Archive for September, 2008

Where Your Motivation Comes From and How to Get Motivated All the Time

September 11th, 2008

Positive ThinkingTo achieve great success in your life, you must always stay motivated and keep motivated all the time. It is hard for you to achieve what you want if you cannot stay motivated. This is because you will procrastinate, feeling stress, you just don’t want to get things done and even if you get the things done, you will never do them at the highest performance, thus, poor results.

This is why motivation is very important in your life. And in order for you to keep motivated all the time, you must first understand where your motivational force comes from.

Fully 95% of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on a minute to minute basis. It is not what happens to you but the way that you interpret the things that are happening to you that determines how you feel. It is your version of events that largely determines whether they motivate or de-motivate you, whether they energize or de-energize you.

Remember, it is what you choose to response that will determine you how you feel. Read this post of mine to get a better idea, Event + Response = Outcomes.

Once you have identified your main source of motivation, it is time for you to transform yourself into a fully motivated super achiever. So how can you do this? Very simple, since it is how you respond that will determine how you feel, and that means, if you can change the way you response to the happenings around you, you can control how you feel.

You must determine to respond positively to the words, actions and reactions of the people and situations around you. You must refuse to let the unavoidable difficulties and setbacks of daily life affect your mood or emotions.

Therefore, you must always talk to yourself in a positive manner. Just like you can often tell yourself, “I can do it! I can do it!” over and over again until you believe that it is true that you can do it. The moment you believed that you can do it, you will definitely do it with better results and act with high performance.

Make Full Use of the Power of Your Mind

This also means that you are who you think you are. If you think that you are someone very handsome, then you are. If you think that you are a future millionaire, then you will be when the time comes. Everything that comes into your mind will happen in reality if you put it into action.

Your mind is the most powerful tool that god has given you. You must make full use of it. If you are not making use of your mind, you are wasting a lot of the powerful resources. Do you think that Albert Einstein, one of the most famous scientists of our time, make good use of his brain power?

Studies and researches shown that Albert Einstein only uses 20% of his brain power and he was able to come up with such an amazing theories. All the principles and theories that he explained confused many people and nobody understood his theories. Now, can you imagine what will happen if you are going to use 50% of your mind’s potential? Can you imagine what can you achieve with that? To discover more about your mind, read this post, The Powerful Resource in You.

You Need to Think optimistically

Now, let’s get back to our topic. You have to be an optimist if you want to stay motivated all the time. This is because by being an optimist, you will choose to response positively to everything that happens around you.

In study after study, psychologists have determined that “optimism” is the most important quality you can develop for personal and professional success and happiness. It seems that optimists have three special behaviors, all learned through practice and repetition.

1. Optimists look for the good in every situation. No matter what goes wrong, they always look for something good or beneficial. And not surprisingly, they always seem to find it.

2. Optimists always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. They believe that,”difficulties come not to obstruct, but to instruct.” They believe that each setback or obstacle contains a valuable lesson they can learn and grow from, and they are determined to find it.

3. Optimists always look for the solution to every problem. Instead of blaming or complaining when things go wrong, they become action oriented. They ask questions like, “What’s the solution? What can we do now? What’s the next step?”

The moment you think optimistically, everything will be positive to you. Even when something bad happen, you will learn from it because you treat it as something positive that happens on you that you can improve. This is why how you choose to response is very crucial in determining how successful you are.

So start from today, ask yourself positive questions like “what can I learn from this?” Or “how can I cope with this effectively?” I believe if you do so, you will start to change your life for the better because you are acting in a positive way. The law of universe state that ‘like attracts like’, and if you think positively, good things will come.

You can also read this interesting post from my blog, Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts to Achieve Great Success.

The Paradoxical Commandments

September 9th, 2008

Lately I received an email from a reader, he says that he wanted to dedicate a poem to me and all the loyal readers of my blog, The Millionaire Secrets. I can’t thank him enough for sending me that email. Now only I know that my blog has really inspired a lot of people and I hope this can keep on going for the better. I do really hope that you are reading this because this poem is also dedicated to you, the reader!

This poem was written by Dr. Kent M. Keith and is on the wall in Calcutta where mother Theresa lived. However, it has been modified to blend into the topic of my blog.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

I really hope that this poem inspire and benefit you in your journey to your success just like me. Thank you Sunahor for bringing up this marvelous poem.

