What Would You Do To Make Your Dreams Come True?

How important are our dreams? Dreams are very important because they are given by God and meant to come true. Most people have had dreams as far back as they can remember. Unfortunately, many people have come to believe that their dreams would never come true. This belief has an impact on how we perceive the value of our dreams in relation to our achievements. More and more we tend to believe our dreams will never have anything to do with our achievements, and our achievements will never have anything to do with our dreams.

So we begin dreaming less and less until we dream no more. When dreams die that is when we begin to "...live a life of quiet desperation." It is easy to become cynical and blame our circumstances on everything around us. We can look at others who have achieved their dreams and conclude that they were just lucky, or in the right place at the right time. But what many people fail to realize is that these people also had many failed dreams before their dreams became reality.

What set these individuals apart from others? It wasn't a change in their circumstances that made the difference, but a change in their attitude. Through their many failures they realized that in order to turn their dreams into reality they would have to become more than just dreamers; they would have to become daring dreamers.

When we are young we tend to be day dreamers, believing one day our ship will come in and take us where we want to go. All we have to do it wait. Luck seems to be an important word in our vocabulary. Lets face it, if we believe that luck is the key to success we will never have to point the finger at ourselves as the reason for failure. What is a daring dreamer? Someone who is willing to change in order to turn his dream into a reality.

There are a lot of people today who seem to have a lottery mentality. They believe that financial success should come to them without having to earn it. Usually these types of people never take responsibility for their financial future beyond just getting by. They have no interest in the success journey, only the destination. What is the success journey? True success is measured by how much you are able to help others achieve their God given dreams. That is why success will always be a journey and never a destination.

" Success is accomplishing the hard work along the way, not arriving at the destination. Ever wonder why some of the wealthiest people on the planet continue to work so hard? It is because success to them is their work, not the financial rewards. This attitude is what got them there in the first place.

To Make Your Dreams Come True, Four Inner Enemies To Success Must Be Overcome

1.) Fear - Many people will never begin the journey to success because they are petrified by the fear of failure. Maybe you are afraid to pursue your big dream because you will have to risk your time, energy and finances and you are afraid of failure. You are not alone. But playing it safe leads to regret later in life.

Theodore Roosevelt once said "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

2.) Doubt - Doubt is the enemy of belief. Without belief in your dreams you can never achieve them. How do you get belief? The mind is like a garden. Whatever you plant in it will grow. The more you nourish it the more it will grow. If you sow seeds of doubt it will spring up in your mind and paralize all your efforts. Doubt will cripple your dreams.

If you do not regularly fill your mind with positive thoughts through learning and right association, the mind will start dwelling on the negatives and begin to doubt. If you have negative associations (family or friends that are stealing your dreams through their negative talk) avoid them.

The best way I have found to keep believing in my dreams is through reading materials daily that relate to what I am trying to accomplish. Knowledge is essential. However, knowledge alone is not enough. Knowledge is not power. The application of knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is activity that will cripple doubt.

3.) Laziness - We all have a choice in life that will effect our dreams and how they impact others. We can choose to be givers or takers. If we choose to be takers our primary goal is probably going to be get rich quick and not worry about the body count along the way. This is the lazy man's route to what he considers success. But becoming wealthy is not a valid dream.

Money is a by-product of true success, which involves helping others fulfill their dreams. Think of every daring dreamer of the past who has had great achievements and how they have impacted the world and effected the lives of others in a positive way. The key to overcoming laziness and self-centered living is to develop a passion for helping others. Get involved in the lives of people. Find out what they need and help them to get it.

4. Stupidity - It is very easy to work hard but not smart in our efforts to turn our dreams into reality. If you don't work smart, all your hard work will be a waste of time. I think of not working smart as majoring on the minors. Spending too much time on the least important things you need to do.

An example would be a business owner who spends most of his/her time on things like bookkeeping or web site design, rather than on income producing activities like building relationships with potential prospects. Many people fall into this trap because their is no fear factor involved in these types of activities.

5. Failure - Failure is a natural part of the journey to success. It happens to everyone. The greatest achievers in history all had many failures before they became great successes. They didn't give up after a few failures but continued to look for new ways to reach their goal.

