Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. – Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Japanese martial art of Aikido

Letting anyone else judge our failures might never be as good as our assessment of our own efforts and our analysis of the results. This simply is because we learn best about ourselves as compared to anyone else. However, developing these self-learning habits does not have to be all about ourselves. We can also learn from the mistakes of others for our personal growth.

The following are the 10 most common causes of failures that many of us have failed to address.

1. Disciplines and Habits

In order to secure our goals in a more comfortable and convincing manner, most of us practise certain disciplines to ensure consistency in our efforts. Once the difficulties in completing the other goals increases, aside from our knowledge and skills, we have to rely on the basic disciplines and experiences we have developed throughout the earlier stages of our projects on our goals.

Another example of such discipline would be widely witnessed in sports where training, diet and even sleeping time have to be strictly adhered to for the best performance. Since various sports deals with the physical limits, many sportspeople have to give up their preferred lifestyle to follow the disciplines set by the scientists and experts in their respective sports.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle

2. Lack of Personalized Planning

Goal setting simply is not always a detail plan as to how every action should be executed. This common misconception meant that many people do not personalize their plans to suit themselves in many aspects.
In many cases, excellent goal setters do not recognize the significance of personalizing a plan to achieve their goals.

Instead of understanding how their abilities and knowledge can be utilized for the project in a well-planned way, they become poor at executing their plans which are not suitable for themselves. Just like in any soccer team, you cannot expect a well-trained defender to play as a forward during a competitive match.

He might not score, create or assist in any goals not just because he was trained as a defender but also his natural talents are not equivalent to a forward’s.Asking for help or even forming a team with others who are experts at different skills and arranging tasks and targets which match the difficulties of their expertise might seem a better idea.

3. Lack of Actions and Motivation

Most of us presume that people who have set goals but do not make any attempts in achieving it as lazy. What we do not know is the fact that being lazy is human nature that most of us can overturn once we have found the meanings in our goals. Such meaning is being given higher value over the loss of comfort as motivated people strive to achieve their goals with these meanings.

Medical professionals can take pride in restoring the health and in the gratitude of the patients while teachers can be satisfied in the improvements and achievements of their students in life. But if a marketing executive whose opinions and work are often overlooked by his/her manager, then we can be sure that s/he will lack motivation and work performance will also deteriorate. Lacking actions and motivation can also be the effects of the fear of failure and rejection.

4. Fear of Failure

As you have read stories of what successful people achieved in their businesses, you probably have also heard how many have failed and went back to their office jobs. What influences your decision to start the business which you’ve spent months of research on is basically the risk of losing money over the long term.

On top of that, there is also the psychological factor which is the fear of being judged when facing our own failures. The fear that people including our own families will think negatively of our failures has often deterred most of us from using advanced goal setting techniques to start our plans. Such mentality can hinder us from any actions towards our goals.

Some consider the risk of losing too much in the future as not even worth the effort to set a goal. Surely, there are also others who are more than capable to achieve their goals but somehow lack the courage or confidence to set goals.

5. Fear of Rejection

The fear of being rejected for having goals which are not accepted by the society is a very common psychological obstacle. While most of us enjoy our work or are proud of our jobs, some families cannot even accept the very different ambitions of their children. Such children are an example of many whose goal setting and ideas are hampered by constant fear of rejection.

6. Accountability

While this is different from lacking motivation, being held accountable or responsible for your goals will not be a burden to you. In fact, trying to accomplish your goals creates a sense of responsibility especially if you share the goals with other people.

Having responsibilities on your goals means you will not give up easily and will try your best to achieve these goals. Nevertheless, we should not see such responsibilities as burdens as we remind ourselves the passion and meaning we derived from our goals in the earlier stages.

7. Lack of Review of Work and Analysis of Results

The rate of improvement in performance can be affected by the lack of review, whether we succeed or fail in our work. While many can argue that monitoring progress can surely determine excellence, the habit of reviewing the details of our actions is a very beneficial work ethic that we should embody.

In teaching the subject of Mathematics to weaker students, teachers would often help students discover why their answers are often incorrect by teaching them to review the steps taken to solve the mathematical problem. Once the teacher identifies and explains the mistake in the steps involved, the student will remember not to make the same mistake through thorough practice for the same type of Maths question.

Analysis

We can typically compare our work with reviewing steps taken to solve a Maths question. Often, we may get the assistance of others to review our work or problems as we may not share the same perspective. The opinions of an experienced expert or a more knowledgeable colleague will be useful for your learning of your work. More often than not, we tend to overlook improvement especially when the results indicate no room for further improvement. It may take some of our time to review our work but it definitely can be an excellent learning curve for our future.

8. Surrounded by Negative Vibes

We can never downplay the influence of the people around us, whether they are family, friends or even our neighbours. In common perception, the closer these people are to us, the more weight their opinions carry on our life decisions. In certain circumstances, some of them might discourage us from pursuing our goals. The common reason is the risk and the costs of pursuing our goals are not worth our resources and time as they are not as rewarding.

While they have very valid reasons to dissuade us, the choice will still be ours to make. To a certain extent, some of our naysayers may even affect our emotions to justify their opinions and strengthen their beliefs in facts. Whereas some have very kind intentions, what they do have to respect is our rights to have the final say in every decision of our lives.

On a more positive note, we should take their opinions, whatever facts and figures which can help us to research on our goals even more. As our research helps us gain even more information on our goals, then we can decide to work on our goals or have different goals.

9. Too Much Focus on the Goal Itself

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome. –Arthur Ashe
Intense concentration on the goal itself might reduce our happiness over the long run. We place such excessive pressure on ourselves to perform to certain standards that this amount of stress can really affect our living pleasures. The more advisable thinking of our goals is to direct our focus on daily practice instead of wishing to achieve long term goals in the least amount of time.

In this condition, we can also question ourselves whether our goal-based mentality is putting so much stress that we ignore life after these goals. If we wish to progress beyond accomplishing these goals, then we must release the need to obtain results immediately as some goals will inevitably require time.

