A Guide That Will Make You Take Action And Free You Of The Learning/Preparation Trap Fast

The trap that most people fall into, is you think you need to be totally prepared before you can start something. It is not your fault if you are unaware of this way of thinking.

But you will not become good or confident until you practice what you have learned with Deliberate Learning.

This guide will help to free you from that vicious cycle by explaining the process. A deliberate learning mindset and practice lead to competence and confidence.

Knowledge is power. But when not used, it is powerless.

The trap looks like this. 

Preparation = Procrastination (a way of delaying fear of failure/success).

And that is the dilemma, not having the confidence to start with.

Which is why you feel you need to learn more. Thinking you will become confident.

It is good to have an objective, a reason for wanting to learn. That you can then use or practice.

With practice comes competence which leads to confidence in what you are doing and can do.

Have you watched a baby trying to walk? More times than not, at first, they fall. But they are determined to walk. And are not put off or defeated by the number of times they fall. And after a few steps, Oh, how they celebrate. Confidence! And then take more steps.

This is what the Deliberate Learning process looks like. 

Mindset > Deliberate Learning > Adapting Knowledge > Practice > Competence > Confidence.

Reading a book or attending a class is learning. Practicing what you have learned is when you get experience.

So the real lesson comes with actually applying it and learning from that, how better to go about it. Count on a few falls, they didn't stop the baby.

It's when you put into practice what you have learned that you get the real lesson. And then you have the opportunity to adjust and go further. Take more steps.

So, learning is good. Then practicing what you have learned. Is better. Then learning some more, and practicing. Brings the competence and confidence into the recipe during the learning. Which gives you the confidence earlier.

Adopt a determined Mindset. 

Deliberate Learning to understand. 

Adapt the knowledge for its purpose. 

Practice as you are learning it. 

As you are practicing you are becoming Competent. 

As you are practicing and becoming competent your Confidence grows.

The real lesson, learning, only comes with actually putting into practice what you have learned. By way of experiencing for yourself, first hand.

Reading, learning just for the sake of learning, is intellectual knowledge.

It is on the surface understanding. And, intellectual knowledge can be dangerous.

We can easily sprout that we know something. Yes, we know it. But only at the surface level, on face value. The real value comes with understanding.

Understanding, wisdom, is gained through experience by trial and error.

http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Guide-That-Will-Make-You-Take-Action-And-Free-You-Of-The-Learning/Preparation-Trap-Fast&id=9764670

Just A Little More

Even though Billy Joel is sixty-seven years of age and has not written a pop song in decades, he still performs at sold-out concerts and has been declared the third biggest selling artist of all time in the United States. During one of his media interviews he was asked about why he has had such a successful career and replied: "When you are competent and you live in an age where there is lots of incompetence it makes you appear extraordinary".

Is it just me or have you noticed that there seems to be less competence in the world today? Often customer service in retail outlets is non-existent or ineffective. It is more and more difficult to find telephone numbers for online companies. Emails are often ignored or replied to with inadequate or inappropriate information.

Recently I wrote an email to a large organization asking "HOW" to perform a specific task. I received a three word reply "Yes you can".

Common sense isn't common anymore and it doesn't make sense to everyone. It's frustrating.

I also find it interesting that sometimes a person is extraordinary in their career but a mess in their personal life - or the other way around. It takes time, effort and focus to develop balance.

But, the good news is that the incompetence and lack of balance in the world today leaves the door open for each of us to adopt Billy Joel's theory and become "extraordinary". It seems almost silly for me to make a list of things that we can do to make our world better but here it is: 

1. Smile and greet others who you meet. There are so many lonely people in the world and even a friendly encounter of a few seconds in length can be a lift for them. 

2. Read messages carefully and reply in a timely and appropriate manner. 

3. Listen when people speak so that you facilitate understanding and connection. 

4. Share your knowledge, blessings and skills with others. 

5. Offer encouragement for those who are struggling or facing a new situation. 

6. Develop your experience so you can provide excellence in your work environment.

7. Protect the environment by picking up rather than spreading waste, conserving water and electricity, as well as recycling. 

8. Take care of your physical and mental health by accessing professional resources so that you are a good example for others. 