Besides that, I have found a great ‘tool’ that you can use to make yourself committed and inspired all the time. It is called the “Anyway Pledge“. Download it, sign it, and paste it somewhere you can see it often. of course, stick to the principles all the time. If you do so, I believe that you will find yourself moving closer toward the success you have long looking for.

Anyway Pledge

==> Right Click Here to Save <==

Remember to print it out and sign it. Then paste it on the wall in front of your desk where you can see it often. This is just like in goal setting, be committed and the energy will flow within you.

To Your Success!

Shawn Lim

Top 10 Common Obstacles Blocking Your Road to Success (Part 2)

September 7th, 2008

Well, this is the second part and let us continue. If you miss the first part, you can always click on this link and read it, Top 10 Common Obstacles Blocking Your Road to Success (Part 1).

Overcome ObstaclesI really hope that you learn something here.  Just like if lack of money is one of the obstacles that block your road to success, then you must find ways to cope with this. So what can you do is that you can break this myth by reading success stories of those who achieve great success from scratch. You have to start from your belief and mindset. Hence, read more to first break your limiting beliefs.

5. The Fear of Failure

Someone who has failed at something in the past might be haunted by that experience for months or even years. This can easily cause insecurity and self-doubt which are ingredients for failure, not success. In order to get past a negative experience, consider what you have learned from the mistake or how you have grown from facing this difficulty. The same is true of overcoming a fear of failure. Consider that even if you fail at whatever it is you would like to try, you will learn and grow from experience, determine how you can grow from any failure and then focus on the future as opposed to dwelling on the past. Let’s face it, everyone makes mistakes in his or her life. Those who learn from their mistakes and determine ways never to repeat them are the ones who most easily move forward in their lives and become the most successful.

Think about Thomas Edison for a moment. He tried more than 10,000 times just to find out the right material for the light bulb. If he fails a few times and decide that it is just impossible to invent the light bulb, you are going to live in a world without light today. You can read more about the fear of failure here in my other post. It is an interesting story and I hope that it is going to inspire you to keep moving on. Read: You Are Not A Barracuda.

6. There’s Too Much Stress In Your Life

We’re living in a fast-paced, highly competitive world where stress is a major part of our everyday lives. Those who learn how to cope with their stress and deal with it are at a significant advantage over people who dwell in stressful situations and take their stress home with them from work (or take their stress from home to work). One of the best ways of eliminating or greatly reducing stress in your life is to understand what causes it and to find ways of coping with or getting rid of it. Living with ongoing stress is not healthy from a mental or physical standpoint. Obviously, some jobs are incredibly stressful. That is the nature of the work. However, learning how to leave that stress at work and be relaxed when you come home at the end of the day is a very critical move.

Too many people, when you ask them why are they living a mediocre life, they will answer you that they just don’t have the time and they have been tight from their job. You must learn how to overcome this since you knew that this is one of the obstacles that is going to block you in your way to success. If you are feeling very stressful everyday after your work, find some ways to relax yourself and cure this. Simply spending a short amount of time everyday pampering yourself is a way of relieving stress. Go for a massage, taking hot bath, go for a walk in the park, doing yoga or meditation, sports or gym are great ways in relieving your stress.

Sometimes, read inspirational articles or books help as well. Choose the method that you like the most. And if you need to get inspired, I suggest you to read more articles or download free eBooks from the internet. Obviously, my blog is a great place for this.

If you want to learn how to overcome stress, read this post of mine, 6 Motivation Tips That Never Fail.

7. Your Personality and Mindset

Your personality and mindset plays a major role in how people perceive you and in the reputation you create for yourself over time. If you maintain an outgoing and friendly personality and become known as someone who is trustworthy, hard working, dedicated to your job, and who goes out of your way to help others, you will greatly benefit yourself in your journey to success. Conversely, if you develop a reputation for being difficult to deal with, or for having a bad attitude, this will negatively impact your life. Having a poor reputation will only make your road to success more bumpy. Therefore, always think carefully about the image and personality you convey now. Are you genuinely friendly and outgoing? What do you think people say about you behind your back? What do your superiors at work think of you? What could you change about your personality to improve how others perceive you?