It is very important never to base your self-worth on your performance. Rather than saying to yourself, I am a failure, say I have discovered one more way that doesn't work. This is what Edison said to himself when trying to invent a light bulb. He failed over 1000 times.

Your dreams should never be regarded lightly. They are given to you for a reason. It is your purpose to make your dreams come true by serving others. This will involved stepping out of your comfort zone and doing things you don't like to do for awhile.

Taking the focus off your own needs, wants and desires and focusing on the needs of others leads to success.You have a choice. Do the things that are outside your comfort zone now, and end up living your dreams, or always remain within your comfort zone and end up living with regret.

By: Steve Mark

What Would You Do To Make Your Dreams Come True?

9 Tips For Growing A Successful Business

To succeed in business today, you need to be flexible and have good planning and organizational skills. Many people start a business thinking that they'll turn on their computers  or open their doors and start making money - only to find that making money in a business is much more difficult than they thought. You can avoid this in your business ventures by taking your time and planning out all the necessary steps you need to reach to achieve success. Read on to find out how.

1. Get Organized
To be successful in business you need to be organized. Organization will help you complete tasks and stay on top of things to be done. A good way to do this is to create a to-do list each day - as you complete each item, check it off your list. This will ensure that you're not forgetting anything and you're completing all the tasks that are essential to the survival of your business.

2. Keep Detailed Records
All successful businesses keep detailed records. By keeping detailed records, you'll know where the business stands financially and what potential challenges you could be facing. Just knowing this gives you time to create strategies to overcome the obstacles that can prevent you from being successful and growing your business.

3. Analyze Your Competition
Competition breeds the best results. To be successful, you can't be afraid to study and learn from your competitors. After all, they may be doing something right that you can implement in your business to make more money.

4. Understand the Risks and Rewards
The key to being successful is taking calculated risks to help your business grow. A good question to ask is "What's the downside?" If you can answer this question, then you know what the worst-case scenario is. This knowledge will allow you to take the kinds of calculated risks that can generate tremendous rewards for your business.

5. Be Creative
Always be looking for ways to improve your business and to make it stand out from the competition. Recognize that you don't know everything and be open to new ideas and new approaches to your business.

6. Stay Focused
The old saying that "Rome was not built in a day" applies here. Just because you open a business doesn't mean that you're going to immediately start making money. It takes time to let people know who you are, so stay focused on achieving your short-term goals and give the rest time to come together on its own.

7. Prepare to Make Sacrifices
The lead-up to starting a business is hard work, but after you open your doors, your work has just begun. In many cases, you have to put in more time than you would if you were working for someone else. In turn, you have to make sacrifices, such as spending less time with family and friends in order to be successful.

8. Provide Great Service
There are many successful businesses that forget that providing great customer service is important. If you provide better service for your customers, they'll be more inclined to come to you the next time they need something instead of going to your competition.

9. Be Consistent
Consistency is key component to making money in business. You have to consistently keep doing the things necessary to be successful day in and day out. This will create long-term positive habits that will help you make money over the long term.

Conclusion
Starting and running and running a successful business can be rewarding and challenging. Success requires focus, discipline and perseverance. However, success will not come over night - it requires a long-term focus and that you remain consistent in challenging environments.

By: Chris Seabury  

9 Tips For Growing a Successful Business

Visualization: A Key to Achieving Your Goals

Visualization is an important personal development tool. Just as affirmations can help you motivate yourself and focus better to achieve your goals so can using visualization or mental imagery.

Although it has only become really popular as a personal development technique since the late seventies and early eighties, we as humans have been using it since the beginning of time.

Whenever we have an idea or notion to do something we visualize it first. For instance, if we're hungry and want to eat we picture different food possibilities; whether we want to cook a meal or go out to eat, and whether or not we want company at our meal. When we have a function to attend we picture what type of outfit to wear and where we might shop for it.

What is Visualization?

It is the use of the imagination through pictures or mental imagery to create visions of what we want in our lives and how to make them happen. Along with focus and emotion it becomes a powerful, creative tool that helps us achieve what we want in life.

