Tips for Success

Much has been written about how to obtain success in life, but little has been written about the behaviors that pose a threat to obtaining success. While success principles are very important, we should not ignore those behaviors which will prevent success from happening in our lives. By recognizing these behaviors, we can effectively eliminate them from our lives and focus on those behaviors which will ensure success.

1. The Desire for Instant Gratification

Those who fail to get what they want out of life are most often short-term thinkers, meaning that they base all of their decisions on what they want now, versus what they want in the future. Why do you think that lottery and gambling industries flourish? It’s because they prey on our desire for instant gratification—that of becoming rich overnight. When making a decision, focus on how that decision will impact your life in the long run, rather than focusing on the short-term benefits of that decision.

2. Greed

Greed is a dangerous behavior because it fulfills your desires, but at a cost to the lives of those people around you. The behavior of greed can be described as wanting something from others without the intention of exchanging something of like value in return. And while greed might get you what you want in the short run, it causes an imbalance of social karma within your relationships with other people and eventually that imbalance will have to be corrected and this is usually in the form of a crushing life crisis. The root cause behind greed is a grossly underdeveloped level of self-esteem, which always urns to possess and to control because it is uncomfortable accepting its own self. Combat the behavior of greed by instead trying to help others with their lives. You will find that positive things will come your way when you provide value for others instead of trying to deprive others of their value.

3. Lack of Confidence

People who lack confidence in their abilities simply get by life without ever engaging life with all their capacities. They neither take a stand, nor do they show any courage in the face of adversity. They conform to what everyone else is doing in order to be accepted by their peers. Those who do not possess the confidence to take a stand are like cows in a herd being led off to the slaughterhouse. Realize that whatever stand you take throughout your life, there will always be people who support your views and there will be people who oppose your views. You can’t please everyone in life, so please the one person who is the most important in your life—yourself.

4. Not Willing to Pay the Price

Success in life not only requires that you know what you want, but perhaps even more so, it requires that you know the sacrifices you have to make in order to reach that success. Success in any aspect of our lives comes at a price and we must pay this price in order to achieve that success. Unwillingness to pay the full price of the success that you want will assuredly prevent you from obtaining that success. In the grand scope of things, you can’t cheat your way to the top. You can’t take shortcuts and expect to create any long-term success. If you want to be an Olympic athlete, you have to do the time—you have to have the dedication and the perseverance and the drive to win. No amount of intention-manifestation will enable you to get what you want unless you are willing to give up the things that are necessary for you to obtain it.

5. Lack of Persistence

Lack of persistence is a big distinguishing behavior between those who consistently achieve success in areas of their life versus people who often fail to realize their goals. When pressure builds and problems seem to stack on top of each other, quitting is the easy way out. There is a big distinction we must make however between quitting and failing. Failing in life is a perfectly acceptable thing. We all fail at some point in our lives and chances are that we will fail yet again. But if we try our best and fail, then that is courageous and there are no regrets because we have the peace of mind of knowing that we did everything in our power to try to reach that goal. Failing is part of the journey towards success. Quitting on the other hand is much worst than failing. Quitting is not using your fullest potential to reach those goals. This is very disempowering because not only will you not reach your success, but always in the back of your mind, you will wonder if that success could have been possible had you given it one-hundred percent. As my former gymnastics mentor and 1984 Olympic gold medalist, Peter Vidmar, once said, “Getting to the Olympics was simple. I just trained when I felt like it and I trained when I didn’t.”

6. Unwillingness to Take Risks

Getting ahead in life and reaching success involves taking calculated risks. That does not mean you have to be irresponsible however. Risk taking, as it applies to success, means that you have to be willing to step outside your comfort zone so that you can effectively expand your box and grow. When I was competing as a gymnast, I used to perform acrobatic stunts that had the potential of seriously injuring myself or even killing me. But I never considered those stunts to be irresponsible risks because my knowledge, training, and competency gave me the confidence to push myself further and try things that I knew I had the ability to do. I believe that great opportunities come into our lives daily, but it’s our indecision or fear that prevents us from taking hold of those opportunities. Be willing to step outside your comfort zone and seize those opportunities when they appear.

