How is Your Social Life?

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

We are on the subject of your personal life in this short series, so let’s talk about your friends. Everyone has them and everyone needs them. Friends are a necessary social extension and they provide an outlet, a group of like-minded people who share values, though perhaps not always every opinion.

Time out with friends, whether they are old high school buddies or friends you’ve made at work, is important.

A movie, a cup of coffee, an occasional dinner, perhaps even sharing an activity you both like, such as bowling, golf, baseball, slot machines, a book club, or going to the movies, the theater or the ballet.

All of the techniques we discussed for your family life can also be applied to your friends.

Above all, keep in touch. Schedule events and get-togethers with a realistic eye to what you can achieve.

Many people work long hours, have demanding jobs and still manage to participate in monthly groups, or scheduled activities. And, this is a welcome relief from their grueling work schedule.

Put the appointments on your calendar just as you would any business meeting, and be dutiful about keeping the appointment even if it seems a guilty pleasure during that critical crunch season at work.

If you must cancel, communicate clearly with your friend(s) and let them know why you have to reschedule.

DO reschedule.

Don’t leave it to chance or you will never get together.

When you go out with friends, even if they are co-workers, use your newly learned skills in self-discipline to keep you out of the realm of work discussion.

Don’t talk shop, or you will not get away from the stress you tried to leave behind at the office. It is a hard habit to break, and it may take some time and focus to learn the new habit.

You can make it fun by agreeing that the person who breaks the ‘don’t talk shop’ code first will have to buy a round of drinks or coffee, or has to pay for dinner.

You’d be amazed at how quickly your co-workers will learn the lesson!

If you have a friend, or a group of old college chums with whom you love to socialize, try to pick a monthly or weekly date – the second Tuesday of every month, for example – and get together then.

Everyone will look forward to these occasions and you won’t feel so deprived of social contact.

During times of high stress and long hours, take the time to go out for a walk or get a cup of coffee or have lunch with someone outside the office.

Get away from the people you see in the halls every day and get a breath of fresh air.

You’ll feel much better.

Don’t give up the activities and friends you love. Exercise and socialization are key to balancing your life and even though you may feel they can be postponed until a time when your career is not on high speed, your health will benefit from the short breaks and scheduled visits you insist on taking.

We’ll talk more about stress and exercise later, and how these figure into life balance. Right now, let’s focus on your friends.

If your friends have fallen by the wayside with the advent of your most recent and most hectic job, you need to get some more friends fast.

Man does not live by work alone!

And though your family is very important to you, your friends serve a different purpose.

They are often more honest with you than your family can be and they will forgive and forget without the same intimate emotional attachment of a spouse, a mother or a brother.

You can count on them to make you laugh and to share your successes and failures. They are part of your psychological armor and a necessary part of your life’s balance.

If you need to reconnect with friendship, you can often find someone with whom you share common values at work, or in an industry association or club.

Or you may find a friend that shares a passion for a sport or an activity while attending a sporting event or on line at the movie theater.

Seek out friends actively and don’t be afraid to invite your new friend for a drink or coffee. There is no harm done if the friendship does not blossom.

Friends make you more interesting and expand your horizons.

And, they keep you from becoming a boring, ‘all work and no play’ kind of person.

Again, you have to be disciplined, have a plan and pay attention, to take advantage of these opportunities.

“Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow”

~ Don Herold

Setting Expectations

Up until now, we have only touched on expectations, but they are perhaps the most important part of your balancing plan. Expectations come into play in several ways.

First, there are YOUR expectations.

What is it that you expect to get from a more balanced life? More free time? A closer relationship with your spouse? The time to pursue an advanced degree?

Maybe, you want to learn to ride a horse? Any or all of these things are fine goals, but your expectation to achieve balance must take into consideration that some of these goals will take MORE time away from your family.

So, the first thing you have to do is to get it straight in your own mind. What is ‘balance’ for you?

Is it more time for yourself? More time for your family? Don’t make a promise to get more work/life balance and then squander that balance with poor planning.

What do you expect to achieve? How will this balance change your life?

Are you expectations realistic for the planned timeframe and actions you want to take or are you dreams too large?

Once you have your own expectations under control, you’ll need to look to your employer and your family and friends to be sure that you understand and can meet their expectations.

It is all well and good that you expect to regain some balance in your life but if your employer still thinks you should work eighty hours per week, you aren’t likely to get far.

Put it on paper. Then talk to the people most important to you and those whose support is crucial – like your boss – to find out what THEY expect. Then compare notes and figure out if everything is aligned.

If it isn’t, you’ll have to adjust the plan. Once you get the plan right, you can move forward more quickly and with more success.

Setting Goals

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you” ~ Carl Sandburg ~

Now, let’s talk about Goals. Like any other important life decision, you have to have goals or you are shooting in the dark.

To set Goals for your work/life balance, you have to take your expectations and translate them into the ‘what’ of what you want to achieve and the ‘when’. Be as specific as possible.

For example, if you are going to look for a new, less demanding job, your goals might include the industry you want to work in, the type of job you want to get and how much money you want to make, as well as when you want to get the job.

Here are some examples to get you started:

“My goal is to get a job with one of the Top Ten banks in the U.S., as a Bank Manager, by May of 2006”

“Reduce the number of hours I work by 10 hours per week in time for John’s 2006 Little League Season”

“Visit my mother every Sunday for at least three hours”

“Train 2-3 people on my staff to take over the bookkeeping process by January of next year”

“Schedule and keep a weekly date with Mary for dinner and a movie”

Simple, right?

Remember, the best way to set goals is to word them simply but specifically!

That way you can measure your success without trying to guess whether you succeeded.

The next task at hand is to figure out HOW to achieve your goals.

Remember that your expectations and goals must be realistic or you will never get to where you want to be!

