Have you  noticed how difficult it is to stay positive all the time? I mean REALLY!  And if you did stay positive, do you worry what others might think?  After all, the world is suffering. With all the negative energy flowing these days, it’s certainly not easy to stay positive and motivated. People are loosing their jobs, their businesses, their homes, their good credit and sometimes even the ones they love.

Maybe you are one of those people who have had a run of bad luck or perhaps you’ve just hit a road block. Or worse, everyone around you is singly the blues. It’s all you can do to stay positive even though you and your circle consider you a positive person.  I know, this has happened to me. Although I  don’t get into a FUNK or have a NEGATIVE DAY often, when I do get into one of those energy zones, the best I can do is stay away from others so as not to affect them too. You see, I don’t like myself when I am feeling this way and I am sure others don’t much like being around me either. In fact, when I had my retail florists, my staff told me they could always tell what kind of mood I was in when I walked through the door by how I walked in and what I said as I did so.  What are your “tell signs?”  Once I realized what mine were I became much more conscious of them and made an extra effort to be more positive (or where different shoes *SMILE). But I digress.

Well, I think that right now more than even the world needs people like you and me to stay positive and help them see that there is HOPE.  After all, what really matters isn’t what others think as much as it does what YOU think … and feel.

The good news is I have discovered some things to help me quickly recover from that FUNK.

Here are 7 steps to stay positive in a negative world and keep the energy flowing more smoothly:

1. STAY away from negative people. You know the ones. Those that rarely, if ever have anything positive to say. About anything. Or anyone. These people will ZAP your good energy faster than a bolt of lightening! FIRE all the negative friends in your life. Tell them you simply cannot hang with them anymore.  And don’t think you can turn them around. The best you can do is be a good example and hope that some of that positivity rubs off on them.  And if they are lucky, it might (but don’t hold your breath).

2. HANG with positive people.  Just like staying away from negative people will drain you of positive energy, hanging with positive people will enrich your life and fill your bucket with positive good energy.

3. LOOK for the good. If you are having a bad day, stop and think of all the good in your life. Ask yourself what is going good for you right now? Who do you know that is positive? Ask her or him what their secrets to staying positive are.  Think about what gives you positive energy.  If you cannot think of anything current, think about the past and what was good about it. Find ways to reconnect with that good. Revisit it. Visit people you have lost touch with that made you feel good about yourself.

4. FOLLOW your passion.  It is not easy to stay positive when you are not happy with your life.  Sit down and write what makes you happy. Make a list of 25 or 50 things you plan to accomplish before you leave the world.  And then do something about it. Start writing a plan for how to accomplish each or do each of those things on your list.  If you ever saw the movie, The BUCKET LIST, you may remember Morgan Freeman making such a list. He didn’t know exactly how he would be able to achieve his goals and do all the things on his Bucket List but he knew he was going to try! And as “luck” would have it, the very person who could help him was in the same hospital room. I know its only a movie, but stranger things have happened. First you have to set your intention. THEN figure out how to make it a reality.

5. UP your attitude.  In addition to surrounding yourself with positive people, subscribe to positive thoughts and ideas.  Read things like TUT ~ a note from the universe www.tut.com. TUT stand for truly unique thoughts and every day you get a wonderful, uplifting message in your email inbox or on your mobile phone.  Another great site for positive thoughts and energy is Blesstivals http://www.center-for-positive-service.com/category/spiritual-gifts/blesstivals/ created by my good friend Lori Prokopp and friends. Check out GreatDay.com the daily motivator site for positive inspiration. And last but not least is Beliefnet.com  http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/index.aspx  their mission is “to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness.”

6. FIND the humor in life. Humor helps you with those feelings of being overwhelmed and out of control. Studies have been done that humor helps people through the darkest hours of disease and come out on the other side. Humor can also help you stay positive and motivated. You have to remember to laugh.  Two of my favorite sites for humor resources are The Humor Project at http://www.humorproject.com/ and World Laughter Tour http://www.worldlaughtertour.com/. Keep a Humor Journal and when something strikes you funny, write it down. This will come in handy when you are having a bad day because you can open it up and read any page and feel the negative energy drift away. 

