Learn the art of listening twice as much as you speak and ensure that you completely understand the needs of your partners. If any partnership is going to work, you must be certain that your product or service can completely satisfy the needs of your new partner. When you listen and completely understand their needs, you believe in your product or service and trust that it is exactly what they need. You have the ingredients you need to begin creating that mutually beneficial relationship, which will ensure that any relationship will be sustainable.

Your main objective when you work with any client has got to be one of building mutually beneficial relationships and creating partnerships, which will be of value to both parties. To become successful and to move “YOUR BUSINESS” to the next level, you must change your mind-set around the relationship you need to foster with your clients or partners. When I refer to “YOUR BUSINESS”, I do not care whether you own the business or you are an employee at a business owned by someone else. Unless you look on the portion of the business, where you are selling products or services as your own, you will struggle to get your mind-set right, where you are able to build the mutually beneficial relationships, you need with your clients and prospects.

You must believe 100 % in what you are selling and see your products as solutions to partner challenges. If you look on your products or services as a commodity, it will be impossible to convince anyone you are committed to build a mutually beneficial relationship and that your product or service is a solution to any need they may have. As long as you allow the relationship to remain one where, you are the sales person and they are the buyer of your product or service. They hold all the power and you are a subservient junior partner in the relationship. The person, who holds the purse strings, is in charge. You become merely an order taker, who merely writes down the instructions of someone, who needs the commodity you have to sell.

When you believe in the value proposition of your product or service and you always have your clients’ or rather your new partners, needs as the prime objective. Your partners will very quickly see your pure intentions and will eagerly partner with you and your product and service. The will start to buy from someone they know, like and trust and someone they believe will add real value to their business. You can awaken your own sales giant today, if you are willing to make the crucial shift away from trying to sell a product or service, which you view as a commodity. Toward seeing your products or services as a real value proposition, which when integrated into your partners business, will solve their challenges and meet their needs.

As you build mutually beneficial sales relationships with your new partners, there is an immediate shift in power. You are no longer viewed as a junior partner and provider of a commodity, but an important cog in the wheel of your new partners business. As you shift away from the old school hard selling tactics and begin to use new age mutually beneficial relationship building and sales influence as a selling strategy, you will unlock your hidden sales super and you will become unstoppable.

Action Idea:

• Do you believe in the product or service you are selling? Would you want to buy what you have to sell?
• Do you really believe your product or service is a good value proposition for any client?
• Do you believe that your product or service is value for money?
• Are you just an employee, trying to get through the day, or are you involved in building your own business?
• Do you have the intimate knowledge of your market and partners business, necessary to become a partner and challenge solver in their business?
• Would you like and trust you, if you were the client?

Take a close look at your current sales strategies and answer these questions:Invest sufficient time to answer the questions above and after conducting an honest audit of your current selling strategy. Begin the process of improving all the areas in your business, which may be below par, so that you can make the shift you need. Where you move away from selling, towards building partnerships with people who know, like and trust you and who see your product or service as a great value proposition.

As you develop a real belief in what you have to sell, you completely understand your market and individual partners needs within that market, you will no longer just be selling products or services. You will be forming mutually beneficial relationships with partners and solving any problems they may have. As you continue to grow into this new modality, you are no longer selling; you are building connection and fostering relationships with people, your products or services, help and support.

As long as you really know your markets and individual partner’s needs within those markets, you always have your their best interests at heart and you believe 100 % in what you have to sell, you will succeed in growing your sales beyond even your wildest dreams.

Author: Andrew Horton Sales Training

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

This is the pattern I have observed in just about everyone I speak to. They are so busy spinning their wheels, achieving very little, because they never allow themselves to stop, rejuvenate and make time to engage in their most nurturing activities. If you are one of those people who think that, the time you spend resting or engaging in any nurturing activities, is a waste of time, then this article is just for you. There are a number of benefits which flow to you when you allow yourself to pause, recover, regenerate and recharge your batteries.

The mere act of resting, engaging in a nurturing activity or giving yourself permission to recharge your batteries is firstly a reward mechanism, which you can use to help you stay inspired. We all encounter challenges and obstacles on our success journey. When you have a positive nurturing experience to focus on, as a reward, once you have overcome or neutralised any challenge, it is far easier to avoid feeling overwhelmed or beaten. Find a really enjoyable nurturing experience, which really resonates with you and who you are.

Next time you encounter any challenges or obstacles, reward yourself by engaging in that activity, as a reward once you have neutralised that challenge or obstacle. As you learn this new process and you reward yourself every time you encounter any challenges or obstacles. When you reward yourself every time you overcome any challenges, you will no longer view them as such a huge issue, when you encounter them in the future. You will just manage any challenge or obstacle, enjoy the reward and come back afterwards, rejuvenated and with a fully charged battery.

