1) Identify the Cause
A good starting point with personal development is to look at how you got to where you are right now. For example, if your area of personal development relates to weight loss then look at what lifestyle factors contributed to your weight problem to start with. Write down everything you can think of that contributed to the problem and then analyze how you can modify each factor to get the result you desire.

2) Goal Setting
It is essential to have a clear goal in mind to achieve your own particular personal development requirements. Ask yourself exactly what it is that you wish to achieve and the more refined and clear your goal the more chance you will have of successfully attaining it.

3) Make a Plan
Once you have decided on your goal then formulate a plan that details the steps you will take to reach your goal. Use the details you uncovered when identifying the cause of the problem and expand on these to incorporate as much detail as possible on how you can achieve your personal development goal.

4) Focus and Commitment
Once you know your goal and have designed your plan you then need to focus on your goal and commit to the plan you have designed. Set aside a certain amount of time each day to work on your plan and do not allow general daily chores to distract you from what you need to do. Once you have become accustomed to working on your plan each day it will become a habit and therefore easier over time to stick too.

5) Look for Inspiration
It will be of great benefit to look for inspiration from others that have overcome the same personal development challenge as your own. This can be in the form of books, seminars, courses or even a person from your local community that you may be able to contact to get some tips or advice.

Personal development is about identifying areas of your life that you wish to change for the better and having an attitude of continual self-improvement. No matter which area of your life you intend to improve by following the steps outlined above and committing to the plan you can be assured of achieving your goals and in doing so gain more confidence to not only achieve other personal development goals but do it quicker and easier each time.

If so, a good starting point is to assess how you currently measure up against some of the common factors that are present in consistently successful business owners. Here are 3 of the most important ones:

1. Mindset
This is for me the most important contributing factor to success in business, family and life.

Here’s why:

Mindset creates thought patterns – thought patterns create feelings – feelings create behaviour/actions – actions create results.

Whatever results you are getting right now started with your mindset.

I have spent the last few years studying mindset – what creates it, how to change it and the impact it has on success in business, family and life. I can tell you from personal experience, changing this one area alone can totally transform success in every area of your life.

2. Build strong foundations
When I am talking about building strong business foundations I am talking about the engine that drives your business forward. We are talking about factors such as vision, strategy, business plans, goals, action plans, to name but a few.

The problem is this part of the business is often neglected in favor of flavor of the minute fads, gimmicks and products that happen to catch the attention.

Think of a car. You can put in a fancy music system, give it a trendy color and add on as many gadgets as you like. However, if the engine isn’t working properly there is no way it is going to get you to where you want to go. Business foundations are the engine of your business. Neglect them at your peril!

3. Wearing different hats
Operating with one hat on in your business (i.e. doing the task you do for a living) limits your business potential. Why? Because being a successful business owner is very different to doing the work. The key is in the word “being”. Thinking, acting and behaving as a business owner is a totally different role to doing the work. If you are serious about business success, learn how to “be” a business owner working on your business as well as doing the day to day work. Don’t wear the same hat for every area of your business.

The first step to any change is always awareness. So if you are serious about success this year take a good long hard look at these three essential factors for success.

What do you need to do in each area to up your game, your results and your success?

Ali Davies

Author

On the physical level, success is often seen as specific material accomplishments—a particular type of car, home, status, or income level. However, once the car, home or other material possessions are obtained, there is no further growth in understanding, wisdom, or consciousness. Those who operate on this material level of success generally become consumed with maintaining those possessions that represent their success.

When success is understood on a spiritual level, it is seen as a progressive realization of a worthwhile purpose. You continue to grow and develop in all aspects. On a spiritual level, success is the continuous unfolding of your purpose and destiny.

True success is the progressive, continuous effort of attaining your goals and realizing your vision. This guides you to your worthwhile purpose in life.

Success Must Be In Your Mind First

Success starts in your own mind. Constantly have a concept and vision in your mind of what success means to you.

“You become what you think about most of the time.”

