Achieving Your Goals In 2015

We all have goals in life. And almost everyone will agree – they aren’t easy to achieve. Many times, it takes a lot of effort and persistence to accomplish our goals but, once we get there, the feeling is so rewarding. It is something you are going to cherish for the rest of your life.

You probably have set some goals for 2015. Some of them are easy to accomplish, some are probably not. And while there is no magic wand that can turn your dreams into reality in a snap, you can certainly take steps to achieve your goals. There is no one-size-fits-all way to achieving your goals. It’s more about finding which one gives you more drive and motivation to succeed.

Start with this: Believe.

All dreams start the moment you believe. If you don’t believe in yourself, you won't believe that you are ever going to succeed. Having faith in yourself is probably one of the most important things you need to do in order to materialise your goals. Believe that you have the capability to do it, that no matter how hard it’s going to be, you are going to survive and be where you want to be. Because if you don’t believe in yourself, who else will?

Don’t be afraid to be afraid.

It is really okay to be afraid. You just have to overcome it. Never let your fears take control of you. Because when you do, it could prevent you from reaching your goals. There is no easy way to a goal. You are bound to fail many times. You will feel tired, bored and hopeless. But you’ve got to keep moving forward. That’s the only way to make your dreams happen.

Break it up.

Many people end up abandoning their goals because they’re so big that they don’t even know where to start. Realising your dreams can be easier when you take baby steps. Select milestones to get there and make each of those a tiny goal.

Be more patient.

Patience is a very rare quality these days, when almost everything we need can be made available in an instant. But lack of patience is one of the biggest threat to achieving your goals. But there’s no easy way to getting to the peak of the mountain. Every goal takes times and hard work. And you must definitely be patient.

Whatever goals you have set for 2015 – whether it’s losing weight and getting healthier, establishing a new business, being more productive or saving more – know that you have the power to make it happen. You just have to start believing in yourself. Believe that you are more than capable of realising your dreams and making them happen. Next, don’t be afraid to stumble and fall, and fail many times. That’s part of the journey. Failures only make success taste sweeter. And to minimise the stress and mistakes, start taking baby steps. Break your goal into smaller goals and have a clear action plan to achieve them. Lastly, and most importantly, be patient. Remind yourself that you are endowed with the abilities to reach your goal and, in the right time, you will surely make it. May your dreams come true this 2015.

http://blog.naturaltherapyforall.com/2015/01/05/achieving-your-goals-this-2015/

The Real Person's Guide To Finding Your Passion And Loving What You Do

By Moe Kittaneh

CFO & Co-Founder of One Mail Group, Founder of SVELTA Skincare 

Every entrepreneur and hopeful business founder has likely heard the advice to do something he or she loves or can feel passionate about. 

This advice has merit, as passion about an idea or product can really help drive a person to succeed. And if you don't believe in an idea or care about its success, it's harder to rise above the inevitable challenges and this will show in the results. 

But it might not always be easy to find a fun or exciting niche that's practical for business purposes. Whether you're looking to start an enterprise or earn a living or just want to feel more passionate about a current endeavor, looking within, setting goals and shifting your perspective are helpful habits to practice. 

1. Find a niche.  

“If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” -- Bishop T.D. Jakes 

Working at something fun and interesting is what many people aspire to do. But identifying a special niche interest is a struggle for some people. Rather than focusing on turning a hobby into a business, be creative. Consider how your unique skills, quirks or interests might translate into or transform a business. 

For example, with a passion for the environment, someone could start a green consulting or marketing service. A love of exercise could be applied to personal training, fitness-related retail or corporate health consulting. 

Brainstorm about ways to improve or change a service, add an unique point of value to an existing sector or meet an unmet need and thereby prompt your creativity to flow. Having something to excel at or a unique focus can be a powerful motivator. 

2. Set goals and rewards. 

“In the long run men hit only what they aim at.”
-- Henry David Thoreau 

No matter what type of work someone does, his or her motivation can be enhanced by creating a target to shoot toward. Without setting goals, a person is simply floating around aimlessly. Pairing goals with rewards can be even more powerful. 

The ability to set both short-term and long-term goals is an important skill for anyone striving to succeed. Reaching a certain target brings a sense of accomplishment, fuels passion, stirs positive emotion and encourages the flow of new ideas and energy. 

Short-term goals should be specific and focused on what an individual wants to accomplish today or this week. They could involve making progress on a project, attaining a specific sales figure or doing customer outreach. Longer-term goals should be fixed on the big picture over the months and years ahead: They might include a plan for growth, developing a product or reaching another benchmark. 

Setting sales, customer service and productivity goals is often helpful in inspiring the passion for someone to work through day-to-day tasks. 