 

Now it is time to figure out just how realistic your expectations and goals are, because you have to establish a plan to achieve those goals!

Let’s take the first example and see what we can do with that one.

“My goal is to get a job with one of the Top Ten banks in the U.S., as a Bank Manager, by May of 2006”

To establish a workable plan for this goal you would need to consider the following questions.

            􀂾 What are the top 10 banks in the U.S.?

            􀂾 How do you find out what jobs are available at each bank?

            􀂾 Are you qualified for the Bank Manager jobs in these banks?

            􀂾 Will these job openings require you to move your family to another location?

            􀂾 Are there job placement agencies you can use to find these jobs and arrange for interviews?

            􀂾 Do you have an up-to-date resume?

            􀂾 Do you have the appropriate wardrobe for this job?

            􀂾 Do you have good references?

            􀂾 Do your family and/or spouse support this decision?

            􀂾 Is it realistic to expect that you can research, find and get this job by May, 2006?

 

You can probably think of more questions you’ll have to answer!

But, this list will give you some idea of the considerations involved in just one goal.

For every goal you set, you will have to think about how reasonable the goal is, how achievable it is and exactly how you plan to accomplish it in the timeframe you have set for yourself.

When it comes to the goals of your family and friends, the emotional attachment and desire to do the right thing may make it hard to think clearly and to accurately plan for how and when these things will happen.

Be honest with yourself and with each other and by all means include your support network in the plan.

Ask your family to come up with ideas about how you can accomplish these things. Brainstorm and leave the door open for crazy ideas.

You’d be surprised at what you might uncover in this way.

Then sit down and pick through the plan and decide which ideas will work and which must be discarded.

As you start to execute your plan, be sure you review it occasionally to ensure that you are still on target and decide if you have to change anything.

Life happens!

And, you may have to change some of your timetables and tasks to incorporate the unexpected changes in your life.

For example, you may plan to take a job that pays less and gives you more time at home to help care for an aging parent.

But, if that parent requires some sort of catastrophic care or expensive medical treatment, you may have to keep the higher paying job to earn the money you need.

If so, are there community support services and low-cost, high-quality caregivers that can come in an work a few hours every day so you can continue to work the longer hours at work to pay for the care?

If not, do you have family members or friends that can pitch in for a little while until you figure out what to do next?

Does the parent have a home that can be sold to help pay for the extra healthcare costs?

Remember, there is always more than one way to solve a problem. Don’t panic and don’t give up on your work/life balance goals.

Just find another way to accomplish them and be realistic about whether you can achieve them in the same time period.

Perhaps you need to extend your timetable a bit to accommodate the new developments in your life.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get there.

Just knowing you have a contingency plan will keep you afloat and moving forward.

Remember! PLAN is not just another four-letter word!

 

Gain a Balanced Life-Part one

 

“The trouble with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat” ~ Lily Tomlin ~

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when families were expected to give up everything in order to achieve the financial security they craved. Perhaps you remember those decades, perhaps you are too young to recall those times.

Those were the days when climbing the corporate ladder was a revered activity, and wives and children gazed fondly at pictures of the breadwinner in order to remember whether poor, exhausted Dad had blue eyes or brown.

Large companies moved employees from one city to another, like pawns on a chessboard and, if you had any hope of climbing the ladder toward upper management positions, you packed up the wife and kids and moved on from Chicago, to Boston, to New York, to Tokyo.

In the intervening years, the divorce rate climbed, fathers lost touch with their families and died of heart attacks and strokes at an alarming rate. When these men retired, they felt useless and unproductive.

Over the years, the identity of these men had become inextricably tied to their success on the job. New retirees found themselves wondering who they were, and why they were living with women who were complete strangers to them. And, whatever happened to those darling kids who used to live in the house?

Then women entered the workforce in earnest and joined in on this wonderful rat race.

Now, you obviously can look around in your own situation and see that this rat race has not come to an end, just look at the amount of stress related death and illness, an increase in the average number of hours worked by employees in the U.S. and around the world, skyrocketing numbers of divorces and children in single-parent families.

And, let's not forget about those who are responsible for the care of aging parents. We live in a world of conveniences that were designed to give us more leisure time. But, it would seem that all the informational overload, whirring computers and media blitz has given us is more time for work.

It is not unusual for men and women to work sixty or seventy hours per week on average. Some of us work eighty or ninety hours without batting an eyelash. And, we fool ourselves into thinking we have a life!

If you are one of the enlightened few, you have already come to the conclusion that giving up a social and family life is too great a price to pay for career success.

Maybe, you have stress related health problems, perhaps you are not eating right, and you are probably fighting with your spouse, boyfriend or best buddy because you spend too little time with the people you care about most.

You probably can’t find the time to return phone calls or send a birthday card to your Aunt Betty.

It doesn’t matter if you are a lineman for a utility company, a pizza delivery girl, a corporate executive or an aspiring dancer.

In today’s chaotic world, it is a safe bet that you don’t have enough time for work, family and friends. And, since your boss holds a tight rein on your paycheck, it is likely that

You Are NOT Alone!

“The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world” ~ B.C. Forbes ~

Did you know that the Society for Human Resource Management has reported that 76% of American workers are considering looking for another job and, further that they estimate there will be 22 million new jobs created over the next ten years, but only 17 million new workers available to fill these jobs?

While every generation of workers has a different set of work expectations, the desire for work/life balance has become one of the foremost goals of every generation in the workforce today.

Baby Boomers are reducing work hours and many ‘Thirty-Somethings’ are starting their own businesses in order to have more control over their lives and schedules.

A recent study done by the Families and Work Institute illustrates that young workers just starting out in the workforce are choosing to turn down promotional opportunities to achieve greater work/life balance.

