Just like growing up when your parents would ask why they even need to tell you to take out the trash, that you should be proactive and do it without being told – This should carry over into every other aspect of your life. Being proactive will get results quicker.
If you’re looking for a job, don’t sit around and wait for someone to hand you one, or for a business to call you – go out there and show initative and be proactive! Get lists of local businesses, print out hundreds of your resumes, stuff and mail as many as you can every day until you get calls, interviews and eventually get a job. You’re one step ahead of the rest. It’s human nature to take the path with least resistance, so be one of the few who consistantly takes the other path and you’ll move ahead much quicker!
“Brick walls are there for a reason; they let us prove how badly we want something – and there to stop those who don’t want it bad enough”
This is one of my favorite quotes, and it comes from Randy Pausch
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.
Let me start this off by saying that any resolution or goal without a plan is a dream. I believe everything you do should have measurable goals. There is a reason so many people join gyms after January 1st, go for a few weeks then never go back. They knew they wanted to lose weight or get fit, but they failed to make a plan. They failed to plan so they planned to fail.
Decide what it is you want to change, and find out how it’s possible. Write everything down, and keep track of progress. Once you get in the habit of keeping track, it becomes second nature. But you need to make sure you follow through.
Give yourself rewards for hitting your goals and staying focused. It’s OK to cheat, but remember, only for rewards and always in moderation.
Tell your friends and/or family about your resolution. If you keep it to yourself, nobody will know you failed, and your chances of failure dramatically increase. If there are others making sure you stay on track, you’ll be less likely to fail.
Most importantly – Plan ahead and do it NOW! As an example, to stay organized and prepared, I always make my schedule the night before. I write down what needs to be done, how much time I think it’s going to take, taking into account phone calls and meetings. If you know what you’re doing tomorrow, you’ll be better prepared to handle it and to get things done.
Happy 2009!
I have decided to create a list of all the Wordpress plugins I use on this blog. Some I am using for the first time, others I have used for various other blog projects. I recommend all of these, or else I wouldn’t be using them! Some are there for SEO purposes, other are there just as fluff – because they’re cool!
- Akismet – For obvious reasons. This comes installed on all wordpress blogs. Helps prevent spam
- All in One SEO Pack – This is a pretty cool and powerful SEO tool. Keywords, descriptions, titles, etc
- cforms II – Extremely powerful and customizable form management plugin.
- Feedburner – This detects all ways to access your original feeds and redirects them to your feedburner feed so you can track every subscriber. I also use the newsletter subscription feature
- Google XML Sitemaps – This will automatically generate a valid sitemap after each post and submit it to Ask, Google, MSN and Yahoo searches. Your posts usually show up after just a few minutes
- Gravatar – This plugin allows you to generate a gravatar URL complete with rating, size, default and border options
- Limit Posts – This plugin limits the text length on the homepage for each post and generates a link to read the full post
- Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu – This is a very cool plugin for your wordpress admin area. It puts all your links into a drop down menu. It makes things so much easier to find, makes it organized – especially if you’re running lots of plugins and such
- Quotes Collection – This is an ajax powered random quote generator for your sidebar. Just add all your favorite quotes!
- Register Plus – This enhances your registration page. Add custom logo, password, invitation codes, disclaimer, captcha, email validation and more
- Share This – Lets your visitors share a post or page with others. Digg, facebook, delicious, myspace, stumbleupon and more!
- Sidebar Login – This adds a login form to your sidebar. Very convenient for the admin and users
- Smart Youtube – Easily insert Youtube videos into posts, comments and RSS feeds
- Subscribe To Comments – Allows your readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry
- Twitter Tools – Displays your latest tweets from twitter and also alerts your twitter friends of new posts on your blog
- WP Post Ratings – Adds an ajax rating system for your posts and pages
- WP Print – Displays a printable version of your posts and pages
- WP Syntax – Syntax highlighting using GeSHi. Perfect if your posting code snippets
If you have others you think I might like, please comment! I love adding new plugins to the blog!
This is from the December 2008 issue of Success magazine by Donny Deutsch. I found it to be pretty informative, so I thought I’d share.
- Fear of failure: “Know that you can afford to fail,” Donny Deutsch says. “And failure will happen. Count on it. But failures bring about successes. Risk is all about trying, getting in the game. You can’t succeed if you are not in the game.”
- Lack of confidence: “Decide that you are confident, and have a more playful, less serious attitude about life. Most successful people have this attitude.”
- Lack of passion: “Without passion and the excitement, energy and motivation it creates, it’s hard to be successful. Then it’s just work. And that’s not fun. I’ve seen hundreds or people who have turned their great ideas into millions. They all share one common theme. They have passion about what they are doing. In that sense they are doing what they love.”
- Naive sense of entitlement: “This attitude is one of the biggest obstacles to success, thinking you are deserving of something. Most successful people have humility and a genuine sense of appreciation for the opportunities they are given.”