As you learn this skill of constantly rewarding yourself with an opportunity to rest and recharge your batteries. You actually get to rest, which in itself will re-energise you. But you also get to flex your commitment muscle. The more you keep the commitments you make with yourself. For example, you keep your promise to allow yourself to engage in that nurturing experience every time you overcome a challenge, or carry out your daily goal specific priorities. The more you will bolster your energy, by matching your words and actions. When your promises are consistently backed by concrete action, you heighten your inspiration and you are far more inclined to tackle the most daunting tasks and succeed every time.

I am sure you can see the benefits of allowing yourself to rest, rejuvenate and recharge your batteries. But I can hear you asking, so how do I do it? How do I learn the art of giving myself permission to “WASTE” time?

Action Idea:

• Like anything in life, nothing can or will ever happen, unless you actually take action. If you are accustomed to constantly breaking your word with yourself, you need to gradually build trust, by only making small commitments to rest and reward yourself if you know; you will actually follow through and keep the promise. I know this sounds crazy; we are after all speaking about commitments and promises you make with yourself here. But like anything, if you take a gradual approach and you commit to grow into it, you will eventually begin to allow yourself to rest like you need to.
• If something really important does come up, which forces you to push past the promise you made to yourself. Do not simply cancel, just reschedule. By reschedule I do not mean, promise yourself you will do it when you have time. I mean actually pen the time into your dairy at a later date. Treat this reward or rest as really important. Scheduled rest and recovery time is crucial to your success.
• Break your goals down into smaller steps, so that you can regularly experience small successes. Don’t push yourself too hard trying to achieve overambitious goals or benchmarks. The more often you experience small successes and the more often you are able to enjoy the rewards, the more inspired you will feel.
• I have found that when you go public about your small successes and the reward or rest you intend engaging in. You are less likely to break your word with yourself. Ask a close friend or spouse, to check in to ensure that you are keeping any promise you have made to yourself
• We operate really well when we have a routine. Try to include your rest and rewards as a daily occurrence. The more you practice anything, the easier it becomes.
• Start slowly and over time gradually escalate the amount and size of the rewards you offer to yourself. As you engage in more rest and reward, you will see constant improvement in the results you are able to enjoy. You will over time become more energised, creative and innovative, because you will be rested and always operating at your best.
• As your success grows, you will see the benefit of rest and rejuvenation. As you see these benefits accumulate, you will allow yourself to rest and recharge your batteries, independent of any achievement.

There are incredible benefits that flow from allowing yourself to rest and recharge your batteries. In addition to the short term benefits, there are numerous other benefits, which will flow to you too. You will feel far healthier, your stress levels will reduce and you will feel far more alert, energetic and be far more productive. Making time for yourself, to rest or engage in a nurturing activity is always within your power. When you keep your promises with yourself and you actually give yourself permission, to rest and recover. Your energy, effectiveness and efficiency will receive a huge boost.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

I cannot understand the desire of some people, where they spend their entire life doing something they hate, so that they can one day retire and just sit under a tree somewhere, watching the grass grow. Life is an amazing journey of creation and of constantly doing meaningful work. One of the greatest ways of inviting satisfaction and meaning into your life is by basking in the warmth of a job well done. We are on this planet as creators and as long as we are involved in activities, which inspire us and allow us to live a fulfilled life of meaning, we will feel content.

Well if you are not enjoying your life or career choice right now, what can you do? You can continue to allow yourself to feel overwhelmed, remain trapped in a life and career that you hate and wait for retirement before you begin to live. Or you can make a different choice right now, where you get a crystal clear vision in your mind of exactly what you want your future to be like; create a strategic plan to and then develop a new success routine to support you to get there. Once you make this decision, you get to live a life of meaning right now. You get to take daily action, which has meaning to you and as you have a clear direction for your life, you feel far more content and satisfied with everything in your life. Almost miraculously everything in your life changes, things that were in your way before, miraculously seem to change and they are now on your way towards creating the future you have envisioned.

Building a career or future you love, requires you to know what you want, but mostly requires you to commit to take the right goal specific actions every day, to ensure that you keep moving in the direction of the vision, which you have created for yourself. Most people remain trapped in lives and careers they hate, because they never make time to carry out their daily goal specific priorities. Make the choice today to develop a new daily success habit set, which includes time to carry out your goal specific activities and you will, over time start to live the future you have envisioned. The small goal specific actions you take every day will over time add up into the success you desire. For me this is a no-brainer, keep doing what I have always done and remain trapped in a life you hate or create a vision, make time every day to take goal specific actions and over time create the future you want.

I challenge you to make a different choice today and to finally have the courage to break out of the trap of discontent and overwhelm, you currently find yourself trapped in. It is far easier to bear the small burden of daily discipline and to finally get to live the life you have dreamed about, rather than to continue down the current road you are on, where you get to remain trapped in a life you hate. Daily discipline weighs ounces, whereas regret weighs tonnes. Continuing doing what you have always done, means you will continue to get what you have always got. Dare to do things differently and you will astound yourself with how your life will change.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

You are most certainly not alone, if you are feeling a little disappointed about your results to date. Turning goal setting into goal achieving is an art and the result of developing a success habit set, which supports your goal achieving endeavours. If your daily actions and routines do not support you on your journey towards achieving any goal, you will continue to spin your wheels and remain frustrated with your progress, come the end of the year. I want to give you a few crucial tips, which will help you to develop a new success habit set that will support your efforts towards achieving some or all of your goals this year.