7. MAKE up your mind to be more positive. Developing a positive mental attitude is a choice. It requires nurturing and training. Sometimes it requires a whole new mindset. You have to first make up your mind to do so. And its not always easy or immediate.  It will require work and commitment.  And if you create a positivity plan, commit to it and really work it, I promise you will see results. And one of the benefits of being positive is that you will attract more like-minded people. Your life will be richer and more rewarding and you will find things will start coming to you with more ease. Your self-esteem will increase dramatically and you will start attracting more of the good things in life. I love how the National Association of Self Esteem ~ NASE describes self-esteem: “The experience of being capable of meeting life’s challenges and being worthy of happiness.” 

Robert Schuller said it best: It takes but one positive thought, when given a chance to survive and thrive, to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.
 
Be the person you would like to hang out with if you were someone else.  Being that person will lead you to a more fulfilled, joyful life.

What I’d like to do today is take each area of our business and see how we can maximize our profitability, beginning with Processes.

Are you maximizine your time? Do you focus on the work at hand? Do you play on your strenghts in business? Do you know what your competitors weaknesses are? Do you look at expenses and focus on reducing them to add to your bottom line? If you answered “no” to any or all of these questions, chances are you are not getting the most profit from your small business.

The first thing to look at are the processes you have in place to run your business. Do your processes add value to your business or are they things you do to stay busy? Busy-ness is doing things that you don’t really need to do and not paying attention to those things that could add value to your business. Only you can answer this question.

Processes in business can include how you handle mail, how and when you check email, paperwork, reports, meetings, travel, and other forms of communication such as the telephone.

The first question to ask yourself when looking at your processes is “Do I find things to do that keep me from doing the really important stuff, do I procrastinate by hiding behind “doing?” Do I find myself wasting time on mundane tasks during times when I should be marketing my products and services or training my clients, customers and staff for maximum effectiveness?

This is huge for me. When I have a task that seems overwhelming, I can find myself working on things that have little or nothing to with the task that really needs to be done. Take my newsletters for instance. I sometimes put them off until the very last moment because the job just seems too overwhelming to me. I want to work on them and get them out, but somehow I manage to find other things to do, such as answering emails, or going through old emails and deleting them. BTW, there is a time and place for everything so doing the sorting is not a bad thing, it’s just that I might do this during my peak time instead of working on the creative aspects of business when I am at my best.

What processes do you put too much time in, avoid, procrastinate about, or just get by doing that could be affecting your bottom line?

Here are some processes you could change to better manage your time and add to your bottom line:

THE TELEPHONE – Screen your calls. By doing this you are choosing who you wish to speak to. For example, say you are having a highly productive day, you are really in a flow, accomplishing a lot of things on your to-do list. And the phone rings. It could be a customer or it could be a sales person making a cold-call. Now I am not against sales people, I just wish they had better timing. It seems to me they call when I am either in the middle of writing an article or working on my website, having dinner or meeting with an important client.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could “screen these calls?” You may already be doing so, by having an answering machine pick up. However if you are in earshot and you hear the message it becomes another distraction. I recommend you hire someone to answer those calls for you. Having someone answer your calls (a live person) makes your company appear larger, and in some cases more professional. Now I already know that for some of you this is not the answer. You will tell me that your customers like being able to get you directly. And that may be true.

What I am saying is that having someone who is trained to answer your calls can free up a lot of your time to pursue those things that are important to business growth. Like marketing and public relations. There are many companies who offer this type of service. The most important thing is if you are going to screen your calls make sure you return them promptly. Don’t make people wait. It could cost you a job, a career or even a customer.