Used correctly it can bring about self-improvement, maintain good health, help you perform well in sports, and accomplish your goals in life.

In sports, mental imagery is often used by athletes to improve their skills by picturing the achievement of a specific feat, such as hitting or shooting a ball, skiing a hill, swimming or running a race, among other things.

Using it as a technique invariably results in a much better performance and outcome. This also holds true in business, or in life, such as in delivering a speech, asking for a raise, or any other situation that requires preparedness and forethought.

How does it work?

Visualization or mental imagery works because when you imagine yourself performing perfectly and doing exactly what you want, you physiologically create neural patterns in your brain, just as if you had physically performed the action. The thought can stimulate the nervous system in the same way as the actual event does.

Performing or rehearsing an event in the mind trains it and creates the neural patterns to teach our muscles to do exactly what we want them to do.

In the case of competitive sports, not only are exceptional physical skills required, but so is a strong mental game. Most coaches preach that sports are 90% mental and only 10% physical. That's why so many athletes train in visualization or mental imagery along with their physical routines.

To be effective, like any skill, mental imagery needs to be practiced regularly. The four elements to mental imagery are relaxation, realism, regularity and reinforcement.

When To Use Visualization

Success. See yourself performing skills at a high level, achieving your goals, being who you want to be and living the life you want.

To motivate. Envision yourself achieving your goals vividly to remind yourself of your objective and what you need to do to reach it. Many athletes, actors, and singers "see" and "feel" themselves performing a routine, program, or play several times perfectly in their minds before they actually do it.

To familiarize or set the stage for a performance/event. Mental imagery can be used effectively to familiarize yourself with the surroundings before an event, such as a competition site, a racetrack, a stage or a difficult play or routine prior to a competition.

To do a run-through. Athletes and performers often do a complete mental run through of the key elements of their routines. This helps them to focus and eliminate some pre-performance jitters, thus making them more comfortable when the time comes to compete or perform. It also serves as a warm-up or mini rehearsal.

Visualization is a wonderful tool for preparing for anything, and everything. It invariably results in a higher level of performance.

How to Visualize What you want: 

1. Go somewhere quiet and private where you won't be disturbed. Close your eyes and think of the goal, mood, new behavior or skill, you want to acquire.

2. Take several deep breaths and relax.

3. Visualize the object or situation you desire in your mind as clearly and with as much detail as you can.

4. Add emotion, feeling, and your senses to your vision.

5. Practice it at least twice a day for about 10 minutes each time.

6. Persevere until you succeed.

7. Maintain positive thoughts and a good attitude throughout.

The Benefits of Visualization

• Helps you focus better in order to achieve your goals
• Inspires and motivates you.
• Helps you improve in a sport or skill.
• Can be used to rehearse and then acquire new, positive behaviors.
• Can boost your mood by using positive, pleasant imagery to alter negative emotions.
• Helps build self-confidence.

By: Zorka Hereford

Source: Essential Life Skills.net

7 Tips for Motivating Employees

Having trouble getting workers fired up about a project or your company in general? We've compiled some pointers from the experts.

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Kevin Plank, founder of Under Armour

Any CEO knows that employee motivation is a key to individual performance, group productivity, and maintaining a pleasant office culture. So how do you do it exactly? For a dose of inspiration on how to motivate those who work for you, we've compiled the best recent pointers on the subject from articles published in Inc.magazine and on Inc.com. 

1. Set a Good Example.

Remember that your attitude is contagious. Kevin Plank, founder of Under Armour, an apparel company located in Baltimore, says that communication is key to making members of your company's team feel including in major decisions. "I listened to everyone's opinions, and, without fail, they'd bring up things I hadn't thought of. More important, my team members knew that they were part of the process and that their voices mattered," he told Inc. "Employees are more motivated when they feel needed, appreciated, and valued." Plank also recommends hiring employees who have great leadership skills. At his company, he calls these natural leaders "engines," and peppers them strategically around the organization. 