The first thing you need to learn is to win the war against is urgency. If you are spending most of your day chasing after your own tail, unable to focus on your priorities, it is impossible for you to take the actions you need to take, towards achieving your goals. Wrestle back control of your life today and introduce a new daily routine, where you plan your day the night before. This simple shift, will immediately empower you to control your day rather than, allowing your day to control you.

When you plan your day the night before, you wake up every day with a clear plan of what you will achieve and clearly defined time slots, when you will achieve it. When you are planning your day the night before, set aside time every day to work on your goal specific priorities. I call this time “Meetings with My future” This small shift, where you create a new habit set, which forces you to plan your day and schedule time to carry out your goal priorities for the day, will equip you for success.

When you are living in a modality of constant overwhelm and urgency, you are constantly distracted. Your attention is focused on putting fires out, instead of carrying out goal achievement activities. Your challenge and the reason you have reached the middle of the year, having achieved very little, in terms of your goals. Is not due to time starvation, it is simply that you have not scheduled time in your day to carry out your priorities. You are in essence allowing what appear to be urgent tasks, to crowd out your goal priorities, because you are not in control of your time.

Yes, we do encounter deadlines and fires we need to put out on occasion. But if fires and crisis are the norm in your life, it is time to assess how you are running things in your life and business. Are you so lost in the wormhole of crisis management that you have lost sight of the big picture? If this is how you feel, it is most certainly time for you to take a four day break, as soon as possible to re-assess, how you are doing things. When you wrestle back control and your routines and your habits support your success. You empower yourself to be the steward of your day and you ensure that you schedule time for and you carry out your goal specific priorities every day.

Urgent things will still beg for your attention, time and energy, but you will have the understanding that although your goal achievement activities do not make the same strict demands on you. They are crucial to our success and must be given, the priority they deserve every day. If you keep doing things the way you have done them in the past, you will most certainly, keep getting the same results. If you want to see better results towards achieving your goals by the end of the year, then immediately stop allowing urgent tasks to stop you from carrying out your daily goal priorities. The challenge you face is that your goal specific priorities do not place such strict demands on you, so you assign them a lower priority every day. As long as you continue to allocate a low priority toward carrying out your goal specific priorities each day, you will continue to blunder through life, never achieving any of your goals and dreams.

Make the crucial decision today that you will no longer put your crucial goal achieving priorities on the backburner. Those import issues, which demand your immediate attention, are in most cases, not your urgent issues, but someone else’s urgent issue and can in most cases wait for an hour, while you “Meet Your Future” and carry out your goal specific priorities. When you adopt this new daily routine or habit of carrying out your goal specific priorities every day, during your “Meeting With Your Future”, you will astound yourself with how many of your goals you will manage to achieve before the end of this year.

If you had an urgent matter come up at the office, but you had a meeting with your most important client. You would in most cases, unless it was a life and death matter, still make the meeting wouldn’t you? Then why do you constantly cancel or postpone, a far more important meeting every day, namely the time you set aside to transform your life or rather to carry out your goal specific activities, at the drop of a hat? Take back control and do not allow anything short of a life and death situation to allow you to cancel a “Meeting With Your Future” Free yourself from the tyranny of bending to the will of those, urgent tasks. You are in charge of your future, stop acting like an absenteeism landlord over how things will turn out and actually carry out your goal specific priorities every day.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management  

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Build Mutually Beneficial Relationships and You will Accelerate your Success

I am sure you have heard many people around say “It is not what you know, but rather, who you know that determines your level of financial or career success” I must admit that I believe that it is most certainly a combination of the two, which will ultimately determine the level of success you get to enjoy, in both of these areas. As your knowledge and skills grow, i.e. as you become more, so too will the calibre and type of people, who will want to connect with you, improve as well. So yes, it is important to have a lifelong commitment to constantly keep growing, learning and becoming more, but equally important to build a network of friends, connections and associates around you. People who you can support and who will support you in return.

Building mutually beneficial relationships with people and connecting with them on a deeper level, is one of the most powerful ways of building financial and career success. I want to offer you a few guidelines in this article, to help you to build a really powerful network, which will support you and help you to reach your goals. The best way to make this process work is to start from where you are right now and over time gradually build the connections you need. Always trying to form mutually beneficial relationships with people, who can support you and your efforts.

Listen twice as much as you speak – Be open and interested

When meeting anyone, do not try to dominate the conversation in your attempt to be interesting. Rather listen to what they are saying, show a genuine interest in what they have to say. This openness, willingness to listen and your genuine interest in the other person, will quickly build repoire and the other person will mirror your behaviour and tend to reciprocate, by showing a genuine interest in you. There is a simple law, which states that the world tends to reflect your attitude back to you.   So when you approach anyone with the intent to find ways to enrich their life, they will feel your openness and intent and mirror the same back to you.

