The Beauty of Being a Beginner

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you can actually learn to like being a beginner, the world will open up to you. ~Barbara Sher
When was the last time you were a beginner at something... and actually enjoyed it?
Think about it... no one, I mean NO ONE likes being the new guy at work! How many times have you hesitated asking a question or trying something new because you didn't want to appear foolish or inexperienced?
Have you ever avoided doing something new because of uncertainty, the risk of embarrassment or the chance you might not be able to do it as well as other people?
There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel confident and self-assured, unless it prevents you from growing. The need to always appear in control and knowledgeable can create unnecessary stress, prevent you from taking advantage of opportunities to learn new skills, and potentially suck the joy right out of any efforts you may undertake to change your life for the better.
Cultivating a beginner's mindset is about embracing limitless possibilities.
If you have dreams of doing great things, of mastering the skills to empower you to avoid getting sidetracked by life's inevitable challenges and detours... of creating a more meaningful life that is aligned with your values and dreams, it's time to open your mind to the beauty of being a beginner.

• Beginners have nothing to prove. Embracing your status as a beginner effectively eliminates the stress of worrying about being 'right' all the time; which means you'll be more confident when it comes to asking important questions. You are also more inclined to be kind to other beginners as a result of your experience and new found appreciation for the opportunities and benefits.


• Beginners have the freedom to try new things, change their minds, and even fail. Having the freedom to try new things and change direction is powerful stuff because you never know when you may discover marvelous new skills or passions. In fact, achieving meaningful success in life requires a certain amount of failure, usually a lot. Of course no one likes to talk about the 'F' word but ask any highly successful person, and they will tell you they failed frequently and spectacularly to get where they are. Remember, in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.


• It's human nature to be kind and forgiving to beginners. We exhibit more patience and (most of us) go out of our way to be helpful to beginners. We understand it takes courage to be willing to grow and we tend to be freer with encouragement and praise than we would be with those who are more experienced and for whom we have higher expectations.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
~Steve Jobs

As comforting as it may be to feel confident and secure, snug in the various roles you fill in your life story, there is unimaginable beauty and freedom to be found when you have the courage to step outside your comfort zone and open yourself to the opportunity of being a beginner, exploring the possibilities available - now- to create your own life experience by living your life by design...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7380777

Setting Clear Goals

H.L. Hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in 1974, was once asked during a TV interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful. He said only two things are required. First, you must decide exactly what it is you want to accomplish. Most people never do that in their entire lives. And secondly, you must determine what price you'll have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.

Clear Goals Are Essential

Clear goals and objectives are essential to the success of any business, and this is no less true of building your own career. If you don't take the time to get really clear about exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish, then you're forever doomed to spend your life achieving the goals of those who do. In the absence of a clear direction for your life, you will either meander aimlessly or you will build a career that you don't feel good about. You may make some money, and you may do some interesting work, but the end result will not resemble anything you ever made a conscious decision to build, and ultimately you will be left with the sinking feeling that maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Do you ever look at your career and think to yourself, "How on earth did I get here?"
If setting goals is so critically important, then why is it that so few people take the time to define exactly where they want to go? Part of the reason is a lack of knowledge about how to set clear goals. You can go through years of schooling and never receive any instruction on goal setting at all. A failure to understand the immense importance of establishing clear goals is also common. But those who truly know what they want often outperform everyone else by an enormous degree.
A frequent deterrent to goal setting is the fear of making a mistake. Teddy Roosevelt once said, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Setting virtually any goal at all is better than drifting aimlessly with no clear direction. The best way I know to guarantee failure is to avoid making clear, committed decisions. Every day is already a mistake if you don't know where you're going. You're probably spending most of your time working to achieve other people's goals. The local fast food restaurant, TV advertisers, and the stockholders of the businesses you patronize are all very happy for that. If you don't decide what you really want, then you've decided to hand your future over to the whims of others, and that's always a mistake. By taking hold of the reins yourself and deciding where you'd like to go, you gain a tremendous sense of control that most people never experience in their entire lives.
Many people assume that because they have a direction, they must therefore have goals, but this is not the case and merely creates the illusion of progress. "Making more money" and "building a business" are not goals. A goal is a specific, clearly defined, measurable state. An example of the difference between a direction and a goal is the difference between the compass direction of northeast and the top of the Eiffel Tower in France. One is merely a direction; the other is a definite location.