Why do you suppose these apple-cheeked, enthusiastic job entrants might take this approach? In a study done with young employees by Families and Workplace, work/life balance was among the top for both genders.

Most of these young adults were raised in families where both parents worked and they experienced the sacrifice and demands placed upon their parents, firsthand.

Not surprisingly, of all the generations in the workforce today, these young adults are the most likely to consider job flexibility and schedules when they look for a job, and it is key to employee retention for companies that employ these young workforce.

The point of all of this background information is to let you know that you are not alone in your desire to find balance.

All generations in all types of jobs are today, looking for balance, less stress, and more time with family and friends. Like you, these people are willing to give it their all when they are at work and they expect to work hard, but in exchange, they want a life.

In essence, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

If you think that work and family life balance is a small problem, you may be interested to know that, in addition to the few companies that have recognized the issue and taken the lead in establishing life balance programs, there are numerous organizations, foundations, universities and groups doing research on this topic.

Organizations as diverse as religious groups, government agencies, human resource companies and behavioral scientists now study these issues and, not just because it is the right thing to do.

There are real economic advantages to companies that recognize the need for life balance and create a working environment to help their employees live their lives more fully.

Companies spend a lot of money training and keeping employees and happy employees will stay longer, live longer and contribute to the company longer.

But, we are just scratching the surface in understanding the true human toll that an unbalanced life takes. Many have studied the evolving societal issues and their roots in overwork and lost community connections.

If you WANT more balance in your life but you wonder whether it is all that important, let’s talk about the reasons you NEED this balance.

“We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment” ~ Aaron Antonovsky ~

Health – Living an unbalanced life where work dominates can significantly affect your health. Long or stressful work hours can cause problems with your heart, your blood pressure, and your sleep cycles.

Studies show a significant increase in heart attack and stroke since the advent of seventy-hour workweeks. Long hours at work and lots of work related travel also encourages poor diet and leaves little time for exercise.

As we become more out of shape, sleep less and experience health problems, we are no longer the powerful asset to our employers, nor can we participate fully in a family and social life.

Emotional Wellness – Your ability to give back to your family, friends and community, and your own emotional stability depends on a balanced life.

As overly dramatic as it sounds, you are likely to experience emotional problems, need counseling and suffer from anxiety attacks or other problems if you have no time to decompress and relax.

There are numerous scientific studies on the benefits of relaxation, recreation and meditation.

And these benefits are both physical and emotional.

You can’t be ready to take on the issues in your family, support your spouse, parents, siblings and children and your friends if you have no emotional stamina.

If you’ve spent all of your focus and attention on work and you find yourself so tired at the end of the day that you don’t even want to talk to your family, you have a problem. And your family may not wait around for you to resolve it!

The societal impact of ‘all work and no play’ has damaged and destroyed many a family and the divorce rate continues to climb. Children grow up barely knowing their parents because they are away at work all the time.

Family vacations are a thing of the past in many families. Vacations get postponed and many employees find themselves losing their accrued vacation time because they have ‘rolled it over’ for so many years and just NOT taken the vacation they deserved.

Your emotional reserves are depleted. You have no patience with yourself or others. You are short on sleep and even on time to think about what you want for dinner.

Is it any wonder that psychologists and psychiatrists are busier than ever?

Stress - We have talked about the health implications related to ‘all work and no play’ but stress is its own health factor.

Even if you like your job, if you have no time for anything else, stress will get you eventually.

We’ll talk more about stress later and you’ll get some tips on how to eliminate or mitigate stress so that your body and mind will be better able to handle whatever comes your way.

For now, what you need to understand is that stress can affect your physical and emotional health and that, over time, it can make you very sick. If you are not in a position to change jobs or otherwise make a major change to relieve stress, learn how to handle it better.

We’re not talking about taking five years of classes here. We are talking about simple techniques you can use to help balance your life.

Remember that work/life balance is not just a question of the hours you spend in one place or another. It is also a question of how balanced you feel and how you react to things.

No matter how much time you have with your family and friends, you will enjoy it more if you are able to balance YOURSELF.

If you can become less of a victim of stress and overwork and take control of your own reaction to stress, you will live longer and be happier at work and at home.

Family and Community – Government and university studies support the idea that the ‘all work and no play’ lifestyle contributes to divorce, dysfunction in the family, and lack of involvement and investment in the community and neighborhood.

As the community grows apart and neighbors become strangers, emotional and family support for things like childcare, help with aging parents and support following trauma and tragedy become real issues.

The community turns to the government to supply services to fill this gap, taxes rise and people remain strangers.

Families struggle with alternating schedules, and children fail to thrive emotionally and physically.

Divorce is rampant and single parents are under even more stress with even less time to pay attention to children. So, things deteriorate even more! 

Role models for marriage, relationships and juggling time and family are important to a child’s adult relationships. If we do not provide those positive role models, we perpetuate the problem.

It is interesting to note that the generation of children now in the work force has started to rebel against jobs and employers that require ridiculous hours and dedication beyond the call of duty.

They understand the toll this type of career takes on a life. They grew up in families that suffered this impact.

Perhaps our greatest hope for change lies in this generation of seasoned veterans of dysfunctional families.

Productivity – If your employer believes that your eighty-hour workweek is giving him more benefit, he should look at the statistics and information gathered by human resource companies and companies that focus on efficiency and productivity.

It is a fact that the human brain needs downtime and rest and recreation to recycle. Think about your own life and the times when you had to work long hours to get something finished.

Perhaps you found that you could barely focus after a certain number of hours. There is a reason that coaches that teach good study habits tell students not to cram for

eighteen hours before an exam, but rather to spread out the studying and mix in recreation.

Take a walk; talk with friends to regain your clarity and focus.

If you and your employer truly want to take the best advantage of your time, you need to take time for yourself.