Knowing what to strive for and having a reward in sight can make work feel all the more exciting. Every task does not necessarily need a reward.

Try making the achievements fun. Keep short-term goals realistic and ensure accountability if that helps inspire motivation. Make it a game. For example, try to “level up” by achieving a goal that unlocks a specific reward. Short-term goals could be tied to a favorite dinner or activity, while bigger achievements might be recognized with a vacation or a new gadget. Use whatever rewards drive the most motivation and gratification. 

3. Change your perspective. 

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” 
-- Helen Keller

Arriving at the right perspective and attitude is perhaps the most important factor in sustaining passion and enjoying an activity. Maintaining a negative view or a pessimistic outlook or remaining stuck in a rut puts a damper on motivation. These patterns can even turn a great business idea sour or simply create a toxic work environment. 

Think about what you excel at -- not what you lack, especially when first launching a new business. Focus on your end goals not all the little steps you must take to get there. 

When feeling worn down or burnt out, step outside the normal routine and set aside some time for yourself outside work. Try to see your problems from someone else’s point of view if an answer is not apparent. Or slip on those rose-colored glasses when things seem tough. 

4. Enjoy what you do. 

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
-- Steve Jobs 

Achieving goals, seeing the excitement of growth and looking at an old industry from a new perspective can help inspire a person's entrepreneurial spirit. And this makes it easier to work through the struggles of launching a company from the ground up. 

In my personal experience as an entrepreneur, focusing on finding a unique benefit, setting goals and being conscious of my perspective have proved helpful. After mixed experiences with some early endeavors, I began to realize that it's not necessarily what business you're in but how you look at it that matters. 

Take my business, in the mattress industry, for example. Though I was not sure about what to expect initially, I eventually discovered my passion after deciding to put an early company of mine, a retail mattress business, online. My colleagues and I focused on developing beds with unique, niche benefits and worked hard to implement an ecommerce strategy in a tough industry. 

Each milestone reached can continue to offer entrepreneurial inspiration and make it easy to feel passionate about each day of work.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240303

Character Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Studies have shown that successful entrepreneurs possess these characteristics: 

1. Self-confidence 

This is that magical power of having confidence in oneself and in one’s powers and abilities. 

2. Achievement Oriented 
Results are gained by focused and sustained effort. They concentrate on achieving a specific goal, not just accomplishing a string of unrelated tasks. 

3. Risk Taker 
They realize that there is a chance of loss inherent in achieving their goals, yet they have the confidence necessary to take calculated risks to achieve their goals. 

Entrepreneurs are people who will make decisions, take action, and think that they can control their own destinies. They are often motivated by a spirit of independence which leads them to believe that their success depends on raw effort and hard work, not luck. 

So which of these three main characteristics is the most important? Believe it or not, it has to be self-confidence. Without self-confidence, nothing else is possible. If you don’t believe in your abilities, then the first challenge that arises may knock you off the path to achieving your goals. Here are a few things to keep in mind for maintaining a higher level of self-confidence. 

Positive Thinking 

Well, it all starts with a positive attitude, doesn’t it? Believing that something good will happen is the first step. Negative thinking simply is not allowed. You must truly believe that there are no circumstances strong enough to deter you from reaching your goals. Remember too, that positive thinking can be contagious. When positive thinking spreads, it can open doors to new ideas, customers, friends, etc. 

Persistent Action 

Now all of the positive thinking and believing in the world is useless if it is not applied towards a goal. You have to take action, no excuses are allowed. This action must also be persistent. Trying once and then giving up is not going to be enough. Keep at it one step at a time. If you can’t get by a certain step, then find a creative way to try again or just go around it. 

At the beginning of this article we identified a few traits that are common among successful entrepreneurs. You should be able to look ahead and see yourself where you want to be. Now just maintain a strong belief in yourself and your skills, stick with it, and don’t give up. If you can do that, you’re already half way there!

http://plrplr.com/5339/successful-entrepreneurs/

What To Do When You Have Too Many Ideas, And Not Enough Time

Image credit: Shutterstock

What do you do when you have too many ideas and not enough time? Or similarly, what about when you have too many tasks and not enough energy?

As an entrepreneur, I feel like I’ve been battling this issue for a while. There is always another opportunity to chase or a new product idea that sounds exciting. For a long time, I felt guilty about ignoring good ideas that came my way and so I kept adding more to my to-do list.

However, during a recent conversation with Travis Dommert, I learned about a new strategy for dealing with the issue of having too many ideas and projects.

It all comes down to treating your life like a rose bush.

Let me explain what Travis taught me…

Ideas are Like Rose Buds

As a rose bush grows it creates more buds than it can sustain. If you talk to an experienced gardener, they will tell you that rose bushes need to be pruned to bring out the best in both their appearance and their performance.

