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Are You Answering the Call in Your Life?

There comes a time in everyone’s life where the question is asked, “What is it you want?”

Do you want to sit there doing the same thing you’ve been doing?

If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll CONTINUE TO GET THE SAME THINGS YOU’VE GOT.

When is it time to move forward? If the time isn’t now, then when?

How long are you waiting for the next thing to come over the horizon before you make your move? How long are you willing to wait for some arbitrary time line or event to happen before you answer to your calling?

Look. Your future is there waiting for YOU!

If THE CALL wasn’t for YOU… You wouldn’t hear it.

It’s for you.

Answer.

ACTION STEP: What in your life have you been putting off because you aren’t ready? What is the cost?

PS. Lots of love. EVERYONE has done this.

Are You in a Losing Streak? Here’s How to Turn it Around

The other day I was coaching an athlete who was stuck in a losing streak. He had 5 losses in a row and the next day was going to be another game for him.

He was having a hard time focusing because of some outside distractions.

I coached him through it by getting him to talk about his past wins, what he did to win the game, and how it felt to win that game.

While he was talking about the game, his face got brighter and more energetic. By the time we got done talking. You could see he was ready.

The next day he won the game.

[bctt tweet=”If you want to take your game or life to the next level, remember to build on success.” username=”nicholecarlson”]

Small successes lead the path to bigger successes.

Many people have a mindset that is completely working against them. They find themselves in a situation where they know what they want, and they are trying to achieving their goals, but they never reach them.

I have been there.

I think we all have.

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Most of the time, we allow our failures to stress us and that creates a barrier to reaching them. The sooner you realize your stress is weighing you down, the better.

We’ve seen people who were once resourceful in their career, athletes who were once glorified, but then all that changed when they couldn’t match their previous performance anymore. Research shows that when you emphasize on your failures, your productivity is bound to go down.

Throughout history, the most successful individuals have been those who use good things to make more good things. Such people figure out how to build greater success from the little success that they have achieved.

Good news is that successful people aren’t chosen; they are just normal people who make many right choices. One of the right choices they make is the choice not to concentrate on their failures.

You can be one of these people.

It all begins with defining what success is to you. If you don’t define what success means to you, you keep yourself stuck in a lack of clarity.

If you want to get out of being stuck, figure out what you want.

Start by finding out what is essential for you in your personal life, health, and career.

Learn to set aside your ego and your guilt and think about the perfect life or success you’d want to achieve. Focusing on your failures makes you forget the things that you have achieved in the past, and it may rob you of your self-confidence. As a result, you may reach a point where you don’t even trust yourself anymore.

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When your past failures are weighing you down, stop and think about your life so far and list your achievements or some things you are grateful for. This list will help you realize that you are still a champion and that you only fail because your mind is corrupted by the few failures you’ve suffered in your life.

If your performance is getting worse, stop and identify the cause of your poor performance.

Do you need to change your strategy? Is there another way to reach your goal? Is there someone who knows how to accomplish what you are after?

[bctt tweet=”Do you need to change your mindset? Do you still believe it is possible for you?” username=”nicholecarlson”]

Whatever it is that is getting in your way of success can be fixed, but you must examine it and not look at it as a failure.

Sometimes we not only settle on our labels, but we also cling to them. Sometimes the problem stems from our past successes. We cling to them so much that we fear that nothing we do can match up to our past.

Don’t be like the high-school quarterback or the prom queen who still cling to their past so much that they feel they can’t match their success.
They remain in the past. Always be looking to the future.

To wrap it up:

  1. Use are failures as a lesson to know what to improve.
  2. Figure out is you need to make a strategy change or a mindset change.
  3. If you need to change your mindset, focus on using your past successes as proof you can succeed once again.

Let me know if you’ve ever reached a goal in your life and thought, “If I can do this, what else could I do?”

 

3 of the Most Common Mistakes Hiring a Virtual Assistant & How to Avoid Them

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At some point during your journey as a entrepreneur, you realize you are going to need help.

You start trying to figure out how to double your productivity so you might start thinking about hiring a virtual assistant.

Hiring a virtual assistant might seem like a big step but here are things you need to know NOW, even if you feel like you can manage your business by yourself.

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Here are the 3 most common mistakes:

1. Don’t wait until you are ready.

Never wait until you are ready to hire a virtual assistant. This is the worst thing you can do. If you can handle your workload and you can do it all yourself, that’s fine.

But here is why you should never wait:

Hiring and training a virtual assistant take time.

You’ll need time to find a virtual assistant, hire them, train them, learn to work together and set up systems.

Does this seem like something you want to do after you are in over your head?

It sounds like a disaster to me.

[bctt tweet=”Hire your virtual assistant early in your business to grow as your business grows.” username=”nicholecarlson”]

2. Don’t create systems.

You DO need to have an onboarding process, but after that, they should help you create and document systems. For a lot of the tasks I give my assistant, I include a note to document with numbered steps, details and screenshots. This minimized my work tremendously and creates a process that can then be duplicated by me or by the next member of my team.