—Earl Nightingale

Be Constant In Your Efforts

Never take a break from your success journey. Do not stop for rest and reward too soon. When you stop at the first sign of success, you become stagnant, lazy, and begin to decline. As your efforts begin to produce rewards and results, work even harder. Success and achievement come only through continuous work. The only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.

Get Away From The Crowd At The Bottom

One of the most difficult steps you will face on your success journey is getting away from the crowd at the bottom. There are many unsuccessful, mediocre people who have failed to recognize, or act on their true potential. If you constantly associate with them, your success journey will be short-lived. You must clear the deck to make room for new associations which will complement and enhance your success efforts.

Once you break away from the mediocre crowd, accept the temporary state of loneliness and prepare for your success.

Be Willing To Change Your Life Completely

You must be willing to change your life completely. Make your life congruent with, consistent with, and harmonic with your desired success. Is there anything about the way you think or feel about yourself that will frustrate your success efforts? If so, handle it immediately. Do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to become the person that you must be, to accomplish your goals and realize your vision.

Every day, in every way

I’m getting better and better

Herbert Harris

Author

Perhaps you feel that in order to be successful you need more money? Or maybe it could be that you want a family of your own? Success to you could also be that you want to go back to university and study to improve your career prospects? There are so many things that success could be and you have to realize what it is in your life that you want to achieve, in order to know how to be successful.

Achieving Success in Your Life

Now you know what success actually is, how do you go about actually achieving it? Well the answer is simple – you have to take the next logical step forward.

For example, if you feel that to be successful you need to get a better job and earn more money, you first need to understand what to do in order to make that happen. So, sit down and make a list of all of the ways that you could get a new job. Perhaps you need to create a fresh resume or maybe you do not yet have the right skills in order to get the job that you would like? Whatever it is that is stopping you, write it down.

Next you need to figure out how to overcome those obstacles. If you need to create a resume then you may need to look through various tips in order to write one properly. If the problem is a little more complicated such as you do not have the right skills, then maybe you could join a part time course near you in order to achieve those skills needed?

There is always a way around things; though the path may not always be an easy one. The problem many people have is that they just give up before they achieve their success.

It is thought that most people throughout the world are not living the most successful life that they could be leading. That is a shame when you think about how easy it could be once you know just what it is that you want to do. Excuses come into play all of the time yet the truth is that most of the time people are just too scared of their own success. Are you scared of your success? Does change worry you?

If change does worry you then it could potentially hold you back. In that case you will need to understand what it is that scares you and you will need to confront it if you do want to make a success of your life. In fact, if you do manage to conquer your fear then that in itself is a success.

Overall being a success could mean a whole range of things to many different people. It all depends upon your own personal preferences what a successful life is for you. You just need to understand what it is that you want in life and write down your life goals. That way you will know exactly what success means to you and you will also have a clearer idea of how to achieve it.

Sam Crowley

Author

Or, ‘you are more successful because you have more energy than me.’

How much energy do you need to aim for success?

Energy can be defined as ‘the capacity for vigorous activity; available power; the capacity to do the work.’

Success can be defined as ‘a favorable outcome; the gaining of wealth and fame.’

My definition of success is ‘using your available power to achieve your desired outcome (success).’

If your desired outcome is failure you will need the same energy to be a successful failure, than you will need to be a successful successor!

In mathematical terms,
Success = (energy applied + desired success related outcomes).
Failure = (energy applied + desired failure related outcomes).

Focusing on the negative takes as much energy as focusing on the positive.
Being depressed about your failures takes the same energy as being elated with your successes.

So if the level of energy used to be miserable is the same as what is needed to be successful why is it that some will and some won’t be successful when both expand the same amount of energy?

There are the group who will comment that success is all based on how lucky you are, or that you were in the right place at the right time, or that you shop or business was in the right position for your good fortune to just happen. Well for the majority of successful people, luck has never played a role and the other two suggestions are the result of planning and applying the success equation.

