Executive development program that give you the edge

1. Personal Peak Performance - Strategies for Success

Dedicated to your success

How to breathe life into your dreams

Getting the Feel of Success

Overcome Procrastination

Dedicated to your success

by Steve Wells

What is the key to consistent peak performance? It would have to be consistent action towards the achievement of high goals. Time and again it is action that separates the high achievers from the also-rans. But for most of us, getting into action can sometimes seem like the hardest thing of all. Motivating yourself is easy when you're fed up, in that moment when you look in the mirror and realise that life is passing you by, or that you've not become the sort of person you'd rather be. But maintaining that motivation, that intensity of drive, and turning it into persistent, consistent action, that is much harder.

According to Mike Hernacki, The Ultimate Secret To Getting Absolutely Everything You Want (in his book of this name) is to be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it. This willingness eludes most people, who settle for less than they can be because the actions required seem too hard. Don't be like them. Walk away from the majority. Be one of the few who resolve to create their lives the way they choose. Decide right now to commit yourself to achieving great things. To develop a willingness to do the things that others are not willing to do. And by doing these things consistently, you will reap rewards.

If you have trouble in the motivation department, take a look at your goals. Of all the high achievers we have known and had the privilege to work with, all have been goal-setters; though they didn't all set goals according to a formula from a self-help book. To a person, they all had something that inspired them. They nurtured a dream in their heart.

The dream makes the difference between the sort of motivation that lasts for a day or two, and the lasting inner drive that leads to greatness. This is the sort of inspiration that comes to you in a flash and sits in your heart until the day you decide to claim it and make it real. For most people though, the dream is a sleeping vision that lies unfulfilled over long periods of time, where it's continued non-realisation can lead to sadness, ill health and despair.

If you have a dream, the time to claim it is now. Forget that you don't know how. Most high achievers didn't know how they were going to get there when they set out. Never mind that you don't know the best way. There are many possible ways. Get started on one of them today. Your action will lead you to make distinctions that will empower your future decisions and ultimately take you to success.

Specific Actions for Today

Just do one thing that would indicate to you that you have decided to claim (or reclaim) your dream. Take one single action that will seal the commitment for you. You know what that is. Go do it.

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How to breathe life into your dreams

by Terry Power

The beginning of a new year is an exciting time. A time to look ahead, to plan and to dream. Kids dream, teenagers dream, adults dream - Everybody dreams. But sadly not everyone achieves their dream. All to often they are dismissed as fantasy and are aborted before they draw their first breath. The world is strewn with "still-born" dreams. How tragic. But it need not be that way. With a little care, attention and few strategies your dreams can be brought to life. Follow these tips to breathe life into your dreams:

Dream big! Don't go for daft little dreams. Go for dreams that will motivate and inspire you. Dreams that will keep you up late and get you up early. A big dream has more pulling power. Go for a dream that will give you excitement, thrill and lasting pleasure when you achieve it.

Admire beauty in your dream. Study it closely and remember its every detail. The sounds, the aromas, the tastes, the feel, remember it all. Bathe in it. Its your dream, and only you can make it real. The more you are engrossed in your dream, the more motivation it will create.

Look for the magic in, and then beyond, your dream. For magic there is. As your dream materialises admire the transformation with awe. Notice and enjoy the process, and have a true sense of gratitude. Nurture your wonderment and the magic of your dreams will bare ever more fruit.

Be open to the probabilities of your dreams. It is to easy to dismiss a dream as mere fantasy. However, to quote Carl Sanborg, "Nothing happens unless first a dream."

It is a truism that all things in life happen twice. First in the mind and then in the physical world. So create your life how you want it to be, but do it first in your dreams.

Give your dream a deadline. A goal is really just that; a dream with a deadline. Get clear on a time frame for your dream to become a reality. Give it a sense of urgency. Putting a measurable date on your dream is a message to your subconscious that you are serious about your commitment. Measurability adds power to your dream.

Write your dreams down. Dreams will remain forever dreams unless you commit them to paper. Putting them in print show true commitment, and connects with the needs of our ancient-brain to have things of value recorded. In much the same way that our ancestors painted pictures on their cave walls, your jottings declare to yourself their importance. The very act of writing inspires courage and it inspires a will to follow through.

