5 Habits to Develop NOW to Be Wildly Successful In Life (By Stephanie O'Brien)

Andrea wrote me a question about my daily routines, disciplines and habits that I have in place that has led me to the successful life I have today. I LOVED the question. And today, I want to share with you my top 5 Habits to Develop Right NOW to experience a wildly successful life.

Habit 1: Value the Health of Your Soul: Make Spiritual Development your highest priority. All 7 areas of life (personal development, health, family, career, financial, social, and spiritual) are important. But, I strongly believe that the health of your soul (mind, will, and emotions) dictate the decisions you make and the person you show up to the world as.

Here what I told Andrea about my specific daily routines:

I am a person of faith that values spiritual disciplines so I would say my number ONE daily practice is to spend time in life giving content and time tested wisdom. For me, one of those sources is the Bible- specifically the book of Proverbs (a chapter a day). I also pray daily. So my spiritual health is my number one priority.

Habit 2: Become a DAILY, Life Long Learner: Entrepreneurs tend to have an insatiable appetite for learning. You don't have to be an entrepreneur to love learning, but you find it consistently among successful business leaders, ministers, and entrepreneurs.

I suggest a MINIMUM of an hour a day in learning. This falls under the personal development category in the wheel of life (in the show notes).

To expound on my personal daily learning routine, I told Andrea, I learn 2-3 hours a day. I know that sounds like a ton but its totally possible. I absorb myself in podcasts and audio books which allows me to learn while I cook, fold the laundry, work out, get ready in the morning, and drive or any other mindless task that we find ourselves doing.

Habit 3: Show Up To Serve: You've heard it before, "it's' more blessed to give than to get." Now, you need to be careful that your motive for giving is pure. You should never give out of obligation, with the intent to manipulate and hold it over someone's head, or even to make people like you. You should give out of a joyful and cheerful state of heart- just because you want to. I'm not speaking only on financial giving. I'm speaking on all forms of generosity- a favor, gift, referral, writing a testimonial, giving an encouraging word, etc are all forms of giving and serving.

Here's what I wrote to Andrea: Show up to serve. It was a total game changer for me when I first sought to serve others rather than to have others serve me. When you show up to help others get what they want, you get your socks blessed off. Helping someone succeed when you want the same thing helps you more than it helps them.

Habit 4: Watch the Company You Keep: Be careful with who you allow to be in your circle of influence. Jim Rohn has said "we become the average of the 5 people we hang around most." I have found that to be very true.

Now, this is not to say that you need to cut everyone out of your life who is not supportive and encouraging of you. If you focus on your goals and are faithful in actively and diligently pursuing your dream, you will gain more friends and the other people who don't want to come along with you will stay behind. It happens organically.

Habit 5: Get Accountability: Your strongest circle of influence should love you enough to call you out when you need it. To encourage means "to call out courage" as well as "to put courage in you". We all have blind spots. And I'm so grateful for the people in my life that can see things that hurt or hinder my success that I would not know about, if they never called it out. Find people who are safe, and kind- yet, bold and honest with you.

Those are my top 5 life habits I strongly suggest you develop today, to be wildly successful.

http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Habits-to-Develop-NOW-to-Be-Wildly-Successful-In-Life&id=9478586

Have You Ever Fallen for an Illusion? (By Stephanie O'Brien)

An illusion is when something appears to be real, but is just a trick on the eyes or senses to make our minds believe something that is really not.

This year I have made significant strides in progressing towards my goals. I have developed new disciplines and habits, continue kicking fear where it hurts, and pressing through resistance to see my dreams become reality.

I know this truth. When I focus on this, I have so much gratitude, and happiness that God has blessed me with His grace to persevere and that I have made the choices to keep going.

Despite this, there are moments when I get so down, discouraged, and feel defeated. In these moments I feel like a failure, that things are taking too long, that I'm wasting my time, energy and money building something that hasn't given me the financial return or results I was expecting at this point.