‘The Secret’ movie has created incredible interest worldwide, with inputs in the movie from successful and wealthy people, who all followed the same map. Media commentaries and news headlines have emerged relating to those who have (allegedly) ripped off as many systems as they could to gain success, at the same time reportedly using the concepts portrayed in the movie; to the group who have supposedly followed the flow and dreamed up their success only to still be a failure. Let’s not forget those who continue to whine that they just hate all this fluffy stuff that is going on around them.

‘The Secret’ did its job, it created success for the journalistic producer, whether you like it or not and the secret or the science behind ‘the Secret’ has been making people successful for a very long time, also whether you believe it or not, the concepts will continue to lead people to success for a very long time to come.

Why is it that globally there is a group of successful people who have previously been ’street people’, drug users, school dropouts and English or Math failures or ex janitors with limited education? What is it that this group of people has, or what is it that they have developed to be so successful and living the life of their desires?

Part of the answer is to get a mentor, no matter what areas you want to add improvement to in your life. Common sense or your inner gut feeling, will tell you go and find yourself a mentor or a coach.

This is the total crux of the matter and it doesn’t matter how many books, programs, DVD’s, seminars you attend or business ventures you get involved in. Until you totally understand and take a grip of what rules you, governs your behavior, what controls your thinking, what controls the system that you have filed deep within your brain cells nothing will change.

You will continue to try to use the equation of success as previously mentioned, but without the real science, success will continue to evade you.

Success is a science, numerous books have been written on how the science works and there are variables (obstacles) that just pop up in people’s lives that need to be negotiated if a success outcome is to be achieved. I always find it so interesting how one can lead their life obstacle free, until the time comes to change their life!

As success requires a little bit more than just your ordinary energy and a strong desire, I developed my equation for success believing that if you live by it each and every day (that is the big ask) you will achieve your goals. By studying the great minds of our past century and those that are successful, no matter what we set out to do requires a blueprint, or a roadmap, but it also requires the ingredient that inspires the momentum – a shift in conscious thinking – a shift in your mindset.

Having worked with children with disabilities, including blind children, (most don’t regard themselves as having disability) I have had the gratification of learning the following amazing success equations;

SELF DETERMINATION = (knowledge – pity) + (skills x confidence) + blind role models

SUCCESS =self-determination + (talent x perseverance)

The equation that leads these children to be successful in life led me to develop my equation, an equation that has led me to my success; my suggestion is to put a blindfold on for at least one full day and you will get the secret ingredient necessary for success, the change in mindset, the most important secret ingredient to your success.

You don’t have to be brilliant at math to master the success equation just apply it;

SUCCESS = (mindset + knowledge) + (action x perseverance) + mentor.

Susan Burgess

Author

I’m talking about the eyes of judgment, of course.  The eyes that size things up, analyze them, figure them out…assessing, weighing, always striving to find a “better” way.  Those are the eyes that I naturally find wandering over into the camp of others – my husband, in fact, is frequently the victim.  When I figure out that I need to eat less sugar for example, the first person I start to pick apart on the subject is my husband.  Observing him eating too much sugar, making comments about how “we should…” eat instead, and so on and so forth.  All stemming from the inner knowledge that, in fact, it is my own sugar eating that I am attempting to address.  Externalizing the source of the problem, however, makes it easier to handle.  It is easier to blame someone else for my problems.  It is easier than taking 100% responsibility.  It is easier to avoid making any changes that way – because it is he/she/them that need to change – no, not I!

My call to action today is to look into the corners of your life, those corners that perhaps need a bit of attention or sweeping out – are you externalizing any blame for these areas being out of order or are you taking 100% responsibility?  This exercise for myself over the last two weeks has shone some light on a few sore spots that I know I need to step up to the plate on.  Step by step…

Celebrating the rebounding process – the process of recovering from setbacks and failures in life – is about putting the emphasis on the PROCESS instead of an end result that seems to continually elude us.  Sure, there are times that are more intense than others….times that you truly feel like you are walking through a desert…but if we choose to look instead at the opportunities, rather than the obstacles, we shift into a place that allows us a completely different approach.