9. Feed your brain with positive information that will keep you sharp. 

10. Fulfill your commitments. When you say you will do something - do it! 

11. Embrace honesty. It is far easier to tell the truth than to try to remember lies that you might be tempted to tell. 

12. Choose to be happy. One person with a good attitude can have a powerful impact on others.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Just-A-Little-More&id=9634239

How to Raise a Child with Self-Worth

There is a big difference about a child feeling good about themselves (self-esteem) and true self-worth. To make a child feel good is quite simple, just give them everything they want. But remember, your job as a parent is not to make your child happy. In fact, being unhappy once in a while can be healthy for a child. When things are not going so well is when people start to evaluate and think for themselves. Realize you must be motivated to enact change in your life. When a child is unhappy because something went wrong, she is motivated to try something different. (That is why the principal of the parenting discipline, “do not move forward with event B until A happens” works well in changing the behavior of a child).

1)    Do not repeat your instructions.2)    Expect the best from them.3)    Do not praise them.4)    Encourage them.

Feeling good is always a temporary emotion which can change from moment to moment. A child can feel good about receiving something she wants, but true self-worth is established when the child earns what she wants. When a child works hard to achieve something and can truly call it their own they think, I did that myself; that is how self-worth is developed.

Doing things for your child robs them of self-worth building opportunities; it is also not respectful of them. Expecting the best from them is respectful. Dr. Kevin Leman in his book, Have a New Kid by Friday lists five guidelines relative to respecting your children:

1)    Never do for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Dr. Kevin Leman describes the three pillars of self-worth in any person: Acceptance, Belonging, Competence.

1)    Acceptance – A parent’s unconditional acceptance of your child means everything in her development. Use sincere words and positive body language to send the correct message; focus on communicating, “I believe in you, go for it, I know you can do it” rather than, “you are lazy, that is a  stupid idea.” If children don’t find unconditional acceptance in your home from you, they will find it from their peers; they will also begin to talk less to you, or perhaps not at all. Think about this! You can always extend unconditional love and acceptance by choosing the right words and body language; if you do, she will be less likely to seek acceptance elsewhere.

2)    Belonging – Every child needs the feelings of belonging somewhere. Will it be in your home or in her peer group? Work on establishing your home as a place to belong. Give each family member a vote in decision making. Listen to and value what others have to say and think.  Support each other to become the person they want to be. Set aside family time to do things together. Give everyone an opportunity to discuss their day at dinner time. Say through your words and actions, “We are a family. We belong together.”  When there is no sense of belonging, there will be no relationship; without a relationship, your rules, words, and actions mean nothing.

3)    Competence – The goal is to empower your child. To empower requires giving your child responsibilities. Your child will not flourish by you doing everything for her. She can only develop true self-worth by doing things for herself. When we as parents set up parameters for children to do projects, learn, and succeed, and when we stand back and let them tackle the project on their own, that’s empowerment. When you allow your child to be competent, they will be competent. And when they fail, let them figure out how to do it differently the next time. As their responsibilities increase, their confidence in their own competence increases; that is how to build an enduring self-worth.

One last tip – Praise isn’t good for kids. That’s because praise links a child’s worth to what she does. It goes back to the pillars of self-worth: Children need to feel unconditional acceptance no matter what they do..…succeed or fail. Instead of praising an accomplishment, encourage your child. Encouragement emphasizes the act and not the person. When you encourage the act, you encourage the child to try something else in that area because of their success.

http://www.personalgrowthapproach.com/articles/how-to-raise-a-child-with-self-worth/

5 Steps for Achieving Your Goals

Some people have been trying. Maybe you’ve been trying something for so long, but it’s just not there yet.

What are the ideas, strategies or elements you need to put into your life to get to the next level?

I’ve studied this for 17 years and it always seems to come back to one of five things.
 


The first thing it often comes back to is consciousness – becoming more aware of who you are and what you really want in your life.

Some people call it clarity, but I don’t like clarity as much as I like the word consciousness because it’s hard to be clear about things in your life if you’re not present and aware to them. So, if you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to get ahead, what is it specifically that you want to get ahead to? And, is it what you really want?
 