Always Show Up

I know this sounds really simplistic and obvious, but it is astounding how many people receive invitations to birthday parties, dinners, weddings or professional networking events and they don’t show up. They always justify their non-arrival by saying they did not know the host very well, the event was too far away or a myriad of other reasons why they could not go. You never know who you can meet at any of these events, who can completely change your life. Approach any event you attend with an open mind and see everyone in one of two ways, friends or future friends. Approach them and show real interest in them and you will astound yourself at how quickly you can connect with people.

Exchange Contact Information

Try to speak to a variety of people at any of the events you attend. Always try to exchange contact information with everyone you speak to at any event, no matter how briefly the contact was. This allows you to build a data base of people, with whom you can build mutually beneficial relationships with.

Follow Up with Everyone You meet

Social media has given us an incredibly powerful tool to help us connect with and stay in contact with the people we meet. Try to connect with the people you have met, the following day, via Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter or any of the other social media networks out there. Send them a note, reminding them about the place and time you met and that you would love to stay in contact with them. I always write something of interest they said to me on their business card and I then comment on this when I write to them.

I have a system I use every week to help me stay in contact with the people I have met.

• I connect with 15 people each week via electronic media, email, social media, comment on their blogs, Facebook posts etc.
• I make 5 Phone calls a week to important contacts. I record the things I found interesting about these people and use this in the conversation. The other way to ensure the conversation is valuable is to research them on one of the social networks or via Google. You will be amazed at how much information you can get about someone via these media.
• I arrange to meet face to face with three important contacts, each week. This can either be lunch, dinner or simple for a cup of coffee. These face to face contacts are extremely important and the way I make the best connection with people.
• Finally I send a gift to someone; I want to build a connection with. This gift is not sent with any expectation of anything in return. I research the person first and try to select a really appropriate gift for them. 99 times out of 100, I get to build a meaningful connection with these people.
• Collect all the email addresses and contact details of the people you want to connect with and put together an event, you can invite them to attend. Invite the people about four weeks in advance. I have found the best success, by inviting people to attend a Saturday function with a compelling theme. The more effort people have to put into attending the event, the more committed they will be to attend the event. I have really built up amazing connection with people, using this strategy.

The way to build an effective network of mutually beneficial relationships with people is to commit to listen, be interested in what they have to say and to form mutually beneficial relationships with them. The more open you are, when you meet people, the more often you show up and the more you follow up with people, the better the quality of network you will manage to develop.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management  

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

The Art of Realizing your Goals

If you boarded a plane and the pilot that came over the intercom was incoherent and had no idea what the flight number was, no idea where he was going or even if there was enough fuel on board the plane, would you stay on board? Examine the person piloting your life right now, how coherent is your pilot, does he/she have a vision and a plan for your future?

 Goals are merely the “WHAT” you will accomplish and action plans are the “HOW” you will accomplish each goal. Without a clearly defined True Life Purpose to serve as the compass that guides your goals and actions, you will continue to blunder aimlessly through life and never turn your dreams into your reality. Your True life purpose is the “WHY” behind everything you do.

When you understand exactly “WHY” you must achieve, become, have or do something. The “WHY” will become the fire that glows or explodes in your belly and will inspire and drive you to achieve your goals. The “WHY” is what will get you to make the changes in your life, you need to succeed, even the uncomfortable ones. The “WHY” is the inspiration behind your goals that will make it all happen for you?

 You can achieve anything, when you adapt these three words as your personal adage “I WILL, UNTIL”. Anything is possible and extremely probable, if you tenaciously chip away, applying inspired action every day until you have achieved all of your goals.

History only serves as a platform for learning. Learn the lessons it has to offer & then use this information to create your perfect future. To charter the course you are capable of following you need to turn your dreams into goals. Goals are dreams that you have identified, clarified, time defined, written down and committed yourself to make part of your future reality.

 Forget about only setting your goals and change your focus to GOAL ACHIEVEMENT. Accept that you must change your belief around your goals, their achievement and how to turn your dreams into your reality and the results you enjoy will also change. Move your thinking away from only setting goals, to living your goals in the present and creating all the emotions you would feel when you actually achieve all your goals. This practice will assist you to unleash the power, both within yourself and in the universe as a whole.

Practice the Art of Living in the NOW!

Do not spend too much time locked in yesterday, that is gone forever or daydreaming about a tomorrow that may never come? Stop acting as an absenteeism Landlord over the miracle of the moment and savor the miraculous power of consistently and completely utilizing your NOW’S.

Now is all we have. Invested wisely, our now will deliver all our dreams and lead us to live in the magic of life. How would you rather invest your now? In creating the future of your dreams or in mindless pastimes that only pass the time.

Plan for the future you desire, but be certain that you are living in the NOW. If you live in the future you never actually get to live at all. You seem to spend all your time preparing to live. Planning for the future is crucial, but never allow this process to rob you of the happiness that is available right NOW.