If you read the stories of every successful people, you will find that they all have their very own type of personality. However, all of their personalities are somewhat positive. What I mean here is, they possessed positive personality. Let me ask you this question, are you willing to do business with someone who has a bad reputation? The answer is obvious. Now, don’t let your personality determine your success. Instead, you should be the one that mange your personality. If your friends think that you have bad personality, then change it from now on.

8. Poor Organization and Time Management Skills

There are many reasons why people who are qualified to fill the job they are hired for do not meet the responsibilities of their job. Having poor time management or organizational skills is one such reason. It can have a strong negative impact on your journey to success as well as your personal life. After all, if you find yourself working 12 or 14 hour work days, simply because you are unable to complete your work-related responsibilities in a traditional eight hour work day, your personal life will suffer. How much time in a typical day do you spend doing unimportant tasks? Do you find yourself unable to stay focused on important tasks at hand? Are you always running late for appointments or missing deadlines? If you could free up 2 or 3 hours a day, how would you spend that time?

Simply by learning how to better organize your life and improve the way you manage your time, you could easily wind up being able to accomplish more and reduce the stress in your life. If every moment that you are awake is dedicated to playing ‘catch up’ at work or in your personal life, finding time to get ahead will be extremely difficult. Learning how to better organize and manage your time and adopt a more organized approach to the way you do things require only a little bit of new knowledge. The key to achieve this is commitment in changing your habits on how you deal with your time.

9. Overwhelmed and Confused About What You Really Want in Life

Unless you know exactly what it is you are trying to achieve, why you are doing what you are doing, and have an action plan in place, accomplishing anything significant will be difficult because you will have little focus and direction, plus no deadlines to meet or specific objectives to accomplish. Trying to accomplish too much, too fast is counterproductive, just as not knowing what you are trying to accomplish will make your life less focused. Simply by reading and brainstorming all the posts in this blog, you will be able to find out more about what you really want to achieve in your life.

In fact, there are studies shown that the main problem most people did not achieve what they want in their life is because they do not even know what they want to achieve out in their life. If you do not know what you want in your life, you will be just like a lost sheep, you are dangling in nowhere and you will be following the crowd to wherever it is.

Recommended post: The Number One Reason You Fail to Achieve Your Goals

10. Religious Beliefs

Last but not least, religious belief is also one of the common obstacles in your road to success. Just as you encounter conflicts between your career and your personal life, you might encounter conflicts with your spiritual beliefs. No matter what your religious beliefs are, it is important to adhere to those values, morals and lessons that your faith has taught you. You should make time to fulfill your spiritual needs to the degree that they are important to you. If you have questions about how your religious or spiritual beliefs can or should incorporated into your personality and or your professional life, seek out the guidance of a religious leader.

Your spiritual beliefs can be a tremendous source of motivation, hope and internal strength, so it is important to achieve a balance and discover how to use your faith to help you achieve success rather than living with a spiritual conflict.

So these are the top 10 common obstacles blocking your road to success. I really hope that you learn something from this post. If you find out that one of the obstacle mentioned in this post is what you are currently facing, take action step to solve it immediately. It is your future, it is the success that you want, I’m just helping you to find out what you want and how I can inspire you to your success.

Top 10 Common Obstacles Blocking Your Road to Success (Part 1)

September 4th, 2008

10 Common Obstacles Blocking Your Road to SuccessYou know, a lot of people want to be successful, unfortunately, most of them did not achieve what they want in their life. It is always easy to look at your life and blame someone else or something that is out of your control for things that are not going well in your life. Likewise, when one of your goals cannot be achieved, it is easy to look at the obstacles that are in your way and blame them for your lack of success.

Let’s face it, in your road to success, there must be obstacles that are going to pull you down. You know it very well that the road to success if not an easy one and it is a bumpy one. Therefore, you must always to ready for all these. However, once you learned to confront and overcome these challenges, achieving success will be much easier. Taking responsibility for your own destiny is critical for achieving success, which means no longer blaming other people for things you are unable to accomplish.

So what types of things are holding you back from achieving your true potential and making your dreams become a reality? The following list includes some of the most common obstacles people like you, who are striving for success, are forced to face each and everyday.