10. Downplaying Your Achievements

One of the ultimate sources of motivation is the reward itself. Because of this, we must not downplay our achievements or be too humble that we chose not to give credit to ourselves. This mentality not only depletes us of the necessary fuel to chase after our dreams but also our self-confidence in the long term.While there are many ways to celebrate an achievement, the scale of such celebrations should not risk our developments of other goals as though we have lived to accomplish that one particular goal in life.

The Bigger Picture

Now, try to imagine the success you wish to achieve in your life in the distant future e.g. the next 10 years. You could either describe this picture by writing, talking about it or even watching videos of people whose success you wish to emulate.

The next step is to further refine the details of this success by including the details into the picture or description you have just created. The more specific, the better. These might be the ‘stepping stones’ or the smaller goals to determine how you can reach the ‘bigger picture’ type of success.

Now that you have a rough idea of the success you wish to achieve in the future, it is time to set goals by writing them down or recording them in other ways.

Set Goals that Motivate You Part 1

Goals with motivational elements, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, are the best reasons we can give ourselves to thrive in life. Passion, commitment, sense of urgency, enthusiasm, creativity and many other positive traits are products of goals which motivate us. Nevertheless, some of us have had the problems of having too many goals which we were passionate about. When we reach the end of working towards too many goals, we would have drained all our energy out but we achieve very minimal of these goals.

Therefore, before we set out to our tireless work towards our exhilarating cause, we must decide the winner(s) of this ‘goal competition’.

The Goal Competition

So how do we score in this competition? Firstly, we must understand that some goals may prevent us from reaching the others regardless of how obsessive we are. Some goals may take us longer time to achieve the ‘bigger picture’ even if they are the easiest to achieve compared to others. Meanwhile some goals must be achieved first before we proceed to the next goals (discussed in chapter 2, pg. ) Do we prioritise the most motivating goal or start with the easiest ones? How about those which are more rewarding but takes a longer time to achieve?

Setting Goals

While the answers to such questions are subject to every individual’s preferences and strategies, they are the questions we have to answer during the stage of goal setting.

In short, the goals are basically competing with one another to be our priorities. We score the goal of this competition by deciding the winner(s) of this competition and then we could understand which goal we should first concentrate on. This will save us from exhaustion, vain efforts, lack of focus, energy, emotions and most importantly, our motivations to continue our work on the future goals.

While we can decide to adjust the level of priorities on each goal, at least, we can anticipate the outcomes of our actions better from the beginning.

Set Goals that Motivate You Part 2

What makes these ‘winner’ goals unique from other goals? We find the deepest meanings in these goals which we are willing to devote our time and resources to. They are not only the ‘winners’ of the goal competition but they are also our ‘motivators’.

In our quest to accomplish these goals, we will be tempted to set new goals and try to accomplish them. However, goals which truly motivate us will withstand the competition from other new goals and we will be dedicated to finish these goals before the new ones.

In other circumstances, our efforts on long term goals will be further justified with rewards for our motivation. This further fuels our motivation for the next goals.

To reinforce the motivation which we first found in the goals we have decided to work on, we should write down why it’s meaningful, important and valuable to us. Then, we can ask ourselves, “How do I convince other people that these goals are worth my effort, time and resources?”

The answer to this question will form the deep meanings and become the motivation for us to carry on despite our doubts and our diminishing confidence in our struggles to achieve the goals. It is the best reminder of our promise to commit ourselves to the cause.

Set Goals which are S.M.A.R.T.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound goals are goals which we refine based on the ‘winner’ goals from the goal competition before finalising our goals. In such way, our meaningful and motivating goals will not be only temporary passion without concrete planning then.

Specific goals

Goals which are not clearly defined will not lead us to our desired destinations in life. If the goals are our destinations but we cannot specify them, we will probably lose our directions during our work even if we are presented with multiple methods to achieve our goals. As mentioned in this chapter and also the previous one, we will waste a lot of resources if we do not have conviction in the specificity of our goals. Remember, goals show us the way so we must spell out every single detail to get us to where we want.

Measurable Goals

Goals which are immeasurable are those which are vaguely defined and hence, we will not be able to track our progress. Quantifying both our progress and goals and then comparing both can indicate our performance and success rate. Such indication could also be used as analysis for further improvements in our performance.

Body weight management programs, budgeting, running distance and time, building construction and many other goals have are made up of absolute quantifications. Using measurements of results, we can tell how much we have improved or progressed and we won’t even miss the celebration without knowing we have achieved certain goals!

Attainable Goals

Setting goals which are realistically possible to achieve means building more success on top of another. In contrast, working on goals which are impossible or too challenging to achieve will only break our perseverance and determination in the long term. We will surely lose motivation if we cannot achieve any rewards we wish for despite our best efforts.

In spite of such idea, we should always resist the appeal of setting goals that are too easy to accomplish. This is because constantly setting easy goals will generate a comfort zone for us. While we indulge in completing these easy goals, we become insensitive to our needs to improve. In the end, we are so afraid of failures and non-achievement that we will not risk setting a more challenging goal.

The particular way of setting such goals is to divide the goal into measurable upper and lower bounds. For instance, if you have reached the lower boundary of your goal, e.g. the running distance of 5 kilometres in 30 minutes, instead of running the same distance in the same amount of time, you could try to run further in 30 minutes or run the same distance in shorter time. These goals can be adjusted from time to time but in certain situations like running, we can definitely attempt at a longer distance knowing we have achieved during the run itself.

In other words, we set attainable goals to be aware of the level of difficulties and the rewards for our efforts. We have to adjust the levels of difficulties to our preferences so as not to fall into our comfort zone or feel de-motivated in the future.

Relevant Goals

Concentrating on relevant goals does not only save us from unnecessary venture into other distractions. It also allows us to practise our best skills, expand our knowledge in particular subject and gain invaluable experience for future growth.

It sometimes can be difficult for us to separate the goals which we are very eager to accomplish from the ones which we feel are relevant and beneficial to our future. Therefore, it is a primary yet very essential step to ensure our goals are constantly relevant.

Time- bound goals

Deadlines, time limits or even day by day progress are some of the measures we can set for ourselves to ensure progress. Besides, setting goals with a certain time frame will help us anticipate delays and prevent any unnecessary delays.

