You know what it’s like. You set yourself a goal, something you want to achieve. You are excited and ready to take on the world, and then a few months later you can’t even be bothered to spend 10 minutes working towards achieving it. Well welcome to being human! It is so easy to go from excitement to complete apathy but there are things you can do to ensure you stay motivated towards your goal and following are seven great ones!
1. Is Your Reason WHY Large Enough?
When I wanted to lose weight setting a goal to look great in clothes was not big enough, what didn’t help was the fact that I loved who I was and what I looked like, but my health had begun to show signs of being affected by my excess weight and this is the WHY I used to ensure I stayed on track. I started with 6 weeks of no diary, no wheat and red meat only once a week. Do you think I needed a big why to stay committed to such a regime??!! I knew that health is my true wealth. Having been unwell for 6 months and hardly able to walk had taught me that without my health my goals were useless. So maintaining a healthy body that would allow me to enjoy the fulfillment of my goals was the big WHY that kept me on track.
Stop and think about your reason WHY? What reason is big enough to keep you motivated at times when you want to give up and/or give in?
2. Create a visual and emotional image of what you want
Writing your goals down is an essential tool but not always enough to keep focused. Writing your goals down and having a visual image of you completing that goal adds fuel to the motivational fire. Writing goals down, having a visual image of your completed goal AND connecting this image with your emotions is the power of 3 that will ensure your motivation remains high. At any point during the day, or at any time when you are feeling in need of encouragement, you can simply stop, close your eyes, see your goal and evoke all the emotions achieving that goal holds for you. Nothing is more powerful!
3. Questions to ask before, during and after!
It is important to know not only why you are doing something but also WHAT. What achieving this goal will provide for yourself and your family. It is easy to believe that what you want is to make a million, but for many it is the lifestyle and the time freedom that this money has the potential to provide that will be the real motivation.
Spend time asking yourself questions that will help you identify what achieving your goal will provide. Questions such as:
•What will it bring me?
•What will it do for me, my family, and/or friends?
•What kind of lifestyle will I be able to have?
•What sacrifices will I need to make?
•What will be the impact on my current routine?
•What will be the impact on my family?
•What outcome do I want to achieve?
•What contributions will I be able to make
Motivation and staying motivated is easy when you know what the achievement of your goal will provide for you and we only really lose motivation when we lose sight of our goal or end result.
4. Creating a visual representation of what you want
Keep the motivational fires burning by creating a collage with the family of what your end result will look like, or paint a picture, write a poem, sing a song, or whatever creative endeavor excites you enough to complete it.
Whatever you create keep it in a place where you can see it constantly, I remember listening to someone talk about sticking a poster of making their first 100,000 on their ceiling so that as they woke up it was the first thing they saw each morning, and the last image in their mind before falling asleep.
Leave yourself reminders on your fridge door, on your bathroom mirror, in your car. The more places you are able to leave yourself little notes and reminders about what you want to achieve the better. Doing this will help your unconscious mind bring you the results you desire, whilst also supporting you in staying focused and motivated towards achieving your goal.
5.Get Support from people around you
Support from family and friends is important but also consider what other support is available to you. Books, mentoring, work colleagues, life coaching, forums – these are all things that can support you as you work towards achieving your goal. Also think about WHO can support you in staying motivated, can you buddy up with someone, do you have a boss or lecturer who will be happy to help you keep accountable.
One thing I recommend is that you tell as many people as you know about what you want to achieve, this has the effect of keeping you motivated to complete your goal because you have told so many people. However, a word of caution is needed here because it is easy for people to trample your dreams and fail to support you. You must first pick and choose carefully those people you know will want to support you, but also you must gain enough inner personal strength to be able to continue no matter what negative comments may come your way.
6.Develop Inner Personal Strength
Ultimately, the person who will determine whether you stay motivated and achieve your goal will be you. Your thoughts will determine your behavior which determines your results. Developing a strong inner personal strength about your ability to achieve and your ability to motivate yourself when you are in an unproductive state of mind is essential. Being able to see setbacks and failures as opportunities for continued growth and upset and emotional turmoil as opportunities to discover what you want and need, will determine how you view life. One of the best ways to inner personal strength is to read and listen to audios that inspire and motivate you. Continued learning is an essential part of being able to stay motivated.