You will spend less time reworking things you’ve done wrong, mistakes you’ve made and details you’ve missed. And your employer will get better quality and output regardless of your job.

Pilots are subject to time constraints and can only spend so many hours in the air because airlines learned a long time ago that a tired and overworked pilot could make critical errors.

In lengthy heart surgeries, surgeons take breaks and leave the operating room to clear their heads and rest.

Again, these habits and techniques were learned the hard way and only when critical mistakes were made did these work policies change. You wouldn’t want a tired doctor working on your open heart, would you? 

Life Goals – Everyone has goals. And you are probably no exceptions. You may have work and career-related goals like promotions, expanded responsibilities, and recognition as an expert in your industry.

These are all fine, but be sure you don’t just focus on your job. Many people come to identify their success in life by their position in their job and the recognition they get there.

If they become disabled or sick, or if they retire, they suddenly find that they don’t know themselves anymore.

This post is getting a little lengthy, so I will jump off now, check out the next entry in this series on creating a balanced life and until then, here's to your success.

They have no identity at work so they don’t know who they are. They may have lost family and friends or have become strangers to these people, unaware of the important events that happened at home while they were at work.

So, they have to get to know themselves and their loved ones all over again. For some, this is an impossible task.

Be sure you set personal goals, family goals and general goals in your life for growth and happiness.

Whether it is going on for a Masters Degree in the fine art you love, learning how to fly a plane, or playing the piano, you should have goals that keep you involved in other parts of your life.

While you are setting goals, don’t forget your family goals. Perhaps you have always wanted to take your wife to Hawaii. Set the goal and a timetable and do it!

Remember that life goals can include giving back to the community and to others.

It is interesting to note that, since so many people cannot achieve their personal goals because of career obligations, we now find it difficult to get baseball coaches to volunteer their time, or to get people to volunteer in hospitals and work for the community as a volunteer ambulance driver or firefighter.

9 Strategies For Regaining Your Work Life Balance

 

I like working with independent professionals and artists because of the way the work life balance shows itself in our lives - for us, life, work, and business exist in a nexus from which we cannot easily extract our ways of loving, relating, and making meaning. The challenges we face in business inform our personal lives and personal challenges affect our businesses.

Rich as it is, the relationship between personal and professional life can be rocky and maintaining that work life balance is often a tricky issue. I experienced this before when, within a few weeks of declaring some new goals for my business, my wife lost her job unexpectedly followed my my daughter needing surgery just a few days later. If this wasn’t bad enough, a job that I was doing on a major client’s personal items messed up due to a material flaw in the product he purchased, but, though it was on him, he decided to discontinue our working relationship. All of these factored together to lead to a personal melt down.

The problem was that I felt like a loser. I enjoyed the work that I did with this client and I couldn’t get out of the funk. Before I knew it, we were looking bankruptcy in the eye and didn’t know what we could do other than give up.

I've been caught between the promptings of my spirit and the requirements of my business more than a few times, and I knew all sorts of success formulas, but none of them seemed to help. I also knew it was possible to take care of ourselves and our businesses if we are willing to do the work, but I couldn’t shake the funk and it led to a deep depression.

We lost our house, one of the cars and had to move to the other side of the state; we had to borrow money from family just to get settled, but my wife had gotten a new job and I was able to reestablish my business in a better location and things finally started getting back to a level that I could see a light.

As Les Brown once said, “When you fall down, always land on your back. That way you can always be looking up no matter how low you fall.”

Here are nine strategies that, taken together, can help to change course without abandoning the destination and help you restore your work life balance:

 

1. Don't panic.

Even if you feel panicky, you can choose modest, recoverable steps to address the situation. This is no time to get a divorce, fire an employee, or buy a new computer system. Tip: Talk with a coach or therapist to get perspective.

 

2. Return to Source.

Whatever your spiritual orientation or tradition, connect with what for you is the Source of life or spirit. Know that there is something larger than you that encompass you. Spend at least 15 minutes each day connecting with that Source. (I like Mark Silver's Remembrance Practice described in his free downloadable workbook Getting to the Core of Your Business.)

 

3. Take a body inventory.

Are you sleeping well? How are you eating? What's your energy level? If these are not up to par, get a professional evaluation and take the steps that will restore your well-being.

 

4. Tell the truth.

Sometimes energy flags when we've gotten into a pattern of pleasing others or living according to standards that are not our own. Notice if there is any misbalance. Notice where you're being less than forthright with yourself and get clear about your motives, then clean it up.

 

5. Keep good company.

Are you stimulated and encouraged by your peers and clients? Do you have great playmates? Playing on the wrong playground with the wrong kids is neither fun nor productive.

 

6. Tune Up Your Thinking.

There's substantial evidence that managing the way we think can have a profound and lasting effect on mood and motivation. See Amazon.com for books you can use to tune up your cognitive skills and/or make a date with a therapist. (If you are otherwise in good psychological health a skilled coach can help, too.)

 

7. Set Healthy, Flexible Boundaries.

Yes, real life and real business are intimately connected, but that doesn't mean that you need to give up your privacy. To find your work life balance, set boundaries so that you can feel generous without feeling depleted and available without feeling invaded. Keep them flexible, because things change.

 

8. Create or Refine Systems.

We can't manage real life and a real business without good systems. Look at where things feel most out of sorts and resolve to create or improve a system to get things on track.

 

9. Keep the Goal, Drop the Plan.

Sometimes the best way to achieve a goal is to let go of our plans. Promptly and clearly revise commitments and offers as necessary to bring current activity in line with current resources. Why abandon ship when you can drop anchor while you make some repairs?

