My last post was about working towards your goals, and I shared some of my thinking on the subject. Today, I want to share some of my favorite quotes on work.
"Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person."
Og Mandino
"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry D Thoreau
"The harder I work, the luckier I get."
Samuel Goldwyn
"When I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky."
Armand Hammer
This next ones are not specifically about work, but I think they are relevant anyway.
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
Ernest Hemingway
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy."
Rabindranath Tagore
"You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event - it is a habit."
Aristotle
"Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen."
Peter Marshall
And I want to close with a great quote from Bob Proctor:
"It's a strange thing, you have said it thousands of times I am sure… you will never know what you can do until you try. However the sad truth is, that most people never try anything until they know they can do it."
Bob Proctor
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Working Towards Your Goals
I wanted to offer some thoughts about goals, I think that this is the perfect time to begin working towards greater accomplishments, especially if your goals include bringing value into the world. I will post some more thoughts about goals and achievement over the next few weeks. Please feel free to comment.
In order to be successful, you need some goals to work towards.
It has been often said that a person without goals is like a ship without a rudder, you just drift from day to day.
Some of the most successful people I have ever studied insist that it is not only necessary to have goals, but also necessary to have them written down.
That is just the first step, if you never take any action towards your goals, it's a little like sitting in your car with a map, but never starting the engine, or putting the car in gear. You never get out of your driveway.
It is not necessary to know every step you are going to take to get to your goal before you get started, it is much more important to get moving, and build momentum. It is easier to change direction than it is to start moving in the first place. Start from where you are right now, and do whatever seems like it will move you in the direction of your goal. Remember the old cliche about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step. You will get much further by taking a small step every day, rather than trying to map out every step perfectly before you start.
Perfectionism is most often an obstacle on the way to achievement, and generally an excuse not to take action. While having a plan is helpful, there is no way to cover every possibility, so be flexible in your planning, and use the plan to be sure you are moving in the direction you wish to go.
It is important to be consistent, and take action every day. At first, it will seem extremely difficult, but every day gets a little easier. As you take more steps towards your goal, the level of satisfaction you feel will grow, making it easier to continue. Repeated efforts will also become habitual, so you will not require as much discipline to continue making progress.
In order to be successful, you need some goals to work towards.
It has been often said that a person without goals is like a ship without a rudder, you just drift from day to day.
Some of the most successful people I have ever studied insist that it is not only necessary to have goals, but also necessary to have them written down.
That is just the first step, if you never take any action towards your goals, it's a little like sitting in your car with a map, but never starting the engine, or putting the car in gear. You never get out of your driveway.
It is not necessary to know every step you are going to take to get to your goal before you get started, it is much more important to get moving, and build momentum. It is easier to change direction than it is to start moving in the first place. Start from where you are right now, and do whatever seems like it will move you in the direction of your goal. Remember the old cliche about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step. You will get much further by taking a small step every day, rather than trying to map out every step perfectly before you start.
Perfectionism is most often an obstacle on the way to achievement, and generally an excuse not to take action. While having a plan is helpful, there is no way to cover every possibility, so be flexible in your planning, and use the plan to be sure you are moving in the direction you wish to go.
It is important to be consistent, and take action every day. At first, it will seem extremely difficult, but every day gets a little easier. As you take more steps towards your goal, the level of satisfaction you feel will grow, making it easier to continue. Repeated efforts will also become habitual, so you will not require as much discipline to continue making progress.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Lighten Up!
Those of you who follow me on twitter (look for me under username ecdumchus) know I stopped reading or listening to the news some time ago.
I found that just taking this step made me feel much better psychologically, without the constant input of gloom and doom about the world economy. I have been reading a small local newspaper which has news which directly affects me, things like road closings, local parades and events, but nothing about the economic sky falling.
I strongly urge everyone reading this to do the same. Unplug from the gloom and doom merchants, find something that makes you feel good. Even better, find something that makes you feel good and brings value into the world. Don't worry about getting paid for what you can do as much as what kind of value you can create in the world.
People focusing on bringing value to the economic table is the quickest way to get the economy growing again. It will not happen because of government bailouts, no matter how well intentioned.
Anyway, in the interest of lightening things up, I am making a commitment to begin regularly posting to this blog again, and encourage anyone who has a positive contribution to offer, to leave comments here.
Let's brighten the world! There has been enough darkness.
I found that just taking this step made me feel much better psychologically, without the constant input of gloom and doom about the world economy. I have been reading a small local newspaper which has news which directly affects me, things like road closings, local parades and events, but nothing about the economic sky falling.
I strongly urge everyone reading this to do the same. Unplug from the gloom and doom merchants, find something that makes you feel good. Even better, find something that makes you feel good and brings value into the world. Don't worry about getting paid for what you can do as much as what kind of value you can create in the world.
People focusing on bringing value to the economic table is the quickest way to get the economy growing again. It will not happen because of government bailouts, no matter how well intentioned.
Anyway, in the interest of lightening things up, I am making a commitment to begin regularly posting to this blog again, and encourage anyone who has a positive contribution to offer, to leave comments here.
Let's brighten the world! There has been enough darkness.
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