Stand On Your Toes and Look Over The Fence

I remember going through a rough patch in my life almost 10 years ago and I was in total despair over the situation I was in. I was recently divorced and had just lost a job. I was laboring along trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was very lonely and wondering what ever happened to this guy who could do anything he set his mind to. The can do man had lost his spark. One day a friend had come by the house to talk sailing and I was relaying to him my fears and all the obstacles that lay before me. He looked me straight in the eye and said"for Pete's sake would you just stand on your toes and look over the fence". That statement changed everything from that moment forward.

Stand on your toes and look over the fence. How more clear can a statement be? I did not have to climb over the fence or scale a wall. All I had to do was stand on my toes and peek over the top. The possibilities in your life don't always sit on the other side of the room in clear view. You have to stretch sometimes to find what you want in life. What an attitude changer that statement was. I was back in a positive state of mind. I was not ready to put on my super hero cape just yet, but I was on my way. Positive Attitude and Optimism live in the same sphere.

So what is holding you back? Lack of purpose, fear of the unknown or just plain old scared to death. How do you get yourself out of that rut? I have several things I have done over the years to help change my perspective. A couple of them require some quiet time with a pen and paper.

The first one is to start to write a list of all the things that are good in your life and all the things you are great full for. You may be wondering where to start. If you had a great meal last evening, write it down. Do you have a special friend you are a thankful to have. Write it down. Write until you can't think of anything else. I'll bet you have a long list. Just so you know, I keep a Gratitude Book in my left hand desk drawer and I write in it every day. If you wake in the morning mad not looking forward to the day. Take a minute. Pull out the book and start to write all the things you are great full for. Say good bye to the wrong side of the bed!!!

Secondly is that if you are considering making a change in your life or situation I suggest you take the time to write down the benefits and drawbacks. I firmly believe witting helps your visualization. Your asking what does this have to do with a positive attitude. Well consider this. Your consumed with a tough decision that has grabbed your thoughts and your likely full of fear. Take a piece of paper and write at the top what the decision your trying to make. Then draw a line down the middle of the page and write at the top of each side of the page. Pros and the left and Cons on the right. As you list away the decision before you should start to become clear. One tip I would suggest is to put it away after a while then return to it later in the day or the following day. At the end of the exercise you should have a basis from which to make a decision. If it's the same as your initial gut reaction your in really good shape. If it's not you should be pleased that you went through the exercise. Coming to the right decision will help regain your positive attitude.

What signal are you sending out. Do you suppose all the happy people out there want to come sit and chat with a grumpy person. I don't think so. As dumb as it sounds and yes as dumb as it feels I suggest you do these little things to help keep you in that positive state of mind. I expect you have allot to be thankful for. A Positive Attitude will attract good things to your life.

How Your Habits Will Determine Your Success

Humans are born with the ability to self diagnose. The earliest forms of this become evident in our conscience. What is right from wrong. Things our parents began to tell us at an early age get molded into our fiber. But at some point as we grow older we are tested as views from a world outside our home start to creep into our lives. So what does all this have to do with habits and self diagnosis you ask. Without the proper direction from our parents it becomes very easy to become conditioned to take the path of least resistance. A constant amount of don't touch. Don't say that. Stay away from there, sets our conditions that later create habits we wish we could change.

Changing habits creates fear in the unknown. Change is usually not immediate and can take some time. What impact will change have on my relationship with my spouse. Change is hard work. We also know that hard work is usually rewarding. So why do we continue to slide along the same old way and not make those changes to our habits we know are holding us back. Good habits will lead you to success in your personal life as well in your working life. But it's so hard to do. How many of your New Years resolutions have gone by the way side?

So how do we go about insuring we make changes to our day to day habits? We know if we make the changes they will bring success into our lives. The most common habits we think about changing are to quit smoking, to eat less,spend less money and exercise more. The fast recipe are the following. Step One, My suggestion to you is write down why you want to make the change and how you will feel after having made the change. Step two is to write down what you will do day by day to effect the change. Step Three is to have a date that the new habit will have taken full root and you no longer have to think about your new habit as it is now part of your every day life. Step Four is to share your goal for your habit change with someone who will help you keep on track. Stand fast to these steps and you will be on the road to success.

For those of you driven to really make a big change there is a book by Stephen R Covey called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. 15 million copies in print will convince you that there are millions of people out there who want to effect change in their lives. I must tell you in my opinion this book can be as dry as cotton batten. I tried numerous times to push through it and had to put it down. What I did not realize back then is that I was pushing back change.