When you expend every NOW in a state of creation, you have no time for judgment, only for growth and joy. All you have is the NOW. Never expend your NOW on anything that is not in line with what makes you feel great. Listen to your emotions; they are your guides that help you to live on purpose. If you feel positive emotions about anything, you are more likely than not on track. Any negative emotions are an indication that whatever you are doing is not aligned with your true life purpose.

Now is all we have. Invested wisely, our now will deliver all our dreams and lead us to live in the magic of life. How would you rather invest your now? In creating the future of your dreams or in mindless pastimes that only distract you and allow you to pass the time.

Live in the moment, never allowing your dreams to run ahead of you, for the person that only looks outside of themselves is simply a dreamer, those that learn to look into their heart, awaken their belief in their ability and they unleash their unlimited potential. Recording and time defining your dreams are simply the start, realizing them is the art.

 What do you want from Your Future?

Let your mind out for a walk today and explore the question “WHAT DO I REALLY WANT FROM MY FUTURE?” When you gain clarity around this issue, you become a CREATOR of your circumstances. Continue to blunder, blindly through life and you will remain simply a creature of your circumstances.

Before you can begin to create the future that you can be proud of, you must first decide EXACTLY what you want that future to be like. Until you do this, you are flying blind, five years from now you are going to arrive, my question is WHERE?

Through commitment and complete clarity you get to predict your future one moment at a time.

When you get a crystal clear picture of your future and focus on realizing exactly that, by applying inspired activity to everything you do, you get to predict exactly how your future will be, TODAY.

Your nebulous dreams that you neglect to refine, can never become concrete goals that you can actively pursue. They just remain daydreams beyond the range of your true reality and can never materialize with any real substance.

For you to finally begin to manifest your true aspirations, you must clearly articulate these aims to both yourself and the universe. When you clarify your aspirations, they take on a new substance and what was a mere wish, before becomes real and achievable.

 Ready, Fire then Aim.

I believe in the adage of READY, FIRE, AIM. READY, Invest time and effort into preparing to achieve your goals, FIRE, begin to take action, do not paralyze yourself with over preparing, AIM, assess your progress, regularly and take corrective action where necessary.

It is a natural tendency for us to overestimate what we can achieve in one year and significantly UNDERESTIMATE all we can achieve in a decade.  Take a longer term view of your life and goals. When you decide to follow and apply this simple strategy you will astound yourself with the results you will begin to see materialize in your life.

Your thoughts, words and actions today, determine EXACTLY what your future will be like tomorrow. Consistent patterns of thought and your daily deeds most certainly create your future. Practice the success habit of only thinking thoughts and performing actions that are in line your True Life Purpose and your vision of the future. This very simple yet effective daily practice will help you create the EXACT the future you desire.

When you learn to approach every activity in your life from a position of high energy, with superior levels of trust, optimism, appreciation, reverence, joy and love, you open the door that allows your dreams a chance to escape the confines of your inner doubt and sees them soar into the realm of your reality.

 Unleash your dreams

Your dreams are merely your future reality waiting to be set free and your expectations are the fuel that provides the momentum and inspiration for you to create the meaningful dreams that will make a difference to you and the world.

Unless you stop expending your energy on the small stuff, you will never have room to make the really important things happen for you. Discover that one thing that will help you make a meteoric stride toward your success and then apply consistent and persistent effort daily until it is done.

The path to living your dreams is often filled with challenges, when you commit completely to living your goals, you will have the commitment to do what it takes to overcome any challenges that may come your way. Until you stop telling yourself that you only WANT something to manifest in your life and finally decide that what you want is something you absolutely M U S T have, you will not show the commitment and determination required and your dreams will continue to elude you.

 To successfully fulfill all your dreams, requires consistent and persistent effort. If you can create an atmosphere of fun, excitement and real deep passion around this process, the work that will be required, will be easy and you will eagerly participate in the process.

Review your Progress

When on the path to achieving your goals you will need to have consistent and regular checks, to ensure that you remain on track. By monitoring your progress on a regular and frequent basis, you will only need to make small corrections to keep you on your path. It is imperative to have a set of predetermined ways to measure and monitor your progress.

Focus on achieving the essence of each of your goals and be open to regularly change individual particulars if necessary. Letting go of or modifying plans that are not working, is an integral part of the goal achievement process. Consistently check and revise your plans and have the courage to discard any that may be weighing you down

 Delays

Delays in the realizing of your dreams are just that, DELAYS. When you understand that you are not being denied your dreams that things will arrive when the time is right. All your dreams will be yours, if you continue to show tenacity in your will and consistency in your belief.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Wrestle Back Control, Start Your Day Focused On Your Needs

Have you ever wondered why you sleep with your smart phone next to your bed? Does it give you some sort of comfort to know that your phone is there, so anyone, anywhere in the world can disturb your sleep and interrupt that crucial time you spend rejuvenating and recharging your batteries, at their discretion? To me it feels like you are giving away some, if not all your control over your sleep every night. Empower yourself and give yourself permission to do what you should be doing when you get into bed every night, namely to rest and recharge your batteries. Is that email from an overseas supplier, which comes through at midnight and disrupts your natural sleep cycle, so important, it can’t wait until morning?