EMAIL - If you’re like most people these days, you probably get between50 and 250 email messages a day, many of which are unwanted. And some which are important. Multiply that by the number of email accounts you have, and you could find yourself spending the better part of most days just deleting and/or responding to these electronic communications. The problem is how to clear out your inbox and better manage your time.

Here are some tips to get your email under control.

Keep your inbox empty. This is the key to managing you e-mail.

Put important email messages in a folder or folders and title the folders appropriately.

Answer important emails in a timely fashion at specified times of the day (you decide when it is appropriate to respond and schedule that as your email writing time.

Set your inbox to check for new messages only a few times a day. Turn down the “you’ve got mail” announcer so you can better focus on the job at hand.

Get a spam filter. You may risk losing some email messages, however, you have greater control over what you allow into your inbox.

Put important email addresses in your address book so you won’t have to go searching for them when you need to send a message in a hurry.

Subscribe to mailing lists, listservs and the like at a new e-mail address. This will help with email overload and you can check these in your spare time instead of having to peruse them with your more urgent communications. Gmail may be a good choice for this.

Use your “delete” key. Clean up your inbox and remove old, unused messages.

In a subsequent message I will talk about maximizing meeting effectiveness….

Heidi

Heidi Richards Mooney ~ Author, Entrepreneur, Business Coach
Stay in Touch with SendOutCards http://www.SendOutCards.com/Heidi
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1. Improve your performance every day.  What 2 skills are you really good at? What has helped you become successful?  What can you do to improve upon them?

2. Model other leaders.  What traits do your role models possess that you would like to also possess?  Model these traits. Practice until they become second nature to you.

3. Find a mentor.  One of the best ways to accelerate success is to find a mentor to help you get there faster. Your mentor could be someone you know,  a book, audio or video  program by an author you admire or even an online mentor program.

4. What resolution have you failed to accomplish? If its important to you, take one step to accomplishing it.

5. Choose one habit great leaders have and work on it for the next two weeks.

6. Schedule time for your fitness plan.  You have a business plan, maybe even a life plan, how is your fitness plan coming along? If you’ve been neglecting fitness, schedule it like you would a meeting.

7. Honor others.  When others do a good job, tell them. 

8.  Read my post A Dozen Ways to Reduce Your RealAge and Take the RealAge Test

9. What opportunities are in your community for you to get involved and make a difference.  How can you capitalize on the current economic climate to help others?

10.  Write each of these WAYS down on paper, keep them in your wallet, your purse, post to your bulletin board above your computer or keep in your planner.  Add them to your Outlook calendar and look at them every day.

Subscribe to and read Success Magazine for more great ideas to achieve your goals.

Has this ever happened to you? You are out shopping or something and and idea comes to you. Something you think is marketable and that people can use. The next thing you know, someone has magically invented it.  That’s how the universe works, more than one person will get an idea for a solution to a proble, a product or system or service that can make life easier for others. But not everyone will do something with the idea. Its the ones that actually take action that become famous, rich and heros. 

Perhaps you Have you been out somewhere and had a brilliant idea and didn’t want to trust your mind to remember it later? If you are like most people you grabbed the first thing that you could write on.  And if you were having drinks or eating out, that thing was likely a napkin.

Many people have had ideas they jotted down on the back of a napkin, stuck in their pocket or purse and then even forgot about it.  Maybe you were even so excited, you wrote on more than one napkin.

Brainstorms have been conducted on napkins. Business ideas have been written down on napkins to later be incredible successes. 