Covey's Seven Habits are as follows:

1. Be Proactive Move from dependence to independence.
2. Begin with the End in Mind Self discover your character values and life goals
3. Put First Things First (I personally like this one. You can't build a house without a set of plans.)
4. Think Win Win If all sides of an arrangement are mutually beneficial every one wins
5. Seek First to Understand, Then be understood
6. Synergize Creativity comes from cooperation
7. Sharpen the Saw Covey Calls this, Principals of Balanced Self-Renewal

Very Powerful Habits. Very Powerful Personal Intentions. Intentions that change the whole way we think and approach everything we do. Follow these 7 fundamental character changing habits and success will surely be in your grasp.

I can share with you that when you are committed to such changes your mind becomes all consumed and for a period of time will effect your sleep. This is natural and as uncomfortable as it sounds is a good sign that you are pushing through the old habits. Your embracing change and acceptance to be a best the best you can be will be worth a few nights of restless sleep. Like your old habits those sleepless nights will soon forgotten.

Achieve Success by Turning Daily "Have To" Things Into "Choose To" Things

There are many pieces to the puzzle in achieving success. All the great business leaders tell us in their books that there are several things you need to do each and every day to achieve success. Much of the Goal Setting advice we read about advices us to break down the goal into achievable stages. Does it not make sense to put these achievable stages as priority items. In the world I grew up in priority items went to the top of the list.

Would it not make sense if you are a list writer to put your have to items down in order of importance. While you were writing your goals did you list the things you want in life first or list in order the things you need to do to get what you want in life. I expect you can see where I am going with this, so why don't we tackle these things head on knowing it's important to achieving our goals and objectives.

I can say many of the years of my life as a business owner had a large sales component in my daily activity. There were days that the phone weighed a 100 pounds. Later today or tomorrow I would say. When I look back at those times they were usually accompanied by weak sales performance. The same can be said for business owners and managers who have customer accounts that are slipping past due. Putting the have to on the top of the list inspires us to pick up that heavy phone receiver and make the call. Both of these scenarios fit into the have to Category. So picture this if you will. Your tackling the "Have to" things every day find your goals and objectives beginning to take shape. You are starting to see the rewards. Can you see my point now that it will be easy to transition the "Have To" to the "Choose To" in your life. The pain associated with the have to slowly slips away.

As silly as this may seem I expect all of you have heard a friend tell you they had to go to a party tonight and another one on the weekend. Give me a break. No one has to go to a party. We choose to. Life is so much about the language we use. Have to sounds like something we have been ordered or told to do. We take ownership with choose to.

So there is a bonus to doing the hard stuff first. The rest of the day will be a breeze comes to mind. If you do it first then you may not have to face the dilemma of tackling it tomorrow. Putting the hard, have to stuff at the bottom of the list is just straight out procrastination. One of my favorite authors Jack Canfield with Mark Victor Hansen became famous for the "Chicken Soup For The Soul" series. Mr Canfield wrote about the 130 rejections while looking for a publisher. A yes finally came after some creative activities. The book went on to sell 8 million copies. Yes this story fits into the persistence category but I expect all those asks were on top of the choose to list. Can you imagine how easy it would have been for Jack to put those asks to the bottom of the list. The book of his I like the most is "The Success Principals". in Chapter 15 titled " "Feel the Fear and do It anyway" Fear lives in the have to. Happiness lives in the choose to. Have to things being attended to on a regular basis slip in to the choose to before you know it. These activities now become habit forming. In my opinion habits don't fall into the things we don't like to do. Consider this quote from the famous author Mark Twain. " I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened".

Call it what you will. Have To or Choose To. It has to get done. Your future success is dependent on doing these things. In my view it's more fun doing the "Choose to" things in our lives. Just ask away with gusto. A Yes awaits you.

Missed Goal Becomes An Amazing Adventure

Growing up in a sailing family, one dreams of the romance of sailing in far away places. Over the years I have been able to get to sail in places like the Caribbean, The Cost Of Maine, The Great Lakes, Newfoundland, and The Mediterranean Sea. Story book adventures that birthed from a handed down love of the sea by my father and love of travel from my mother. In fact it was the goal of my father to sail across the Atlantic Ocean that eventually became transferred to me. A trip my father is unlikely to complete now that he is 87 and his sailing is now limited to warm afternoons along the coast of Nova Scotia.

This whole adventure started when I was asked by a neighborhood friend to help race his 78 foot sloop across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Island of Tenerife to St Martin in the eastern Caribbean. The owner hand selected twelve sailors including three seasoned sailors like myself. He also included some younger talented sailors to help with man handling the sails as sails on a 78 footer weigh in at several hundred pounds each. To round out the crew he added a couple of professional sailors who have made several trips across the Atlantic. When upon the high seas a sound vessel well equipped with the best in safety equipment is only part of the requirement. No Yacht should set out on such and adventure without a talented and experienced crew.