But that's just an illusion. Something crept into my mind and has created an illusion to cause me to think and feel hopeless and defeated. When you are experiencing these emotions, realize that it is an illusion. It's not real. Something is tricking the eyes and senses to make your mind believe that something is happening that really is not.

When you face these moments you MUST shift your attention. As a person of faith, I shift my attention to my creator. I call out in prayer asking for help. I ask that my eyes see the truth and that the illusion leaves. That the lies are exposed and the source leaves. And it does.

Today, I started off in gratitude and excitement to finish the tasks of the day. But then things started taking a bit longer than I anticipated. I began to feel panicked that I was delaying my progress. Then I felt discouraged and like a total failure because yet again I didn't finish my to-do list.

That's when I did the above. I shifted my perspective. I knew those thoughts were not right or based on truth. They may have been how I felt- but feelings are rarely fact.

Determining to allow feelings to pass rather than lead and dictate what I do or do not do has been very helpful in establishing emotional intelligence.

After getting past my momentary "funk" I ended up having a very productive day. I was able to see past the illusion and move forward. Sure, there are still things left undone on my to do list.

It doesn't make me a failure. It just means that I'm still learning how much time things take to do well. I can simply adjust my to-do list and expectations.

I'd rather make a more realistic to-do list and add to it, than to have one that really won't get complete and feel like I'm not making any progress.

Over to you- have you ever fallen for an illusion? How did you shift your view to see the truth of the matter?

http://ezinearticles.com/?Have-You-Ever-Fallen-for-an-Illusion?&id=9543139

How To Improve Your Likeability

What do your actions say about your character? If someone were to ask your family, your friends and your co-workers what type of person you are would they give the same answer? If your character ran true the answer would be "yes."

Now you may be thinking, "I have to be different around my family than I do my co-workers. I have to young children and I obviously don't want to talk to them the same way I do my buddies on the construction site." This is completely understandable... but erroneous thinking.

Do you suffer from multiple personality disorder? You must if you have to be a different person depending on your environment. Someone whose personality changes on a moment by moment basis is a fragmented person. This fragmentation leads to a lot of emotional upheaval and trauma. When you act differently depending on the group of people you are around, you're sort of having a "disordered" moment.

Have a universal speaking environment.

Integrity means to have an integrated life. If you have integrity you are the same person regardless of the environment. No matter what group of people you are around you are always the same person.

In the case of work, treat it like you're with your kids. I'm guessing there is a good chance at least one or two of your co-workers act like kids or at least teenagers, so this shouldn't be hard to do. But even if all of your co-workers act mature, do any of them gossip? Do you? Gossip speaks volumes about a person's character, or lack thereof.

Two words that change everything.

There are two words, that if you focus on them and take them to heart, will make people look up to you and admire you, regardless of what you do for a living or how much money you make. But be warned, these two words are on a path that takes some serious discipline at first to walk.

What are these two words? Dignity and Respect. When you treat others with dignity and respect it can't be missed. Of course, this requires you to treat yourself with dignity and respect. These are two of the most powerful character traits. Think about it for a moment. How do you feel when someone is respectful toward you? You hold them in a more favorable light. And when you help someone keep their dignity you allow them to save face, whether that person is in your presence or others are trying to talk about that person behind their back.

As a whole most people are pretty good about treating people with dignity and respect most of the time, but not ALL of the time.

How do you create the habit of treating people this way?

Habits are created by our daily thoughts and routines. If you're going to treat others with dignity and respect consistently you have to measure yourself consistently. The easiest way to do this is to make a little note card.On the top of the note card write, "Did I do my best to treat everyone with dignity and respect?" Then list out the days of the week. At the end of every day ask yourself this question, then under that day you're going to rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10. You will quickly discover that you're not as good at this as you think. BUT, you will also start to quickly shift your thoughts and actions. You will start to change your habitual conversations with people who bring out your worst instead of your best, because as you start speaking the question automatically pops into your head..

The end result, everyone will hold you in much higher regard and treat you with dignity and respect... because you deserve it!

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Improve-Your-Likeability&id=9361812