For me, these strategies led me to go past what I was doing and concentrate on this dream that I had to help others get out of the rat race and make a legacy that the future will benefit from. Having stopped the war between myself and my business and realizing that there was more to me than my work, I was able to restore my work life balance and now feel more engaged with the things that I choose to take on (like writing this blog and creating a training program.) My goals have went from safe to audacious and are now shining possibilities instead of looming obligations, and if it takes a little longer to reach them, arriving will be all the sweeter.

In 2016, make it a goal to balance your life.

 

 

Are we our own prisoners?

 

Imagine a person in a prison. He/she has been imprisoned for life and will wait till death in the prison.

What can possibly motivate such a person? What do these people look forward to in their lives?

Sometimes, we are also prisoners of our thoughts and our past deeds. We also have nothing else to look forward to. We only have regrets. At least, we can do something about the conditions, but the prisoners can do nothing. Life can be depressing at times. How to inspire ourselves in such conditions?

 

What is inspiration?

 

'Inspiration' the word as it is commonly understood means to experience a state of mind that propels us to work happily, try to achieve goals, and feel good about ourselves and the world.

 

How to break open the prison?

 

When we are not inspired and can set no goals, we feel that we are so helpless that nothing can be done. The first step would be to try finding stories of people such as Helen Keller who overcame so many difficulties to emerge victorious. That will give us a basic thought that things are not that bad. We will open at least one door of our prison with this thought.

 

Then go back in your memory. Try and think of instances when you felt good because of some achievements. It could be something very small. Anything. Like coming first in the class in your second year in school, or getting a good remark from a teacher for an essay or for a math answer. That will break open another door.

 

Now begin counting your blessings. Do you have a functioning kidney? Can you see? Can you hear? Can you smell? Are your hands ok and so on. Will you sell your eyes for any price? No! Who said that you have no money? You are a wealthy person who is unaware of your wealth, your blessings, Isn't it? This will open one more door.

 

Break the last door open by thinking of the goals you might want to achieve. Believe that you can do that. Start planning. Think of ways. Talk to people. Be ready for a long struggle but with a firm resolve that you will achieve the goals. This will take you out of the prison of your thinking and make you a new person ready to fight.

 

Get set to go ahead. You are a winner in making!

As always, here’s to your success.

 

 

How To Achieve Great Success From A Home Based Business

Profitability is the most important factor to success with any home based business. A home-based business can run for a long period of time as long as you make it profitable.

However, as many businesses don't make a profit to start with this is often the first goal of the home-based business owners, and you should achieve this goal as soon as possible.

To achieve this goal you should focus on business development, be careful with your expenses and focus on what you are offering.

Focusing on growth is a key way to build your home-based business profits. In order to influence your results you should have the right mindset. If you don't have a profitable mindset then you are likely going to stay where you are.

Rather focus on growth and have the mindset to notice opportunities when they come along that can lead to gain, and then take action on these opportunities right away before they are gone. Again, success loves speed.          

Next you must pay attention to your expenses seriously. All businesses have some expenses when they first start out even home-based single person businesses. Make sure you set up a budget that includes things such as advertising, utilities, office supplies and anything else that may be necessary to the specific home-based business you are considering.

On your list write down the expenses that are necessary for operating your business, these should be items that you need in order to make your home-based business profitable.

You will likely run into some expenses that you don't really need to operate your business. These are the expenses that don't make your business grow and only take away from the profits of your business.

Carefully consider before you truly need these expenses and if they don't make any profit then you should cut them for something that will actually help with the growth of your business.

However, you can only move your business so far by restricting your expenses. You also need income in order to gain profitability from your home-based venture.

Promotion is the most important factor to developing any business and gaining profitability. Basically you should focus on making your business known to people.

You can't expect to do business with them if they aren't aware of your company. While this may seem like an obvious point, the fact is that many businesses (home-based, store front, and internet based alike) fail simply because individuals don't spend enough time promoting their business. Once again, promotion is the key for your success.

If you have more than one product that requires promoting then consider focusing on just one main product for your business since you can focus most of your attention on marketing one product and once you get interested customers or visitors you can tell them about the additional products.

This will make it easier to run your business and you will also have better results from your actions. Remember, it isn’t impossible for you to promote many products at the same time, just time consuming and has a habit of dividing your concentrations.

These tips don’t just apply to those who are starting a new home-based business. You can still use these helpful advice to let you move your business in the right direction if you have been working on it for awhile and just can get it to work for you. By applying these tips you will be able to have success with your home based business no matter how long you have been in business.

Don’t forget that I am here for your success, if you have any topics that you want me to cover, drop me a line and let me know.

You Are NOT Alone!

“The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world”

                                                                                           ~ B.C. Forbes

 

While every generation of workers has a different set of work expectations, the desire for work/life balance has become one of the foremost goals of every generation in the workforce today.

A recent study done by the Families and Work Institute illustrates that young workers just starting out in the workforce are choosing to turn down promotional opportunities to achieve greater work/life balance. In other words, the generation known as the Millennial Generation is looking for more than a gold watch at their retirement.

Why do you suppose these apple-cheeked, enthusiastic job entrants might take this approach? In a study done with young employees by Families and Workplace, work/life balance was among the top for both genders.

Most of these young adults were raised in families where both parents worked and they experienced the sacrifice and demands placed upon their parents, firsthand.

Not surprisingly, of all the generations in the workforce today, these young adults are the most likely to consider job flexibility and schedules when they look for a job, and it is key to employee retention for companies that employ these young workforce.

The point of all of this background information is to let you know that you are not alone in your desire to find balance.

All generations in all types of jobs are today, looking for balance, less stress, and more time with family and friends. Like you, these people are willing to give it their all when they are at work and they expect to work hard, but in exchange, they want a life.

 

In essence, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

 

If you think that work and family life balance is a small problem, you may be interested to know that, in addition to the few companies that have recognized the issue and taken the lead in establishing life balance programs, there are numerous organizations,

Organizations as diverse as religious groups, government agencies, human resource companies and behavioral scientists now study these issues and, not just because it is the right thing to do.