7. Procrastination

Waiting for the perfect moment is a big killer of success in our lives. If we don’t have to do it, then chances are we won’t do it, but it’s this lack of action which erodes our chances of success early on. Realize that there will never be a perfect time to implement an action and the longer we wait to act, the less likely we are to do it. We all know how to fill up our time with busywork, but not all of us know how to prioritize those tasks that are important. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of our results will come from only 20% of the actions that we do. People who procrastinate instead focus on the other tasks that are of little importance, while delaying their action on those high-value tasks that will produce the most change in their lives. Remember the adage, “Don’t wait for tomorrow what you can do today.”

8. Unwillingness to Learn from Past Mistakes

Failures and mistakes are a natural part of the learning process and a crucial part in building any real success for yourself, but you must be willing to extract the lessons from each failure and apply it towards your future in order for it to be effective. Those people who ignore the lessons to be learned in their failures are doomed to fail again, and again, and again throughout their lives. Successful people, on the other hand, not only learn from their own mistakes, but they seek out other people and learn from their mistakes as well. They use history as a powerful leverage tool for their success so that they don’t have to recreate the wheel.

9. Feeding Yourself Negative Affirmations

The law of attraction states that we attract to ourselves that which mirrors our mental attitude. Negative thinkers attract negative people, things, and events into their lives. That is why negative self-talk is so dangerous and detrimental towards any success in your life. Conversely, positive thinkers attract successful people and events into their lives. Make a conscious decision to eliminate negative self-talk from your daily life and replace it with rich, positive affirmations. (Frogview)

Wish u all the best!

Cheers ~

Like Mother, like son. The Bush family has disdain for U.S. soldiers.

Why should Barbara Bush waste of her "beautiful mind" on something so irrelevant as the lives of U.S. soldiers?

Like the entire Bush clan, I don't believe Barbara Bush has a "mind", though if she does, what there is of it certainly isn't "beautiful."

I don't necessarily "hate" any person, hatred is such an ugly fixation and a breeding ground for much of the hostility in the world, but I must say the entire Bush family repulses me. In the six years of his ill-gotten presidency, George Bush has accomplished nothing more than to breakdown and destroy all that he's touch and unfortunately those of us here today will likely never escape the mayhem this administration has thrust upon us.

I could go on forever about the repugnance of George W. Bush, and positively I'm not alone in that sentiment, but what would be the point, and alas, I have studying to do.

Cheers ~

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The Misconception of Marriage

Well today, like every Saturday for the past 10 weeks, I've spent the day (9:00 – 5:00) in classes then the evening (5:00 – 11:30) in the library doing research for my Research and Writing memorandum. As I was finishing up for the night, packing up all of my research findings, I decided before closing my laptop to scroll through some blogs. I came across one entry that, as I read it, I was surprised at how similar my thoughts were to this man’s (Rob) with respect to marriage and the idea or expectation of what marriage should be; needless to say, it stirred my thought processes on the subject.

I first began to wonder how it was that most, or least the two of us, who come from opposite ends of the country, shared this almost identical misconception of marriage. Then I wondered if his conclusion was, in reality, what most marriages become.

When I was looking for a mate to share my life with, I believed that this person would be my sole mate, the person with whom I’d share my deepest darkest secrets, my dreams, my passions, as he would me. We’d side-by-side, together raise our children, we’d shop together, vacation together and enjoy all that life had to offer “together” as one unit. We’d understand each other in such a manner that others couldn’t, we wouldn’t necessarily think alike but we’d be on the same page, or at least somewhere in the same book. In the beginning it is to some degree this way, or it appears to be anyway. Rob had pretty much the same expectations and couldn’t understand how it was that his mate didn’t understand him, his way of thinking, and while they did enjoy certain mutual activities, they were really two very different people.