I thought that once my book was published (check it out HERE), I would feel like I was done wandering in the desert….I would feel perhaps at least a bit more like I had “arrived.”  And yet, seeing that NOT produce those feelings pulls me back to the reminder that there is no end, there is no arrival that matters, except to an internal place of satisfaction that I AM and by doing my best, I am on the path, the only path that is all unfolding perfectly for me.  Feeling “broke” is a feeling that is created by an attachment to not having enough, and particularly for most, not having enough money.  Having just encountered the most serious financial setback (bankruptcy and business loss) in my lifetime, I have visited this feeling many many times.  My story is a rags to riches and back to rags….and back to riches story.  And the real focus in the story needs to be on the path that is the continuous thread throughout.

Own your moment right now.  Take 100% responsiblity for this moment.   How are you choosing to use it?  Are you using it to believe in, feel about, and contribute to being “broke” or are you claiming the opportunity for positive change and taking action, thinking thoughts, contributing to feelings that build you up and make you wealthy?  Actions and feelings like those of GRATITUDE, FORGIVENESS, CONFIDENCE, EMPOWERMENT, COURAGE, and INITIATIVE? 

The frustration we feel over being broke is a big red flag waving…it says “SOMETHING IS NOT ALIGNED HERE!  PAY ATTENTION!!”  Maybe that red flag is pointing to your desire for positive financial rewards but an attitude of victimization, laziness, confusion, and yes, downright, pitifulness.  I know at times, it has pointed to just that for me.  Losing myself in the fog of feeling disempowered, I spent too much time thinking about what I did wrong, what went wrong that I couldn’t control, what was wrong now, and so on.

My call to action for you today is to grab onto a TAKE CHARGE attitude and go make some massive ripples in your pond today.  Take some new action (even a bad plan is better than no plan!) and shake things up – after all, doing the same things,

feeling the same feelings, feeding yourself the same “broke” self-talk is not going to get you different results! Carpe diem!

There are those moments in your life where things take on a surreal haze, and you literally have to check in with yourself to see if you are living someone else’s life or if this is really yours…Today presented two of those moments.

First and foremost, it is my daughter, Katrina’s 11th birthday.  This morning I was brought back in the hour of her birth to that unforgettable moment when I met this perfect little angel of a girl that I knew in vitro and who was then presented to me after many many moments of dreaming about meeting her.  “It’s a girl!” still rings in my ears when I go back there and I can’t help but shed the same tears of joy that I did then, amazed and completely in awe of the remarkable process of creation that I was a part of.  I am still in awe and completely amazed.  Completely in love, completely grateful for her presence in my life.  It was surreal today, acknowledging that she was now in the second decade of her life, officially no longer a baby really, and letting it sink in that yes, indeed, I could be the mother of an 11 year old – because in fact, I am.

Secondly, I received an unexpected call from my publishing house today letting me know that my book was now available to purchase and was “live,” online and ready to roll.  After many hours of conceiving, nurturing in vitro, and pushing…I was again a part of a birth.  The birth of my very first book.  No one was there on the other end this time, physically calling out, “It’s a book!” but they very well could have been.  Tears of joy are just now hitting my face, as the surreal quality of this moment, this day has created somewhat of a delayed response.   It is sinking in that yes, indeed, I could be the author of a book – because in fact, I am.

Thank you, thank you, thank you God – your amazing grace humbles me…

Every time I turn the corner, I’m reminded how much I don’t know.  I just read a report about book marketing and it made me feel like crying, truthfully.  How could it be that after all the sweat and tears of writing the book, that I could be facing the daunting task of marketing the book as a neophyte, as green and as new to it as if I just had started writing yesterday?  It blows my mind, actually…Clearly it is time to roll up my sleeves and get very busy learning!