Inventions have been designed on napkins. Read about Terry Campbell’s million dollar idea for a seatbelt adjuster for short drivers, and how he wrote it down on a napkin after pulling off to the side of the road here: http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsID/17243.cfm

Fashions have been designed on napkins. Take designer Missy DeGroots high-end handbags  In an interview with Cincy Chic, Missy shares how she comes up with her designs. She says,  “The brain takes in a lot of subconscious items on a daily basis and then it does something (sometimes at crazy hours of the day and night) where it decides to pop out visions and ideas, that come out when they’re ready, then I have to sketch. Some of the best ideas have made their way from sketches on cocktail napkins and airplane boarding passes to my Sample Makers table!” You can read the rest of the interview here: http://cincychic.com/content/view/1317/1/

Book ideas have been written down on napkins to later become best-sellers.  In fact there have even been books written about the topic of writing down ideas on napkins. Check out The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions by Mike Collins at http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Idea-Everyone-Interests-Inventions/dp/0470193360

In fact, I am sure napkins have been used for ideas since napkins were first invented.

Napkins are perfect for writing down ideas because they have limited space. Which means you have to be succinct in describing your thoughts. Some people write a few words, others draw and still others mind map.  You may do a combination of all 3.  With a napkin, your drawing or words don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to be an artist, you just need include enough information to trigger your thought processes when you go back to read it.

In fact, Esquire magazine sought to raise napkin writing to an art so they asked writers around the country to be creative and write a story on a cocktail napkin. They received nearly 100 responses and shared them with Weekend America.   You can read about it here: http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/10/napkin_fiction/

Some really wacked out ideas end up on napkins. The kind of ideas that may not make it to market in our lifetime, but somewhere beyond may become a reality.  Gizmodo asked readers to send in their napkin sketch ideas. They showcased 3 “winners” including the creator of the Pizza Fax. Read the story, “Napkin Sketches Prove There’s a Little Inventor in All of Us” at http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/07/30_napkin_sketches_prove_theres_a_little_inventor_in_all_of_us-2.html

Here’s a great eguide called Napkin Sketches 101 to check out http://www.steelcase.com/Files/eef28f3f464146199441e14c1ed69111.pdf

If you do your best work on the back (or front of) a napkin, you might want to view this great new product called the Napkin Notebook at: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2007/11/napkin_notebook_an_idea_so_goo.html
So, next time you get an idea, don’t just shrug it off or decide that you will do something with the idea later. Grab a napkin and write it down. Then let it simmer a while, allow your creative mind to find ways to act on the idea, to develop it.  Then grab another napkin and GET TO WORK! 

And if you have a million dollar napkin idea that you’d like to share, be sure to leave a comment. I may even want to interview you for our radio show ~ 1st Fridayz™

There is also a little surprise strategically placed in the center of the magazine as a BONUS.  It is a CD/DVD with enhanced articles, motivational presentations and ideas.  I love listening to it on the way to work. Over the next few posts I am going to share tips and ideas Success included in the latest issue.

Today I want to focus on 10 Actions You Can Take to Turn Your Knowledge Into Power (page 96 of the November Issue) and include some of my own tips to jump start each action.

1. Write down five ways you can improve your customer service. What can you do immediately to turn the customer service experience around or make it better?  Read the classic, The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore (pub. 1999). It goes into great detail about how the companies who create an experience for their customers and clients will stand out from the crowd in their chosen fields.
2. Write down three negative thoughts you replay in your mind over and over again.  Look at what you wrote and refocus them as positive statements. For instance “business sucks” could be “business is GREAT!”  Even if it isn’t true at this moment, by creating a positive statement you will begin to change your thoughts and open them up to possibilities of how to make things better. Our subconscious mind does not know fact from fiction, only what we “feed it.”  If we send it positive thoughts, pretty soon those positive thoughts become our reality.
3. Which leads me to this next action: List three steps you could take to stand out from the competition. What could you do differently, that the competition isn’t doing? If the competition is advertising in the local newspapers. Try Radio.  Find ways to barter with local stations to “trade air time” for what you offer.  Most stations have excess time which they “give away” to public service announcements. Propose and idea they can use to market your company while promoting their station.
4. Write down five reasons why you are the perfect age to achieve your loftiest goals.  If 17 year old kids can create social networking sites that are worth billions and an 82 year old woman can be a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, “what’s stopping you from achieving your goals, right now ~ TODAY?
5. Have you heard of Focus Intensity Training? It is strength training using mind/body consciousness’. Shawn Phillips says “Focus is the spark that ignites the flame of intensity.”  to learn more about FIT check out these videos at http://in.integralinstitute.org/live/view_fit.aspx
6. Write down the three most important goals in your life today.  As you begin your day, look at that list and read it (out loud, if you can).  Reading it aloud ingrains it into your subconscious mind and your conscious mind will begin developing ways to achieve those goals.
7. Find or make a space that feeds your creativity.  Spend time in that space.  It could be a place in your home, or a corner of a room, or a spot outdoors. Whatever feeds your inner creativity to generate more ideas, go for it.  Make a date with the space and keep it.
8. Write down three ways to connect with the people in your life that are important to you. Then do it!  It could be a confidant, a mentor, a role model, a family member you look up to or whose advice you seek.  It could be a family member you love spending time with. Make that time.
9. Write down five detailed ways to make every day your best ever. Each and every day work at being the best YOU! Repeat.
10. Be accountable to number one – YOU!  Feed your passions, do what you love, get to know yourself.   