7. Support from Continued Learning
If you are going to need to learn new skills to ensure you complete your goal then you it is a good idea to identify what learning you will need to undertake as early as possible. If you have planned out how you will achieve your outcome then you will already be aware of any areas where you need to strengthen your skills or out source to others who will be able to fulfill what you need.
There is nothing worse than getting halfway towards the completion of a goal and to be stopped because you are not able to complete something because of lack of knowledge and/or skills. This is a surefire way of dampening your excitement and your motivation.
Make a list of what you can and can’t do and who might be able to help you. Knowing this in advance can help you avoid getting frustrated because things aren’t getting done. If you are serious about developing your personal and professional life then I recommend getting yourself a Mentor or Life Coach, to ensure you stay on track.
You should also look at continued learning as it relates to your own personal development, continuing with your own personal development will ensure you are able to work through set backs quickly and stay motivated.
Staying motivated when you are looking to achieve your goals is essential for ultimate success. I have provided you with seven practical ways to achieve continued motivation and I recommend you use them all. Some of them such as creating a collage will be activities you perform occasionally, but others, such as continuing your personal development will be a continuous learning process. There is not one single thing that will determine your success in staying motivated but a combination of many, finding the combination that is right for you will change from goal to goal and will be an ongoing (fun filled) exploration.
You are a leader if someone is following you. This could be as simple as one person watching you and following your example and encouragement, to being a leader in your home, your community, your workplace or even your nation. Leadership can take many forms, but typically it often involves managing people- one of the most difficult of all tasks. It means coordinating and motivating the actions of others to achieve a common goal. A leader has to establish that goal, and gain the willing agreement of others to be governed by and work together towards that goal.
The style of leadership taken by any leader is usually predetermined by the personality and motivational values of that person. They are who they are, as a personality, and that has a strong influence on the way they lead and communicate with others.
The study of personality traits has been on going for centuries, and there is a great deal of agreement in the conclusions and findings of personality characteristics. In this article I am going to refer to the different types of personality in color form, adopts the categories applied by Linda Berens and Don Lowry.
Every personality type has particular talents and skills that lend themselves to good leadership. Any form of leadership however, is greatly enriched and enhanced if it is able to draw on the strengths and characteristics of the other styles.
A leader who has a strong Gold personality type is personally committed and dedicated to the goal. They work hard, and expect their team to do the same. They lead from a place of belief that the work is important, and has to be done right. Gold leaders value tradition- the ways of the past are proven ways, and so do not take well to new ideas unless they are well proven to have potential.
Leaders with a strong Blue personality are motivated by their commitment to the people involved, and a strong sense of community. They have a democratic style of management, valuing the input of employees and team workers. Blue leaders tend to see the big picture, and have the ability to inspire others with the vision.
The strong Green leadership style also sees the big picture as well as the complexity of detail. Green leaders excel in strategy. They bring intellect, ingenuity and design into the leadership role. They research and analyze facts and concepts, constantly looking for improvements for working smarter rather than harder. Facts and information are all important to the Green leader, and they pay little attention to the value of feelings and relationships.
Action is the focus of the Orange leader. Administration and organization exist to make action possible. They are great troubleshooters. The Orange leader leads by example, setting the standard to follow. Orange management style can be quite authoritarian and abrupt as they are impatient with opposition, and expect their directions to be followed. Above all Orange leaders welcome change believing that the old ways can always be improved on. A new project represents, adventure, a challenge and potential fun, all of which the Orange personality thrives on.
Every leader has a combination of all four personalities, but one will always be the stronger, more natural way to operate in. A leader’s style may also be a blend of their main strength, combined with their second strongest style. A wise leader will understand the strengths and weaknesses of their personal leadership style and use those team members with different styles to bring balance and greater efficiency in meeting the shared goal.
Have you ever read any good books on leadership? Maybe something by John Maxwell? What stands out in my mind when it comes to the information contained in these books is the technique for effective leadership. One of the biggest is leading by example.
Throughout history some of the greatest leaders were people of vision, people who saw something that others could not see and shared their vision with the masses to improve the quality of life. Never once did a leader become a great leader by being pessimistic and negative. Never has anything been accomplished of value by looking at a problem and complaining without offering a solution to the problem. In fact, a leader who only offers a negative picture remains a leader for a short time, a time when they are noticed but become irrelevant.