2. Focus on Employee Happiness Rather Than Employee Motivation.

Zappos is often hailed as the most employee-friendly business out there. But, perks aside, what really keeps the workers there motivated? When Inc.'s Max Chafkin last interviewed Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh in Las Vegas, he discovered that what Hsieh really cares about is making Zappos's employees and customers feel really, really good. In fact, he's decided that his entire business revolves around happiness. Chafkin writes: "Zappos's approach to workplace bliss differs significantly from that of other employee-friendly businesses. For one thing, Zappos pays salaries that are often below market rates - the average hourly worker makes just over $23,000 a year. Though the company covers 100 percent of health care costs, employees are not offered perks found at many companies, such as on-site child care, tuition reimbursement, and a 401(k) match. Zappos does offer free food to its employees, but the pile of cold cuts in the small cafeteria loses its allure faster than you can say Googleplex. Instead of buying his employees' loyalty, Hsieh has managed to design a corporate culture that challenges our conception of that tired phrase." 

3. Make Sure Employees Share in the Company's Success.

Employee performance, productivity, and motivation can all be tied to how invested a worker feels in his or her company. That's what makes profit sharing such a powerful tool – especially when the company is consistently successful. Sue Holloway, an expert in compensation at WorldatWork, a human resources organization focused on employee benefits, told Inc.com that the objective of a profit sharing plan "is to foster employee identification with the organization's success." By implementing such a program, the CEO is saying, "We're all in this together, and everybody's focused on profit," Holloway says. 

4. Create a Culture of Autonomy and Agency.

In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, author Daniel H. Pink writes that the crash of Wall Street is a striking example of the peril of motivating employees strictly with gobs of cash. He advises that instead, companies should create conditions for employees to find the joy in work itself. That can mean giving workers the autonomy to choose what they do and with whom, which can help foster a desire for mastery of tasks and skill sets – and simply doing more, better. 

5. Encourage Worker to Voice Complaints.

When Dell amassed an online "antifan club," excoriating the PC maker across the blogosphere, it not only acknowledged criticism, but also actually fixed things, according to Jeff Jarvis's book What Would Google Do. "Dell transformed itself from worst to first in the era of customer control," writes Jarvis. How about applying the same principle apply to employees? There are scores of reasons why employees don't contribute critique of management or their company's culture – from fear of retaliation to hesitation to appear ungrateful. But remember, as Inc.'s Leigh Buchanan writes, "When the heat's not lowered, though, steam escapes." 

6. Take on Fun Volunteer Assignments.

In the heat of the recession, Door Number 3, an Austin-based advertising agency, saw business slow. Thus, creative employees were occasionally idle on the job. M.P. Mueller, the company's president, decided to ramp up the agency's pro bono efforts – an established way to build work portfolios and maintain track records. It also had the side-effect of keeping employees sharp and motivated between projects. Mueller said these projects not only help charities, which also struggle during hard times, but also help employees create some of their most inspired work. "You get a lot more freedom with nonprofit clients," she says. 

7. Get in Touch With Your Inner Start-up.

Every morning in the Chicago offices of Total Attorneys, a legal software and service firm, small groups of the company's 180 employees gather in clusters around the office. Laughter, banter, and collaboration ensue. For about 15 minutes, the office might be said to resemble a college cafeteria – but to CEO Ed Scanlan it's a perfect example of what he calls controlled chaos. That's a process inspired by a process for designing software called "agile development," which aims to foster flexibility, speed and teamwork – in other words, make an established company work more like a start-up.

By Inc. staff |  Apr 20, 2010

7 Tips for Motivating Employees

6 Tips to Create the Best Possible Work Environment

If you are the manager of a small business, then you know how difficult it can be sometimes to properly manage human resources. Organizing interviews, talking salary and mediating employee conflict are some of the less-glamorous aspects of the job. However, it’s also one of the most important facets of maintaining a happy and stable workplace. Developing a positive company culture may be one of the best investments you will make as a small-business manager. According to a Gallup Organization’s study of employees across the country, of the three million employees studied, a shocking amount cited themselves as being “checked out” from their work. 

Here are the statistics:

• 29% are engaged. These employees are excited about their work and have a close bond with their company. They look forward to their workday and are the movers and shakers of their organization. 