A lot of people just say…

I want to get ahead, and I say what does that mean? They say, “Brendon, I want to make some more money.” And I say, “Great, make money at what?” Then they say, “Well, I have this job so I’m going to try to get ahead here at this job.” And I say, “Yes, but is the job what you really want to be doing in the first place?” 


Because sometimes, the busy work that you have in your life isn’t your life’s work.

It isn’t your real passion, your real drive or your real desire where your work feels like a hobby, it feels like you get lost into it because it’s so great and so fun.

So many people out there are lying to themselves saying, I couldn’t make money at doing X thing. They have some big dream, but they say I couldn’t make money doing that. I say what are you talking about, I know yoga instructors making six figures a year. I know piano teachers making seven figures per year. You can’t go online and not find someone crushing it in any given topic area of life today. The business opportunity is there, it’s just will - you show up in a disciplined and intelligent way, which we’ll talk about.

So it’s becoming conscious of what you really deeply truly desire to do. Because, if you get ahead at things you don’t care about, maybe you’re climbing the ladder or you’re succeeding at something, but it’s not your real thing. It will eat at you. It will eat you from the inside out and deaden the soul, because maybe you have some financial and material success at that thing and maybe you even have some accolades. Maybe these people appreciate you for it and maybe you’re even paying people’s mortgages and paying employees at it, but if it’s not really your thing than you’re in trouble, because you’ll never feel internally like you’re getting ahead, because you won’t integrate those successes to yourself because you don’t find them meaningful. 


So, getting ahead begins with becoming conscious to what it is you truly desire. What would you love to do? You can build a business model around anything today. That is the great gift of the online world and what we’ve seen over-and-over worldwide, people in any given area crushing it.
 
What do you want to do? That’s where we begin.
 
What do you truly consciously desire to do? Not, what are you doing because you fell into it - that’s not consciousness.


Consciousness means consciously designing your life, deciding who you are, deciding where you’re going to go and what you really want to accomplish. 


       

The second thing we have to have to get ahead is competence.
 
We have to have knowledge, skill and ability in any given area.

It’s not just one day you wake up with talent it’s that if you’re really going to get ahead you have to study your craft. You have to deeply study it.



I decided 18 years ago now, that I wanted to inspire and motivate people, and I wanted to coach people one-on-one on motivation and high performance. I wanted to write books on the topics. So, 18 years ago I started reading a book a week on psychology, leadership, communication, marketing, anything I could get into my hands about human behavior and high performance.
 
I was studying everything I could on psychology every week. Now people are like, “Wait, you’ve read a book a week for 17 years?!” I don’t brag about it. I’m not like whoa yeah, look at me. That was for my passion. I knew if I really wanted to succeed at something I had to study it and study it deeply. I couldn’t spend all this time doing a lot of other things I had to study my craft.



The great artists of our past history… that’s what they did. They did one thing. They had a true level of depth of study in that area. Maybe they dabbled in some other areas too, but they became famous because they studied one area.


What’s your area? What’s the thing you need to study on, develop a deep level of competence in, to know how to do it and how that world works? 


We have a saying in Montana, “The time to have the map is before you enter the woods.”
 
A lot of people have a dream and they run out into the woods and just start trying stuff. They take this path and this path and this path, and because they didn’t study best practices one day they wake up and they’re lost. They’re confused about who they are and where they are, and they’re in this dark forest of the unknown with no plan to get out. They had no idea they just jumped into something, they didn’t study before taking that leap.



I always say study, pay attention, learn from the best and model the most intelligent, smart, successful people you can in any given area that you want to succeed in, in your life before you get into it.

  

      

Then develop competency by doing it over and over and over again. Don’t do it once in a while here and there, do it over and over, because that’s how you get competence.
 
That leads us to the third thing, commitment.
 
If you really want to get ahead it’s going to take another level of commitment.

I always say to people who say to me, “I want to get ahead Brendon,” and I say, “Okay if you’re at this level of commitment, to get ahead means you’re going to have to go to this level of commitment. If you want to earn 10X more, you’ll have to go to 10X more commitment in that area. 
You have to decide, what is it specifically that I’m willing to give up and move out of the way now, to focus on this thing and make it a success, to truly work harder and smarter in this area. 