Define Goals in Binary Terms

One critical aspect of goals is that they must be defined in binary terms. At any point in time, if I were to ask you if you had achieved your goal yet, you must be able to give me a definitive "yes" or "no" answer; "maybe" is not an option. You cannot say with absolute certainty if you've fully completed the outcome of "making more money," but you can give me a definitive binary answer as to whether or not you are currently standing on top of the Eiffel Tower. An example of a clear business goal would be that your gross income for the month of April this year is $5000 or more. That is something you can calculate precisely, and at the end of the month, you can give a definitive answer as to whether or not your goal has been achieved. That is the level of clarity you need in order to form a goal that your mind can lock onto and move towards rapidly.

Be Detailed

Be as detailed as possible when setting goals. Give specific numbers, dates, and times. Make sure that each of your goals is measurable. Either you achieved it, or you didn't. Define your goals as if you already know what's going to happen. It's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

Commit Goals to Writing

Goals must be in writing in the form of positive, present-tense, personal affirmations. A goal that is not committed to writing is just a fantasy. Set goals for what you want, not for what you don't want. Your subconscious mind can lock onto a clearly defined goal only if the goal is defined in positive terms. If you put your focus on what you don't want instead of what you do, you're likely to attract exactly what it is you're trying to avoid. Phrase your goals as if they are already achieved. Instead of saying, "I will earn $30,000 this year," phrase it in the present tense: "I earn $30,000 this year." If you phrase your goals in future terms, you are sending a message to your subconscious mind to forever keep that outcome in the future, just beyond your grasp. Avoid wishy-washy words like "probably," "should," "could," "would," "might," or "may" when forming your goals. Such words foster doubt as to whether you can really achieve what you are after. And finally, make your goals personal. You cannot set goals for other people, such as, "A publisher will publish my software by the end of the year." Phrase it like this instead: "I sign a North American retail publishing contract this year that earns me at least $50,000 by the end of the year."

Objectify Subjective Goals

What if you need to set subjective goals, such as improving your own level of self-discipline? How do you phrase such goals in binary terms? To solve this problem, I use a rating scale of 1 to 10. For instance, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate your current level of self-discipline? Then set a goal to achieve a certain specific rating by a certain date. This allows you to measure your progress and know with a high degree of certainty whether or not you've actually achieved your goal.

Goal Setting Is an Activity

Setting clear goals is not a passive act. It doesn't happen automatically. You must take direct conscious action in order to make it so. Everything counts, and nothing is neutral. You are either moving towards your goals, or you're moving away from them. If you do nothing or if you act without clarity, then you are almost certainly a victim of "being outgoaled." In other words you are spending your time working on other people's goals without even knowing it. You are happily working to enrich your landlord, other businesses, advertisers, stockholders, etc. Each day you spend working without a sense of clarity about where you're headed is a step backwards for you. If you don't actively tend your garden, then weeds will grow automatically. Weeds don't need to be watered or fertilized. They just grow by themselves in the absence of an attentive gardener. Similarly, in the absence of conscious and directed action on your part, your work and your life will automatically become full of weeds. You don't need to do anything at all to make this happen. And when you finally get around to taking a serious look at where you are and where you want to go, the first thing you'll have to do is pull out all those weeds.
Reading this article will do absolutely nothing for you unless you turn it into some form of physical action. The best thinking unfortunately gives you zero results. In reality, you won't even be paid a penny for your thoughts. You can have the most creative idea in the world, but ideas themselves are utterly worthless. You only get results from the physical actions you take, never for the ideas you have. In order to get any kind of tangible results at all, you must act on an idea. You must communicate it, build it, implement it, and make it real.