I hope that after going through this list of obstacles, you will be able to help yourself to start thinking about what may be holding you back and offers some possible solutions.

1. Lack of Money

I think this is the most common obstacles that block most people in their journey to success. Many people thought that it requires money to make money. I know that it is true that if you don’t have the money, the chances for you to make more money will be greatly reduced. However, this is simply not the case most of the time. In fact, almost every successful people start their journey with no money at all. They keep coming up with strategies and force themselves to think out of the box to come up with the necessary money to grow their business. Look at Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and more. All of them achieved their fortune because THEY ARE LACK OF MONEY.

It is the lack of money and the desire to earn more that actually drive them to achieve such a great success in their life. The problem with most people is that they take this lack of money as an excuse and obstacle in their life. If you want to break this belief, all you need to do is to read more books about how successful people achieve their wealth, and I believe that this will open your eyes and thus break this myth in your mind. Remember, it takes no money to make money. Don’t let this obstacle block you on your road to success!

2. The Lack of Motivation and Drive

Another common obstacles most people face in their life is the lack of motivation and drive. Developing a set of ambitious goals is one thing, but having the drive, motivation and determination to follow through and work toward making your goals a reality is entirely different. Most people spend their life day to day, being miserable, yet they are unwilling to do something to bring about a positive change. I hope that after you read this, if you are living a mediocre life, having a lot of stress, feeling unmotivated all the time, you will start to decide to change your life for the better. Different people have different motivational factors. Therefore, it is very important to find out what you really like to do in your life that will motivate you all the way.

Lack of motivation? I can help you, just go through the posts in this category, Motivation/Inspiration.

If you are doing something you have a passion for, chances are your passion will naturally drive you. Knowing what motivates you and never losing sight of what you are trying to accomplish will definitely help you stick to your action plans and stay motivated. One of the ways to find out what really motivates you is by asking yourself this question, “why do you want to achieve success in your life?” This is because it is the reason behind that will drive you. If the reason for you to achieve something in your life is not strong enough, you will procrastinate, lose faith, feel unmotivated and give up very soon. So find out why you want to achieve something in your life so badly, and you will definitely achieve it.

3. Lack of Education

For some people, a lack of skills, education or experience prevents them from moving their life forward. If one of your goals is to a professional senior vice president in your company, but in order to reach this level you will need to earn an MBA, then going back to school to pursue this degree is a definitely an obstacle for you. Just like if you want to start your own business but you do not studied business in school. Instead, you took pharmacy in school last time. So do you think that this is an obstacle for you? It is an obstacle, but still there will be ways for you to solve this. Every problem created must have a solution for it. It is just depends on you on how you manage to solve it. And for most people, they will choose to give up and give lousy excuses.

Successful people will not do this. Successful people will take it as a challenge and find ways to overcome it. Think about it, Wright Brothers are not engineer, they were bicycle repairman but still they successfully invented airplane! How is this possible? Is education an obstacle for you? Decide for yourself right now that you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goals in your life. Successful people were not born, they are made. It is what you do that will determine your success. Education, skill, or talent must not be an obstacle in your journey to success. Read more, learn more and constantly improve yourself to break this myth.

4. The Lack of Focus Relating to Your Goals

Many people go through their daily routine at work or at home never really think about their long-term goals. As a result, they lose focus on where they are going or what goals they are hoping to achieve. Without developing a focus and knowing exactly what you are trying to accomplish, and why, your ability to accomplish anything significantly is greatly diminished. Once you have your goals established and you develop your action plan, do not allow yourself to become sidetracked or lose focus. This too will take dedication, motivation and discipline, but the results will be worthwhile.

Needless to say, if you want to learn more about how to set and achieve your goals, you definitely MUST visit this link, Goal Setting.

Here are some questions that you can continuously ask yourself to keep yourself focus:

  1. What is the ultimate outcome you are trying to achieve? How you go about achieving an outcome is far less important that actually achieving it. It will often become necessary to modify your action plan when trying to achieve a goal. Your long-term goals are the key that will keep you focus in your life. So make sure you set long-term goals and keep reviewing them all the time.
  2. What is the purpose behind the goal toward which you are working? Find out the reason that you want to achieve your goal. Your reason is the driving force that will keep you going.
  3. What action need to be taken in order to achieve your goals? Keep updating and reviewing your strategies everyday, every week or every month.