Believe in your dream. Belief is power. Never underestimate the power of your belief. People can do the most remarkable things if only they believe, because people are remarkable. The human psyche, once stretched to a new belief, will draw all its resources and power to make that belief a reality. True belief will find a way.

The bottom line is this. Value your dreams, treat them with respect and above all act on them. Ignore the dream crushers, even those with good intent. Remember that dreams are fulfilled only through action and not planning to take action. Follow your dreams and they will come through for you.

Action Steps

Take time to rekindle your dreams tomorrow, tonight, today! What are those things that you once dreamt about? To play the piano? To fly a plane? To meet a famous person? What ever your desire, take time to dream again. Get excited about your dream, know that others have achieved theirs...NOW is the time for you to live yours!

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Getting the Feel of Success

by Steve Wells

One quality that successful people share is their ability to focus on success, and use the energy this gives them to propel them to even greater success. Elite athletes call it being “in the zone”, a state that leads them effortlessly to the goal. It’s the state that accompanies excellence – a state that has been called “flow” by Michael Csikszentmihalyi, who describes “flow”, as a state of intense concentration on the task at hand. It is in this state that genius resides, and peak performance occurs.

According to mega-successful author Mark Victor Hansen, success is creating a state of mind that allows you to do whatever you want – a success state. So how do we attain this success state? One way is to put yourself back into memories of when you performed well, and regain the feelings of success. Another way is to envisage future success and step into the picture so that you fully access how that will feel. And another is to concentrate fully on the objective that’s in front of you right now.

Step # 1. Remember Past Success When you put your successes out in front of you, you can clearly see what you did that produced them, thus making it easier to reproduce your own personal excellence. Not only that, you gain an incredible sense of confidence in your own ability, as you get back in touch with your personal resources.

Michael Jordan tells how at the crucial moment in a basketball game when he knew he was going to be called upon to sink a game-winning shot, he would immediately start to think about all the times when he had done this in the past. This gave him the confidence to consistently produce the result, even against incredible pressure and odds.

Jordan stated, “I wasn’t afraid to take a big shot in the professional ranks because I had made one when I was a snotty-nosed kid in 1982 to beat Georgetown ... Now when I get in that situation, I don’t weigh the negatives and positives and hope the positives win. I just go back to my past successes, step forward and respond.” (From the book “I’m Back: More Rare Air”)

When I read this, I thought “If it’s good enough for him, it should be good enough for me” and I immediately began constructing a list of my successes, which I still refer to now when things get tough or I am facing a difficult challenge. Then I know I have the power to face difficult situations because I have faced similar challenges in the past.

Step # 2: Envision your future success.

If you can’t see it, you can’t create it. And seeing future possibilities is the first step towards making them real.

How to do this? If you have a problem, describe how things will look and feel when you no longer have the problem. For things you want to create, begin to imagine how life will be when you have succeeded. What will your business look like when it is working well? How will you live your life and how will that feel?

Research from sports psychology has shown that mental practice can produce results equivalent to physical practice, and that mental practice combined with action produces even better results. This process applies equally to the business arena and other areas of life.

Remember, clarity of vision is absolutely crucial for your creative process to work to its full potential. Not only that, getting the feeling is vital for your achievement of the goal. If there’s no feeling, there’s likely to be no action - and therefore no achievement.

So light the fire under your dreams. Make it larger than life, and step into the picture. Experience a little bit of the feeling of success now. Then get moving and make it like you imagined it.

Actions for Today:

First: List your successes. Look closely until you can clearly identify what it was you did to produce the result in each case. See and feel the results again, realising that, as you were able to achieve this victory over a past challenge, so you will be able to be victorious over other challenges that you will confront in your life.

Next: Imagine your future success. Step inside the picture and experience the feelings. Don’t be fooled by how simple this is. This is how genius works and how things get created in the world!

Then: Make a positive step forward in the direction of your dream. Do it now!

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Overcome Procrastination

By Steve Wells

Procrastination is the thief of dreams. Many people have been defeated before they started simply because they couldn't move themselves to action. If you plan to be a peak performer, then overcoming procrastination will be one of the greatest challenges you will fight. And keep on fighting...

