Frustrated with your Success Strategy? Here's Help.

You have a goal. You have your success strategy. You start on day one to implement it. You work hard on each tactic of your success strategy. Day in, day out, you stay focused. But at the end the day, week, month, you feel frustrated. You wish you had more accomplished. Sound Familiar? Well help is here…

Well you're not alone. I often feel this way myself. There is so much I want to accomplish, oftentimes my expectations exceed what is possible in a given day. Hence, frustration.

I often use the analogy of climbing Mt. Everest. (you can see how I view my list of goals!) It's like Mt. Everest represents the attainment of all my goals fully completed. Everyday I set out trekking towards the peak and at the end of every day I'm still looking up at that peak and I say to myself "I'm not there yet." And so I feel unsatisfied, a sense of failure even! My focus is wrong! Let me tell you how I discovered the secret to eliminating this frustration.

I was describing this to my dad the other day and he said "If it was easy everyone would be doing it." We can take that another step and say If Success Was Easy Everyone Would Be Doing It. Wow!
This had a big impact on me.

This taught me three important success strategies that have helped me feel great and drop the frustration feelings.

The first lesson is this:

1) Keep An Eye on the Peak, But at the End of Each Day Review & Celebrate How Far You've Come! At the end of each day all I was looking at was how far I had yet to go. Of course I was feeling frustrated. Now what I do is keep a quick record of all I accomplished each day. I try to review it at night and even close my eyes to relax as I do this. Then I say to myself, "Good Job. You made great progress today!" If you can, share your success with someone. If I didn't make progress then I ask myself what I learned and what I can do better tomorrow. What are the most important things I can do tomorrow towards my top goals.

2) Take Heart, Difficult Goals + Perseverance = Uncommon Success. Because your goals are difficult, much of the competition will drop out. That means that if you can hang in there and keep plugging away each day, you will succeed. And imagine what will happen if you can add some skill to the mix. You'll be a total success!

3) Plan Your Day To Stay on Track. This is simple, but a lot of times we don't write it down because we say "I know what I need to do." Well if you write down a simple to-do list each day you will have a guide that will keep you from getting sidelined during the day. Keep it in front of you all day. Whenever you find yourself losing focus, refer to it. Plan according to what will get you the most progress today on your most important goals. Do the toughest things first when you have the most energy! Do the easier things later in the day when your energy is lagging.

So implement your success strategy everyday, review & celebrate your progress, keep plugging everyday, and plan your day! May success and a sense of accomplishment be yours!

Recommended Reading: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.

Loving Kindness

I was just recently sick with a stomach virus. Not the worst I ever had, but still awful enough. My mother came and stayed with me. I felt so sick and vulnerable, so I was so grateful for her presence.

We live in the same house and you know what they say about 2 cooks and 1 kitchen. It is true.

We argue more than I like and more than I should.

I feel like being sick was intended to send me a message that life is too short to fight. I need to let go of my anger, aggressiveness. I need to let go of my irritability. It is a choice.

Instead of anger, I should take deep breaths, take a break when tired, walk away from heated or aggravating situations, and then try to cultivate loving kindness in my heart toward my mother…or anyone for that matter. (don’t we all experience difficulties at work, in the supermarket, with spouses, friends, children, and on and on?)

I need to find compassion for the person who brought me into this world and who taught me so well and loved me so well. I need to have compassion for this person who has her own weaknesses and vulnerabilities just like me.

When I fight with her I see her as strong over me. But really she is probably tired like me. She has disappointments, sadness, loneliness, and sickness at times too. I need to give up judging her and find compassion for her like I would for a small child. We’re all still children underneath.

Giving up judging will free me from the chronic irritability inside of me. I know this is easy to say now, but I am making a commitment to this.

The reading that inspired me towards this is Pema Chodron’s audiobook called “Getting Unstuck.” You can check it out on Amazon here: Getting Unstuck: Breaking Your Habitual Patterns & Encountering Naked Reality

I’ll keep you posted on the results of my commitment. I hope that you may find some revelation in this too that may help you.

Anna, We Hardly Knew Ye

Anna Nicole Smith died yesterday at age 39. I didn't know her, but somehow I was stunned and saddened by her death. I guess the fact that she just lost her older son after giving birth to her recent baby, already had my heart feeling for her.

I know how hard it is to deliver a new baby and I know how exhausted and vulnerable you are right after that. To lose your adult son a few days after having a baby must have been crushing. I can't imagine the grief she must have gone through. And on top of that she had a brand new life to care for. A newborn baby needs their mother so strongly after birth. Under normal circumstances it takes everything you have to care for a newborn. To have to do that while grieving for your son, to whom she was very close, must have felt unbearably heavy.

Like everyone else I heard the rumors about her using drugs. I wasn't there. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Either way, she was a human being struggling like the rest of us to find her way in life. It sounds like maybe her struggle was quite challenging despite seemingly having it all.

I'm not here to defend Anna Nicole's behavior, but rather to express sympathy for a fellow human being who died too soon. I also pray for her daughter that she will be loved and guided well in life so that she may life a good life. Like Anna Nicole there are many people in this world who are struggling and like her daughter, there are many children who are so vulnerable and in need of loving care. I pray for peace and goodness for all these people.

My learning from this sad story is that I need to appreciate everyday with the people that I love. So simple, but often so hard to do in the hectic world we live in today.

Do Your Emotions Control You?

I've learned recently by paying attention to my body, that how I feel on any given day has a lot to do with the mysterious chemical soup inside my body. Some of it I have control over, such as the food I eat or whether I've gotten enough sleep, but there is much I don't have control over. Hormones and other brain chemicals may make me feel any number of things such as sad, aggravated, loving, happy, content, hungry, in need of affection, in need of alone time, quiet, gregarious, and so on.

The key here is that these feelings are not triggered by EVENTS. They are triggered by internal chemicals. (Events can trigger feelings too, but I'm talking about waking up with a particular feeling and with no event triggering it.)

So what happens to a lot of us if we wake up feeling sad, for instance? What I have noticed is that we tend to FIND an event or circumstance to plug-in to that emotion. “Why do I feel this way? Oh yeah, I don’t have a boyfriend.” But yesterday you were happy to be single and independent.

The problem with plugging in an event or circumstance into every feeling we have is it doesn’t allow the emotion to just be and then pass along. We often prolong emotions by doing this. Now if it is a positive emotion then maybe that’s ok.

So what is the answer?

If you wake up with a negative emotion or even if it strikes you mid-afternoon, consider first whether it could be from your internal chemistry. Maybe you’re tired or hungry or both. Maybe certain hormones are on an upswing or downswing. If so, take a brief break – even five minutes- to close your eyes, breathe deeply and calm your mind with either visualization or a simple mantra.

This can also save you from making a relationship mistake. Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend is really not a match for you and you know it. You procrastinate about breaking up and wait for the next flood of good emotions to hit, thus proving to yourself that it is the right thing to give this person another chance. If someone does not mesh well with your values in life, then save yourself some heartache down the line by breaking it off and finding someone who is right for you.

Recognize that the negative emotion will pass. Just find a way to take a break or promise yourself a rest as soon as you are able. Don’t dig yourself into a deeper hole by piling events and circumstances onto a chemically triggered emotion.

If your emotion does relate to an event or circumstance, ask yourself it might be exacerbated by internal chemicals. If so, wait to take action if you can. If not, then identify the problem, brainstorm solutions and breakdown the best solution into chunks that you can complete bit by bit.