Without such sense of timing, there will be less or no urgency for us to complete even the easiest tasks. As such, our commitment will dwindle and we might even start to get comfortable with procrastinating work.

Thus, we must always remind ourselves of the expected development in the timeline we have set for our dreams to come true.

Writing Your Goals and Keeping Up

Now that we have understood all the S.M.A.R.T goal setting concepts, we must not forget that we have to write our goals down and set reminders. To get these reminders to be more effective, we can set them on our phones or even place sticky notes in places like our work desk, on the refrigerator with the magnets or even on our TV.

Goal setting, as we have heard many times, is the very first step in our efforts to achieve our dreams. Our dreams can never turn into reality if we just dream about it without any goals in mind. We can try to imagine ourselves being in the same position in our lives after wasting 30 years, using various ways to achieve our dreams, just to realize that we never really reached any goals to bring us closer to our dreams.It would have been a desperate failure from the start.

To understand where our next few steps or goals towards reaching success, we should recognize these 6 essential reasons for us to set our goals in the right way.

1. Goals as the Force of Motivation

Goals drive us towards our achievements as it acts as the force of our motivation. To connect to our inner force or desire, goal setting is the first step we take towards our achievements. In both short term and long term, it gives us a target to aim at, a destination we wish to travel to or even a particular number we try to arrive at.

This is the point which gets us excited and passionate as we work very diligently towards our goals. While it is common that our efforts to achieve these goals are full of enthusiasm and energy in the beginning, it is important for us to know how much these goals personally mean to ourselves.

In such way, setting goals which we know we would truly be passionate about in the long term will help us accomplish our missions in a more sustainable manner. After all, if we are not consistently motivated, we would suffer from the burn outs of trying to achieve meaningless goals.

2. Goals as Visual Representations of Our Dreams

Imaginations, visualizations, fantasies or even dreams are not just unrealistic concepts based on our utilizable knowledge if we have set our goals towards them. Because of this, goal setting plays a vital role in ensuring our belief in our methods, our analysis of our results and our efforts in chasing after every resource needed.

Instead of setting one goal as the only way to reach our dreams, we can conceptualize our dreams as a set of puzzles and the goals we set are pieces of puzzles we need to design, fix or even match to complete this set of puzzle. We can also regard each goal as a stepping stone towards our desired destination.As a result of achieving each goal, like finding each puzzle, we are closer to assembling the whole picture of our dreams (the complete set of puzzle).

So yes, don’t be afraid to dream!

3. Goals to Track Progress

Since some goals are the foundations for us to build on to reach another goal, arranging them to be accomplished first will be vital for us to track the progress of our work. As mentioned above that goals are like stepping stones to our main goal, goals also serve to help us track our progress in our work. This can be interpreted as accomplishing each goal will bring us closer to achieving our targets.

Whereas achieving our goals means increasing our chances of succeeding, we also have to track our work in progress by assessing how a work can be done and the amount of time needed. These goals can also be inter-related to one another as we cannot progress with specific work if one objective or goal is not reached.One particular situation to exemplify such concept is the work of organising a birthday party for our family.

The first step is always to send out the invitations and then confirming the number of guests attending. Without these first two steps, it would be challenging to arrange for the venue, the amount of food and drinks, the decoration and other aspects which will complete the party. The invitations and the number of guests attending are the two vital factors to the success of the party.

In conclusion, some work cannot simply progress without completing certain goals first.

4. Goals as Promises to the Self

The goals we have set to achieve are also promises we made to ourselves. In recording our goal setting process, it is also important that we ensure these concrete goals and give ourselves a particular timeline to achieve each goal.
Other than that, these ‘promises’ also keep us responsible for every of our actions which lead us to the failure or success of our plans.

With this sense of responsibility instilled in ourselves, this allows us to re-evaluate our actions and scrutinise the consequences whether in a short period or in the long term. One can definitely take pride in his/her success when recalling of the decisions s/he took 2 years or even 20 years ago.

On the other hand, if one fails or accomplishes less than the set goal, then it is a definite sign to change ways to improve and achieve whatever the set goal is.

5. Goals as the Direction of our Focus

Setting goals also means setting our mind, our heart and our soul to the target. In another metaphorical sense, we simply cannot shoot an arrow without a target. Upon setting our goals, we will know how, where and when to use our talent and abilities.Like a magnifying glass concentrates the sunlight towards the leaf, the leaf is then burnt.

The sunlight is our abilities whereas the magnifying glass is likened to our focus on the target and the leaf, obviously, is the target. Without the magnifying glass (our focus), the target would never be reached despite the amount of heat the sunlight supplies (our potentials).

We can only obtain this sense of direction in our journey to our dreams when we specify the goals right at the beginning. Sometimes we cannot avoid the fact that our focus might change and we have to maintain or to a desperate extent, defend our focus to achieve our goals.

One of the many ways of maintaining focus is changing our lifestyles to reduce distractions such as declining invitations to meaningless parties or occasionally saying no to outing with friends. This reduces the resources spent on distractions and in turn, increases productivity for us to work on our objectives.

6. Goals to Develop Our Potentials

Our potential is nurtured through our progress in achieving the goals we set from the beginning. This means setting the goals which are direct opportunities for us to expand our knowledge, sharpen our skills and enrich our experience will benefit us in the future.

Without such goals, we might not be able to develop ourselves out of our comfort zone as we are subjected to the comfortable and safe routines of our daily lives. Because of not setting goals or not having the suitable goals, some of our potentials never grow or are just locked within ourselves.

On the contrary, the goals which we have set will enable us to challenge ourselves to adapt to new environments and new situations. Besides, setting certain expectations on ourselves would only convince us to do our best and expand our limits. Weight loss or gain targets, running time limit, business profits or even following a planned diet are all personal goals for us to challenge ourselves.

Obviously, we reap what we sow and sometimes what we sow might be more than just the reward itself.Once we can appreciate the improvements we gained through accomplishments, we will also achieve the sense of self-fulfillment. With this feeling of satisfying ourselves, we can work on other goals with better motivation and energy. We might not even feel that the obstacles in the later stages are as challenging as before too.

