|
|
| Cure Complacency Before It Kills |
|
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Well, before you start planning your extravagant and luxurious vacation, let me warn you that the disease of complacency is a threat to the newly successful life. We see it every day whether we know it or not. For example, if you've ever watched a game - could be basketball, football, baseball or whatever your favorite sport is - and your team is ahead. It looks like they're going to take the big 'W'. There's no doubt they are going to Win! Then it happens. They get complacent. This complacency is an easy target for the underdog team. The losing team can quickly turn the game around by taking advantage of the winning team's new laid-back style of play. Before you know it, the once winning team find themselves fighting to either stay ahead or trying to get the lead back. You see, the opposite of complacency is momentum. The losing team knows that. If you lose your momentum - or voluntarily give it up - you'll likely find yourself fighting to win. Here are three strategies that will insure you do not lose your momentum: 1. Seek and Find When you feel like you're winning go play 'Seek and Find'. What this means is go seek someone who you know is doing even better than you. Then find out what their strengths are that keeps them at the top of their game. Warning: Do not let your pride get in the way. This can be a healthy and very rewarding practice if you use it. 2. Unlock the Unused and Available There's a place in all of us that we avoid. It's not necessarily the same place in all of us, but we all have it. That place is our comfort zone. In most cases all we have to do is commit to one thing that makes us uncomfortable to start moving to another level of life that we've never known. All we have to do is master a new skill or overcome one fear to become wealthy, healthy and wide open to new life possibilities. Let me ask you a question. What is it you're not facing? What is your fear? What is it you need to master? Do NOT let it master you. 3. Put a Pebble In Your Shoe I don't mean walk around irritated all the time. No. Far from it. You should cultivate an inspiring attitude that welcomes people to you. You want to be very approachable. But that has nothing to do with the pebble in the shoe example. You may or may not decide to literally put a pebble in your shoe. But if you do, you'll create an awareness that will not let you forget - there's something in your shoe. You want to create that same kind of awareness that you must stay on top of your attitude, your life decisions, your relationships, your vision, your goals, and everything that will keep you living successfully. The key, as mentioned before, is to not grow complacent. Successful Living incorporates a lifestyle of thinking involving continual progress. If you are happy with where you are now, ask yourself this question: "What next?" Then create a plan that will move you to the next level. Life will never be the same. Blessings, Mark Thompson Speak Your Truth Copyright 2006 Mike Pniewski In addition to being an actor for the past 20+ years, I taught acting for at least 10 of those years. One of my favorite questions students would ask is, "What do they want when you go and audition?" I would usually answer, "They want you to be brilliant!" The student would press on. "Right, but how can you do that unless they tell you exactly what they want?" "What they want", I would say, "is for you to bring the character to life by giving it your truth and unique point of view." Different teachers and acting techniques have often lead young performers to focus on serving the master or serving the system instead of using those tools to best express what's magical or unique about them. No training was ever meant to create a series of cookie-cutter actors who all perform the same. Yet insecurity has lead many to hide behind the technique instead of using it as a launching pad of creativity. Like the discussion above, I would always push my students away from too much concern about the technique and have them get in the habit of breathing their own life into the work. The first book I ever read about acting was "Audition" by Michael Shurtleff. One of his basic tips for success in the audition process is "use yourself." Begin by capitalizing on your innate uniqueness and use that to create the character and bring it to life. Don't intellectualize but personalize. Find what's interesting and exciting to you about this character and build on that as you do your work. What you have to offer to any "character" you play is your most valuable asset. You may be an architect, and there are lots of architect's around, but there is only one you. There is only one architect that has your combination of training, imagination and passion. And all that comes from the most unique point of view in the business---yours. We live in a world that asks us to take constant stock of whether or not we are pleasing others. If we adjust our behavior and methods to satisfy every situation or person we meet, the real person inside us gets lost. And so does the unique truth and perspective that each of us brings to the world. Sometimes, in our rush to please others, we quickly forget what is most pleasing about ourselves. Just as I told my students, speak your truth, with your own voice. Give all of your inimitable passion and joy to everything you do. Find those ideas and topics that inspire you and go inspire others. You can rattle off lots of impressive statistics and even quote famous people, but in the end people want to hear from your soul, not just your head. Your dreams, your techniques, your success, your failures--all of it. Presented in a way that will inspire others to succeed, offering them effective solutions for their life and work. Our job, as I see it, is to become the best "we" we can be, then go out and show lots of other people how to do the same. Trust in yourself and share your extraordinary magic with the world! ------ To find out more about Mike, his powerful programs and his winning strategies for success, visit him at http://www.acttowin.com You Are The Time Time is money! Now, I have personally heard this phrase many times. What about you? Have you ever noticed though that we mostly hear this phrase when we want some time off for ourselves? We mostly hear it when we decide to leave the rat race behind for a bit and do something that we actually enjoy. What does this phrase mean anyway! Does it mean that we should devote all of our available time in some consistent pursue of making money? This is definitely the most popular interpretation! However, is it the correct one? Let us think about it for a second! Could it also mean that time is so important and valuable to us as in fact is the commodity we value the most in our lives, money? In fact, time is the most valuable commodity we shall ever have. I mean, is it possible for anything to exist, let alone money, if there is no time? The answer is no! Time is the prerequisite for everything. So, what do we do to this valuable possession we have? We spend it and waste it without a second thought. We have been taught since early childhood that we should be careful with money, that we should spend it wisely and that we should save for the rainy day. We were never taught, however, how to budget our time. At the end of the day, if we do not have enough money, then we can do something about it. We can find ways to earn some more, or we can find ways to budget the existing money we have available in a better and more efficient way. What can we do when we do not have enough time though? We can do absolutely nothing! We cannot earn more time. Twenty-four hours a day is all the time we shall ever have! The only thing we can do is to budget the hours we do have wiser. One way of doing this is by dividing our day into two smaller parts. The first part will consist of eight hours and it will represent the time we spend at work everyday. The second part will consist of the remaining sixteen hours. This part will include the time we spend commuting to and from work, the time we spend doing household chores and cooking and eating dinner, the time that we spend sleeping and the hours that we will spend in activities that we love doing and that improve and develop our body, mind and soul. This way we will have to budget for sixteen hours instead of twenty-four. We can then subtract the seven hours of sleep that we have on average. This will leave us with nine hours. Let us then subtract two more hours that we consume on average for commuting to and from work. Finally, let us subtract few more hours for household chores, shopping, cooking and having dinner. Let us say that we have the clear expanse of three hours every day to devote to ourselves and to the activities that we love. There are not enough you say? Well, do you have more available time now? Do not worry if you feel like three hours are not enough for you to do all the amazing and wonderful things you have dreamed about doing. This is only the beginning. Let us learn how to budget for three hours first, a task that is much simpler than trying to budget for twenty-four hours is it not? Soon enough, you will grow accustomed to budgeting your time and the three hour will become four, five, until you will be able to sufficiently manage the whole of your day. I am not going to tell you that it is going to be an easy thing to do. Far from it! It is going to be hard and it will require a lot of effort and sacrifice. It will all be worth it in the end though when the days spent running around like headless chicken will be all forgotten. You will have to find a balance where you will be strict enough with the programme not to let anything interfere with it, but not too strict, on the other hand, so that you do not feel like a slave to the programme. Once you put aside the three hours a day for yourself, then you have to decide how you can use those hours in the most effective way. Make a list of all the things that you would like to do and to achieve for yourself. Then prioritise the items on your list and start devoting the three hours a day to the item/s that have the highest priority for you. It sounds natural when we hear someone say that by spending 10 minutes a day training our body, we will very soon see results in our health and appearance. Yet we question when we hear someone say that by spending an hour every day to a form of mental activity, we will soon see results in the power of our mind. Why is that? Finally, do not forget the most important point of all! The key to success is attitude. Ordinarily, when we finish work we feel exhausted and drained from the day's work. We feel like we have no more energy left. However, do we feel the same when we have organised to do something special after work, something we love doing, like for example go to the theatre? No, we do not. We do not feel tired. Instead, we feel enthusiastic and energetic and we keep going non-stop until it is time to go to bed. This is the attitude that we should employ in every single one of our days. Remember to leave work back in the office. When you leave work, you should get excited for the next part of the day. Your part of the day! =============================================================================== Roula Lazari is a writer, product creator and proof reader. you can download the 1st chapter of "you Are the Time" free when you go tohttp://www.azmek.co.uk the home of free self help information. Webmasters: you can reproduce this article as long as the live link and this resource box stays intact. =============================================================================== |
|
||||