Clarity Is a Choice

If you've been running your career in an unfocused manner, just waking up each morning and seeing what happens, then it is absolutely crucial that you take the time to decide and write down exactly where it is you want to go. How much longer will you continue to climb the ladder of success, only to realize too late that it was leaning against the wrong building? Just pick a point in the future, whether it's six months from now or five years from now, and spend a few hours writing out a clear description of where you want to be at that time. I know many people who aren't sure where they want to go, so they avoid committing anything to writing in order to "keep their options open." What would happen if you pursued that attitude to its logical conclusion? If you always kept your options open and never made any firm commitments, then you'd never get promoted, start your own business, get married, have a family, move to that new home, etc. except to the degree that someone else made that decision for you.
I used to have a friend like this, who still hasn't decided what he wants to do with his life. He yields control of his life to others without even realizing it, simply because he's unwilling to take the time to define a vision for his own life out of fear of making the wrong choice. His life is ruled by others who push their goals onto him, which he accepts by default. Ask yourself if you're in the same boat. If a friend of yours became totally committed to getting you to change something in your life at random -- your career, your living situation, your relationship, etc. -- could s/he do it just by being absolutely certain and committed that it's the right thing for you? Could a business associate come along and radically alter your plans for the week without you ever deciding consciously that such a change is consistent with your goals? We all suffer from problems like these to the degree that we fail to set clear goals for ourselves. There is a big difference between recognizing and acting on a true opportunity and being knocked off course without making a conscious decision to shift gears.
Waiting for something to inspire you and hoping that the perfect outcome will just fall into your lap is nothing but a fantasy. Clear decision making doesn't happen passively; you actually have to physically put in the time to make it happen. If you don't have clear goals simply because you don't know what you want, then sit down and actively decide what you want. That sense of knowing what you want isn't going to just come to you in a form of divine inspiration. Clarity is a choice, not an accident or a gift. Clarity doesn't come to you -- you have to go to it. Not setting goals is the same thing as deciding to be a slave to the goals of others.

Clear Goals Sharpen Present-Moment Decisions

Your reality will not match your vision exactly. That's not the point. The point is for your vision to allow you to make clear daily decisions that keep you moving in the direction of your goals. When a commercial airliner flies from one city to another, it is off course over 90% of the time, but it keeps measuring its progress and adjusting its heading again and again. Goal setting works the same way. Maintain a clear list of goals not because that's actually where you'll end up but because it will give with tremendous certainty in deciding what you need to do today. When someone contacts you with an "opportunity" out of the blue, you'll know whether it's a real opportunity or a waste of time. The long view sharpens the short view.
As you begin moving towards your goals, you'll gain new knowledge along the way, and you'll have to adapt your plans as you go. You may also change your vision if you get partway there and decide it's not quite what you really want. Ill-formed goals are still far superior to no goals at all.
I was once told by someone that I should end each day by crossing it off my calendar and saying out loud, "There goes another day of my life, never to return again." Try this for yourself, and notice how much it sharpens your focus. When you end a day with the feeling that you would have lived it the same if you had the chance to repeat it, you gain a sense of gratitude that helps you focus on what's really important to you. When you end the day with a feeling of regret or loss, you gain the awareness to try a different approach the next day.
You'll see a measurable difference in your life the very first day you establish clear, committed goals, even if your first few attempts aren't perfect. You'll be able to make decisions much more rapidly because you'll see how they'll either move you towards or away from your goals. On the eve of his death, Walt Disney had a reporter crawl into bed with him so he could share his vision for Disney World, six years before its completion. When Disney World finally opened, another reporter commented to Walt's brother, Roy, "It's too bad Walt did not live to see this." Roy replied, "Walt saw it first. That’s why we are seeing it now." Clear goals allow you to achieve the first half of H.L. Hunt's success formula. By deciding exactly what you want to accomplish, committing it to writing, and reviewing it on a daily basis, you bring your goals into reality with the power of your focus.