In our quest to accomplish our every goal to the point of reaching our lifetime goal, we would often fail to control our passion and let it become an overwhelming obsession which takes over our lifestyle and even health. At this point, whatever we pursue will not become as important as our life.

In other words, we have to balance our life of achieving goals and the other important aspects in our life such as our health, family, friends and leisure. In spite of everything, all day work and no play make Jack a dull boy or maybe even a sick boy.

Setting goals in these aspects in our life is as equally important as the other goals we have set out to achieve. By spending less time or effort in these aspects, our progress in work might also be affected. It will be an inevitable challenge to balance all of them as we will be too busy for everything but every positive progress in any part of our lives will surely strengthen us to create further improvements in other aspects.

Health
When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth become useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.

Herophilus

A cliché, repeated in multiple versions of quotes, serves to remind us that without our well-being, one simply cannot be productive in work, enjoy our love with our family and friends. Our health is the most vital aspect we cannot neglect whatever age we are at.

Practicing a healthy lifestyle will improve the quality of our lives and those around us. It will not just increase productivity but also prolong our life. However busy we are, we tend to maintain a nourishing and healthy diet (special occasions are exceptions!), exercise sufficiently and get enough sleep. It would be waste of our efforts to achieve our lifetime goals if we are not healthy enough to enjoy the sweetness of our victories longer.

Family and Friends

Humans are social creatures who cannot live without a single relationship with others. As such, every human is socially dependent on one another to survive right from our birth. It all started with our relationship with our mothers who give birth to us, and then expands to our other family members, and then friends and lovers and so on.

But how important is our social life?

Being socially healthy is as equally important as being mentally and physically healthy. Spending quality time with our family and friends is one of the social needs of an average person of whatever age. After a long day of business or work, don’t just go back to the TV, your phone or whatever electronic gadget. Try to connect with people and pay attention to their lives.

Talk to your family more often. Arrange a date with your loved one. Take the children for a trip. Discuss a topic with your fellow enthusiasts. Have a drink with old friends. Make new friends at the park. Do voluntary work or charity at the old folks’. Send Christmas gifts to the orphans. The idea of a healthy social life benefits ourselves as it keeps us from depression and social isolation which could impact our health at a serious level.

Other than our social needs, being involved in positive relationships caters to our emotional needs. When we surround ourselves with people who do not only understand our needs to love and to be loved, we also gain social support to help us recover from our losses in our lives.Relationships and social networks always work on a give-and-take basis.

Hence, such support is a privilege we receive from giving as much attention and effort to maintain positive relationships with the people around us. As a conclusion, we definitely should surround ourselves with people who understand, encourage and support us in our lives while we also work to share them our strength and inspirations.

Spending Time Alone

Overworked and feeling that you have given all your time to everyone else except yourself are symptoms that you should allocate some personal time to relieve the stress and to reflect on the main aspects of your life. One’s social life is never complete without time for only the self. While most successful people are so passionate that their personal time has become their work time, many spend their leisure with different hobbies.

The amount of time spent by each of us varies but the intentions are similar most of the time, to de- stress and to recover from the strains of their passion in order to perform their best when they return to pursue their goals. By spending some time alone, we will not feel demotivated when we continue to pursue our goals. In fact, this type of self time allows us to be happy and invigorated for further challenges.

This is also an opportunity for us to reward ourselves when we have achieved a goal. Travel the world, take up a new hobby, expand our knowledge in a certain field, or even just playing video games are several ways to revitalize ourselves.

Finance

Money is the root of all evil. That only applies when it is in the wrong hands. On an interesting note, many of us finish our primary and secondary education without ever being aware of the crucial aspect of personal finance in our lives. Only in college or university that we start to realise that the financial control over our lives is key to survival in the society.

However, being aware of the good practices to control your finances and actually practising them are the factors that decide whether money is really the root of all evil. After all, it does reflect on our credit scores.

Here are the 10 good habits to maintain healthy personal finance:

1. Tracking Income and Expenses

Undoubtedly, this is the fundamental step of any financial planning and controlling. As the average person, tracking income is not as complicated as tracking expenses especially if the sources of income are not many. Tracking expenses requires some discipline and consistency in our daily habits such as recording the amount of cash we spent, keeping the credit cards bill we paid, keeping receipts of our expenses, loan information, tax records and online purchases.

It gives us a better idea of our personal finance and how it can help us to achieve our goals while reminding us to stay financially healthy by not spending more than our income.

2. Priority Allocations

While it is most basic to suggest that we should plan our budgets, there are definitely certain priorities which we should prioritize our finances for. When we receive our pay cheques at the end of the month, the first step will always be to allocate these funds to the priorities we set in line with our goals.

Such priority funds may be our savings, loans, our children’s education, retirement funds and investments. By setting this as the first step of our budget, we can work out how much we have left to spend or to prepare for other necessities.

3. Emergency Funds

Other than insurances which can cover certain amount of our losses in accidents, we are advised to keep up to 10% of our monthly income for emergency uses. For instance, having an accident which can keep us away from work means we can utilize these funds which we have already saved up before for our daily expenses. As surprise scenarios can be quite unpredictable, it is best we prepare the umbrella before the rain.

4. Staying Away from High-Interest Credit or Totally Away from Debts

At some point in our lives, it would be almost impossible to stay free of loans. Because of this, we have to consider the loans with the lowest interest rates we can apply for to reduce our repayment. After all, any interest rate imposed upon the principal is the main income of the debtor. Paying way more than what we have borrowed will only increase unnecessary expenses.

Besides, some creditors allow advanced repayments for us to finish the repayment before the planned payment period. In this case, we might even save up on the interest of the remaining payment period. Staying debt-free means gaining more income and also a better credit score which serves to be an indicator of our healthy financial status to creditors. Healthy credit scores allow us to obtain loan more easily in the future as well.