Rob seems to have come to some sense of understanding or acceptance though, while he and his mate do share certain things, as he puts it, “I realize that we share a lot of history, we share similar goals, we vote for the same candidates, we enjoy the same vacation destinations, we even can agree on most things,” he admittedly doesn’t truly know her and will never know the deepest most intimate parts of his mate. In his words, “I now know that she has other friends who she shares thoughts and dreams that I will never know. . . .I will never know [her] but I will know that that is OK. She is my soul mate but we remain two separate people walking down life's path with two different viewpoints and perspectives.”

I’m sure there’s significantly more to Rob’s story than would appear in this one post, but how can someone with whom you walk different/separate paths through life and you never truly know, be your sole mate?

Marriage, at least as Rob and I had envisioned it, doesn’t appear to exist. It seems many of us go into marriage with such great expectations only to come to the subtle yet crashing realization that it just isn’t that way. So where do those ideas come from? Certainly not my parents, grandparents or, from what I remember of them, my great grandparents, not from my aunts and uncles, friends, etc. Marriage to me seems to be more of a “luck of the draw” game. You choose who you believe suits you and because you’re both young, inexperienced and have an enormous amount of growing to do, you hope to grow together rather than apart and I surmise, simply wish for the best.

My final question of the evening: 10, 20, 30 years down those separate paths, when you come to the realization that this person, your supposed sole mate, isn’t, do you concede, as Rob has, to be quasi-sole mates, accepting a portion of the whole, while each share your secrets, dreams and passions with another?

Time to head home!

Cheers ~

10 Simple Things to Do to Fight Global Warming!

1 Recycle and buy minimally packaged goods as much as possible.
2 Wash clothes in cold or warm water, NOT hot.
3 Install low-flow shower heads to use less water.
4 Run the dishwater ONLY when full and DON'T use heat to dry dishes.
5 Replace standard light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs.
6 Plug air leaks in windows and doors to increase energy efficiency.
7 Replace old appliances with energy-efficient models.
8 Walk, bike, carpool or use public transportation whenever possible.
9 Adjust your thermostat - lower in winter, higher in summer.
10 Share these simple steps with friends and family and increase awareness.
Courtesy of e eNVIRONMeNTAL DeFeNSe ACTION FUND ~ www.environmentaldefense.org

Fire Rainbow

I recently saw a well publicized photo of a "fire rainbow" and thought it was amazing. Having never heard of a fire rainbow, I thought I'd do a little research and as it turns out, they're quite rare.

"A circumhorizontal arc, also known as a fire rainbow, is an optical phenomenon similar in appearance to a rainbow, caused by the refraction of light through the ice crystals in cirrus clouds. It occurs only when the sun is high in the sky, at least 58° above the horizon, and can only occur in cirrus clouds.

The phenomenon is quite rare because the ice crystals must be aligned horizontally (instead of the more typical vertical alignment) to reflect. It is often thought of as the rarest natural occurrence in the world." (Wikipedia)

Enjoy Ü

Should THIS Man Be the Next President of the United States?

Words of wisdom: “You can’t beat your enemy any more through wars. Instead you create an entire generation seeking revenge. Our opponents are going to resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have no other way.”

Should this man be president? Well it would appear that the question has already been posed.

"But he [People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive] plays down any talk of being pressured to run for political office with a typically self-effacing quip. 'No, I’ve slept with too many women, I’ve done too many drugs and I’ve been to too many parties.'" (7 Days.AE)

Lets see, we've had an actor play the role of President; numerous former Presidents have enjoyed pleasures provided by members of the opposite gender, notwithstanding their marital status (and well before our current past President); and we've had Presidents who've been avid drug users, including our current resident alcohol abuser; but hey, at least this man is "honest" about all of it. OOPS, "honesty", hmmm that may be an obstacle.

Given the presidential candidates we currently have to choose from, so what if he has slept with too many women, done too many drugs and been to too many parties? If he threw his hat in the he just might become the front runner quite quickly.



What do you think? President George T. Clooney.
It could work for me!