Source: Steve Pavlina

Cultivate Burning Desire

When asked during an interview how he managed to reach the top as a professional bodybuilder and Hollywood actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied with a single word, "Drive!" All great success ultimately begins with an idea, but what makes ideas become reality is the fuel of human desire. An idea by itself can give you a temporary feeling of inspiration, but burning desire is what gets you through all the perspiration necessary to overcome the inevitable obstacles along the way.
Take a moment to think about the goals you've set for yourself. (You have set goals, haven't you? If not, go read the article on setting clear goals.) How committed are you to achieving these goals? Under what conditions would you give up? What if you could significantly increase your desire to achieve these goals? What if you wanted them so badly that you knew with absolute certainty that you would absolutely, positively never ever give up? When you are truly 100% committed to reaching your goals, you move from hoping to knowing. If you want something badly enough, then quitting is simply not an option. You either find a way or make one. You pay the price, whatever it takes.
Those with an intense, burning desire to achieve their goals are often referred to as being "driven." But is this special quality reserved only for a privileged few? Certainly not. With the right approach, anyone can cultivate a deep, burning desire within themselves and move to a state of total commitment, knowing with certainty that success is as inevitable as the sunrise.
So how do you cultivate burning desire? You begin with an outside-in approach, altering your environment in ways that will strengthen your resolve while eliminating doubt. If you take the time to do it right, you'll establish a positive feedback cycle, such that your desire will continue to increase on a daily basis.
Here are eight steps you can take to cultivate burning desire to achieve any goal you set for yourself:

1. Burn the ships.

I'm not going to pull any punches with this one. If your goals are really important enough to you, then you can start by burning the proverbial ships, such that you have no choice but to press on. For instance, if you want to launch your own business, you can begin by making the commitment to quitting your job. Write a letter of resignation, put it in a stamped envelope addressed to your boss, and give it to a trusted friend with firm instructions to mail the letter if you haven't quit your job by a certain date.
One Las Vegas casino manager made the decision to quit smoking. He didn't feel he had the personal willpower to do it alone, so he took out a billboard on the Las Vegas Strip with his photo on it along with the words, "If you catch me smoking, I'll pay you $100,000!" Was he able to quit smoking? You bet! (Ok, bad pun.) This is called willpower leveraging. You use a small bit of willpower to establish a consequence that will virtually compel you to keep your commitment. As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket!"
In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?
If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.

2. Fill your environment with desire boosters.

Let's say one of your important goals is to lose weight. Get some poster board, and make your own posters that say, "I weigh X pounds," where X is your goal weight, and put them up around your house. Change your screensaver to a text message that says the same thing (or to some equally motivational imagery). Get some magazines, cut out pictures of people who have bodies similar to what you'd like to have, and put them up around your house. Cut out pictures of healthy food that looks good to you, and post those around your kitchen. If you work in an office, then alter your office in the same manner. Don't worry about what your coworkers will think, and just do it! They may poke a little fun at you at first, but they'll also begin to see how committed you are.

3. Surround yourself with positive people.

Make friends with people who will encourage you on the path to your goals, and find ways to spend more time with them. Share your goals only with people who will support you, not those who will respond with cynicism or indifference. If you want to lose weight, for instance, get yourself into a gym, and start befriending those who are already in great shape. You'll find that their attitudes become infectious, and you'll start believing that you can do it too. Meeting people who've lost one hundred pounds or more can be extremely motivating. If you want to start a new business, join the local chamber of commerce or a trade association. Do whatever it takes to make new friends who will help you keep your commitment.
Although this can be difficult for some people, you also need to fire the negative people from your life. I once read that you can see your future just by looking at the six people with whom you spend the most time. If you don't like what you see, then change those people. There's no honor in remaining loyal to people who expect you to fail. One of the reasons people fail to start their own businesses, for instance, is that they spend most of their time associating with other employees. The way out of this trap is to start spending a lot more time associating with business owners, such as by joining a trade association. Mindsets are contagious. So spend your time with people whose mindsets are worth catching.

