How valuable are you?

The 7 Habits of Highly Impactful People - Habit Number 1: Values

You want to have impact in your business and life, right? 

Here’s the thing: you already do! But it’s not necessarily the impact you want to have. 

Having a positive influence in your business, community, and even the larger world takes disciplined effort. When you make those efforts habits, you’re on your way to big impact. 

In this series of 7 articles, I’ll share what I’ve learned from years of coaching people who want to have impact, and from my own work and research. You’ll learn the 7 habits of highly impactful people. 

These habits pay off hugely, not only in how much impact you have, but financially in your business too. Consciously impactful businesses mightily outperform those whose focus is just profit. 

Before we get started with the first habit, let’s spend a little time to be clear what we’re talking about here. 

What does it mean to be impactful?

1. Impact starts with you: While most of us want to create a positive impact through our business, in order to have impact, you have to start with you. How do you show up in the world? How do you want to be with people? What do you want to offer them? That has impact.

2. Impact is much more than your get-to-do list: To be impactful, you must first understand your larger mission or purpose in your business. I used to call it your Big Why. I now call it your Impact Purpose. That’s because the impact you want to have guides every aspect of your business. 

3. Your intentions will determine your impact: Author Gary Zukav wrote, "It is wise for us to become aware of our intentions and choose them according to what we want to produce." Whatever your intention is about your impact, whether it's conscious to you or unconscious, that's what'll play out. 

This series of articles is about making intentional choices related to the impact you want to create in your business and personal life.

Habit #1: Get Clear About Your Own Values 

A universal habit among some of the most impactful people in the world is that they became clear about their own values. 

Whether you’re aware of it or not, your behavior arises out of what you hold as most important, what you value. When you are clear about what values are the most important to you, you can use that awareness to have impact from that deeply rooted and grounded foundation. 

Here’s a practical exercise that will help you start to get clarity about your own values. 

Set aside some quiet time for yourself and start writing down value words that are deeply important to you. To start, write down whatever comes to your mind. You can always edit this list later. 

Think of situations in your life or business that were really powerful experiences. What values did you demonstrate in those situations? 

Here are some value words that may help you in creating your own list: 

• Honesty

• Integrity

• Professionalism

• Doing quality work

• Humility

• Kindness

• Fun

• Joy

• Compassion

• Treating people with respect

• Adaptability

• Dependability

• Creativity

• Warmth

• Balance

• Curiosity

• Freedom

• Persistence

• Resilience

If some of these values resonate with you deeply, you can certainly add them to your list. You may have others: spend some time and create your own unique list of values. 

Your list of values are not simple words but something much more. I call them ‘Pull Priorities’ because they draw you. They pull you forward toward the impact that you want to have. 

They come from inside of you and they don't push you like an outside force imposed on you. Like someone else’s ideas about what they think should be important to you. 

They give you a grounded center to work from and they help define you and the impact you want to have. 

To achieve mastery in the first habit of highly impactful people, revisit this list of your Pull Priorities regularly so that you are always clear about what you value. You can even post your Pull Priorities on a wall so that they're front of mind. 

Measure what you’re doing against the values you decided were important to you. Are they aligned? 

Keep the habit of clarity around your values and they'll help you with every other habit of highly impactful people that we're going to talk about in the upcoming articles. 

It’s an ongoing process to become impactful, both personally and with your business. Following the 7 habits of highly impactful people will increase the positive influence you have on the people in your work and life.

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Cool tips : Jim Rohn Setting Goals Part 1

Motivation Is Nothing Without Action

Create small habits and these will keep you going.  Watch this  video and try a 30 day challenge and see how you feel.  Great video,  watch and let me know what you think?