There are a lot of ways you can do to keep you focus in achieving what you want i your life. Keep yourself staying motivated all the time so that you will take action to keep you staying focused toward your goals. One of the best ways to do so, it to read my blog often… ^_^

Continue to read part 2, Top 10 Common Obstacles Blocking Your Road to Success (Part 2).

Top 4 Reasons Why People Want to be a Millionaire

September 1st, 2008

Why People Want to be a MillionaireIf you want to be rich or become a millionaire today, do you know why? You have to know the reason before you can achieve it. This is because it is the reason behind that is going to drive you, motivate you and lead you to take more action toward your goals. That means, if you don’t know why you want to start your own business today, you will never be backed up with strong reasons and strong drives. You will give up the moment you face with obstacles in your life.

One of my post explained it best: What Actually Drives You Towards Your Goals

This is why you have to find out why you want to be rich and start your own business before you start your journey to become a millionaire. No matter what reasons you have, they all can be categorized into 4 simple common reasons. They are…

1. To Create Significant Wealth

As long as you are an employee, there is a limit to how much you can possibly earn, no matter how much effort you put in. In most professional jobs, the only form of performance-based remuneration comes in the form of bonuses and annual increments. The problem is, they are dependent on how the rest of your colleagues perform and are usually allocated at the discretion of your superior and whether he has noticed your contribution.

At the same time, your added remuneration will only be a fraction of the added profits that you have made for the company. In other words, you may bring in $1 million worth of additional profits as highly driven business development director, but receive only $50,000 as an incentive. This is if you are very lucky too. So it is hardly possible to be significantly wealthy as long as you remain as an employee.

If you are a business owner, you are in control of how much money you can make each year. Your remuneration and your profits are directly linked to how well you manage and grow your business. There is virtually no limit to how much you can possibly earn. Besides paying yourself a salary and taking a share of the profits, you can also sell shares in your business. In fact, that is how the richest people in the world created their wealth. They sold shares in the company they built.

Bill Gates is the top 10 richest man in the world not from selling software and drawing a salary, but by selling shares in Microsoft, which is worth billions on the stock market. A survey of the 100 richest men in America showed that over 95% amassed their wealth by first going into business for themselves.

2. To Enjoy Freedom and Independence

Many people become business owner simply because they love being in control of their own destiny. They want to be in the driver’s seat and cannot stand reporting to anyone else. They want to make all the decisions and take all the responsibility. They want to decide what time to come to work everyday. They want to decide what products to sell. They want to decide exactly how the business they work in should run. In other words, they want to be their own boss.

3. To Create Passive Income

Creating and building your business allows you to eventually create passive income for yourself. What is passive income? Well, there are 2 forms of income, active and passive. Active income is money you earn by spending time working. The best example of this is a salary. As an employee, you will always earn active income. The problem is that you have to continue working to earn your income. You have no choice but to keep on working until you retire.

But passive income, like rental income, royalties, interest on investments, and dividends from stock, is income you earn without having to actively work for it. Unfortunately, while you remain an employee, these forms of income are normally insufficient to meet your expenses. The only way to create significant passive income way beyond your expenses is to build a business that can eventually run without you having to actively involved. The business becomes a great passive income vehicle that generates profits for you every month, and that means you can retire early!

4. Passion

The final reason that drives people to go into business is the most important reason of all. It is the passion to do what they love and create a business out of it. In fact, unless you have a passion for the business that you are going into, you will surely fail. So if you are going to start a childcare business, you must have a passion for children and education. But if you go into it just for money, the odds are against you already, why?

The first few years of running a business are extremely tough and trying. You are bound to go through failures and massive frustrations. Unless you have the passion to pull you through, you will probably give up half way. How do you know you have a passion for something? The test is to ask yourself, “If I were to strike the lottery and win $10 million, would I still want to do it?” If the answer is yes, then you are truly passionate about the business.

So did you find out which reason suits you the most? You MUST know the reason for you to be a millionaire. If you do not know the reason, you will never achieve your goal. So take some time and figure out why you want to be rich, why you want to be a millionaire today?

Find out where to start to earn your first million in your life. Read The Millionaire Mountains now.