4. Feed your mind with empowering information on a daily basis.

Inspirational books and audio programs are one of the best fuel sources for cultivating desire. If you want to quit smoking, read a dozen books written by ex-smokers on how to quit the habit. If you want to start a business, then start devouring business books. Go to seminars on occasion. I advise that you feed your mind with some form of motivational material (books, articles, audio programs) for at least fifteen minutes a day. This will continually recharge your batteries and keep your desire impenetrably strong.
When you absorb material created by an extremely passionate person, you'll often find yourself feeling more passionate as well. A great book I read was Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. As I read the book, I was absolutely amazed at how someone could be so fanatically enthusiastic about coffee. Other enthusiasm-building authors/speakers I highly recommend are Harvey Mackay and Zig Ziglar.

5. Replace sources of negative energy with positive energy.

Take an inventory of all the sensory inputs into your life that affect your attitude -- what you read, what you watch on TV, the cleanliness of your home, etc. Note which inputs influence you negatively, and strive to replace them with positive inputs. I'll give you some good places to start. First, avoid watching TV news -- it's overwhelmingly negative. Do you really need to hear about the woman who was mauled to death by her neighbor's dog? Fill that time with positive inputs instead, like motivational and educational audio programs. If you like to watch movies, then watch movies that are full of positive energy, such as light-hearted comedies and stories of triumph over adversity. Avoid dark, tragic movies that leave you feeling empty afterwards. Dump the horror books, and replace them with humor books. Spend more time laughing and less time worrying. If you have a messy desk, clean it up! If you have young kids or grandkids, spend some time playing with them. Some of this may sound a bit corny, but it will really help increase your overall motivation. If you have a hard time motivating yourself, chances are that your life is overflowing with too many sources of negativity. It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.

6. Dress for success.

Whenever you pass by a mirror, which is probably several times a day, you get an instant dose of image reinforcement. So what image are you currently reinforcing? Would you dress any differently if your goals were already achieved? Would you sport a different hairstyle? Would you shower a bit more often?
Although for years I enjoyed the ripped jeans and T-shirt look, I noted that when I visualized myself in the future, having achieved certain goals, I was dressed a lot more nicely. With some experimentation I found a style of clothing that looks professional and is also comfortable. So I gradually donated my old clothes to charity and replaced my wardrobe with clothes that fit the new identity I was growing into. (Consequently, there's a Salvation Army store with quite a stock of gaming industry T-shirts.) I learned this idea from an ex-Navy Seal, who stressed to me the importance of taking pride in your appearance, and I can say with certainty that it makes a noticeable difference. So make sure the clothes you wear each day are consistent with your new self-image.

7. Use mental programming.

This is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique that will help you associate strong positive emotions to whatever goal you're working to achieve. Find some music that really energizes and inspires you. Put on your headphones and listen to it for fifteen to twenty minutes, and as you do this, form a clear mental picture of yourself having already achieved the results you want. Make your imagery big, bright, vivid, colorful, three-dimensional, panoramic, and animated. Picture the scene as if looking through your own eyes (this is very important). This will help you form a neuro-association between the positive emotions elicited by the music and the goal you want to achieve, thus strengthening your desire. This is a great way to begin each day, and you can even do it while lying in bed when you first awaken if you set things up the night before. You should cycle the music periodically, since the emotional charge you get will tend to diminish if you listen to the same songs each time.
Keep in mind that this form of mental programming is already being used on you by advertisers. Watch a fast-food TV commercial, and you'll note that the food is big, bright, and animated -- spinning burgers, lettuce flying through a splash of water, ripe tomatoes being sliced -- and don't forget the catchy tune. So instead of letting others program your desires for you, take charge and mentally reprogram yourself.

