Everyone wants to be successful. When one hears the word “success” the focus is generally toward “career” success. However, personal or life success, such as with your health and relationships, is also important.
 
Success is about setting goals, blueprinting your vision, and then adding action to the mix.   
 
So what are the four strategies that can help you be successful?
 
Set Goals
It is vital that you set yourself goals for your personal and professional lives. These will provide a target to aim for. Once you've listed your goals then write down the steps you are going to take to achieve them. In other words, connect action with your goals.
                               “Inspiration without action is merely entertainment.”
                                                                                                                -Mary Morrissey
It can be helpful to find an accountability partner, mentor or coach who can help and support you.
 
Remember That Your Personal and Professional Lives Are Inter-dependent
You may think that your career goals are totally separate from your personal goals. However, they are inter-dependent. Your career relies on your well-being, and impacts your relationships, health and happiness. Same holds true for your happiness, relationships and health being affected by your career. If you're not happy at work or doing a job you love then it will have an impact on your emotional and physical well-being, as well as affecting other areas of your personal life.
 
To be successful in one area you need to create success in other areas as well.
Start to look at the big picture.  It can be helpful to take the “30,000 foot view.”  View your overall situation from the vantage point of a bird flying overhead. This will help you "see" the big picture.
 
Find Your Passion and Purpose
If your personal and professional lives are interdependent, then to be successful in them you will need to discover your passion and purpose. By discovering these you will create determination to succeed, enhance your creativity, spark inspiration and be able to harness the power of flow in your activities.
 
Ask yourself what you really want to do with your life. What do you want your legacy to be? What would you love?
 
Don't Focus on the Money
​While many people consider amassing wealth to be a sign of success, that should not be your end goal or sole success indicator.
 
Instead focus on your emotions, lifestyle and well-being. What will your life look and feel like when you have successfully achieved your goals? How will your family and friends feel? Why not create a vision board with words, quotes and pictures showing your life as a success?  Our mind can be a powerful tool in bringing forth what we desire.  Picture what success will look for you.  What type of person will you become?
 
With your success, how will you be making an impact in your company and in the wider community? What will your weeks look like? Think about work/life balance and the effect on your family and relationships with friends. How will your new role or business affect your life, health and happiness?
 
While success can mean different things to different people, one thing all definitions have in common is that success is measured by achieving goals that make you feel positive emotions, for example, happiness and a sense of achievement. You will find the greatest success comes when you use your passions to create your goals in life and work.

Email me if you would like to be alerted to when the next Vision Workshop will be. They're a great way to get the "blueprint" of your life in motion.
One last strategy...
                                                 "Act as if your success is for certain."
                                                                                               ~ Price Pritchett 

​​People dream of living a different life than the one they are living. Perhaps it has to do with their career, or it can be something in their personal life. But, hoping and praying that changes will happen usually don’t serve as well as when you are visualizing your ideal life.

When you visualize how you want your life to go, it’s almost as though you are mapping out a plan. You don’t just visualize one aspect of that new life. You try to imagine all the steps you may need to take to get where you want to be. It gives you a foundation for something to strive for.

It also sets up your brain to redefine your neural pathways. When this happens, you increase the chance of accomplishing your new life.

Pretty cool!  Our brains like “blueprints” and images, so get creative!

It’s often said that if you want to know what to do in life, focus on what you are daydreaming about. This makes sense as your daydreams are often about what you desire. For instance, if you have always wanted to start up a business, you will not only think about that in your daydreams, but you will think about exactly what kind of business you want to start. You will see yourself in the role. Same goes for other areas of your life, like your health, your relationships and your time and money freedom.

When you do daydream about your ideal life, try to write down your thoughts. This can be the start of your business plan, and you can set out to formalize it. One way to do this is to create a mind map, and anytime you imagine something, add it to that mind map.

It's easier today to visualize how you want your life to be. If you do an image search for your ideal life, you can find some good ideas that can help in your visualization. You may even find some videos on YouTube that can help you come up with ideas to further your vision.

