Once your mindset changes, everything on
the outside will change along with it.
?Steve Maraboli

An effective mindset is one that makes the best use of available resources – your time, energy and efforts – and uses them to create positive change.  It’s not about trying to do everything and be everything; it’s making the very best of what you have while enjoying the process of living.

Here are seven effective traits and behaviors of such a mindset:

1.  Enjoys and appreciates the present moment.

Happiness is a mindset that can only be designed into the present.  It’s not a point in the future or a moment from the past; but sadly, this misconception hurts the masses.  So many young people seem to think that happiness awaits them in the years ahead, while so many older people believe that their best moments are behind them.

The truth is, the greater part of your happiness or misery depends solely upon your attitude towards any given moment, regardless of the events contained within.  You need much less than you think you need to be happy, and you usually have a lot more than you think you have.  There’s always something worth smiling about.  It’s just a matter of thinking differently.  Read 1,000 Little Things.

2.  Connects inner purpose with outer effort.

The most important thing you can know is what’s most important to you.  Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give yourself to it.  As Friedrich Nietzsche so profoundly said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”  Your purpose is your ‘why.’

You can accomplish almost anything when what you’re trying to accomplish is what you care about.  Wear yourself out with focused, disciplined work on a purpose that connects with who you truly are.  You have a unique voice and a [Read more…]

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.
–Vince Lombardi

Feeling down about your forward progress lately?  Do you feel like you’re running in place?  Need some motivation and tough love to help you reinvigorate your success rate?  Well, here you go – seven reasons you’re not the great success story you could be:

1.  You do a lot of thinking without acting.

Too often we think without acting.  We do nothing with our ideas.  Everyone who has ever taken a long, hot shower has had many great ideas.  I’m sure you can relate.  But you will only make a difference in this world if you get out of the shower, dry off and do something with them.

The only way to conquer your dreams and doubts is with action.  Wondering about them will not get anything done.  Avoiding challenges will only make them grow bigger.  If you wait until all conditions are perfect, you will spend the rest of your life waiting.

Great achievements are made by starting from exactly where you are right now with exactly what you have right now.  Stop wondering and start doing.  Once you’ve made a little progress you’ll always know, without a doubt, that you can make even more progress if you try.  Read 1,000 Little Things.

2.  Your creative mind is completely unfocused.

Constraints nurture productive side of the creative mind.  At first it might seem as though complete freedom makes all creative ventures more attainable, but this isn’t the truth.  Complete freedom makes the possibilities endless, but keeps your efforts scattered and unfocused.

Often, self-imposed constraints, or boundaries, force you to think differently about challenges, leading to more practical ideas and innovations.  Instead of thinking ‘outside the box’ and looking in every possible direction, get inside one [Read more…]