The yacht had spent the past two years sailing in the Mediterranean and it was time to take her west again. To make this a true Atlantic Crossing I sized the opportunity to get aboard the yacht in Gibraltar for the delivery to Tenerife. This passage in itself is a wonderful sail of 780 nautical miles through the straights of Gibraltar and along the coast of Morocco to what I call an island paradise.

The yacht race to St Martin is 2800 miles of blue water sailing. There is no jumping off point in the mid Atlantic Ocean. Once the lines are let go there is no going back. Well, until this trip. On the night of the third day at sea an expected small low pressure system packing 35 to 40 knots of wind was to move through the zone we were sailing in. The skipper made the decision to head south to miss the brunt of this blow and be back on our way west the following afternoon. The storm grew as it moved into the warms waters of the mid Atlantic and blow it did for two and a half days. 35 to 40 knot winds and rain that at times was coming sideways. All this wind resulted in very high seas that brought on the challenge of trying to keep the boat from pounding into the very steep seas. The wind was also blowing from the direction we were headed.

Not a good position to be in when there is 1800 miles to our destination. Our on board weather man informed us the storm was officially behind us but two more days of light headwinds followed by two to three days of doldrums were before us. This weather report had created challenges that put continuing on to St Martin at risk. The storm had forced us to consume allot of diesel. We needed to run the generator to operate the winches and water makers. What was to be a nine to twelve day trip was now looking to be sixteen or even seventeen days and food would also be in short supply. What we needed were the South East Trade Winds to kick in. The South East Trades are but most accounts a friendly warm breeze from astern looked and it looked to be a week or so away. The owner after much deliberation and discussion with the crew felt in the interest of safety to head east to the Islands of Cape Verde some 750 miles to the east. A four to five day sail with the wind astern expected for the first three days.

To make this passage more enjoyable and interesting the owner switched up the watch crews so there would be, Fresh Conversation. It was a delightful sail with the weather as predicted. Tropical warm breeze, fishing, sleeping, reading,sharing stories of past voyages and yes even good political debate. Daybreak the morning of the sixth day we were in the Channel between Santa Antao and St Vicente. Our adventure was soon to go dockside. We tied up at the marina in Mindello. Twelve days at sea leaves for much work to be done putting the yacht back to cruising status. This a days work for twelve crew and in 95 degree weather. But all was worth it as a few cold beers followed by a night on the town awaited us.

The next day the owner had arranged for us to take a tour of the island of St Vicente which was climaxed buy a trip to the top of the mountain along a single lane road cut into the side mountain. Breath taking would be an understatement. The Islands of this young African nation became independent from Portugal in 1975. It's future looks to be in tourism as the wonderful beaches and friendly people make it's place as an African Nation that's free from famine and dictatorship. So a missed bucket list item became an adventure not ever forgotten and one more continent off my bucket list. Just Asia and Australia remain. You ask if I will eventually make a completed passage across the Atlantic Ocean? Well, it's still on the bucket list.

Bucket List Dreams are Goals Too

Have you always wanted to jump out of a plane? Have you dreamed of taking a take a trip to another part of the world or pamper yourself and stay in a five star hotel?  I strongly suggest you write them down as goals. The very fact you have written them down puts your mind to thought.  Once the vision of these life long dreams is implanted in your mind, your unconscious mind then goes to work keeping the picture there.

It is suggested by the experts, that our goals be realistic and obtainable and these goals also make us stretch.  We have to work toward our goals and their success will generate a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Through the process of writing our goals it is commonly suggested that you break them down to two main groups.  These include personal goals relating to health and relationships as well as financial goals pertaining to your life style both tangible and intangible. I personally think it’s advisable to add a third category, “Things I want to do before I die”.

So what might fit a Bucket List Goal?  For starters it’s our childhood dreams.  The when I grow up stuff.  Things you might do if your ship comes in.  We all remember the fantastic movie The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.  Did it not make you feel good as they crossed the dreams off the list?  I know I have tears in my eyes every time I watch the movie.  I truly believe it’s our God given right to leave this planet with not regrets and a huge smile on our face. Imagine the accelerating feeling knowing you squeezed all you could out of your life. Wow.

If you’re not a goal writer I would suggest just one goal for you. Make the choice to be a participant in life and remove being a spectator from your mind.   Once the decision is clear you want to be a participant, your dreams and aspirations will take root.  Enjoy the journey of growing and being the best you can be.