Today, do you know what commitment means? Getting rid of distractions.

Stop believing that we can all multi-task and do 50-70 different things, because that’s not true. The most successful people in the world aren’t doing 50 or 100 different things, they have very defined area or specialty that they focus on and say this is my thing.

So, getting rid of all the distractions, meaning if you’re reading celebrity gossip magazines, you aren’t committed to your craft or art unless you are a celebrity gossip photographer, writer, designer, or fashion person.
 
Most likely, those are not contributing to either your life nor your bottom line. And if you’re really going to develop competence, real skill, real talent in an area, then you have to stop doing so many other things.

That’s why you don’t have a lot of really famous NBA stars who are also really famous quarterbacks and also really famous tennis players. No, they are great at one thing. Olympians tend to be Olympic athletes in one area. Why? Because it takes that much commitment in one area to become great.



That’s how you get ahead, commitment.



I think, once you get a little more consciousness and we all grow in our congruence and ability to be more committed, from there it’s getting coaching.

Because you can do the best you can do all day long, but if you aren’t getting feedback from your friends, your customers, your family members, and people you are trying to serve, then there’s no way you’re going to go to another level.
 


We all have a level of competence ceiling, if you will, where we hit a top level in which we can take ourselves only so far and then we need someone from the outside to look at it and say, “Look, hey kid, you need to adjust this. Try doing that. Oh, have you thought of this? When you’re doing this it’s only where this level needs to be at this level.”

If you get somebody…. and, everyone says Brendon, “I don’t have any coaches.” Really? How many have you asked?
 
People always tell me, I don’t have any coaches. I’m like great, how many did you ask? Are we failing in the asking or are we failing in the never approaching? Where is it?

Most people don’t have coaches in their life because they never sought them out. 
They say I wish I had that [a coach], but they never actually sat down with someone and said, “Hey, I’m starting something here and you seem to have competence in this area, can we make an arrangement? Can I hire you as a coach? Can I pay you as a coach? Could we do something together?”


I started getting coaching informally, from dozens of people in my industry just by asking. Now today, I coach so many people I can’t even count them all so it’s crazy.

I think that’s what we have to start figuring out, who’s going to coach you?

If you don’t have a list of 10-12 people who you think could mentor, advise or coach you, then you’re grasping at hope and fate that maybe someday a coach will land on you.

            


I think you have to go out, just like for every other area of success and work a little harder and be more focused in that area to have success there. It’s the same with coaching. You have to get a coach.



Congruence. To get ahead we have to be congruent with the best within ourselves. We have to find that magic, that part about us that’s energized, engaged and enthusiastic. We call it the charge… having an internal charge, an excitement for it and being congruent with who we know we truly can be.
 


If you are currently at one level of success in life, you’re probably being congruent with how your mind has been fashioning what you’re capable of. Your mind has told you, “I’m capable of only this,” so you’ve settled at that level, or you’ve allowed that level, or it’s gotten easy to be distracted from improving because you’re being congruent with what you think you really are. 


Sometimes the easiest way to shift someone and actually help them get ahead is to say, “Look, we have to change the way you think about yourself.” 


You have to give yourself more credit. You have to give yourself a bigger vision. Don’t limit your vision for yourself, based on what you accomplished yesterday.You can dream and you can grow into your best person.

You can grow into new competencies, new skills and new talents.

You can break through tomorrow.

So have that vision for yourself. Set a new congruence in your mind and say, you know what…
 


I can become world-class at what I do.


I can become great at what I want to achieve.


I can become a magnificent person who is loving, engaged and joyous in life.
 


Set your mind to it, really set your mind to it, and once you have that set in your mind your body and unconscious behaviors will start moving towards that. It will desire to be congruent with your very thoughts about yourself.

If we can do those things, just decide to be more conscious, decide to get more competence in an area, decide to be more committed or go get a coach and be congruent with the best within you, then you can live the charged life.

http://brendonburchard.tumblr.com/post/82500335476/5-steps-for-achieving-your-goals

7 Scientifically Proven Ways to Achieve Better Success in Life

Know this: Hard work alone won't get you there.