• 54% are not engaged. These employees are “checked out.” They feel little connection with their career and simply go through the motions of their day. 

• 17% are actively disengaged. This category is made up of employees who openly dislike their work. They complain about other employees and are too busy contributing to negative office energy to add real value to their company. 

To many small-business owners, these numbers may be a bit shocking. Hopefully, the vast majority of your employees fall into the first category, but given the statistics, that is probably not the case. It is important to target those in the second and third categories and find the root of their problems. Here are a few tips to help you maintain a positive work environment and make your employees eager to begin their workday and move into the first category.

1. Find out what makes them tick. Some employees respond well to the setting and achievement of team goals, while others appreciate verbal praise every so often. Finding out what makes your employees work hard can in turn help you and the bottom line. 

2. Give promotions where they are deserved. Everyone deserves recognition for a strong and consistent work ethic. Giving a promotion is not simply a matter of paying more because you feel generous; it’s a way to keep your most talented and efficient employees at your company. If they’re great employees, it’s likely that other organizations are seeking them out as well. You must remain competitive. 

3. Terminate when necessary. It’s important to recognize the difference between an uninspired employee and someone who is volatile to your company culture. As long as you have strong, well-documented and consistent reasons that an employee is acting inappropriately and not meeting expectations, you have potential reason to terminate. It’s not the best part of the job, but it could be essential to your overall company health. 

4. Be available. Being available allows your employees to come to you with any issues they may be having. If you are bogged down with bookkeeping, answering emails and scurrying from one client meeting to another, you may appear distant and unreachable. Of course you’re busy, but try taking an hour or two out of your week to meet with employees and ask them about how their work is going. If you feel too strapped for time to do this, consider outsourced accounting or hiring an intern to help you manage some of your duties. 

5. Set the example. Employees tend to mimic what they see other people in the office doing. If they see you merely surviving your workday, then that’s what they think is the norm. If they see you as inspired, driven and creative, then their best will come out. 

6. Ask for feedback. If you notice an employee that appears to be bored or uninspired, ask them what can be done to boost their motivation and make them a standout team member. Likewise, if you recognize a particular employee being exceptionally driven, ask them what inspires them each day. Asking these questions can give you insight that would otherwise go under the radar.


These few tips can hopefully help you manage a successful and motivated team of employees and maintain a positive energy within your company. Putting these ideas into practice can help you move your employees from the second and third categories into the most-desired first category. Good luck.

By: Bert Doerhoff

Source: Bplans

Want to be a Leader? Act like one

(CNN) -- You're doing all the obvious things: the right education, solid experience, a good mentor. But those in the C-Suite often confide that it's the subtle "polish" that takes the superstar to the next level of success.

Small differences can make a big impact. What affects others' perception of your ability to lead a project, a division, an organization, or a movement?

Consider the following habits, attitudes, skills, and characteristics of a leader to see how you measure up and then determine how you can step up:

Dianna Booher

Act with integrity

Tell the truth. Practice the principles you preach. Be genuine and sincere. It takes just one inappropriate action or comment to uncover the counterfeit. And once credibility vanishes, regaining it becomes a monumental task. People want to see the real you -- the integrity behind your face, the actions behind your promises. In today's economic landscape, trust trumps both price and track record.

Read more: Steve Jobs: How to lead with purpose

Listen like you mean it

Stop whatever you're doing and look the speaker directly in the eye. Tilt your head slightly to one side. The literal message is, "I'm giving you an ear." Ask questions about what the speaker is saying to help clarify thoughts and to verify that you've heard correctly and have drawn the intended conclusions. Answer questions specifically rather than vaguely. Take action to demonstrate that you've heard.

Benjamin Disraeli was right when he observed, "Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours." The magic in this mix? He or she will think you are a remarkable person. Listening increases likeability, and likeability leads back to trust in you as a leader.

Commit to what you communicate


Follow through. If you say you'll make an introduction to the potential new client, make the introduction. If you say you'll provide the reference, give the reference. If you say you'll fund the project, budget the money. Show up, own up, and straighten it up. In a marketplace of mealy mouthed moochers, doing what you say will absolutely astonish people.