I believe that immersing ourselves in the positive we can accomplish that. A leader of people must understand that to be effective, he has to give the people who follow him hope of better things. In doing so, he rises to higher levels and accomplishes great things. When he loses sight of the lofty challenge of being a positive visionary in any organization, a leader is destined to fail, for no one will follow a leader who is going over a cliff.
As you strive to develop your business or career, you should keep in mind that you can be whomever you wish to be. You can look at challenges and problems and offer real solutions and visions for the future that people can grasp onto, or you can see the problem and rub everyone’s nose in it as you complain about it until no one is listening anymore.
When you have a customer and they lodge a complaint, you perk up and listen to them. If you work for a company that you complain about all the time, no one listens when you complain. Complainers develop a cloak of invisibility that is only penetrated when they are seen long enough to be removed from the company. At that point, the complainer has become nothing more than an eyesore.
As we look at the so-called leaders of the day, we should keep in mind that we are not the only ones who see them. The world is watching our country and our business. As our leaders complain without offering solutions, the world sees an ugly picture of discontent and failure with no solutions at hand. Only when people realize that the role of the leader is to be the visionary, the one with the answer, will things in our world change for the better. Until then, we get what we ask for and what we vote for.
Expect great things, offer great solutions, and when you are ready for the challenge, throw your hat in the ring and step up to lead.
All too often we are far more enthusiastic about talking than we are listening. Yet it is so vital if we are to communicate effectively. Most break downs in relationships are caused because people talk at each other without really making contact. Unless someone hears what has been said including the subtext the words have little value.
When we are actively listened to we feel valued and are far more likely to engage in negotiation and compromise.
Listening is about far more than words. Watching facial expression and body language is often a far more accurate barometer than the words that are being used.
Nice things being said where the smile doesn’t reach the eyes is an obvious example.
To be an effective listener it is vital that you listen actively.
10 tips to becoming a more effective listener
- Read the body language of the talker. Are they relaxed, anxious, angry? Extremes are easy to recognise but often the message is much more subtle
- Mirror the talker’s body language- subtly, a gentle dance rather than a caricature.
- Show that you are listening, nod, make appropriate responses
- Ask relevant questions, ask them to clarify if you are not clear about their meaning
- Summarise: so what you are saying is……….
- Use open ended questions, the who, what, where, when,
- Be careful of the tone of your voice when you respond or ask questions. It is all to easy to come across as judgemental or as an interrogator from the Spanish Inquisition
- Use empathy. Acknowledge difficulties, but be careful not to fall into the trap of going into anecdotes from your experience. “ I sense that you are finding this rather difficult” rather than “Oh I know, it happened to me but mine was bigger, more difficult etc”
- Take a real interest, if you are simply going through the motions the lack of sincerity will be obvious to others. Leave your ego behind, concentrate on the other person.
There are plenty of Network Marketing businesses out there to choose from and many Network Marketing business owners find that building a downline has become increasingly difficult because of all of the competition. This is most likely because most Network Marketing owners think that their business will succeed with only a website, an opt-in page to generate leads and some advertising. This is partly because many MLMs are marketed as “get rich while doing nothing” businesses, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. If you want to be able to build a downline, you need to build your own online identity.
Nobody is going to sign up to be part of a downline if they do not know who the head of that downline is. They are more likely to sign up as a business owner than sign up under someone’s referral…unless that referral has an identity that is trustworthy.
There are plenty of ways to build your online identity (and credibility).
1. Participate in forums that are geared toward your target market. Don’t limit yourself to sales pitches. Take the time to actively participate in the discussions being had on the boards. This will show other forum users who you are as a person and they are more likely to trust you and sign up to be part of your downline.
2. Start a blog. Sure everybody and their goldfish has a blog these days, but blogs are a fantastic way to show your Network Marketing leads who you are. They are also a fantastic way to update the general public about the goings on of your business.
3. Create a newsletter that people can subscribe to. You can use the subscription list as a lead generator and once you’ve gotten a few issues out, start contacting your leads and selling them on the idea of being part of your downline.