5. Creating a Shopping List & Impulsive Shopping

Buying on impulse means unnecessary spending which will reduce the flexibilities of controlling your expenses as it also means reducing the spending on necessary items. We should not purchase any luxury items when we do not have extra cash and even if we want to, it would usually be the money left in our monthly budget after all our financial priorities are settled.

To control impulsive shopping, it is best we write down a list of items we need to buy so those which are not in the list are considered as unnecessary. Similar to long term and short term goals, we can always save up for luxury items which we can only afford later.

6. Purchasing Value

We would always tend to ensure our purchases give us the value for our money and no after-sales problems at all. In particular circumstances, sometimes it is better to pay a bit more for products that will effectively last longer than buying the cheap ones which we have to constantly replace or repair.

In contrast, not all products are better simply because they are more expensive. The prices of such products are down to a multitude of factors such as competition, consumer perception, quality of materials, cost of methods and etc. We should seek reviews from experts and other consumers before comparing these products to one another and deciding which gives us the best value according to our needs.

7. Investment

Only allocating monthly income for certain investments does not guarantee profit and therefore, every wise investor has plans for timely exits from their investments to avoid losses. In other words, we must possess sufficient knowledge and the right information to invest in any of the various financial instruments. Otherwise, we would suffer losses without being able to understand the reasons.

On the other hand, we must monitor our investment funds to avoid losses as well as to seize fine opportunities to gain more profit from our investments. An even more secure way of preventing losses in our investments would be to have an exit strategy especially when we can foresee the circumstances.

8. Retirement Funds

Even if governments enforce laws for the employees and the working citizens to allocate retirement funds, sometimes, it would not be enough to live comfortably particularly if you wish to retire at an earlier age. Besides, what good does it do for us if we have prepared the funds for our children to graduate from university or college if we end up in poor financial status when we retire?

Having a retirement plan is a long term goal which determines how we would like to live our lives when we retire. On the contrary, struggling to have such financial ability at retirement age means we have to delay retirement work for a few more years.

9. Consistent Raise
Once our income is raised, we should not forget our savings and investments for our future should also be proportionately raised. For instance, the rate of our savings per month is 20% of our monthly
income of $5000. That translated to $1000. In the next year onwards, our income is raised to $6000 and so the savings, based on 20% of $6000, should be $1200.

In the case where our expenses are not increased in comparison with our income, extra income means more flexibility of utilising our money. Another way of raising our savings is to increase it from 20% of our income to 25% of our income even when we do not get a pay rise.

10. Analyzing Financial Condition and Improvising the Budget

With all the necessary steps taken to manage our financial status, we often overlooked the review of our financial performance on a particular time basis. The reviews of our financial status usually are
carried out at the end of the year or the month. Such timing is usually to see if our plans were executed well enough to help us achieve our financial goals.

If you’ve read any self-help book, book on success or similar, then chances are that you will have come across this notion that you can get whatever you want from life simply by changing your mindset and changing the way you think. Can it really be so simple? How can your state of mind really affect your physical reality?

Actually, there are plenty of ways. Let me explain…

The Law of Attraction

The law of attraction is the name of a theory that explains why some people get everything they want and other people just don’t.Essentially, this law states that ‘like attracts like’ and that ‘as you act, so you will become’. In other words, if you act like someone who is rich, then you will attract other rich people and valuable items. Eventually, you will become rich.

And if you act like the most capable and amazing person in your workplace, then other people will start to take you more seriously, give you more work and help you to become that most capable and amazing person.This is the law of attraction and although it might sound like magic, there is actually a very good explanation for how it all works.

You see, when you start acting more confident in your workplace by standing a little taller, by puffing your chest out and by talking more firmly to people, you will find that other people pick up on that and they start to see you as a more confident person.

When someone sees you as being more confident in the workplace, they will instantly begin to see you as being more capable. And when they see you as being more capable, they will of course be more interested in working with you and offering you important tasks to be responsible for.

The same goes for wearing a nice suit. If you look like someone who takes care of themselves, like a professional, like someone who a company would be happy to speak to clients on their behalf… then you will be given more work as a result. How about acting wealthy? Well, one example of how this works is that people will notice your new more ‘premium’ taste and they will respond by giving you more valuable and expensive gifts – it really is that simple!

Acting wealthier and believing yourself to be can also again help others to want to work with you and invest in you and it can give you the confidence you need to take smart financial risks. The first step to becoming, is believing. It sounds corny but it is completely true.

Understanding Perception

Another thing to consider is how our perception of reality completely changes our subjective experience of this – and therefore the outcome. What do I mean by this? Simply that what you experience is actually less important for your state of mind than what you believe.

For example then, if you were to come face to face with a lion in the woods, there would be a good chance that you’d see your heartrate jump up sharply, your breathing become faster and shallower and your blood start rushing to your muscles, your eyes and your brain. This is what we know as the ‘fight or flight response’.

But what if you see the lion but don’t believe in the lion? What if you think the lion is animatronic? Then none of those changes will occur and you’ll remain entirely calm. The thing to remember is that many of the things we encounter in our daily lives are just like those lions.

When you encounter a challenge in the work place, a difficult friend or partner, or financial troubles. You can choose to see it as a lion, or you can choose to see it as no big deal.These strategies allow us to actively change the way we think about challenges, about ourselves and about our situations – and thereby to achieve incredible things and even completely remove fear!

Positivity and Belief

Finally though, what’s also highly important is that we have positivity and belief in what we’re doing. Positivity is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal and can help you to take chances, challenge the system and generally make waves.

If you are a pessimist with low self-esteem, is it like that you’ll set up your own business? No. If you’re someone who is afraid to take chances, then how likely is it that you’ll end up quitting your job and going travelling? Not very!
Too many of us are simply beaten down by our circumstances and our upbringing and we believe that the best way to get by is to stay quiet and try not to rock the boat.

The reality though is that you need to take chances and risks in order to truly live. Would you rather fail at doing something amazing, or succeed at doing nothing at all? And in order to take that leap, we need to change your mindset.

You may have read all the self-help books and the autobiographies of men like Abraham Lincoln who failed all their lives and finally succeeded. It all seems so positive and feel good until you fail. One of Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes is, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” There’s just no denying that failure is a bitter pill to swallow.It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, you’ll still feel that twinge of disappointment or some anger when your best laid plans collapse.

