a park or somewhere where you can think about your life more objectively and freely.

Let’s get into it!

Question 1: Are My Goals Still Relevant?

Goals change over time. Life is full of surprises!

This is not something to be concerned about, but something to be aware of.

The first thing to do when conducting your personal mid-year review is to look over the goals that you have set and ask yourself whether they are still relevant.

How have your goals changed?

Sometimes when you originally set your goals the future is murky. It’s impossible to predict the future and to know with 100% certainty that a set of circumstances will eventuate. In-line with this, you may have had some clarity on the general direction of where you want to go, but now that you are six months into the year you have realised that there is a slight alternative that you are now working towards.

This is fine and goals are to be constantly tweaked and refined… this is all part of the process!

The key is to ensure that your goals are still linked to the things that you are passionate about.Passion creates the drive, energy and enthusiasm necessary for success.

When looking over your goals, it’s also good to remind yourself of WHY you are working towards them. Your goals and your life need meaning. Answering the question of why will reinvigorate the drive for making them a reality.


Question 2: What have I achieved?

Do you fall victim to ‘setting and forgetting’ your goals? Hopefully not now that you’re part of The Start of Happiness!

Now that you have confirmed that your goals are still relevant, the next step in the process is to reflect on what you have actually achieved.

How are you tracking towards your goals? What ‘mini-goals’ have you met or what smaller steps have you done to help you reach where you are?

Taking the time to reflect on what you have achieved will help you to determine whether your actions and progressing you towards your goals and whether you are likely to achieve them on time.

One of the best things about asking yourself this question is that it will highlight the behaviours and actions that have worked. This is super-important to being able to progress further in the back half of the year.


Question 3: What challenges have I faced?

When you are looking back over your progress for the year, it’s important that you also look at the challenges you have faced.

Very rarely can you reach your most important goals without a challenge being thrown your way.

Reflect on what these challenges have been. Why did these obstacles or challenges occur? How did you feel when they were presented? What did you do to overcome these challenges?

Resilience is a key factor in overcoming challenges. Understanding how you have faced these challenges and managed to overcome them helps you to build this resilience. It helps to embed the confidence in yourself that no matter what gets thrown your way you will be able to continue moving towards your goal.

The other thing that this question can raise is what can you do in the future to prevent these challenges from happening again?

Question 4: What have I learned?

Life is one big learning experience.

When you’re making progress towards your life goals you’re going to make a million decisions. Some good and some bad. One of the key ingredients that separates successful people is the ability to learn from their actions.

Looking back over your answers to the previous questions, now is the perfect time to ask yourself what have you learned from these experiences?

That is, what have you learned about your goals in life?

What have you learned from your achievements?

What have you learned from the challenges you have faced?

Taking the time to understand the key things that you have learned will help you get set-up perfectly for answering the next question.


Question 5: What can I do differently?

Now is when your mid-year review has its biggest impact. Your future.

Based on everything you have learned from answering the above questions, it’s time to think about the actions that you will put into place to make sure that the back half of the year is even more effective than the first half.

It’s all about continuous improvement! Never get complacent.

What habits do you need to change?

What extra support do you need?

What processes do you need to put in place to be more effective?

How will you address your next challenge?

This is a perfect opportunity for refining your goal and working on a specific strategy for the next 6 months of the year. You can start to map out the exact things you will do in this time to get you there.


Next Steps

There are 2 things you need to do first and foremost as next steps:
Set yourself a date for your next personal review
Write down 3 things that you can do immediately (or sometime today) to start building momentum in your life…. and go do them!

Your personal review should be a regular thing. If you can make it habitual then you’re well on your way to success.

I know of many people who write down their to-do lists or goals for a specific day, but how many people look at how those specific things on their to-do list help them progress towards their bigger goals in life?

The more regular you can review your progress towards your bigger, life goals, the more effective and the more speedy you will get there.

If you’re yet to create goals or want to go even a step back and start to look at the bigger picture in life (that is, understanding yourself and where exactly you want to go), then I highly recommend you check out our Launch Your Life Academy which guides you the proven process of making positive change in your life.

So, what are you waiting for?

Let’s make the next 6 months a ripper!

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