You could try to come up with a vision board. This is similar to finding images on the web but instead, you peruse old magazines that you have or that you ask to obtain from your friends. The web is a great place for ideas but don’t overlook traditional methods. Don’t overlook the classifieds section of those magazines as this can be a great source of inspiration for ideas.

It’s important to continue to visualize the life you want. This reinforcement makes it become an integral part of your life, which means you will take the correct steps to move toward your goals.

Keep dream building and believing that anything is possible!

If you live locally (in the Rochester NY area) please join me May 25th to discover how you can better blueprint your dreams and make them become your reality!
RSVP to Ann at [email protected] to reserve your spot!
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Have a blessed day!

​We don’t always know what our life’s purpose or journey is supposed to be or we may have so many dreams we are overwhelmed with them all.  However, one thing is for sure: if we are feeling restless or discontent we are not living our dreams!  Feelings of discontent and longings for something else, even when we don’t know for sure toward what we are being drawn, are actually calls from a higher power to pursue our greater good.  We discover true desire by first noticing discontent.

Are you noticing your discontent?
 
When you experience discontent or feel restless and you’re not sure why, don’t shut it out just because you don’t know what it means.  When you shut off your yearning it becomes difficult to create something more interesting.  Bring those inner frustrations to the front of your mind for examination.  Your discontent and frustrations are nudging you toward a more meaningful existence and urging you not to settle for mediocrity.  By opening yourself up to them for examination you are allowing your discontent to lead you toward your purpose.

We grow through our challenges!
 
We also need to be aware of messages from those around us and not let others criticize us into shutting down our dreams, or even our discontent.  Restlessness is telling us there is more out there and we are not here to lead limited cramped lives.  Allow your inner voice to be louder and ring truer than anyone else’s.  We are not here to settle for less than our purpose, nor should we settle for what anyone else limits us to.  Each and every one of us has infinite potential for creating whatever it is we want to create. 
 
Dreams and desires pull at us, tug at us, speak to us, and will not leave us alone because we are not meant to live cramped lives.  Let these challenges and inner frustrations create the spark that will ignite the fire of your own purpose.  You will know when your desire is sincere when just talking about it gives you energy and incites motivation in you, even when fruition is far off.  Harness your positive energy to partake in the plan that is in store for you.  In doing so, you will be honoring your discontent and letting it lead you to your greater good.

​Besides reminding myself to "be the best version of myself" every waking moment, I also remind myself to practice these strategies to help make myself stand out from the crowd, and thus continue to grow with my self confidence. These strategies can be helpful for you to continue your journey of creating the strength and perseverance to lead the life you love living.

1. Learn to think for yourself – to stand out you must have the confidence to go ahead with your own convictions and put them into place.
2. Determine what the meaning of “standing out” means for you and then develop strategies for using them.
3. Confidence – don’t let other people sway you from your original decisions.
4. Taking a Chance – don’t be afraid to try out something new regardless of the end result. This is the only way you will know if your ideas and methods will truly work for you.
5. Think out of the box – take a proven concept and see how you could do it differently, or add a new twist to it.
6. Be Polite – standing out from others doesn’t mean you need to turn into a rude or obnoxious person. You can still retain your politeness while experimenting with how to stand out.
7. Follow through – ensure that you do actually follow through with what you say you will do. This might be from a business standpoint or from a personal one.
8. Take action – one of the traits of a person who likes to stand out is that of taking action. Be ready to make the first move or volunteer to try out something new whenever possible. This is a great way to get noticed.
9. Develop a style – dressing in a style that reflects your personality will also make you stand out and be noticed. Dress in a style that reflects quality even if you want to be outlandish and wear something that is really extravagant. This looks much better than dressing in a cheap way.
10. Be proud of yourself – one of the best ways to stand out is by using your body language. Stand tall and be proud of who you are. Slouching will only make you look insecure and nervous. Confident people stand tall and are looking for attention.

Use these strategies to help you discover easy ways that you can stand out from others around you. What you do in your personal life will also reflect in your business life too.
Always be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished. This will draw attention from those around you, and this in turn makes you really stand out.

Make a commitment to yourself to discover how you can become your most authentic self  by signing up for a strategy session today!