Get Into A Reading Rhythm

Many people ask me how do I manage to get through so many books?, and my response is that I have a reading routine and rhythm. I'll share my recipe with you. Try this for one month and see how much progress you make. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. A sitcom generally airs for a half of an hour at a time with dramas and soap operas airing for an hour or more. Instead of watching the sitcoms or drama programs, turn the television off and use the time to read. That's right... READ. Let's say that you watch three sitcoms for a half of an hour each. Choose three books that you are currently reading or would like to read. Read each book for a half of an hour each (the same time you would have spent watching the sitcoms). Set a timer if you need to in order to keep you on track. At the end of the thirty minutes, change to the next book and begin reading it and at the end of that thirty minutes, move to the third book. If you do this once a day for a month, you will be absolutely amazed at the number of books you will complete in that time and ultimately in a year.

It's not that we don't have the time to read, it's more like we don't TAKE/MAKE the time to read. If television is not your thing and you spend an inordinate amount of time on the computer or on social networks, the same recipe will apply; just insert the word computer in the blank where I have TV above. In fact any other time consuming activity will work to fill in the blank. In other words, I am asking you to substitute reading for one of the other activities.

I cannot express the myriad benefits of you doing this here in this post. If you cannot do the ninety minutes, start off with thirty minutes and work your way up. Give up one sitcom to read a few chapters in a good book. Research says that anything done for thirty days becomes a habit (good or bad), so give it a try and watch how quickly you increase the number of books you have read in a week, month, and year's time. I dare you to challenge yourself. Happy Reading!

I invite you to download for free The Reading Circle Mobile App on iTunes. I also invite you to listen to The Reading Circle book talk radio program each Saturday morning beginning at 6 a.m. ET on http://www.gobrave.org and locally in northern NJ on WP88.7 FM. Lastly, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical01 and visit my website at http://www.thereadingcircle01.com.

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Success Through Self Discipline

We have very often heard the term self discipline being used in normal conversations while discussing various behavioral subjects. This term in fact sounds more punishable in nature than the real sense of the word.
Ensuring one's own Self Discipline is an art. It is basically an assertion of your will power to do or behave in a particular manner. This requires a mindset where you call upon yourself to indulge or behave in a manner that helps you achieve a desired result, such as happiness or success in any venture. It will also at times require you to oppose your own desires that go against meeting your end result.
Self disciplined individuals make their choices and decisions carefully with reasonable logical thinking, instead of being dictated by their feelings or impulsive thinking. This gives them a sense of assurance and comfort instead of getting upset with themselves.

Here are some few tips on how to develop self discipline:

1. Understand what motivates you - We come across occasions or reasons that make us suddenly act or behave in a manner that gives you desirable and pleasant results. Identify such reasons.
2. Cultivate Positive Habits - A certain behavioral pattern or action generates unknown energies that pushes you to act. Make that behavior or action a habit.
3. Kill Negativity - When faced with laziness, failure or bad example from others, you tend to bow down towards negativity. Kill it, the moment it attacks you.
4. Keep Busy - Engage yourself in some kind of sports or activities that keep your mind active and busy. It will keep you mentally and physically alert.
5. Derive Inspirations - Look up to people whom you idolize and get inspired from their success. Understand them, but don't try to copy them.
6. The Rewards - Visualise the end rewards and bask in that glory.

Self Discipline concerns you. It is part of your personality and should be initiated and developed by you alone. Excuses, failures, procrastination is like a workshop in an idle mind, while self discipline will control your action and impulses thus guiding you to positivity. It will help you to take decisive actions and execute your plans easily. In addition to organising your work, it will help you achieve your targets and goals in your assigned target time.
In order to therefore lead a result oriented life of peace and comfort, encourage self discipline in your life. Refer to various resourceful sources on the subject matter and create the perfect reality you desire.


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Jim Rohn: The Why behind Personal Development!

How to Create a Habit That Actually Sticks

Let's be honest here... Change is hard, period.

Learning how to create a habit is simple, but not easy.

When you ask the question " How to create a habit that actually sticks", you feel as if you might already know the answer.

None of us want to change.

Wait, maybe we do.

None of us want to be uncomfortable though.

In order to change and create a habit, you must do things that make you uncomfortable.

You must do these things over and over until they are no longer uncomfortable, they begin to feel EASY.

They become a habit.

A habit is a behavior that you repeat over and over until it becomes automatic.