BONUS: I would add this: surround yourself with those you look up to and respect.  To paraphrase Dale Carnegie: We are who we hang out with. So if you want to be GREAT, hang out with GREAT people. Be GREAT and others will want to hang out with YOU.

Here was my response:

Assuming your mentor is experienced and a successful business owner, One of the first things I would  do is get to know him a bit. Find out his values, his background, who he has worked with in the past, how he plans to work with you, what his expectations of a mentee are, why he is a mentor in the first place, etc. Interview him with probing questions.

See how he reacts. Is he open and approachable?  Is he a fast talker or does he go into detail. Do you want someone who is detail minded or one who gets to the point quickly? 

Learning his communication style will help you in determining if you can indeed learn from and work with him.

If he has experience, then once you have discovered how well the two of you can communicate (or not) it will be much easier to make a decision.

Do you have the option to interview more than one before disqualifying anyone?  You may find that after listening to and interviewing a couple of potential candidates, one will jump out at you and if you must disqualify them beforehand, that would be a shame.

Finding the right mentor in any situation is key to your own success.  You will be much more open to the ideas and advice shared if you can communicate well. That does not mean you must agree with everything the mentor suggests. On the contrary! You want someone who will make you feel a little uncomfortable in order to get to your deeper truths and real issues in yrou business (and life).

There are two excellent articles on the subject in WE Magazine for Women. Women’s Ways of Mentoring (First Issue) and Women’s Ways of Mentoring Part Two (Spring 2007).  Both articles were written by Catherine Seton, Director of the Australian Women’s Mentoring Network.

I also wrote an article called Your Own Personal Wealth Mentor – Your Keys to Success which you can read at WhereWomenProsper.com.

There are also many great books on Mentoring. Two I recommend are:

The Art of Mentoring: Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way by Shirley Peddy 

Mentor Manager/Mentor Parent: How to Develop Responsible People and Build Successful Relationships at Work and at Home  by Linda Dowling, Cecile Culp Mielenz.

I’d be interested to know if you have a mentor and if so how did you find her/him and what process did you use to know she/he was the right mentor for you?

Wishing you all the best… and more!

Heidi Richards Mooney

One of my favorite magazines is Success. Its not just about business. Each issue is rich in advice for all aspects of our lives.  In the October 2008 Issue of Success Magazine  there was an article that debunked the myth that we only use 10% of our brain.  The article said we use all of it! However we may not tap into the Capacity our brain has.  Meaning we could learn so much more!  It had some great ideas for increasing our brain power.

Here are the strategies suggested in the article:

Posture makes perfect. Stand tall, sit up straight ~ good posture helps your mental clarity

Use downtime to exercise your brain ~ stuck in a long line or waiting room? Be sure you have a book on hand. Or a journal or notebook to write down inspirations.

Tell a good story ~ sharing experiences in a compelling and fun way sharpens your mental recall.  