3. Don’t think of the roll virtual assistant as unimportant or an afterthought.

Your virtual assistant is probably the most important person you will hire. They should share your vision for your company and believe in your cause. They are there supporting you which is one of the most important things you need while starting a business.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people about my assistant and then followed it with, “I love her! She’s amazing!”

You are basically hiring another you to work on your project.

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Your challenge:

Start looking into hiring a virtual assistant, even for a couple of hours a week. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself and your company right now.

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Failing at Weight Loss? Here is How to Succeed

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“I’m failing. I haven’t been to the gym in a while and my eating is terrible because I’ve been busy with … ” she goes on to explain what’s been going on.

There are a lot of things going on from this statement that could be obvious about trying to lose weight but I want to discuss how to stop feeling like a failure.

Feeling like you are constantly failing can be a huge mental and emotional burden and can actually hinder your progress of what you are trying to accomplish. This shows in weight loss all of the time.

Have you ever felt discouraged when you were trying to accomplish something? Did it make you feel like continuing? Did you want to keep trying? Or did you just want to get away from that feeling of failure?

[bctt tweet=”Negative feelings make you want to quit – even quit something that would be good for you!” username=”nicholecarlson”]
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Stop being miserable.

Here’s how:

Stop believing in the wagon.

We’ve all heard the phrase “I’ve fallen off the wagon.”

Did you ever stop to think that there might not be a wagon?

[bctt tweet=”Maybe you are right where you need to be.” username=”nicholecarlson”]

Maybe this is a time where you need a break to examine how busy your life is and think of some simple steps to adjust to your lifestyle. Transition periods are not bad, but you need to use the time to evaluate what you need to adjust in your life.

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Here are some things questions to ask yourself to help you get back on track:

a. What can I simplify in my life?

What are you doing that you can streamline or take out? Maybe you can’t think of anything right now, but keep asking yourself the question until you come up with some things.

b. How can I add some healthy but simple practices to my life?

(Idea: Think easy. 10 minute walks, or healthy breakfasts) Start small. No one is asking you to be an Olympian. Make it easy for yourself.

c. What small change could I do to start?

This could be as small as packing a gym bag at night or packing your lunch. Starting is usually the hardest part so do ANYTHING that will allow you to start, no matter how small it may seem. Build after you get started.

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Your challenge:

Come up with three ways you COULD start working on your health goal and use them one at a time! If they don’t work, figure out why and tweak!

You can steal my idea: I pack everything the night before and put it next to the door at night so I’ll do my workout in the morning. I won’t have to prepare in the morning. ALSO, I set two alarms and one is outside of the bedroom. My cat is my third alarm.

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‘To-Do’ List Overwhelm? The Most Effective Way Accomplish More

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Anxiety!

Have you felt it? That uneasy feeling in your stomach, that’s usually accompanied by…

Procrastination!

Awful. I get it often because I am always trying to do more than I can possibly do.

But, it’s times when I feel paralyzed, that really make me question, “What am I doing?”

I actually didn’t notice it until recently. I’ve been on this personal mission to watch my emotions – actually, I’m working to be happier all around.

I didn’t notice it right away but someone called me out and asked me, “Are you scared?”

“Of course not!”

But I was.

I was starting my business and learning a ton of things about business, marketing and being online. It was a bit exciting and scary.

Of course it was also overwhelming. I needed to be productive.

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Once I figured out it was fear, I could rationalize with myself, but I still had the feeling of overwhelm.

How was I going to get through it?

I couldn’t do less.

My list kept growing.

I knew my list by heart so I stopped looking at it and started a new list.

I wrote down, ONLY things I completed.

And stuck it on my wall.

It felt amazing.

[bctt tweet=”All I had to do was FEEL like I was winning by making it a game.” username=”nicholecarlson”]

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There will always be times when we feel stuck in our businesses.

A lot of times that stuck-ness will be us and we will have to learn about ourselves and how we operate to get through whatever challenges we are coming up against.

To get through your fears, stress, and overwhelm: 

  • Be patient with yourself.
  • Examine your emotions.
  • Learn to have fun. After all, you started your business because you enjoyed it. Make it something you enjoy again.

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Your challenge:

The next time you feel stressed, think about where it is coming from and think of a way to make a game out of it or make it easier on yourself.

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Have You Lost Control? Take it Back With These Steps

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I turned the page excited because I was a character in the book and I had a choice. I enjoyed the choose your own adventure books but disappointingly I seem to keep making terrible choices. That end in misery or death.

I look back at that experience and realize how much fun it was to be able to choose, explore, and go on my adventure.

I still love choosing and exploring my options. That has never changed.

I guess it’s the same for all of us. We love control.

When we feel like we have control, we feel secure.

But what happens when something tells us we’ve lost control – like the numbers on the scale?

For most people – this is when we feel trapped. We have no choices. We have no control.