There are real economic advantages to companies that recognize the need for life balance and create a working environment to help their employees live their lives more fully.

Companies spend a lot of money training and keeping employees and happy employees will stay longer, live longer and contribute to the company longer.

But, we are just scratching the surface in understanding the true human toll that an unbalanced life takes. Many have studied the evolving societal issues and their roots in overwork and lost community connections.

If you WANT more balance in your life but you wonder whether it is all that important, let’s talk about the reasons you NEED this balance.

 

Health – Living an unbalanced life where work dominates can significantly affect your health. Long or stressful work hours can cause problems with your heart, your blood pressure, and your sleep cycles.

Studies show a significant increase in heart attack and stroke since the advent of seventy-hour workweeks. Long hours at work and lots of work related travel also encourages poor diet and leaves little time for exercise.

As we become more out of shape, sleep less and experience health problems, we are no longer the powerful asset to our employers, nor can we participate fully in a family and social life.

 

Emotional Wellness – Your ability to give back to your family, friends and community, and your own emotional stability depends on a balanced life.

As overly dramatic as it sounds, you are likely to experience emotional problems, need counseling and suffer from anxiety attacks or other problems if you have no time to decompress and relax.

 

And these benefits are both physical and emotional.

 

You can’t be ready to take on the issues in your family, support your spouse, parents, siblings and children and your friends if you have no emotional stamina.

If you’ve spent all of your focus and attention on work and you find yourself so tired at the end of the day that you don’t even want to talk to your family, you have a problem. And your family may not wait around for you to resolve it!

The societal impact of ‘all work and no play’ has damaged and destroyed many a family and the divorce rate continues to climb. Children grow up barely knowing their parents because they are away at work all the time.

Family vacations are a thing of the past in many families. Vacations get postponed and many employees find themselves losing their accrued vacation time because they have ‘rolled it over’ for so many years and just NOT taken the vacation they deserved.

Your emotional reserves are depleted. You have no patience with yourself or others. You are short on sleep and even on time to think about what you want for dinner.

 

Is it any wonder that psychologists and psychiatrists are busier than ever?

 

Stress – In my previous series I discussed some of  the health implications related to ‘all work and no play’ but stress is its own health factor.

Even if you like your job, if you have no time for anything else, stress will get you eventually.

We’ll talk more about stress later and you’ll get some tips on how to eliminate or mitigate stress so that your body and mind will be better able to handle whatever comes your way.

For now, what you need to understand is that stress can affect your physical and emotional health and that, over time, it can make you very sick. If you are not in a position to change jobs or otherwise make a major change to relieve stress, learn how to handle it better.

We’re not talking about taking five years of classes here. We are talking about simple techniques you can use to help balance your life.

Remember that work/life balance is not just a question of the hours you spend in one place or another. It is also a question of how balanced you feel and how you react to things.

No matter how much time you have with your family and friends, you will enjoy it more if you are able to balance YOURSELF.

If you can become less of a victim of stress and overwork and take control of your own reaction to stress, you will live longer and be happier at work and at home.

Family and Community – Government and university studies support the idea that the ‘all work and no play’ lifestyle contributes to divorce, dysfunction in the family, and lack of involvement and investment in the community and neighborhood.

As the community grows apart and neighbors become strangers, emotional and family support for things like childcare, help with aging parents and support following trauma and tragedy become real issues.

The community turns to the government to supply services to fill this gap, taxes rise and people remain strangers.

Families struggle with alternating schedules, and children fail to thrive emotionally and physically.

Divorce is rampant and single parents are under even more stress with even less time to pay attention to children. So, things deteriorate even more!

Role models for marriage, relationships and juggling time and family are important to a child’s adult relationships. If we do not provide those positive role models, we perpetuate the problem.

It is interesting to note that the generation of children now in the work force has started to rebel against jobs and employers that require ridiculous hours and dedication beyond the call of duty.

They understand the toll this type of career takes on a life. They grew up in families that suffered this impact.

Perhaps our greatest hope for change lies in this generation of seasoned veterans of dysfunctional families.

Productivity – If your employer believes that your eighty-hour workweek is giving him more benefit, he should look at the statistics and information gathered by human resource companies and companies that focus on efficiency and productivity.

It is a fact that the human brain needs downtime and rest and recreation to recycle. Think about your own life and the times when you had to work long hours to get something finished.

Perhaps you found that you could barely focus after a certain number of hours. There is a reason that coaches that teach good study habits tell students not to cram for

eighteen hours before an exam, but rather to spread out the studying and mix in recreation.

Take a walk; talk with friends to regain your clarity and focus.

If you and your employer truly want to take the best advantage of your time, you need to take time for yourself.

You will spend less time reworking things you’ve done wrong, mistakes you’ve made and details you’ve missed. And your employer will get better quality and output regardless of your job.

Pilots are subject to time constraints and can only spend so many hours in the air because airlines learned a long time ago that a tired and overworked pilot could make critical errors.

In lengthy neurosurgery or heart surgery, surgeons take breaks and leave the operating room to clear their heads and rest.

Again, these habits and techniques were learned the hard way and only when critical mistakes were made did these work policies change. You wouldn’t want a tired doctor working on your open heart, would you?

Life Goals – Everyone has goals. And you are probably no exceptions. You may have work and career-related goals like promotions, expanded responsibilities, and recognition as an expert in your industry.

These are all fine, but be sure you don’t just focus on your job. Many people come to identify their success in life by their position in their job and the recognition they get there.

If they become disabled or sick, or if they retire, they suddenly find that they don’t know themselves anymore.

They have no identity at work so they don’t know who they are. They may have lost family and friends or have become strangers to these people, unaware of the important events that happened at home while they were at work.