"Motivation is what gets you started, Habit is what keeps you going." - Jim Ryun

At the beginning you have to force yourself to do the new habit every day, without skipping a day, until it takes over your mind and it just happens automatically.

Here's the problem, your brain hates change, even if the change is good.

We come pre-wired to remain the same, it's a survival instinct.

This is what initially makes it hard to create a habit.

Even though when you want to create a habit that can change your life for the better, your brain does not want you to.

Any habit that you have in your life is a result of behavior that you repeated over and over. The type of food you eat, the music you listen to, the type of people you hang out with.

It's all habit!

When something becomes a habit, it feels comfortable and easy. You like easy and comfortable, don't you?

"We become what we repeatedly do" - Stephen Covey

How Habits Become Easy

The good news is that you can turn any desired behavior into a habit and it's actually pretty simple!

But Alex if it's so easy to create a habit, then why doesn't everyone do it and change their life?

The answer is Inertia.

"Inertia - a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged."

The force and effort required by you to create a new habit and repeat the new behavior over and over until it becomes automatic (a habit) requires willpower!

Our brain does everything in its power to resist us from changing.

Once a new behavior becomes a habit, we no longer feel resistance to do it. We actually begin to enjoy it!

When you start a new exercise routine, an eating lifestyle, or something as simple as reading 15-20 minutes before bed, your brain begins to say:

"Hey what's going on here? Why are we doing this? There's no reason to! Everything is fine and I'm comfortable! Change is stupid! STOP!"

How many people have you seen that sign up for a gym membership in the New Year, go for maybe 1-2 weeks, if that, and then stop?

Why do they stop?

Because they don't go often enough for it to become a habit! That's why!

Eventually their brain starts to say:

"Why are you doing this? Do you enjoy being sore and in pain? You're wasting so much time and gas driving back and forth to the gym? Maybe right now isn't the best time to start working out!"

Of course, you don't actually hear these things going on in your mind when you try to create a habit, but believe me when I tell you that your brain is amazing at coming up with excuses on why you should stop something, even when it will change your life for the better.

Now if all these people would just FORCE themselves to go, eventually after about 30 consecutive days, they will actually begin to look forward to going to the gym!

They will develop the gym habit!

That's the trick to create a habit, that's all you need to understand. You must force yourself to go until eventually you will WANT to go.

Create a Habit Without Failing

So here's how to make sure that you do not stop doing a new behavior until you turn it into a habit.

NOTE: You MUST follow exact instructions below in order to develop a habit. If you don't, you will most likely find an excuse to skip the habit one day.

Find an accountability partner, someone who you can trust but that will also be tough on you! Create a habit

Go to this person and repeat the following statement:

"For the next 30 days, I am going to do _____________ every single day. Your job is to make sure that I do it. The first day that I don't do it, you get to keep ___________."

In the first line, you will write the new behavior that you want to turn into a habit.

In the second line you will provide your accountability partner with something that they get to keep if the first day that you decide to skip the new behavior.

Money is usually a good choice, and make sure it's an amount that you will really regret losing.

The trick is to pick something that you will to give away that will be a lot more painful to lose than it will be to skip the new habit on any given day.

I promise you that if you follow that plan, you will do the behavior every day and it will become a habit after 30 days.

Example: "I don't feel like going to the gym today, but if I don't go I'm going to have to pay my friend $500! OK, I guess I'll go to the gym."

Do you see how powerful this is?... DO IT!

That's it my friend!

No need to spend a lot of money on some program or coach who will promise to change your life.

No need to have to sit down and read a whole book on how habits are formed (even though the information is interesting).

Just follow my steps and I guarantee that you will create a habit in any area of your life that you desire.

Imagine if you did this for a year decided to create a habit every month.

That's 12 new habits in a year!

How different will your life be?

How much happier and productive could you become?

What can you have that you always wanted?

You now know a fail-proof way on how to create a habit that actually sticks, take action!

IMPORTANT: Don't deviate! Write down what new habit you are going to start today, write down what your punishment will be if you skip it, and begin to change your life.

RIGHT NOW!

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