WE MUST DIET

WE MUST SWEAT

AND WE MUST PUSH OURSELVES TO EXHAUSTION

Why?

“What do you mean ‘why’?” you ask.

“I deserve this. This is my punishment. I must make myself miserable because I don’t deserve to be happy.”

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DON’T: Don’t punish yourself because ‘you deserve’ to pay for eating badly or missing your workout, you are never going to ‘get on track’.

Listen, if someone is mean to you or someone you care about, do you have respect for that person?

Would you do a favor for that person willingly?

What if that person was you?

If you are being cruel to yourself, you are going to move AWAY from the things you want to be doing to build a healthier life.

Kindness is the key of a great leader. Be kind and you will gain back control.

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DO: Be honest with yourself about where you are.

This means no more secrets. No more hiding.

No more saying ‘It’s not that bad.’

If it wasn’t ‘that bad’, would you be where you are now?

How far are you from where you’d like to me? Or even where you know you could be?

This doesn’t mean you need to be harsh with yourself. Discipline has taken a bad rap, but discipline is just a habit you’ve learned over time.

[bctt tweet=”Discipline brings us the freedom anxiety because we move toward our goals.” username=”nicholecarlson”]

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DO: Evaluate each ‘failure’.

First, be honest. It’s not a failure, because you will try it again.

Failure is only failure when you stop trying.

Stop calling it a failure.

Always, ask yourself HOW you can improve? What could you have done better? How can you fix it next time?

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There you have it. Love, kindness and honesty, all of the things you deserve.

Be good to yourself and you’ll find the road is a lot easier on you.

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Your challenge:

Think about your self talk today. Does your mind say kind, encouraging things to yourself?

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What approach do you use to ‘get back on track’? Does this work for you? Why or why not.

Comment below.

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What Type of Achiever Are You; How to Be Happy Today

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I was reading an article in USA Today titled, ‘Labor Day by the numbers: Americans can’t stop, won’t stop working‘. It goes on to mention some specifics of how we can’t stop working. Two things they mentioned were:

1. We don’t take our vacation days
2. We can’t unplug when we aren’t at the office.

I’d also like to add something I’ve noticed, some of us don’t take weekends off either.

Why is this? Why are we so tied to our work we can’t pull away?

Happiness is healthy. It directly impacts our physical health.

So I want pose the question of happiness today. Do we love our jobs and work so much, we are truly happy doing the work?

Maybe.

For some.

But what about the ones who are working as a way to look for happiness?

Yes. Work can give us a sense of accomplishment, connection, contribution, and other aspects that add to our happiness but we can’t ‘work’ our way to happiness.

Are we working hard to achieve, make money or to buy something else we don’t necessarily need? Is all of this extra hard work making us happy or depleting our happiness?

My point:
[bctt tweet=”Happiness is Health: Are you happy working or working to be happy?” username=”nicholecarlson”]

You are actually more motivated if you are happy and happiness helps your mind to think of ways to reach your goals faster.

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Let’s take a look at three types of, let’s call them, ‘achievers’.

1. There is the achiever who passionately loves their work.

If you have found your passion and it is fulfilling, AMAZING! The caution here might be, to maintain a balance. This could mean a work-life balance or it could mean a ‘need-fulfillment’ balance.

Action step: Check to make sure you have an overall happiness, not just in one or two aspects. (You might check against the 6 human needs here)

2. There is the achiever who is working to be happy.

This is the goal chaser. They make a goal and decide they will be happy once they reach that goal, but the entire way to the goal they are miserable. The caution here is: If you reach your goal, don’t you just expand that goal? Don’t you just increase the number of sales you need to make or start looking for the next level or promotion? Do you ever really get to ‘happy’?

Action step: Stop chasing happy and start finding happy today. We are privileged to have the life and the ‘problems’ we have. There is always someone out there in a worse situation than whatever we are going through. Having gratitude for today and the people who love us, is a great first step to ‘finding happy’ today. Check out this free book, or this paid one, or this TEDx talk.

3. There is the achiever who is avoiding happiness.

This is where I find many of my clients. They have learned what it is like to be hurt, left and let down, so they work. They work as a way to fill the void and as a way to keep from being rejected. This is no way to live.

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There is a story I heard long ago about the elephant in the zoo being bound by that small metal ring around his foot. Is it possible he could break out of that?

Yes, but he doesn’t.

He tried to when he was a baby, but couldn’t. He learned he couldn’t get free and so he never tried again.

All of us have a story (a chain) but at any time… we can walk away.

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Action step: Stop hiding in your work. Find ways to connect with others through meetup.com, volunteering, or just inviting someone out to karaoke. There are also other things you can do to promote happiness such as go for a nature walk, help someone out, or write down three things you are grateful for each morning. All of these are way over-simplified, but the point is to start.

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Your challenge:
Write down three things you are grateful for today and spend 5 minutes thinking of why you are grateful. If you can’t think of any, think of someone you love or someone who loves you.

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