Gummy Bear Fun

"It’s a chandelier! It’s a bear-skin rug! It’s a … Gummi bear masterpiece? Visit the new space of Gallery Revisited between now and April 22 and see its grand reopening exhibition, Consumerism & Product #1, featuring work by YaYa Chou and Katy Bowen. Both artists are dedicated to craft-making with domestic materials, and both love color, texture, and the animal kingdom. Maybe you do too, but you’ve never slayed or splayed a bear like Chou, a 2000 CalArts MFA, has. Behold her sweet beast – 30 inches from head to tail – made of untreated Gummi bears stitched with monofilament to a canvas “skin” and around a metal cage “head” to effect the most tempting floor covering you’ve ever seen. Then look overhead and see the matching 30-inch-tall Gummi bear chandelier, a working light fixture that, after a year and a half, has yet to succumb to hungry critters, human or other. Now, that’s incredible! Weds.-Suns. noon- 6 p.m.; Tues. by appt. Free. 3204 Sunset Blvd., L.A., (626) 253-5266. Galleryrevisited.com" Courtesy of Los Angeles City Beat.

Presidential Candidates Unveiled YouTube Video Channels.

You Choose '08 ~ The official Web videos from all candidates listed on one page.

Sexism ~ Alive and Well

I read an article today that totally blew me away and I thought I’d share it. A little background. . . the article was written by a female who had witnessed another female rudely refuse to take a seat from a gentlemen on a bus who was gracious enough to offer her his. The writer of this article somehow felt that in order for a female to be an “effective” president she would have to be at least equally as insensitive.

Basically, this person believes we, the United State, should NOT have a female president because men and women “think” differently and a female would undoubtedly react to a crisis based on her emotion and compassion for the “people” involved. This female believes that in order to be an “effective” president, at least a female president, she must lose her sensitivity. This person also believes that female commander-in-chief would weaken the United States in the view of the world, even though throughout in the world there are a multitude of past and current “effective” female leaders.

The article goes further to essentially say, that it’s too bad women have to act ruthlessly in order to regain dignity. It goes on to say, a woman may be able to stand on her own two feet but shouldn’t have to; that a woman’s dignity should not be based on what she can and cannot do well but rather on the fact that she is a female; and that a “truly” strong woman would step aside and let man do man’s work and be president.

I was absolutely speechless when I read this, completely appalled. It’s people like this person who make women vulnerable, keep women below the glass ceiling, stop women from being taken seriously, etc. If this female chooses to stay home raising babies, cooking and cleaning for her husband and ironing his shirts, then that’s her choice, but don’t say that that’s woman’s role, and women be strong, step aside and let man rule.

WOW!!!

Cheers

click it!

Keeping you and your gadgets in sync with the "new" daylight saving time.

Republican Senator from Nebraska Talks of Impeachment

This is a little long but a very interesting read.

On an added note, over 30 town meetings held throughout Vermont yesterday voted on resolutions to impeach Bush while 16 towns in Vermont also passed a separate "solders home now" resolution requesting that elected officials pull troops out of Iraq. This after the Libby guilty verdicts, the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, the resignation of the director of executive offices for U.S. Attorneys and the subpoenas of yet more former U.S. Attorneys.

Yep, I'd say the Bush Regime is beginning to crumble, but will it be fast enough?

Cheers

Introduction:

So this is it, my very first entry in my very first blog and I have no idea what I’m doing at this point so bear with me, it’ll be a work in progress!

“Work in progress”, that would have been a good title for this page.

I decided to do this blog because I like to talk, discuss, debate, etc., about pretty much any topic out there; beware though, I tend to get long winded and like to write books. In fact, this blog materialize because I wrote a response to an opinion that was in excess of 650 characters (short for me) that would not be posted because the particular site limited its posts to a mere 350 character.

I’m looking forward to interacting and seeing where this takes me. So welcome aboard, I’ll do my best to keep up and I hope it’s a pleasurable ride.

Cheers

~MM~