4. Respond to every email, private forum message or blog comment you receive. This will show people that you are an active participant in the online community.
A lot of Network Marketing is done online and if you don’t have an online identity to attach to your business, you won’t be able to build your downline. An online identity is what will set you apart from the thousands of other Network Marketing owners out there.
Anybody who has ever done Network Marketing before knows that most of the actual work lies in generating leads. There are a number of ways you can gather leads for your Network Marketing business—you can buy a list, opt into a subscription at a lead generation site or, if you are really serious about your business, you can generate your own Network Marketing leads.
Here is the simple truth: if you want your Network Marketing business to succeed, generating your own leads is the best way to make that happen. So how to do you get the best leads to grow your Network Marketing business?
Anymore, it is almost impossible to do business (especially in the Network Marketing arena) without a website. Make sure that you build a lead capturing page into your website so that people can sign up to learn more about what your business has to offer them. This website will save you time and money when it comes time to turn your list of leads into valuable business contacts.
In addition to a website that you can use to generate leads, you want to announce yourself to your local community. Hitting the pavement and meeting fellow business people in your target market will not only help you build a good business network, it will also help you generate valuable leads in your community. The best leads are the leads you can work with in person.
Always ask people if you can send them some information about your Network Marketing business. Whether you are asking the people you meet as you go about your day or you are cold calling, people will appreciate that you asked them to be part of your lead list before just sending them materials. When you respect your leads before they are leads, you are more likely to turn them into profitable business contacts!
This probably sounds like Marketing 101 and that is what a lot of lead generation is, basic marketing and sales! Lead generation is something that every Network Marketing business person needs to learn to do effectively and if you cut corners by buying leads or subscribing to a lead generation service, you will end up wasting most of your time. By generating your own leads you are halfway to turning those leads into customers or business referrals!
You’ve taken the plunge and signed up to be part of someone’s downline. You sit back and wait for the riches to roll in and…nothing. Perhaps you get a couple of emails welcoming you to the downline and encouraging you to start selling right away. “Sure,” you think, “I’ll start selling when I know how you want me to sell the product.”
Is your upline guiding you to success or are they simply sitting back and waiting to profit off of your hard work?
If an Network Marketing business is to be successful, the business owner has to be an active participant in his or her downline. This goes for every tier of that downline. It shouldn’t matter if you are in the first tier or the fourth tier of an Network Marketing business. Your upline should be supporting you and helping you to reach your sales goals. After all, their profits depend on you!
Think of it this way: Network Marketing business are like a miniscule version of a chain store. The owner of the business might be sitting in an office in Ann Arbor but even the stock people in Newark understand the goals of the business and what is expected of them to keep the business running smoothly. If your upline isn’t communicating with you, you might be better served by opting out of the downline altogether.
The best way to tell whether or not your upline will guide you to Network Marketing success is to pay attention to the training process. If your sponsor (and his or her sponsor) work with you to develop your sales strategy and help you put your business together, you are probably part of a successful Network Marketing. If, however, after you opt in, your sponsor simply sends you a “Thanks for joining” email and then never contacts you again (except, of course, to ask when you are going to start making a profit), you might think about opting back out.
Another sign of whether or not your upline is guiding you to success is to pay attention to how they respond to questions. A good upline member will be receptive to your questions and do his or her best to answer them in a timely manner. A bad upline member will either take forever to answer questions or not answer your questions at all!
A good way to tell whether or not the upline of your Network Marketing is worth working with is to contact other members of the downline. Ask your “coworkers” what their experiences with the Network Mraketing have been. You’ll be able to tell right away if the upline will guide you toward success.
It is important that when you opt in to an Network Marketing business that your upline works just as hard as you to do ensure the business’s success. If your upline isn’t guiding you to success, you are wasting your time.
Click here to explore a Network Marketing business with Online Training Support!
You’ve heard it all before. Your friends have probably complained that they aren’t getting paid what they are really worth, that their boss doesn’t truly appreciate them, and that they deserve a whole lot more. You’ve probably said it yourself, “I’m worth more than what they’re paying me for this job!”