Recent studies show that over 80 % of mobile phone users sleep with their phones in the bedroom. Can you honestly tell me why you feel the need to have your phone right next to you while you sleep? Obviously if your son or daughter is out late or there is some other reason a close family member may need to reach you in an emergency, then by all means have your mobile phone next to your bed. In every other instance, give yourself permission to leave your smart phone out of the bedroom. It is no wonder that so many people feel overwhelmed every day and like they feel like they cannot cope with their workload. They are switched on 24 hours a day, with their mind constantly spinning away. They never give themselves permission to switch off and to rest and rejuvenate. You will astound yourself at how much more rested you are in the morning, when you allow yourself to switch off and rest, when you go to sleep every night.

What is the first thing you do every morning to start you day? Is it grabbing hold of your smart phone, with bleary eyes, which are barely able to focus, so that you can read your text or email messages? This is crazy behaviour. You are immediately giving away control of your day to the whims of everyone, who may have sent you a text or email during the night. You are allowing these messages to set your priorities for the day. They see you start your day, in a reactive state, rather than in a controlled proactive fashion, where you are focused on achieving your goals. Those text and email messages immediately demand your time and attention and they take up crucial space in your mind.

You have effectively surrendered control of your day, to others, before it has even started. Picture this start to your every day. You are lying in bed, reading messages form marketers, vendors, colleagues and possibly even your boss, which flood your brain with what they want you to do, not what you want to achieve that day. What a way to start your day, you put the needs of some random person, who has sent you a mail, ahead of your own. You are effectively surrendering control for setting the tone of your day to someone else. Can you now see why we seem to spin our wheels all day, feel exhausted at the end of each day, but we achieve very little?

Try the system I have described below for the next seven days.  The people, who have tried and applied this simple new routine, have seen a remarkable improvement in the outcomes they manage to achieve. They get more done each day and they feel far more rested. Set yourself a goal for the next seven days to try this new daily routine as described below:

Action Idea:

• Plan your day the night before. Spend about ten minutes at the end of your day, formulating a simple plan, which will allow you to know what you need to achieve the next day. This simple process allows your brain to switch off and rest during sleep and also gives you a head start the next morning.
• When you wake up in the morning, do not push the snooze button, get out of bed immediately and get your day started on a high. I call this my activation energy; it sets the tone for an energised and powerful day.
• Spend the first five or ten minutes, refining your daily plan. Ensuring that you have time in your schedule to achieve your three most important priorities. Ensure that you have also scheduled time in your day to meet your future. This is a time slot of a minimum of 30 minutes every day, where you invest time working on your life, where you invest into creating the future you want to live.
• Once you have control over your day and your needs are your top priority, now you can open your emails and read your text messages.

I challenge you to try this new routine for seven days. You will literally astound yourself with what you are able to achieve in that week. You will not only get more done, but you will also feel more rested and inspired. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain, give it a try. I would really appreciate your feedback on how this new routine works for you, please drop me an email at andrew@andrewhorton.co.za and let me know how things go, when you start your day focused on your needs, rather than on someone else’s.

Author: Andrew Horton Best business Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Set Only Positive Goals and Achieving Them will be a Cinch

When police agents are trained to recognise counterfeit money, they are trained to focus on knowing all the characteristics of the legal currency. They are trained using real money and work with only the legal tender, until they know every counterfeiting measure printed on or in the money. They study the money on both sides, until they know every feature of the money, which makes it legal tender. By knowing the real money so well, when they encounter any counterfeit money, they will immediately recognise it as counterfeit. Their training is very specific and focused on teaching them to know everything about the legal money. Their minds are therefore not cluttered with all the possible things, which could be wrong or the mistakes that are commonly made. They are completely focused, because they are specialists in the real thing. This way any counterfeit money is glaringly obvious to them.

The same is true for your life. When you focus your energy on the penalties of failure or you are constantly worried about all the things that could go wrong. You are far more likely to infuse your performance with those penalties and potential mistakes. One of the most crucial steps in the process of ensuring you stay focused on achieving your vision and goals is to concentrate on what you need to do. Do not allow yourself to focus any attention on the things you must not do. For example, if you feel you are carrying a little too much weight. Do not set a goal to lose weight, or if you are a tennis player do not set a negative goal, not to double fault. Avoid setting negative goals like not being late all the time or not to speak so fast and loud all the time. These goals are framed in negative terms and try to get us to move in a positive direction, by focusing on the negative. No wonder achieving goals seems so difficult.

We need to steer clear of negative goal setting. It is impossible for our minds to focus on a reverse idea. For example: when the tennis player focuses on the negative term, namely the double fault. He is reminding himself of the very condition he wants to avoid at all costs. The person, who is constantly late for everything, by setting a negative goal about not being late, does not offer a solution, but only highlights the challenge they want to overcome. When we think in terms of all the weight we have to lose, we have a negative self-image in our minds of someone who is overweight. To succeed in achieving any goal we set we must create a vivid picture in our mind of what we want to do, or achieve, not what we do not want to do, or what we do not want to achieve. In the case of losing weight we need to create a vivid image in our minds of what we will look like when we reach our perfect weight. Using this image as our goal we have a positive image and a solution to focus on, rather than a negative picture of being overweight and the kilograms we need to lose.