Success is a subjective notion, if there ever was one. But for simplicity's sake, let's assume the higher you are on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the better you're doing. In case you don't remember the levels from Psych 101, essentially, people can't be their best possible selves (self-actualization) until lower-level needs are met first. In other words, you can't be an ideal version of yourself if you don't have enough food and money to pay the bills, or enough love and esteem to feel good about your value as a human being. So, what can you do to move yourself up the pyramid?

Check out the findings from several studies, which shine a light on what it takes to achieve more in life.

Increase your confidence by taking action.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of The Confidence Code, wrote a stellar article for The Atlantic on this subject. Highlighting scads of studies that have found that a wide confidence gap exists between the sexes, they point out that success is just as dependent on confidence as it is on competence. Their conclusion? Low confidence results in inaction. "[T]aking action bolsters one's belief in one's ability to succeed," they write. "So confidence accumulates--through hard work, through success, and even through failure."

Broaden your definition of authenticity.

Authenticity is a much sought-after leadership trait, with the prevailing idea being that the best leaders are those who self-disclose, are true to themselves, and who make decisions based on their values. Yet in a recent Harvard Business Review article titled "The Authenticity Paradox," Insead professor Herminia Ibarra discusses interesting research on the subject and tells the cautionary tale of a newly promoted general manager who admitted to subordinates that she felt scared in her expanded role, asking them to help her succeed. "Her candor backfired," Ibarra writes. "She lost credibility with people who wanted and needed a confident leader to take charge." So know this: Play-acting to emulate the qualities of successful leaders doesn't make you a fake. It merely means you're a work in progress.

Improve your social skills.

According to research conducted by University of California Santa Barbara economist Catherine Weinberger, the most successful business people excel in both cognitive ability and social skills, something that hasn't always been true. She crunched data linking adolescent skills in 1972 and 1992 with adult outcomes, and found that in 1980, having both skills didn't correlate with better success, whereas today the combination does. "The people who are both smart and socially adept earn more in today's work force than similarly endowed workers in 1980," she says.

Train yourself to delay gratification.

The classic Marshmallow Experiment of 1972 involved placing a marshmallow in front of a young child, with the promise of a second marshmallow if he or she could refrain from eating the squishy blob while a researcher stepped out of the room for 15 minutes. Follow-up studies over the next 40 years found that the children who were able to resist the temptation to eat the marshmallow grew up to be people with better social skills, higher test scores, and lower incidence of substance abuse. They also turned out to be less obese and better able to deal with stress. But how to improve your ability to delay things like eating junk food when healthy alternatives aren't available, or to remain on the treadmill when you'd rather just stop?

Writer James Clear suggests starting small, choosing one thing to improve incrementally every day, and committing to not pushing off things that take less than two minutes to do, such as washing the dishes after a meal or eating a piece of fruit to work toward the goal of eating healthier. Committing to doing something every single day works too. "Top performers in every field--athletes, musicians, CEOs, artists--they are all more consistent than their peers," he writes. "They show up and deliver day after day while everyone else gets bogged down with the urgencies of daily life and fights a constant battle between procrastination and motivation."

Demonstrate passion and perseverance for long-term goals.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth has spent years studying kids and adults, and found that one characteristic is a significant predictor of success: grit. "Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality," she said in a TED talk on the subject. "Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint."

Embrace a "growth mindset."

According to research conducted by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, how people view their personality affects their capacity for happiness and success. Those with a "fixed mindset" believe things like character, intelligence, and creativity are unchangeable, and avoiding failure is a way of proving skill and smarts. People with a "growth mindset," however, see failure as a way to grow and therefore embrace challenges, persevere against setbacks, learn from criticism, and reach higher levels of achievement. "Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training," she writes.

Invest in your relationships.

After following the lives of 268 Harvard undergraduate males from the classes of 1938 to 1940 for decades, psychiatrist George Vaillant concluded something you probably already know: Love is the key to happiness. Even if a man succeeded in work, amassed piles of money, and experienced good health, without loving relationships he wouldn't be happy, Vaillant found. The longitudinal study showed happiness depends on two things: "One is love," he wrote. "The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."

http://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/7-scientifically-proven-ways-to-achieve-better-success-in-life.html