The trouble is that when you take a job your boss or the company guidelines set your wage. You have no control whatsoever over what you get paid for your time and effort. Sure, you’ll hopefully get raises if you’re well behaved, and maybe you have a union that helps to get better pay and benefits for employees, but it all just feels too much like school doesn’t it? You are told what to do, when to do it, and how much you’ll be paid. Oh, and also when you’ll be “let go” and fired. Do you really have any control?
Of course, you can be the hardest worker around and maybe get a bonus or a little extra pay for that. But still, the bottom line is that you have virtually nothing to say about how much you make for the job that you do. You accept what you are given, and that’s that.
There are many very skilled, smart and hard-working people out there who aren’t paid nearly what they are worth. Companies have costs to think about, and they want to make a profit. And don’t forget about the bonuses that the company CEOs and Board Members expect! When you factor all that in, it’s obvious that you’re not going to make as much as you should be making.
There is a saying which is true for almost every company and almost every employee: “Companies pay just enough so the workers don’t quit, and the workers do just enough work so they don’t get fired”.
This is exactly why many people make the decision to work for themselves. When you work for yourself, the profits are yours! You can keep a check on anything that gets spent, and you control how much you earn. That’s all under your control when you own your own business. You’re not at someone else’s mercy.
Owning your own business is the only real way to gain control over how much you earn. If you want to earn more money and set your own income, not to mention your own hours and guidelines for when and how you do your work, you should look into network marketing.
You do Network Marketing every day, without even realising it. Every time you recommend a great book, or a tasty restaurant, you are promoting something. But then if your friends and family then went out and bought that book or ate in that tasty restaurant, you wouldn’t get paid a penny.
When you sign up with a Network Marketing company, such as COMPANY-NAME, you get paid every time you recommend someone to them. Signing up is easy, and you get to run your own business from your own home, earning whatever you choose. Network Marketing is all about finding people and introducing them to a company with good value and excellent products.
Now just imagine how much you could earn if every time your friend went back to that tasty restaurant, you got paid. How many people would you recommend? This is exactly the same in Network Marketing. Every time the people you recommend re-use and re-order the products, you get paid. This is called “residual income”.
Earning residual income (money you get paid whether you work or not) is what will provide you with the ongoing funds to both run your business and live a life of more freedom, less stress and more profits for your hard work.
As long as you are willing to use your time and energy to build your network marketing business, working with the right team of people, you’re going to find that you can get paid what you’re worth – like no job you’ve ever had before in your life!
Click here to work with a team that provide you training towards your Network Marketing success!
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London
This is one of the greatest Network Marketing myths ever told, and it’s always told by people new to network marketing. It goes something like this: “If within 1 year you’re not earning more money than you’ve ever earned in your life, then the company is broken”.
It sounds silly, but the people who believe this are the ones who go from company to company, trying to work out why nobody is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars, right from the beginning. There are so many things wrong with this picture…
If we just shift our focus here slightly, we’ll see why this particular myth exists.
In truth, it’s all about personal growth.
Network marketing has one main thing in common with every other business you could ever try – you have to put the required amount of effort in for it to work. No one is going to come along and make it work for you. You have to make it work for yourself. The company is the vehicle – it’s all about how fast and well you drive it.
If you have never in your life earned $10,000 a month, why enter into Network Marketing expecting $10,000 a month in your first year? You’ll get paid what you’re worth, no matter what you do or where you work. You have never managed $10,000 a month before! It doesn’t mean the company is broken – it just means that you need to work on YOU as much as you need to work on your business.
That’s why you should jump at the chance of attending any training sessions your company offers. You should try and attend the seminars. Listen to the educational CDs. Read the books. You’ve got to get all the information! Not only will all this training provide the insight and knowledge that will help you develop your business, you will also find you can meet and share experiences and knowledge with other like-minded people.
In the end, the biggest investment you will ever make is in yourself. The more you grow as a person, the more success you will achieve. But we all grow at different rates and that’s why our businesses grow at different rates too. It doesn’t mean some of us are better than others; it simply means some of us learn at faster rates than others.
Almost everyone who succeeds in Network Marketing could join ANY company and succeed, and the failures could join ANY company and fail.
Remember what Jim Rohn said: “It’s not the success that’s the prize. It’s the person you become in order to succeed that’s the prize.”
If There's a will, There's a way! 
is my motto.