Try this little experiment: Get a picture in your mind of a time you were really angry or upset. Focusing on that picture, try to concentrate on not being upset or angry. How does it make you feel? Now get a vivid picture in your mind of a time you felt energised and happy. Focusing on that picture, concentrate all your energy on feeling elated and happy. How much better do you feel using the second technique, where you focused on the positive outcome you wanted to achieve, rather than trying to overcome a negative picture or emotion?

When you understand this really important characteristic about how your mind works and you understand that your brain can’t focus on an idea in reverse, you can now appreciate why you must only set positive goals. Try to never again tell yourself not to make mistakes, rather focus on visualising a picture of a perfect or flawless performance. When you focus on the positive outcome you want to achieve, you will perform far better. Can you imagine a tight rope walker who constantly tells himself, not to fall? How long do you think he will survive as a tight rope walker?

The best way to improve performance or to set goals is as follows:

• The tennis player, should say things like “First serve in every time”
• The person who wants to lose weight, should say “I am reaching my perfect weight”
• The person, who speaks loudly and too fast, should say “I speak, slowly, clearly and with confidence”.
• The person, who is always late, should say “On time, all the time, every time”.

These are all examples of positive goal statements and they help you to create positive images of achievement in your mind. These positive images, then act as a strong pulling force, to pull you in the direction of the desired new behaviour you need to adopt, to achieve any goal. This small shift in the way you set goals will have a remarkable positive effect on your ability to achieve any goals in the future.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

It is time to Take a Half-Time Break in 2012

Have you ever attended a sport match where, the players reach half time. During this break they refresh themselves, gather their thoughts, examine their performance during the first half and set strategy for the second half of the match. Well as you reach the halfway mark in your year, have you planned a short break to go away, regroup, refresh, rejuvenate, explore your performance during the first half of the year and set new strategy for the rest of the year?

That break is the perfect opportunity for you to assess how you are doing so far this year and to set new strategy for the second half of the year, so that you can come back firing on all cylinders when you return from your break. If you have not scheduled at least a three to four day break within the next month, where you have the opportunity to refresh and rejuvenate your mind and body, I suggest you look at your calendar today and put this crucial goal achievement tool into your calendar. During this halftime break, it is crucial you recharge your batteries, assess how you played during the first half of 2012 and set a new strategy for the rest of the year.  This new strategy will set the tone for how you are going to tackle the rest of this year.

It is crucial that you explore all your goals and without beating yourself up for any poor results, assess how you are doing against your expectations. As Anthony Robbens said so eloquently, “We often overestimate what we can achieve in a year and significantly underestimate what we can achieve in a decade”. So if you are not tracking as well as you would like against your expectations, it may be that you were too optimistic when you set your goals earlier in the year. As Anthony said, you may have extended yourself for the year, but watch this spot, for with focus and discipline, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in a decade.

It will most certainly not serve you to engage in any negative self-talk and criticism at this stage of the year. Now is the time to assess your performance from a non-emotive position. If you have not achieved the results you wanted, it simply means that the actions you are taking are not delivering the results you expected or you are trying to achieve too much. During this break it is crucial that you evaluate where you are in terms of achieving your goals, with an open and exploring mind. As you approach the hallway mark through the year, explore your goals and answer these few questions.

• How many goals have you achieved so far this year? Reward yourself for a job well done and languish in the glow of this great achievement. It is crucial that you use any successes as a springboard for achieving similar results for the remainder of the year. If on the other hand, you have not achieved any successes so far this year, know that after, this break, where you reassess how you have done so far this year and you get the focus you need for the second half of the year. Achieving your goals will be far easier for the remainder of the year; things will only get better from here.

• How many of your goals are you on track to achieve? It is better to put a few goals on the backburner for the moment and to focus on trying to do less, for the remainder of the year. If you continue doing things the way you have for the first half of the year, you will most certainly keep getting the same results. Shake things up a bit and get more focus. It would be better to put some goals on hold for the moment and to reach the end of the year, having achieved one small goal, than it would be to continue trying to achieve all your goals and you reach December, having achieved very little.

• Have you set too many goals for yourself to achieve? Take a real honest look at your goals and see whether you have set too many goals and as such you are chasing after your own tail, not achieving much. Would it not be better to pull out only one priority goal at this point and to focus all your energy on achieving just that one goal for the rest of the year?

• If there are some goals that you have not even managed to tackle so far this year. Take the pressure off and file them away for later. The more you can reduce the amount of overwhelm you feel and the more focus you can get, the better equipped you are to achieve your goals.

• Are the actions you are taking every day delivering the results you need? Explore your daily actions and see if you can discover a way to polish, massage or change them in any way, to help you improve the outcomes you are currently enjoying. If you keep doing things the way you have for the first half of the year, you will continue to get the same results. If you want different results, you will need to do things differently.

