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Motivation

Learn Or Plateau

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In his book No Excuses, Brian Tracy mentioned something that forever changed the way I view my niche. In the book, he said that you either learn more about your niche or plateau. You can only go so far with the knowledge you already have, but in order to go further, you need to obtain more knowledge.

Learning more about your niche creates more possibilities. If you stop learning about your niche, you are limiting your capabilities. Learning about your niche will allow you to become the go-to expert in your niche. In addition, learning about your niche will give you more knowledge that you can package into books and training courses.

Make the choice today to learn more about your niche so you are able to grow instead of plateau. Never settle for where you are. Always raise the bar higher and strive for better results.

 

The 1,000th Blog Post

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Writing two blog posts every day definitely allowed me to reach this milestone faster. Writing three blog posts every day would help me reach the 2,000th blog post milestone much faster than I am currently projected to reach it. I publish two blog posts every day (that number is not going up), which means I write 730 blog posts every year. Sometime in 2015, I will have written my 2,000th blog post.

We all have milestones that we want to reach. Some of us may want our Kindle eBooks to make 10 sales every day while others may want to have over 10,000 Pinterest followers. It’s great to have a milestone in place. Milestones give us something to strive for.

What we also need to figure out is how we can reach those milestones faster. I would probably have less than 700 blog posts on this blog if I only published one blog post every day. I would still have under 100,000 Twitter followers if I used the same methods I was using back when I only had 10,000 Twitter followers.

The difference between a milestone that gets accomplished and a milestone that remains a memory is the individual in charge. In order to accomplish your milestones, you need to identify a way that you can get there faster. You may be projected to reach 10,000 Twitter followers in two months. Instead of accepting it, ask yourself how you can trim down the time from two months to one month. I thought I would reach 100,000 Twitter followers in my senior year of high school. Now, I will exceed 400,000 Twitter followers at the same time I thought I would be at 100,000. I may even be able to pass the 500,000 milestone before I graduate.

Even though I have trimmed down the time it took for me to amass my Twitter followers, I want to trim it down even more. If I learn how to gain 1,000 Twitter followers every day very soon, I could end up with over 700,000 Twitter followers by the time I get out of high school.

There is always a way to reach a certain milestone faster. When you reach the milestone once, it gradually becomes easier to read other milestones. The 1 billionth tweet was sent out 3 years, 2 months, and 1 day after Twitter was created. Now, Twitter sends the same number of tweets every week.

Twitter really trimmed down the time for that one. Your milestones will happen if you remain dedicated, but you also need to find out how you can make your particular milestone get accomplished faster. Getting that milestone accomplished will make you want more, and as a result, find more ways to trim down your time once you seek another milestone.

 

Case Study: How Keeping Score Increases Productivity

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A very long time ago, I wrote about keeping score, and I wrote about the results of my first score card. I have been using the score card for months, and I do not plan on stopping. Score cards enhanced my time management and productivity, and score cards continue to amaze me today. Before I created a score card, I thought it would have been impossible for me to write 25 blog posts in one week. Not only did I do that, but I also finished reading an entire book and created the blueprint for my upcoming membership site, Total Social Media Domination. The following week, I was able to accomplish 12 different goals which all required a good amount of work. Some of the things I did that week were:

  1. Write 20 blog posts
  2. Finish reading Blue Ocean Strategy from start to finish
  3. Write 5,000 words for an upcoming book, Unlock Your Potential

There were 9 other goals similar to those three, and I got them all done in one short week. What once looked impossible has now become a routine of accomplishment.

The main reason the score card works is because you have to write down what you plan to accomplish for the week. If you think about the things you have to accomplish, it is easy to forget about some things and reduce expectations for other things. If I thought of write 20-25 blog posts every week, I may think at some point in the week that writing that many blog posts is too challenging. Thinking about it could have resulted in me lowering the bar to 16-18 blog posts for the week. Writing everything down forces you to be accountable, and making yourself accountable gives you no one else to blame but yourself for anything that goes wrong on your score card.

It is the desire to get a perfect score that motivates me as I continue creating score cards and getting tasks accomplished. You may not get a perfect score when you create your score card. In fact, I almost never get a perfect score. It’s not because I am not productive. Instead, it is because I raise the bar very high. I could easily get a perfect score on every score card if I only assigned myself 10 blog posts every week, but then I would not be able to publish two blog posts in one day.

If you want to get better time management and increase your productivity, you need to use a score card. Write down the goals you want to accomplish and use tallies to indicate how close you are to accomplishing a goal. Then, draw a big checkmark next to any goal that you accomplish. It’s that easy, but it is going to make a big difference in your time management and productivity.

 

Why Having Good Fitness Helps Out In The Journey Towards Success

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Health And Fitness

I believe that fitness is one of the most underrated parts of success. Does this mean walking in to the job interview with a six-pack is going to guarantee you the job? Absolutely not (why apply for a job anyway)! Looking more muscular in your YouTube videos does not mean those videos are going to get more views.