Mix up your routine – take a different route to work, sit in a different seat on the train, read a magazine instead of the paper in the morning – changing your routine helps the brain wake up from our “sleep walking” and pay attention.  We often live in a hypnotic state going about our business automatically. By mixing up our routine, we force the brain to make decisions and pay more attention.

Work on your intuition – pay attention to and follow through on your hunches – work your intuitive muscles.

Walk – walking is good for the brain because it gets the oxygen flowing and the body to limber up creating a state that helps you clear the brain.

Laugh – releasing endorphins lowers your stress and lenghthens your lifespan.  And it feels good.

Other ways to increase your brain power:

Solve a puzzle. I love doing puzzles ~ word searches are my favorite. In fact, I love to make them up too!  I have made up word searches for Social Networking, Flowers, Wealth & Prosperity and at least a dozen of them for my grandson (who is 7). They have helped me to focus my weary brain when I need a little stimulation and they help his 7 year old brain learn new vocabulary words.  Crossword puzzles are also an excellent way to keep your mind sharp. And if you like games, riddles can be stimulating and fun to solve. Riddles also help encourage our creative thinking.

Ask questions.  One of the things I love is interviewing people. Finding out what makes them tick and why they do what they do. I love coming up with the questions and listening for the answers. I challenge myself each time to come up with non-typical questions that get my guest thinking in a different way and helps me “dig deeper” to discover more about the person.  Take a pen and paper and write down 20 questions you’d like to ask someone you admire. Then write down 20 questions you’d like to be asked during an interview.  Then write down the answers.  Put them away and look at them in a week or a month. See how accurate your answers are today compared to when you first answered them.

Take a vacation. I love visiting site rich in history. If I learned about the place in school it is a great way to “recall” the memories of what I learned. If I didn’t, I learn something new. When you learn about a locale, be sure and share what you learn with others. Sharing your experiences helps expand our minds memory and keep the memories alive long after the vacation.  This also helps us relive those relaxing wonderful times which helps with stress reduction.

Read.  Self-help books can help you increase your brain power, your confidence and your success. Think of a book you read that changed your life, helped you with a relationship or helped you solve a problem. One book that changed my life was Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I read it at just the right time in my life (in my 20’s) and it helped me to become a better relator/communicator with others. Whenever I am stuck with a people problem, I recall the principles in that book (I have read it at least 4 times) and am able to see more clearly and come up with my own solutions.  IMHO this book should be required reading in high school!

What other ways can you increase your brain power? I’d love to hear how you tap into your brain’s power, expand your thinking and build your own confidence.

    EGO, while it’s an important element to a healthy self-esteem can also be detrimental in relationships. We spend so much time in building relationships and one little slip of the ego can tear it all down in an instant. IMHO, there is never an appropriate time for arguing. It alienates people, it makes some feel inferior and it can undermine our own credibility.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the need to be right, the desire to prove our superiority. We can become defensive when we intuitively know we may be wrong and yet we do it anyway. Having different opinions is what makes the world go round, what makes life interesting. To paraphrase a quote by someone (not sure who said it) “if both of us agree on everything all the time, then one of us is unnecessary.”

So how can we learn to disagree in a healthy way that builds good-will? Avoid arguing altogether! Having a strong opinion about something you put a high value on is absolutely fine – if you want to win someone to your way of thinking look for ways to create a win-win experience, one that leaves our egos intact, and create allies instead of enemies.

Here are just a few tips to do just that:

Put the gloves down ~ Don’t get defensive. it is important to control our emotion and our tempers (not an easy thing for me to learn, I have a natural tendency to react and explode). When you become defensive it gives the other person the fuel to start an argument with you… and keep it going.

Listen ~There really is a reason we have two ears. It is hard to argue when only one person is talking. Often, the other person just needs to be heard.

Resist the urge to “correct” ~ Telling the other person she is wrong adds fuel to the fire, and makes her defensive.