Usually, the most successful people are also the ones who are best at coping with failure. The reason for this is that they fail more than most people but they just never give up. That also means that they do more than most other people who quit the moment failure knocks on their door.There are many ways to cope with failure but you must understand that it is going to hurt when you fail.

Sometimes it may feel like the only thing you ever learn from a failure is that you failed. While this is not true, it will seem that way. We are all human and no one likes to see their efforts go to waste. It could be a business venture that collapses. Or maybe your relationship with your spouse crumbles and is beyond repair. Maybe your health takes a turn for the worse despite living a healthy lifestyle. All these are events.

Understanding this point makes all the difference between handling failure successfully or letting it break you. Failure is an event, not a person. Like they say, never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart. It will hurt and there will be disappointment but you must embrace the experience and push forward.Success is not final and failure is not fatal. As long as you’re breathing you still can turn your failures into successes.

It’s time to discover the 7 secrets that successful people use to cope with failure.

Different individuals may do it differently but the general rule of thumb is this – Failure is always temporary. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success. Now let’s look at how you can cope with it when it comes your way… and you can rest assured that it will. So be prepared.

1. Don’t take it personally
This is the biggest mistake that most people make. They blame themselves when things go wrong. Or they blame other people. When you do not separate failure from how you identify yourself, then your self-esteem will drop and you’ll be much more tempted to quit.

People usually quit on their dreams because they don’t believe that they’re capable of achieving what their hearts desire. They feel that it’s too hard and the reason they feel that way is because they may have failed. For example, when someone is trying to lose weight and watching their diet closely, there will be times when they give in to temptation and eat something they shouldn’t. When this happens, they feel guilt and regret that they failed at maintaining their diet.

What do they do then? They toss their diet aside and gorge themselves on food that they’re not supposed to. They believe that they lack the self-discipline to stay focused and lose weight… Just because of one temporary lapse in judgment. This is ridiculous and it’s like accidentally dropping your mobile phone once only to pick it up and keep smashing it on the ground over and over because of one accident. It doesn’t make sense… and yet people act in a similar way.

When you fail at something, whether it’s with your blog or your email marketing or if your latest product launch is a flop, do not assume that you’re useless and just throw in the towel. What defines you is how well you rise after falling.So the most important point to note is that you should not let failure define you as a person. Always know that you can do better.

2. Learn From Your Mistakes

All the most successful people have learned from their mistakes and try not to repeat them. Failure can also be treated as feedback. If some aspect of your online business fails, ask yourself why this happened. For example, if your product launch was a flop, there must be a reason why. Was your niche unprofitable? Did the sales page convert poorly? Did you not actively recruit affiliates?

Analysis is very important so that you do not repeat the same errors. This is the only way to make progress and succeed.Michael Eisner, the Chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation said, “Failure is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.”

The only way to prevent failure from becoming a habit is to take stock of your situation, learn from your mistakes and adapt. Try to maintain a certain degree of detachment so that you can evaluate your failure without feeling bitter. Sometimes it might be a good idea to take a break for a short while and come back to it when you’re feeling better. Either way, ALWAYS analyze your failures.

3. Stop Dwelling On Your Failures

You may have noticed that all some people can talk about is how life has treated them so badly. No matter what they do, they fail at it due to bad luck or unforeseen circumstances. We’ve all seen people like these… and while you may not know why these things happen to them, you know that things like these always seem to happen to people like them.Harsh but very true. Do not dwell on your failures.

Analyze them and move on. You have better things in store for you. Missed out on an opportunity? No worries. Better ones are coming your way. Product launch flopped? That’s ok the next one will sell thousands. Picked the wrong niche to monetize? No big deal. You now know how to find niches with people waiting to buy stuff. Problem solved.

It is inevitable to lose time, effort and money when something fails. If you keep focusing on what is lost, you’ll never be able to focus on what you can gain and there is so much more out there for you.
Focus on the positive and bury your failures.

4. Model Other Marketers

There’s a saying that you should always learn from the mistakes of others because you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself. When trying to build an online business, instead of believing all the hype that you see in all the info-products that flood the market, you’d be better off watching what the successful marketers are doing. Do what they do and not what they say.

Most beginners to online marketing encounter failure repeatedly because they follow untested theory and blindly believe what they read or hear. You have to be smarter than that. If whatever you’re doing seems to be failing, then you need to look at what other marketers who are succeeding are doing  then model them.

That alone will reduce your learning curve and put you on the path to online success. Stop being like a housefly that repeatedly bangs its head on the window hoping to get out when the door is wide open for it to go through.

5. Assess Your Finances

One of the biggest concerns marketers have when they fail is that they’ve lost money. Creating a product costs money. Testing out ads costs money. Outsourcing costs money. There is no getting away from this. In fact, to run any business you need money. It’s like oxygen for your business and without it, your business will shrivel up and die. So, it’s crucial that you have a source of income coming in to tide you over if any online endeavour fails.

Some marketers quit their day jobs to make their online business work. When the business fails and the bills start piling up, they start getting desperate. At times like these, you just may need to get another job to get back on your feet. Do not feel like you have failed and are doomed to a life of ‘working for the man.’ This is just a temporary setback and like Joel Osteen, always says, “A setback is a set up for a comeback.”

Go ahead and take that job. It will feel like retrogression but you must understand that even a tiger crouches before it leaps. Once you have money coming in, the pressure that your finances are causing you will ease. You’ll be able to save up some money to keep funding your online business. That’s really how it is. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice.

Do not throw your efforts down the drain and quit online marketing totally just because you failed a couple of times. As long as you keep learning and doing, success is inevitable.

6. Release the Need for Approval from Others

This is a very common fear and makes failure seem worse than it really is. People often worry what others will think or say about them when they fail. It’s definitely true that you’ll have friends and family members who will tell you, “I told you so!” when you fail. Some of them may even take pleasure in it. This is human nature. It could even be your spouse or parents who don’t support your dreams.