So how exactly does having good fitness help out in the journey towards success? Being in shape has been proven to make people happier (happiness certainly helps out towards success and life), but good fitness also encourages the development of the winner’s mindset.

People with good fitness want to become more fit. They don’t settle with the strong abs. They also want strong legs, arms, shoulders, and every other body part to be strong as well. Some people do 20 curls and realize that they can do five more. They don’t stop at an assigned number if they believe they can do more than that. This is the entire concept of raising the bar higher. When the 20 pound weights get too light, these people move on to the 30 pound weights. It’s a bigger challenge, but it also leads to better results over time.

Getting in shape may be the trigger that allows you to thrive and change your attitude about life. Whether you decide to keep up the fitness by lifting weights or running, you need to do some kind of workout every day so you become committed and develop the winner’s mindset.

 

How To Accomplish Bigger Goals

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There are some people who struggle to write 1 book within a year while other people are able to write a high quality book every month. There are some people who can accomplish big goals while others find it difficult to get the smallest goals accomplished. Some people wish they could get more accomplished faster while others want to go from the big goals they are accomplishing right now to accomplishing even bigger goals.

Getting better time management will give you the time you need to get the bigger goals accomplished. After you find more time in your day and manage it more effectively, you need to create a weekly scorecard. As you get more better at creating scorecards, you need to raise the bar higher for yourself.

When you raise the bar higher for yourself and accomplish bigger goals, it is important to gradually raise the bar higher. If you immediately go from writing 10 blog posts every week to writing 30 blog posts every week, it will be overwhelming. Instead, go from writing 10 blog posts in one week to writing 15 blog posts in one week. Then go up to 20 blog posts in one week and continue to work your way up until you are able to write 30 blog posts every week.

Raising the bar higher combined with effective time management and accountability will allow you to accomplish the bigger goals. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional advice to achieve bigger goals? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

7 Habits Of Highly Productive People

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Completed Checklist

There are some days when we get our work done, and there are other days when we do not get any work done. While most people go through not getting their work for a majority of the time, others are able to get their work done on most days. These are the highly productive people. Those are the people who others envy when they can’t finish a project on time. Productive people come in many shapes and forms, but they all share these seven habits that allow them to be more productive than the average person.

  1. They plan their day out the night before. Remember when it was bad in high school to start the big project the night before it is due? That problem does not apply to productive people when they plan out their days. Most productive people plan out their days right before they go to bed. If you plan your day in the afternoon, then you are losing time that you can be productive in. Your productivity wanes as the day goes by, and since productivity is at its lowest at nighttime, productive people use this time to write down their goals for the next time.
  2. They give themselves closer deadlines. Highly productive people give themselves 1 week to accomplish the same goals that take a month or two for the typical person to accomplish. A closer deadline gives these people less time to procrastinate and make mistakes. This allows highly productive people to realize how valuable time truly is. You may have read on this blog before that time is our most valuable resource or heard it from someone else. Giving yourself closer deadlines will allow you to fully understand why time is our most valuable resource, and with less time there is less fooling around.
  3. They write down their goals for the week. Highly productive people take one week at a time. They write down the goals they need to accomplish for the week and then use a tally/checkmark system to indicate how close they got to accomplishing everything on the list.
  4. They give themselves bigger goals. As the goals on the list become easier to accomplish, highly productive people challenge themselves by giving themselves bigger goals and less time to get those goals accomplished. The bigger goals further establish how time is their most valuable resource and gives them less time to procrastinate.
  5. They barely watch TV. Television is productivity’s greatest villain. The average American spends 32 hours every week watching TV. There’s so many things that can be done in those 32 hours other than watch TV shows (and some can be very depressing or teaching immoral lessons), and highly productive people know that very well. They take full advantage by limiting the amount of time they spend watching TV every week so they are able to find more time in their days.
  6. They wake up early. In a sense, productive people start their work “before life happens.” There are not nearly as many things to do at 7 pm as there are things to do at 7 am (other than work). In addition, the earlier someone wakes up, the more willpower that person has. Willpower is a big source of productivity that wanes as the day progresses. Waking up earlier allows you to tap into your full willpower and get the best of it.
  7. They don’t think they have enough time. Highly productive people do not think they have enough time to get their goals accomplished. Highly productive people are continuously raising the bar higher and making it harder for them to accomplish all of the weekly goals. As a result, when something unexpected happens to the time schedule, these highly productive people feel uncomfortable losing all of that time. These highly productive people may be doing seven or more hours of productive work every day, but they feel as if they never have enough time to accomplish all of their goals.

Those are the seven habits of highly productive people. By learning to implement and develop these habits overtime, you will become a highly productive person. What are your thoughts on the habits? Do you have any additional habits you have that keep you productive? Please share your thoughts and your own habits below.