Be accountable for results

Accountability implies risk and reward. You earn rewards for success; you accept penalties for failure. By the very nature of the risk-reward proposition, others' perception of your position and value increases.

You've heard it said that money is not the most important thing in life. But that's easier to believe when you have enough of it to cover your basic needs. Likewise, people measure competence in different ways, and "enough" competence or "enough" intelligence becomes a matter of degree. At some point, people pull you over the "enough" threshold and begin to judge your performance on degrees of results. Delivering the goods attracts attention and demands respect that translates into others' perception of your leadership and executive presence.

Read more: Leader know thyself

Engage emotionally by being approachable

The combination of both competence and likeability characterizes outstanding leaders with personal presence. You may be credible and have others pick your brain and benefit from your work -- but choose not to be around you if they don't have to be. On the other hand, you may be a likeable, life-of-the-party sort whom everybody wants to hang out with. But people may not consider you credible in challenging times for critical information or competent performance.

People with presence approach others confidently, act as host, make introductions, and connect others in the group.
Dianna Booher

The tagline "mover and shaker" comes from a metaphor -- a very visual component of a personality trait or habit. Not only do leaders move through many networks, work a lot of relationships, and shake their share of hands, they literally take the lead in approaching people. People with presence approach others confidently, act as host, make introductions, and connect others in the group. They approach and give attention to others.

Leaders put themselves on the frontline to serve. As a result, others feel their presence because of the attention they give -- not receive. People do pay attention to those with power to reward or punish them. But they enjoy being around those who are humble, willing to serve, and give them the proverbial time of day.

Never whine

Constant complaining characterizes losers. The habit follows those who lack success and feel powerless to improve things for themselves. By their very act of whining, people are admitting that they lack the competence, character, communication skills, or commitment to improve things. Not a good message to send.

Follow protocol in mixing business with pleasure

Because of the heavy demands on their time, leaders blend their social and work lives, often building their personal relationships through business contacts, and vice versa. As the old saying goes, people do business with people they like. Be the liaison who brings people together over lunch, a golf game, committee work, or causes. Understand the rules of etiquette in each of these situations: introductions; timing and appropriateness of business topics; appropriate dress; who arrives first; who pays. It's these little things done right that shout "class."

Act with intention. Communicate with confidence. Lead with clarity.

By: Diana Booher 

Source: CNN

How to be Confident and Shine like a Star at your Workplace

We all know that if we lack confidence at our workplace, we’ll find it hard to lock in a good position in the company, and achieving financial freedom will seem a far-fetched dream.

With this in mind, let me ask you something: How would it feel if you could walk in your working place, radiating confidence, like Robert De Niro walks on the red carpet at the Oscars? I bet it would feel great. Have no worries though, because it’s not that hard at all; you just need some good tips and you’ll be the star of your own workplace in no time.

Let’s begin!

Dress yourself in the Confidence suit

If Robert De Niro wears a Prada suit when he’s on the red carpet, why can’t you wear the Confidence suit when you’re at your workplace? Here’s what I mean by this:

a) Dress well – You don’t need designer apparel, but your clothes should be clean, wrinkle free, and they should fit you well (you don’t want to look like you’re swimming in your clothes);

b) Be friendly – Don’t listen to anyone who says that at work, serious and professional is the only way to go, corporate people need a warm talk too. Be amiable with all your colleagues, and you might end up with a valuable friend;

c) Smile with your eyes and keep a good eye contact – Always look into the eyes of the person you are talking to, but in a relaxed manner, you don’t want to come across as staring at them. Also, your eyes reveal your soul, so let them convey the happiness and warmth you hold inside of you.

d) Have a good posture – Stand up straight, keep your feet at least 12 inches apart so you evenly distribute your weight, and let your shoulders widen, don’t pull them back.

Following the above tips signals to people that you’re confident and in total control. When the rest of the world believes it, you’ll start believing it too. Isn’t that wonderful?