Keep an open mind ~ really successful leaders welcome opposing viewpoints, it may not change your mind, but it will let the other person know you respect her right to disagree.

Build rapport ~ it is really hard to argue with someone when you agree with them. Find areas in which you both agree and let her know when you agree with certain points.

Admit when you are wrong ~ perhaps the most difficult thing we can learn is to admit when we are wrong. Letting the other person know she is right builds her esteem and increases your own credibility.

Share your beliefs ~ respecting one’s beliefs is the very foundation of FREEDOM – instead of saying “I know” try “I believe” in expressing your viewpoint.

Show gratitude ~ even when you disagree, it is important to thank the other person for sharing her opinion. It is difficult to quarrel with someone who just thanked her for expressing her viewpoint.

The best way to avoid an argument is to turn it into a discussion in which both sides share their views. Practice self-control, move egos aside and watch your relationships thrive. After all, is it really that important for everyone to have the same viewpoint as you?

For more motivational tips, check out the FREE ebook Motivation to WIN! The Winners Sourcebook to Achieve your Goals and Get What you Want out of LIFE.

It’s been happening to me a lot lately. So today I thought I’d share my thoughts about the POWER OF FOCUS. Because I really need to start focusing and I know how much it helps me personally and professionally when I do.

What about you? Do you have trouble focusing sometimes?

Does it feel like you are constantly going in ten different directions, are you easily distracted, have you really planned what it is you want or should be focusing on, you have a hard time saying no to other peoples requests or favors, does it feel as though sometimes all you want to do is get through the day? If so, then you may be experiencing varying degrees of what I call “lackofocus” disease. When you suffer from lack of focus disease, productivity is down and stress is on the rise. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it is curable .

First you have to Define your Purpose, Set Goals based upon your purpose, and set an “Expiration date” on achieving your goals so you can get closer to fulfilling your purpose.

Here are some tips to help you get and stay more focused:

Don’t say “YES” to anything right away – Take time to assess the request. Then turn down any requests or opportunities that will not help you either achieve your goals, realize your purpose or increase your knowledge. Don’t do projects simply because you feel obligated to do them. Pay attention to how you spend your time.

Capitalize on your “productive time.” IF you are a morning person, then that is most likely your optimum time to accomplish your goals and you will find yourself more productive in a shorter time frame than forcing yourself to focus on a goal during another time of day. My best time is 10 am to 1pm so that’s when I do the important stuff such as writing, planning and working on projects. I use the other times of day to communicate with my colleagues and friends, network, check email and file.

Ask for help – If you find it difficult to stay focused, get a mentor or coach to help keep you on track. Tell her or him about your aspirations, what your current and future goals are and how you plan to achieve them – its amazing how much more you can accomplish with an accountability partner.

Eliminate unnecessary activities – that includes the busy work you do every day that does not help you achieve your goals. Think email – instead of checking email every few minutes try scheduling time during the day to focus only on email – make it during your less productive time.

For one week (or even one day) keep a journal of all the distractions you have faced. Take a good look at the list and decide to eliminate or manage those things that are causing your lackofocus.

Learn to enjoy down-time without feeling “unproductive” – this will re-energize you to begin again. Focus is about Purpose and Determination and Balance. When you get focused, you accomplish more, you feel empowered, not to mention it can really add to your bottom line.

Start with baby steps – if you take on more than you can handle, you will be right back where you started. When planning your goals, break them down into smaller do-able activities then pat yourself on the back as you work through and reach each goal.

If you want to know just how focused you are, take this quiz: http://www.thepoweroffocus.ca/take_our_quiz.asp

What rituals or tips do you have for getting and staying focused and sticking to your goals? Feel free to share in the comments section of my blog.

Need help with your focus? A coach can help! I work with authors to help them get their book done and with small businesses to help them set and reach their goals personally and professionally. Give me a call at 954-625-6606 or email me at heidi (at) successandthensome.com. I