8. Take immediate action.

Once you set a goal for yourself, act immediately. As you begin working on a fresh new goal, don't worry so much about making detailed long-term plans. Too often people get stuck in the state of analysis paralysis and never reach the action stage. You can develop your plan later, but get moving first. Just identify the very first physical action you need to take, and then do it. For instance, if you've decided to lose weight, go straight to your refrigerator, and throw out all the junk food. Don't think about it. Don't ponder the consequences. Just do it immediately.
One of the secrets to success is recognizing that motivation follows action. The momentum of continuous action fuels motivation, while procrastination kills motivation. So act boldly, as if it's impossible to fail. If you keep adding fuel to your desire, you will reach the point of knowing that you'll never quit, and ultimate success will be nothing more than a matter of time.
If you apply these eight strategies, you'll add so much fuel to your desire that the fire will never burn out. You'll move towards your goals like a guided missile to its target, and you'll enjoy the process because you'll be so focused on the positive rewards instead of the difficulty of the tasks. If you get enough positive energy flowing into you, you'll soon have positive results flowing out of you. And you'll quickly become the kind of person that others refer to as "driven."

Source: Steve Pavlina

The Law of Attraction

In recent year, the Law of Attraction has gotten a lot of attention from both believers and skeptics. Movies and books such as “The Secret” praise the Law of Attraction for its ability to bring good things to people who believe that good things will happen. In its most basic form, the Law of Attraction simply means that if you think something will happen, it will happen. Another was of putting the Law of Attraction is to say, “like attracts like.” In that same way that thinking positively will bring about a positive change, thinking negatively will also bring about a negative outcome. Proponents of the Law of Attraction believe that by changing the way you think, you can completely change your life.

There has been a lot of debate about the Law of Attraction and whether or not the Law of Attraction works. While some people wholeheartedly believe in the Law of Attraction, others are quick to present arguments about why the Law of Attraction does not hold up. Among the arguments that skeptics believe is that the Law of Attraction does not have measurable outcomes, the evidence is mostly anecdotal. Likewise, it is nearly impossible to say the exact reason why something happened. Others find fault in the Law of Attraction by picking apart the basics of the theory, namely questioning what happens if someone has conflicting thoughts.

Besides the debate about the validity of the Law of Attraction, there is still the question of how the Law of Attraction works. There is more to the Law of Attraction than simply thinking something and having it come true. The Law of Attraction takes much more than visualizing and having something materialize. If this was the case, there would be thousands of instances of people visualizing themselves as millionaires and achieving great wealth. The Law of Attraction is the combination of intense thoughts, feelings and imagination.

For the Law of Attraction to work, a person needs to genuinely believe that the Law of Attraction works and is a valid way to make things happen. Thoughts can be a powerful tool, but only if used correctly and if the thoughts are intense enough to make a difference. The Law of Attraction can work for people that have deep seeded beliefs, and are along focused enough to block out other distracting thoughts. For instance, if a person wants to succeed at a job, waking up every day thinking about failure and impossible tasks will put them in a mindset to fail. Alternatively, if that same person wakes up everyday ready to tackle challenges, get promoted and making a positive impact on their company, their chances of succeeding greatly improve. In this way, the Law of Attraction would state that because that person put out a vibe of success, concentrated on success, and worked towards success, they were bound to have a least some level of success.

For the Law of Attraction to work, many people say that the thoughts also have to move from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is very analytic and sometimes judgmental, making it hard for the conscious mind to think very abstractly or with great imagination at times. When a thought moves from the conscious mind to the unconscious mind, it has a greater chance of being reacted upon without hesitation. The unconscious mind has the power to trump the conscious mind in some instances, and many believe that the Law of Attraction is one of these instances. For the Law of Attraction to work, someone must thinking almost obsessively about one particular thing they would like to happen. Part of the process is convincing the mind that the desired outcome has either already happened or will happen very shortly. This way, the mind prepares for the outcome and also imagines all of the different scenarios in which the outcome will take place. Along with visualization and mediation on thoughts, the Law of Attraction can help to manifest things that are once only imagined into actual events