In it's simplest form, to procrastinate means to "put off" doing things until a later time. It is the process of delaying taking action. The ultimate consequence of delaying means that some of the things we procrastinate on may never get done. When the things we delay are uninteresting or difficult tasks, this may afford some short-term relief. But when the completion of those very tasks is integral to achieving our dreams, then the ultimate consequences of procrastination can be extremely destructive indeed. Putting things off does have a place in every peak performer's life - as long as you put off doing the right things!

Procrastination would be good for you if it led you to putting off, or delegating, or never doing unnecessary, irrational, and unimportant things. What if you procrastinated on feeling bad? "I know I should feel bad about that thing, but I think I'll do that tomorrow"! In this instance, procrastination could be an asset!

Procrastination may be your conscience, or "the voice of reason" speaking to you. Maybe it is telling you that the things you think you "should" be doing are really not that important to you, that you have other priorities in life...

Procrastination may be telling you to slow down, to delegate, to ask for help...

Procrastination, if it allowed us to spend great chunks of our time doing the things we'd rather be doing without costing us our greater goals would be our friend. More often than not, however, making friends with procrastination is like making friends with a thief. A thief that slowly steals away all the important things in our lives, costing us not just our time, but our confidence, relationships, business, and, most importantly our life energy. For when we put something off that we know we need to, have to, even want to do, then it weighs heavily, not just on our minds but on our emotions, our self esteem, and our physical bodies too.

Procrastination promises freedom and delivers bondage. For as long as we continue to put off doing the tasks we need to do to sustain our life, our well-being, our businesses and careers, and our relationships, then we remain bound up in energy-sapping self-deprecating thought fields that produce despair, dysfunction and dis-ease.

When you rid your life of these forms of procrastination, then you will be really free.

· When you decide what things are important to you - and which things aren't - then you can be sure to spend your time doing more of the things that are important in your life.

· When you decide what you want out of life - and go after it - then you will be living your life on purpose, rather than just reacting and responding to the demands which come from other people's desires for you.

· When you work on reducing your fears - of failure, success, rejection, or whatever they may be - then you can take on the full adventure that life offers, confident in the knowledge that you may drink abundantly from life's stream, that life is rich and good, and meant to be this way...

Leo Buscaglia once said "Life is too short for us to spend great chunks of our time doing things we'd rather not be doing." If there is one thing that I hope you will do as a result of this article, it is not to forever focus on the little things you put off - but the big things this could cause you to miss out on. It is to get you to re-focus on your most worthy goals, ideals, and values - and put them firmly back into your sights. And to re-evaluate your daily actions. And free up some of that heretofore lost time, so that you can spend great chunks of what time you have left on this planet doing more of the things you want to be doing. And have fun doing it!

Action Steps for Conquering Procrastination

Clarify Your Goals

You can't achieve your goals if you don't know what they are. With clarity comes power.

Define Your Values

The question to ask? What's most important to me? Ensure your values and goals are aligned.

Set Deadlines:

List all the things you will to get done and WHEN you will have them done by.

Ditch Excuses.

List all the excuses for your inaction. Now come up with a counter and "positive replacement" for each of these excuses. If you can't see a way around the obstacles, you cannot attain your goal.

Make a commitment. Commitment is nothing more than a specific sort of decision. It is one which says not just "I'd like to ...", but "I will". This is a powerful definite decision.

Cement your commitment by making it publicly. It's difficult, even downright uncomfortable at times. But it's also extremely powerful in ensuring your successful achievement of your goals.

Chunk 'impossible' goals and tasks down into achievable sub-goals and tasks. What once seemed overwhelming and unachievable will suddenly become possible and achievable.

Quit waiting for inspiration - start without it! As Ernest Newman reminds us, it's not the motivation we need, it's the action!

Try a leading task. This is a small, almost insignificant task which will lead you in the direction of your goal. Once started, it is easier to continue moving.

Reward yourself for any and all progress. The more difficult it is to get yourself to act, the stronger should be your reward when you do act.

A final word:

The point of power is in the present. Now is the time you can change your whole life. Your decisions and actions FROM NOW ON will determine your ultimate destiny. Decide to change and go for it!

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