To those of you that are returning to this blog and have joined me before, thank you.  Apparently you are my saving grace which I had always instinctively known, but just didn’t fully appreciate as fully until this very moment.  In reality, I could have been blogging all throughout my experiences with Inspire, the business creation, the business failure, the business restructure, the bankruptcy…I think I was so busy surviving that it never crossed my mind actually.   Well, as of today, expect a lot more – and hold me accountable and capable to it!  I am going to make a pointed effort to create a blog journey here that is about my learning curve marketing this book, I can tell you that.  As well as engage you (if you choose to respond to the mission of posting a response, thank you very much) in a discussion about the rebounding experience and what that means for us collectively. 

I have done a couple radio interview recently (I will post links to them forthright!) and each time I talk about this book, I get more excited.  I love hearing what others have to say about this topic because it is so relatable.  And there are so many aspects of rebounding from setbacks in our lives, no matter how big or small, that we have in common…

The emotional rollercoaster ride of it all…the inevitable coming back to feelings and thoughts around “why didn’t I just…?” – I just can’t get over myself how hard it can be to shake that tendency!  I can teach other people about how to grapple with it and how to gain new perspective on it, putting it in some new cognitive framework, and yet it is so hard for me some days!  Staying diligent about taking care of myself is part of the key, I know.  As soon as I stop exercising, start eating stuff I shouldn’t be, or stop getting the rest I need, the negativity has a tendency to creep in more often and with stronger reminders of self-doubt, “should’ve, would-ve” thinking.  Persistently, every time I stray I come back, rebounding over and over again actually, so that in the grand scheme of things I am making small, steady step of progress each and every day, although difficult at times to see the forest for the trees.

My call to action for you today is to stage your own mini-rebound inside your bigger picture.  Have you been observing yourself, learning new things about how you are responding to stresses?  Have you been remaining open and staying diligent with your self-care?  Have you gotten “off track” and need a moment to regain your centering point?  Take the time and create the space for continual learning, continual rebounding, and take some centering action TODAY.  Now is all you have, really, so take the leap and get going!  Know that I am joining you – today actually allowing myself the realization of all that I don’t know, learning and learning so more, recentering myself by doing a cleanse/detox day today in my Isagenix system, and creating a cleaner, fresher slate to rebound on tomorrow. 

There are days (and then there are more days!) that I just want to scream in frustration that nothing seems to happen as fast as I’d like it to…and then there are the other days that suddenly provide you portals into that space of deliverance, completion, fruition.  And when it happens it is magical…

You may have noticed that there has been a little gap in these posts – almost an eerily silent front.  The silence may be online but behind the scenes there is this effort going on to launch and release this first book – and because I am learning everything for the first time – publishing, marketing, etc. – it takes much longer than I anticipate, occupying most of my mental energy and much of my emotional energy as well!  Rebounding is a book that occurred so naturally out of my experiences that the actual process of getting it to market was definitely a secondary concern, if you would even call it a concern at all.  The reason I wrote it remains the reason that I’m hanging in there and doing what seemingly comes less than naturally for me (executing to completion)…I know in my heart that there is someone out there somewhere that needs to hear what I have to say in the way that I have to say it.  So that maybe they don’t feel so alone in their process – so that maybe they can have just a few moments the type of peace that only comes through empathizing with a fellow traveler on this road called life.

Do take heart that you can find the resources you need to cultivate the feeling of positive expectation, of momentum…if you continue to persevere and persist in your journey.  Whatever life transitions you may be facing, know that not only are you not alone – you too are just getting started!  I find strength and encouragement in reminding myself that I’m inexperienced in the art of publishing, internet marketing, etc. and therefore can allow myself the space to be unsure and to learn it from the beginning.  And after all, aren’t we all new to this moment, right now, whatever is right in front of us?  Don’t be afraid to say that you are just getting started!  There is power and excitement and movement (growth!) available in that very statement – so join me and stand up proud and declare it!

And in the meantime, check out the e-book version of Rebounding that I just released….  : )