So, they have to get to know themselves and their loved ones all over again. For some, this is an impossible task.

Be sure you set personal goals, family goals and general goals in your life for growth and happiness.

If you can become less of a victim of stress and overwork and take control of your own reaction to stress, you will live longer and be happier at work and at home.

Family and Community – Government and university studies support the idea that the ‘all work and no play’ lifestyle contributes to divorce, dysfunction in the family, and lack of involvement and investment in the community and neighborhood.

As the community grows apart and neighbors become strangers, emotional and family support for things like childcare, help with aging parents and support following trauma and tragedy become real issues.

The community turns to the government to supply services to fill this gap, taxes rise and people remain strangers.

Families struggle with alternating schedules, and children fail to thrive emotionally and physically.

Divorce is rampant and single parents are under even more stress with even less time to pay attention to children. So, things deteriorate even more!

Role models for marriage, relationships and juggling time and family are important to a child’s adult relationships. If we do not provide those positive role models, we perpetuate the problem.

It is interesting to note that the generation of children now in the work force has started to rebel against jobs and employers that require ridiculous hours and dedication beyond the call of duty.

They understand the toll this type of career takes on a life. They grew up in families that suffered this impact.

Perhaps our greatest hope for change lies in this generation of seasoned veterans of dysfunctional families.

Productivity – If your employer believes that your eighty-hour workweek is giving him more benefit, he should look at the statistics and information gathered by human resource companies and companies that focus on efficiency and productivity.

It is a fact that the human brain needs downtime and rest and recreation to recycle. Think about your own life and the times when you had to work long hours to get something finished.

Perhaps you found that you could barely focus after a certain number of hours. There is a reason that coaches that teach good study habits tell students not to cram for eighteen hours before an exam, but rather to spread out the studying and mix in recreation.

Take a walk; talk with friends to regain your clarity and focus.

If you and your employer truly want to take the best advantage of your time, you need to take time for yourself.

You will spend less time reworking things you’ve done wrong, mistakes you’ve made and details you’ve missed. And your employer will get better quality and output regardless of your job.

Pilots are subject to time constraints and can only spend so many hours in the air because airlines learned a long time ago that a tired and overworked pilot could make critical errors.

In lengthy neurosurgery or heart surgery, surgeons take breaks and leave the operating room to clear their heads and rest.

Again, these habits and techniques were learned the hard way and only when critical mistakes were made did these work policies change. You wouldn’t want a tired doctor working on your open heart, would you?

Life Goals – Everyone has goals. And you are probably no exceptions. You may have work and career-related goals like promotions, expanded responsibilities, and recognition as an expert in your industry.

These are all fine, but be sure you don’t just focus on your job. Many people come to identify their success in life by their position in their job and the recognition they get there.

If they become disabled or sick, or if they retire, they suddenly find that they don’t know themselves anymore.

They have no identity at work so they don’t know who they are. They may have lost family and friends or have become strangers to these people, unaware of the important events that happened at home while they were at work.

So, they have to get to know themselves and their loved ones all over again. For some, this is an impossible task.

Be sure you set personal goals, family goals and general goals in your life for growth and happiness.

Law Of Success: Part III

Welcome to the conclusion of this special three part series commemorating the 21st Century Edition of Napoleon Hill's landmark work on success, "Law of Success," which reveals the 17 Principles of Success that can help take your life to the next level. These are proven principles based on  25 years of research and personal studies into the lives of over 500 of the world’s greatest achievers.

 

Law of Success Part I and Part II covered the first 11 of these principles. (To read Part I and Part II, visit the blog archives). Law of Success Part III will now conclude with the remaining 6 of these valuable, time-tested principles, which can help you, succeed in all areas of your life.

 

Principle # 12: Concentration

 

“Concentration is the act of focusing the mind on a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation.” – Napoleon Hill

 

In this age of mass communications, we are beginning to face a global epidemic of mass distraction that is becoming dangerous – and in some cases lethal. (The rising pedestrian and motor vehicle driver deaths due to the host of electronic distractions are just one sad example).

 

PSA: Don’t text while driving. A text isn’t worth your life, or worse, the life of someone who had nothing to do with your conversation.

 

The Weapons of Mass Distraction available to us are just overwhelming: email, cell phones, pagers, text messaging, video games, GPS navigational systems, video games, DVD players, TV, web cams, blackberries, faxes, ipods, and the explosion of social networking sites, just to name a few. (When used intelligently these tools can be powerful, but when used ineffectively, they become what I call, “Weapons of Mass Distraction!”

 

For concentration to be effective, Hill states that it is vitally important to keep your mind focused on ONE subject until you’ve mastered it; to focus on ONE given problem until you’ve solved that problem.

 

What I find helps is starting a task with a burst of energy and enthusiasm which will provide the momentum to complete the task successfully, in this age of sensory overload, some sensory deprivation might be in order.

 

Hill recommends that you set some time everyday where you can enter a quiet place, close your eyes, and put your fingers in your ears, blocking all light and sound, and just repeat your chief goal and see yourself in full possession of the goal that you are trying to reach.

 

I would go as far as to say that you need to take at least one day, or even a weekend per month to distress.

 

Principle # 13: Cooperation

 

“Cooperation is the foundation of all successful leadership.” – Napoleon Hill

 

According to Napoleon Hill, there are two forms of cooperation: 1). The cooperation between a group alliance, such as a mastermind group (which was covered in my Law of Success Part I overview) to achieve a desired end, and 2). The cooperation between the conscious and subconscious minds to draw upon creative intelligence (a theme that continues throughout this overview as well as his book).

 

Power is developed through organized effort and, as they say, two heads are better than one. So for any organized effort to be successful, the harmonious cooperation of people focused on a singular purpose or goal is required.