When you fail and see their disapproving looks or hear their sarcastic words, it can seem worse.The truth of the matter is that you only have one life to live and you need to live it for yourself. It doesn’t matter what others say or think about you. Just because others think you’re dumb for failing doesn’t mean that you’re really foolish.

How people see you should have zero impact on how you see yourself. Have faith in yourself and don’t pay heed to the naysayers.

7. Take a Break

Time heals all wounds. Sometimes when failure really gets to you, it may be time to take a break and put some space between you and your business. This will help to clear your mind so that you can think objectively. While taking a break, you can self-reflect and think about your future plans. You may decide to have backup plans to correct any future failures or problems that may crop up.

Take the time to exercise. Research has shown that hard training like boxing, Crossfit, sprinting, etc. help people to release pent up frustration and anger. This can be therapeutic when coping with failure. Instead of hitting the bottle, you can hit a punching bag or lift heavy weights explosively during CrossFit sessions. Do what suits you best.

What is most important is that you not let failure make you quit. That is the most common consequence of failure. People fail a few times and they quit. If you read the story of Colonel Sanders, you’d realize that he was turned down 1,009 times before he finally found someone who would use his recipe. Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he received financing for Disney World.

In this article, I have occasionally challenged the notion that working hard is always a good thing. Sometimes, working hard means wasting your life on chores or wasting your life working for a company that doesn’t value you.
Much better than working hard then, is to work smart. That means that you stop focusing on working for the sake of working and start working in order to get results.

This is where it becomes important once again to assess your past mistakes and look at what has worked and what hasn’t. This will allow you to invest your time only where it counts and only where it matters.

Freeing Up Mental Space

And sometimes, this means finding ways to remove the unwanted distractions and clutter from your life. Work that does not take you closer to your goal is not work that is worth your time. Work that takes you away from the things you are passionate about is not worth your time. And so if you’re currently spending half your evening washing up and cleaning the house  it’s time to stop!

You worked incredibly hard in order to earn money for your family – you traded your time for resources – and now the little time you have left you’re going to spend washing up?? This is another cognitive shift you need to make in order to be truly successful – you need to start valuing your time more and be willing to spend your money to protect it.

You need to recognize that Time > Money. So instead of spending your time cleaning the house, why not hire a cleaner to do it? You’ve worked hard enough to deserve one and this way you can work on more fulfilling side projects (and earn back the money you’re spending several times over), you can spend time with your family and friends, or you can spend more time enjoying the hobbies that you are truly passionate about.

Likewise, you can give yourself more time by investing in a dishwasher, a robotic vacuum cleaner or maybe even a service that will deliver you readymade meals to your door for lunch and dinner! Invest in You Don’t think that this means you shouldn’t be spending time on your appearance though – you absolutely should. This takes us right back to our ‘law of attraction’ principle from the start of this book.

To get the best jobs and to have the most success with the opposite sex, you need to look the part.And to look the part, you need to spend time or money. You don’t have the time to spend hours ironing and run a second business from home – so spend the money on your looks. And believe that this money is going to come back to you. Believe in the law of attraction. That’s how those incredibly polished people who just seem to excel in everything they do got that way.

Creating Business Models That Succeed

This ‘results focused attitude’ is also how you’re going to design your business models and choose your projects. Think about the resources you already have available to you, the contacts you already know and the skills that you already possess. If you are the editor of a magazine on a certain topic for example, then you have a huge captive audience.

What business could you launch that you could aim at that audience? And as I’ve said already before: don’t think about success in terms of what others perceive as success.A lot of people will try and start businesses that they think will ‘change the world’ or ‘offer something completely unique’. But you know what? This type of business makes it much harder to find investors and much harder to market.

If you want to make money quickly, if that is your goal, then you’re often much better off just using a tried and tested business model that countless people have used before. Don’t invest huge amounts of money into a business before you have‘verified it’.Use the ‘fail fast principle’ by creating an MVP and seeing if it is successful before spending lots of time on it.

This will also let you stay lean and jump between multiple business models. If you’re willing to look for the shortcuts and if you understand the most important variables in each equation, then you can often sidestep the work and jump straight to the good part – earning lots of cash! Success really doesn’t have to be as hard as everyone makes it out to be. You just need to the right attitude and some gumption.

The winning mindset is a fundamental factor in achieving success in life or in business. This mindset is not created by chance or a flip of the coin. It serves as the foundation of success, conscious growth, wealth, and prosperity. If you want to create a positive mindset, you have to know how it works to help you become the winner.

The following are some essential information that you need to know about getting the winning mindset:

What is a Mindset?

Your mindset is who you are. It is composed of your beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and thoughts. Mindset is a simple idea that creates all the differences. It creates productivity and motivation in sports, education, and business. It is what successful athletes, business people, and educators have.

How to Achieve the Winning Mindset?

1. Believe in Yourself

You have to believe that you can do anything. You have to trust in your skills, knowledge, and capability when dealing with the challenges that you will face as you tread the path towards success.

2. Make a Plan and Create a Strategy

Part of having a winning mindset is to create a plan that will serve as your guide in reaching your goals. On the other hand, having the right strategy can make such goals easier to achieve. Most of the time, it requires an appropriate set of behaviors and a vision for the future. Without a holistic and flexible strategy, your are more likely to fall short in achieving what you want to achieve in your life.

3. Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

People who have the mindset of a winner are those who know how to use their skills and strengths to give them the will to win and enforce a positive attitude. They are also not afraid to fail and never give up.

4. Practice Self-Awareness

Top performing people are aware of the things that they have, the ones that can motivate and help them achieve their goals. Being aware of the things that they are good at can provide them with a competitive edge over their competitors. They also know how to manage such things in order to prevent them from becoming their weaknesses.

5. Be Brave Enough to Face Your Challenges

If you really wanted to win, you need to be brave enough to face your fears and challenges. You have to be ready to fight and take “No” for an answer. If you want help, never be afraid to ask for it especially when such help can greatly increase your chances of accomplishing your goals.

Take Care Of Your Body

One of the keys to having a happier living and a healthy lifestyle is to know how to take care of your body. Whatever task you want to accomplish or any goal that you want to achieve can be done easily if you are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.