Don’t be a “know it all”

Nobody likes a cocky person who thinks he’s a walking encyclopedia. Regardless of your experience or the stage you’re at in your career, times will always arise when you’ll struggle to find an answer. When these times come, forget about your ego and ask for help. Confident and wise people understand that they don’t hold the answers to everything, and seeking help from peers isn’t a big deal at all. On the other side, the people you ask will notice your ability to let your guard down and show signs of vulnerability, which paradoxically, means high levels of self-confidence.

So whenever you stumble upon a roadblock, reach someone from your workplace and kindly ask them to help you out, rather than see yourself as being the almighty “know it all”.

Make mistakes now before it’s too late

Look, if you want to get massive amounts of confidence, success and climb up on the ladder of your company’s hierarchy, you need to make mistakes. Why? Because mistakes are the most invaluable source of lessons that ever existed. Lessons learned the hard way boost your confidence, so when a similar situation comes up, it will now be a no brainer for you.

Let this quote guide you when you’re at work:

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”- Niels Bohr

A lack of mistakes at your workplace equals a lack of risks, and in this case you should definitely consider undertaking more of them. You might drop a clanger from time to time, but your boss will on cloud nine when he sees you’re taking up challenges, and chances are you’ll win a spot on at rumored, salary raise requests – Accepted” list.

Learn to say no, or prepare to get abused at work, people often try to get more things done, which in some cases means “outsourcing” a few tasks by asking you to help them out. While sometimes these requests are legit, don’t let your colleagues abuse you by getting accustomed to your help. Offer your assistance, but don’t turn into their valet, learn to say no when they repeatedly ask you to solve some of their problems, which they would deal with themselves.

However, saying no isn’t as easy as it sounds. In order not to come across as rude or impolite, use the following guidelines:
- Smile when you turn them down. Also, use a warm voice and open body language, so they know you’re not offended by their request.

- Make it clear that you’re refusing their request and not rejecting them as a person, by complimenting them before you turn their request down. This way, there won’t arise any hard feelings, so you won’t need to worry about losing your free ride back home.

Saying no when you would have otherwise accepted something you didn’t want to, will make your co-workers look at your different (in a good
way, of course), and your self-confidence levels will rise too.

Handle criticism graciously

You’ll always receive criticisms from time to time. It may be because you’ve taken risks and made a few mistakes, but don’t let them get to you. Instead handle them with grace: before you let any word come out of your mouth, think for a second and ask yourself „is this criticism fair?”.

If they’re totally unsupported and rude, then don’t even bother replying. People will notice you don’t have time to fool around, and you’ll grow in their eyes. However, sometimes somebody having your best interests at heart will make a fair point. Admit your mistake, thank them and learn from it. If necessary, apologies. It takes a good dose of confidence, and high self-esteem to admit you were wrong.

Let it go and be free

The truth is, the lack of self confidence comes from the thoughts we hold about the world, others and ourselves. What we think gives birth to our feelings, and in turn, these feelings drive our actions. If you learn to put behind what you believe about others, and what others believe about you, you’re left with a free and confident mind that will propel you further and further at your workplace. Here are some tips I found useful when trying to let go:

a) Stop judging yourself – This is a two way street. If you judge yourself, you’ll instinctively judge others too. So give yourself a break and focus on your work or projects instead.

b) Don’t let your emotions rule your life – Emotions come and go, but they shouldn’t impact on your confidence. It’s normal to feel pain, frustration, and anxiety from time to time. However, notice when you’re feeling them, observe them as they rush into your body and want to take control of your mind, and gently release them. They do not control you – you control them.

c) Be confident in your actions – Your actions project your personality. Take full responsibility for them and never let a doubtful thought creep into the back of your mind when you’re saying or doing something. Be bold.

All in all, being confident at work and shining like a star takes practice, practice and more practice. It won’t happen overnight, just like De Niro didn’t win 2 Oscars with his first Hollywood movie, but with ambition, persistence and useful advice, you’ll get there. I can give you more useful advice on my personal website, www. Underdevelopment.info, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide if you want to make the change for better.

- What was the most helpful lesson you learned in the advice above?

By: Paul Marinca

Source: Motivation Articles, Essays, Tips and Advice