 

Harmony is the key. And it would serve you well to study the main personality types of people before forming a team so you can bring together people who compliment each other rather than compete with each other. (“What Type Am I” by Renee Baron is a good first book to understanding personality types. I also previously mentioned Social Triggers).

 

One thing in the “Law of Success” that really struck me as powerful was an important observation Napoleon Hill had made: “A great leader is one who understands how to create a “motivating objective” that will be accepted with enthusiasm by every member of [the] group...Most people will work harder for the attainment of an ideal than they will for money.”

 

What is your company or team’s “motivating objective” or ideal? In today’s terminology (thanks to Jerry McGuire), this would be your mission statement.

 

Principle # 14: Profiting by Failure

 

"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate." -Thomas Watson, Sr. Founder of IBM

 

Profiting from failure is a topic that has been beat to death by personal development gurus so I won’t spend too much time on this principle. It’s overdone for the very same reason that there’s truth in the idea of people reaching higher levels of success by persevering and learning from failure instead of quitting.

 

It’s no accident that John D. Rockefeller felt that perseverance is the single most important quality to achieving success.

 

I’ve personally seen through the years, that success comes to leaders in almost direct proportion to the amount of adversity and failures they’ve overcome and learned from in life.

 

That old cliché, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’ applies here. Of course, I’m not saying you necessarily keep on doing the same thing expecting the same results (another definition for insanity), but what I am saying is that the only true failure out there that will hurt you is the failure to get back up and try again.

 

I don’t know how many times that I have personally thought about throwing in the towel. In fact, when we were at our lowest, I had actually worked it out in detail how to commit suicide so that it looked like an accident in order for my wife to collect the insurance…the only problem with that was we didn’t pay our policy, so it wouldn’t have paid out anyway.

 

Don’t ever give up. Failure is a learning experience similar to on-the-job training vs. schooling; on-the-job training may take longer, but you gain knowledge and real-world experience, so think of failure as on-the-life training.

 

Seek counselors and mentors that you can trust to help evaluate the effectiveness of your plans. Explore what is limiting your success by asking them how they see you limiting yourself.

 

If your first plan to achieving your goal in life does not succeed, then change the plan. Keep on changing it until you’ve reached your target, just as an ocean liner makes thousands of adjustments and coarse corrections before reaching its destination, you too should constantly re-evaluate your plan to make sure that you are still on the coarse that you want to be on.

 

Principle # 15: Tolerance

 

“Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.” – Lord Thomas Dewar

 

If we adopt a closed mind we stop acquiring knowledge. And natural law states that we are either growing or dying.

 

I don’t like the word ‘tolerance.’ I much rather prefer the term “embrace new ideas” and have an insatiable curiosity for learning other people’s customs, belief systems, and unique perspectives. I look at it as an adventure in someone else’s life.

 

In today’s society, the word tolerance has been distorted to pass off someone’s bigotry and intolerance as a justified action. For example, a white comedian lets the “N” word slip in his act, he is a racist, but the leader of the new black panthers makes the comment about killing all white cracker babies and that is freedom of speech. Tolerance is a two way street and cannot be used to justify the actions of some while condemning the actions of others.

 

Finding ways to harness cultural differences within team dynamics and organizations will be the new currency in an increasingly globalized economy.

 

Principle # 16: The Golden Rule

 

Napoleon Hill recognized that the frivolous use of power from the knowledge that is being shared with you would only backfire and be destructive to self and others. Selfish pursuit of your goal without regard for others will eventually come back to bite you.

 

We reap what we sow. What goes around comes around. Therefore, the Golden Rule is: “do unto others as you’d have done unto you”. Before doing anything, ask yourself if it will benefit or hurt the person or persons involved.

 

It’s easy to be self-centered. To transcend self, think more of what the other person wants and feels before acting, that is what Zig Ziglar is talking about when he saying “You’ll get everything out of life that you want if you help enough people get what they want.”

 

See the good in others. Catch people doing things right instead of always looking for the wrong. Kindness and justice toward others goes a long way in establishing successful business and personal relationships. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” To help with this, I suggest a short read called The One Minute Manager.

 

Hill takes us deeper with the Golden Rule philosophy when he said, “think of others as you’d wish them to think of you.” Live this philosophy and your life will be enriched in many unforeseen ways.

 

Principle # 17: The Universal Law of Cosmic Habit-force

 

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

 

This is one of my favorite quotes on habit. The Universal Law of Cosmic Habit-force is that intangible, unseen force which is made tangible and visible in nature. Just observe nature and you will experience Cosmic Habit-force in action.

 

When you fix in your mind a purpose consciousness focused on your chief aim in life through repetition of thoughts and deeds, Cosmic Habit-force will take over and carry it to its logical conclusion, just as an apple seed will always produce an apple tree through proper care and nurturing.

 

It takes constant vigilance, determination, and willpower to maintain that purpose consciousness, but eventually Cosmic Habit-force will always bear fruit and your life will be richly rewarded.

 

In closing this series, I’d like to point out that at the beginning of every chapter in Napoleon Hill’s “Law of Success” are the words: “You can do it if you believe you can!”

 

It’s that simple. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it really is that simple. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.” Jim Rohn said, make a goal to become a millionaire. Not for the sake of becoming a millionaire, but for what you must become to be a millionaire.” Replace bad habits with good disciplines and watch things start to change in your life.

 

Believe in yourself! Believe you can do it and move forward this day with faith and confidence.

 

I hope that you’ve benefited from this series and I’d like to encourage you to share these important principles with your friends, family, and associates. I’d also like to highly recommend getting a copy of Napoleon Hill’s “Law of Success: 21st Century Edition” to add to your personal library.

 

It’s a life-changing book, and I mean that as no exaggeration. To get your copy, visit here.