You see, a rose bush isn’t like a tree. It can’t grow wider and taller each year. And that means if you never trim away some of the buds, then the bush will eventually exhaust itself and die. There are only so many resources to go around. And if you really want a rose bush to flourish, then it needs to be trimmed down not just once, but each year. 

Ideas are like rose bushes: they need to be consistently pruned and trimmed down. And just like a rose bush, pruning away ideas — even if they have potential — allows the remaining ideas to fully blossom.

Just like the rose bush, we face constraints in our lives. We have a limited amount of energy and willpower to apply each day. It’s natural for new ideas and projects to come into our life — just like it’s natural for a rose bush to add new buds — but we have to prune things away before we exhaust ourselves.

In other words: new growth is natural and it’s normal for tasks and ideas to creep into your life, but full growth and optimal living requires pruning.

We All Need to Cut Good Branches

I like the rose bush analogy because it brings up something that is often lost in most conversations about productivity and simplicity: if you want to reach your full potential, you have to cut out ideas and tasks that are good, but not great.

In my experience, this is really hard to do.

If you’re building a business, maybe you have 3 product lines that are profitable. Your business might grow by 5x if you focus on all three, but which product line will grow by 500x if you put all of your energy into it?

If you’re training in the gym, there are all sorts of exercises that could make you stronger. But which two or three exercises will build a foundation of strength better than anything else?

If you’re thinking about the relationships in your life, there are dozens of people that you are connected to in some way. But which people bring energy into your life and which ones suck energy out of it?

Most rose buds could grow if they are given the chance. In other words, most buds are like a good idea: they have potential. But in order for the entire bush to flourish and live a healthy life, you have to choose the ones with the most potential and cut the rest.

The Bottom Line

Gardener and writer Elizabeth Roth says, “Roses that are left unpruned can become a tangled mess of old and new canes all competing for air and light.” 

We can say the same thing about our lives. A life left unpruned can become a twisted knot of ideas, tasks, and projects competing for your limited time and resources. If you don’t prune some of the branches from your life, the important ones will never flourish.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234140

Top Five Questions To Ask Yourself Before Starting A Business ...

Starting a business is exciting ... and scary. One of the best ways to boost the excitement and shrink the fear is by being prepared.

While it's difficult to plan for every possibility and challenge that may occur, you can get yourself on the path to success by considering these five questions before jumping in with both feet.

1. Have I set goals and do I have a plan for reaching them?

As the proverb says, "He who fails to plan, plans to fail," and this is especially true when starting a business. Without a clear idea of where you want to go and how you plan to get there, you may find yourself stumbling through the stages of starting a business and facing unwanted stress and frustration.

One of the most important steps is setting goals that outline what you want to accomplish in the short term (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, etc.), as well as over the long term (2 years, 5 years, etc.). Once you have created your goals, it's time to make sure you have a plan for your business that will guide you along the way. It's also helpful to understand your motivation for starting a business in the first place.

2. Will I be able to follow my plan without breaking any laws or regulations?

There are a number of legalities that you should consider when starting a business. Here is a list of some of the legal areas you should explore:

• Deciding on the structure of your business (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, limited liability company)
• Registering a business name
• Obtaining necessary licenses and permits
• Planning for business taxes

3. Have I fully considered the financial implications of starting a business?

Money is a major concern when you start a business, especially if you will be leaving behind a steady paycheck and if your business has significant start-up expenses.

Some business financing options to consider to ease the financial transition include starting your business on the side while continuing to work full time, working a part-time job until your business becomes established, waiting to start your business until you have saved up a financial reserve, and borrowing the necessary funds to bridge the gap.

4. Is my support network in place?

We accomplish very little in life completely autonomously, and the same is true in business. Even if you plan to be a sole proprietor, you can benefit tremendously from creating an external support system to keep you on track.

Your support network may include family, friends, colleagues, a mentor, a coach, and anyone else who can help you navigate roadblocks. When you have an effective support system in place, you will find that you have a cheerleader, consultant, moral support and even a devil's advocate when necessary.

5. Do I have what it takes to make it as a business owner?

Being a successful business owner requires a unique mix of personality and small business character traits. While there isn't a standard formula that makes one type of person more successful than another, some entrepreneur-friendly personality traits that can ease the process of getting started as a business owner include passion, drive, dedication and self-discipline. And it doesn't hurt to be an effective communicator and someone who is willing to take measured risks.

These five questions are likely to spur a few more specific to your situation. Now is the time to consider all of the possibilities ... then you can let your enthusiasm trump the fear.

http://sbinformation.about.com/od/startingabusiness/tp/questions.htm