Where you are right now and what you have managed to achieve until now, is the perfect place to start and the ideal place from which to create the circumstances you need to achieve your goals. It does not serve you or your goal achieving efforts to beat yourself up about what has not worked until now. Grab the reigns of your life and do things better for the remainder of the year. All you can ask of yourself is your best. As long as you are giving your best every day and you are taking meaningful actions, which will allow you to gradually move toward your vision and dreams, you will succeed in the end. I wish you only the best for the remainder of this incredible year.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management

 http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Creating consistent High Performance Throughout Your Day

As you know compounding, is the eighth wonder of the world. Consistent small focused efforts add up over time and eventually turn into incredible results. I believe that the addition of all these small efforts over time is the single biggest reason why some people become super achievers and others are left trapped in empty meaningless lives of overwhelm. It is because of the power of compounding, that I have searched for many years for a formula, which will help people to stay focused and able to perform at a consistently high level of performance throughout their day. After polishing this process for a number of years, I want to share what I have come up with, so that you can improve your results. I hope this simple process, will help you to gain the consistent energy, focus and productivity, which you need throughout your life to build the success you desire and deserve.

The first crucial aspect necessary to ensure that you have the energy and persistence, needed to sustain your performance throughout your day, is a connection to a meaningful purpose. When you have something bigger than yourself to focus on achieving and you live in a modality of “How can I serve greatly”, you are connected to a higher purpose. This energy, enthusiasm, drive and passion will help inspire you and help you to stay focused and task centric. This sense of purpose allows you to feel like you matter and will be visible to the people around you. This will then result in a sense of love, connection and meaning, which will flow from everyone around you. This will equip you to connect with your community allowing you to feel a constant charge and drive to succeed.

Secondly, you need to become aware and strive to be present, as you tackle each task. This means that you must be completely engaged and 100 % emotionally present in everything you do. When you are fully invested in the moment, it feels like there is both a push and pull of energy, which seems to inspire you throughout your day. This will help you to focus all your energy on completing only a single task at a time. You will never engage in any practices, which allow you to become distracted, thus stopping you from completing each individual task, before tackling the next one.

Action Idea: Examine your ability to remain present throughout your day. When you are next engaged in completing any task, rate yourself on a scale of 1 -10, as to the level of complete focus or presence you are exhibiting in the moment. “One” being, I am completely distracted and my attention is everywhere, “ten” being I am completely present and 100 % focused on completing that task, I allow nothing to distract me. Constantly measure you presence and focus throughout the day, if you are consistently achieving ratings, below a 7 or 8, you need to invest time into becoming more focused in the moment. When you are able to become completely present and focused on completing tasks, throughout your day, you actually get things done, you avoid overwhelm and the tasks you manage to complete, compound over time and add up into super achievement.

Thirdly, invest time into ensuring that you are powering the vessel, which provides you with energy and the ability to achieve greatness, namely your body, with sufficient rest and hydration. Unless you are getting sufficient sleep every night, where you actually get to switch off and regenerate and recharge your batteries, you will not have sufficient energy to perform at a high level throughout your day. When you are energised and your batteries are adequately charged every day, you will be focused and driven throughout your day.

Action Idea: Plan your day the night before and ensure that you know when you will tackle any issue the next day, which may be worrying you. This certainty, will allow you to switch off and to focus on being present in the moment, i.e. you will be able to rest when you sleep, rather than tossing and turning as you worry all night. Try to get a minimum of 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.

Fourthly, learn to understand who you are and what drives and inspires you. When you are authentic and live in congruence with who you really are, you equip yourself to live your truth. This continuity, which comes from living according to who you really are, allows you to be your authentic self and makes everything you do seem effortless.

Action Idea: Pick three words that you feel define who you are as a person. These words must resonate with you and define your identity and describe who you really are. What is that authentic self, the real you? The three words I have chosen for myself are driven, bold and inspired. Choose your words carefully and every time you tackle any task throughout your day, ask yourself if you are exhibiting these characteristics. If you have chosen your three words properly, then if you are not acting in alignment with your words, you are not being authentic and as such your energy will soon fade and disappear. Keep massaging the words you choose, until you get a perfect fit. Once you have discovered the words that best describe you and you consistently measure each task against these words, you are acting congruent with your highest self and will feel driven and energised throughout your day.

Finally, choose your three most important priorities every day and ensure that your head does not touch the pillow each night until these priorities are completed. These priorities must obviously be focused on achieving a specific outcome that day. When you have a single mission each day and you centre your day on achieving that mission, you equip yourself to get the right things done. Focus on completing these priority tasks and challenge and stretch yourself every day. When I say stretch yourself, I am not talking about stretching yourself to the point of overwhelm. I mean stretch yourself to a level, where you perform at your optimum. Focus on your mission each day and try to accomplish everything you need to do each day at the right pace.

When you bring these five new concepts into your life, you will see a remarkable improvement in your drive, determination and you will feel energised throughout your day. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain. Give these ideas a whirl, what if it is just these few new ideas, which completely change your life and put you on the fast track to success.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

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