Your body and your mind are connected with each other. If you are living an unhealthy lifestyle, you are more likely to make unhealthy choices. Likewise, being active can help in improving your moods and lessen your chances of suffering from depression.

The following are some tips on how to can take care of your body for a much happier and healthier life:Eat

Healthy

Choosing fresh fruits and vegetables as well as lean meat and poultry are much better than eating junk foods, carbonated drinks, and fast foods. By eating healthy, you will receive the nutrients, vitamins, and energy that you need to combat the stress brought by a day’s work. As part of your effort to eat healthy, you should not forget to drink plenty of water to keep you hydrated and to remove toxins from your body.

Take Time to Relax

No matter how busy your schedule is, it is important that you take a break from the things that make you feel stressed and find time to clear your mind and relax. Whenever you’re at work, taking a break even for just a few minutes can make a big difference in the way you handle your job.

Exercise

Exercising is an activity that will allow you to rejuvenate yourself. Exercising does not mean that you have to spend hours in the gym. There are certain activities that can help you become fit while still having fun. It is advisable that you engage in any type of exercise or physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day.

Get Enough Rest and Sleep

Resting and sleeping allows you to regain the energy that you have lost during the whole day’s work. Having enough sleep and rest also have an impact on your ability to function well, on your mood, and on your metabolism.
Practicing good hygiene is another way to take care of your body.

This will prevent you from experiencing different kinds of diseases. Good hygiene means that you are health inside and out. You need to take a bath regularly, clean your teeth, trim your nails, put on clean clothes, and more.

All individuals can use affirmations to live their best life. Positive affirmations are positive and powerful statements and thoughts that they can use for improving their personal wealth, spirituality, relationship, health, and career. The capability of people to remain positive and keep positive thoughts can determine the status of their emotional life.

The following can help you understand how you can use affirmations to stay on course when it comes to successfully achieving your be positive resolutions:

Affirmations Defined

Affirmations are statements that aim to re-program the subconscious mind of individuals with positive thoughts so that they can eliminate any negativity that prevents them from going after dreams. Positive affirmations can make you feel stronger and help you make the most positive and wisest choices.

It would be easier for you to achieve whatever you want if you use positive visualization and affirmations in everything that you do. This is considered as one of the most powerful and effective strategies that you can take advantage of if you want to change your life for the better.

You can create your own positive affirmations with the use of simple language to express or showcase the message that you want to convey. It is advisable that you make your affirmations in a clear and concise manner and written in the present tense. You also have to make sure that they are written in a first person narrative. Whatever you dream of, you will be closer to attaining such dream if you have a positive focused mindset.

The Benefits Of Your Being Positive Resolution

Being positive resolution provides numerous benefits to your overall well-being. This is an important factor that directly affects the perception of people when it comes to creating a life that they want. Being positive may sound simple, but it is actually not easy. However, once you become one, you can see several improvements in your life.

The following are some of the benefits that you can get from being positive:

Benefits

One of the benefits of having a positive mind is that it creates harmonious relationships. This is because having a positive attitude allows you to see the positive sides of various people instead of flaws and mistakes. Another benefit is that positive people can maintain a broader perspective and effectively identify solutions to various problems that they have.

Being positive also promotes better health, reduced stress, and improved focus. Positive people tend to handle things better than negative people. They are able to concentrate better in finding solutions instead of being distracted by negative elements. Moreover, they way people think also have a direct impact on their health. That is why if you conquer negative thoughts, you will have a lower chances of suffering from different kinds of diseases.

Aside from this, you can also face any stressful situation with an improved focus. This helps you worry less and cope better. Positive thinkers are also more resilient. This means that they have the ability to overcome adversity or cope with problems. Instead of losing hope and giving up, they do the best they can to find an effective way to fix their problems.

Best of it all, being positive gives you the power to change not just your environment but your life as a whole. This can result to a more successful and happier life. The benefits that being positive provides can never be underestimated. Altering you current behavior and attitude into a positive one will greatly help you in bringing productive changes in all aspects of your life!

What do you mean by living in the here and now? It means that you are not thinking about your past and not worrying about the future. If you are living in the present, you are living in the life of reality. Your past and future are only illusions.

To live in the present means that you are ready to face the world. Since you are not depending on your past, you will always be contented with your present life.

If you are still sealed with your past, here are the best things you can do to live in the present:

Being Present

• Be Conscious to Your Surroundings and Stop Beating Yourself Up- If you are aware of your surroundings, you don’t have to think for your past life. It means that your attention will be in your present situation. You also need to smile and congratulate yourself for everything you have done.
• Remove Unwanted Possessions – If you don’t want to live in the past, you have to remove all the things to forget them. Then, start living in the present through focusing on the things you need to do.
• Forgive Past Hurts – If you are still attached with your past situations, it is hard for you to face the reality and your present situation. So, make sure that you choose to forgive and move on. Though the harm is there, you have to make actions to ensure that it will never affect your present moods and activities.
• Dream for Your Future while Working Hard Today – There is nothing wrong if you are dream big. What matters most is what you are doing at present to fulfill your dreams. So, start setting goals and plan for your future.
• Stop Worrying – Unlike others, you will never appreciate the beauty of life if you keep on worrying too much. Take note that tomorrow is another day. Whether you worry about it or not, things will happen.

Living in the present is not as easy as you think. This is often observed if cannot easily forget the things that happened in the past. The past teaches everything you need to know. With your past, you learned from your mistakes and make your life even more effective than before. Your future, on the other hand, is the result of your present actions.

Planning for the future means taking on board the things that you want to happen. Why do you need to live in the present? Living in the present means that you are aware of your present situation, but with commitment to the future and an appreciation of your past. Through this, it is easy for you to manage your life. You can plan a strategy to create a positive way to get what you really want.

If you are facing a hardship in life, it is easy for you to solve it. In case you have a huge company, you can also decide which skills need to be implemented and how to handle your business. Living in the present also allows you to appreciate the things and people around you. If you are focusing on your past or future alone, expect that you will never enjoy your life. You will also neglect the things that you need to do.