| | |  5 Steps to Self-Belief
You are a self-fulfilling prophecy of the beliefs you have about yourself. According to bestselling UK author Fiona Harrold in The 7 Rules of Success, it is “convenient but distorted” to believe that fate is not on your side. Instead you must believe that your free will can determine your outcomes. Your thinking shapes your life. Your free will gives you the means to choose how you create your life – to resist your circumstances and make changes. It’s not about whether you grew up with unconditionally loving parents who had lots of money and looking back with regrets. Oprah Winfrey found the solution:
“I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who, from an early age, knew I was responsible for myself and I had to make good.”
1. “Play up what you’ve got.”
Leverage your strengths – what do people admire you for? What are you good at? Rather than wasting time wishing you were in someone else’s situation, identify how you can use what you’ve got more to your advantage.
Do not give power to beliefs that others or something else is responsible for the circumstances in your life because this “is the extent to which you deny yourself access to your own resources, capabilities and ingenuity.” (Harrold)
2. See yourself as ‘advantaged’.
Look for the hidden advantages that made you a bigger person from the things you previously have seen as regrets and resentments. Rather than seeing the flaws in your childhood and your past, look for how they have helped you. Replace grudges with forgiveness and love. Be grateful and you will attract more things to be grateful for.
Harrold shares a great example of a gay man who spent his 20’s and 30’s hiding who he really was. Now in his 40’s and enjoying a full life personally and professionally, he looks back and sees that he avoided the gay scene of the 1980’s and the AIDS epidemic (possible death) and spent the next decade growing a successful business leaving himself financially healthy with homes in London and France.
“You are never a victim of circumstances because you are always free to choose your response.”
I recall Stephen Covey telling me this when I asked him a question during a workshop I attended last year in Seattle.
He was talking about Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist, who survived the Nazi death camps. When I commented to Covey about how it was difficult to change one’s beliefs, he said to me: “If Frankl can do it, you can too.” I responded as honestly as I could by saying, “I don’t know if I have it in me to respond the way he did.”
He locked me in with his gaze and said, “My friend, within you is the belief that anything is possible.”
Harrold points out that money and class are the old advantages and that the new ones are: “self-belief, passion, drive and self-determination.”
3. Practice Extreme Vigilance!
Watch out for your brain thinking unhelpful thoughts that do not support your self-belief. Nobody’s perfect so catch yourself quickly and get your head back on track as soon as possible.
4. Reverse Your Unhelpful Beliefs.
a) Answer this 3-5 times: A limiting belief I have about myself is:
b) What effect has this had on you?
c) I am replacing my old belief with this empowering one:
d) What would be inspiring to believe about me?
fe Make a list of evidence to justify this new belief and keep it visible until you are convinced.
f) I would add one more thing: use the ideas in John Assaraf’s book, The Answer, also an excellent resource on this topic.
5. Pick a guiding belief for yourself that gives you the most motivation.
Birmingham real estate entrepreneur Paul Bassi has this one:
“I’d feel I had failed if I didn’t fulfill my full potential.”
How have these five steps helped your brain rewire itself and empower you to the results you want?
Author: Matt Anderson, The Referral Authority, Author of Fearless Referrals
http://www.thereferralauthority.com/Copyright 2011
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| Doing the terrifying thing is never as terrifying as you think it will be. And you feel fabulous afterwards. - Julia Stephenson, writer |
|  10 Great Email Tips
Did you know that: a) The average US resident receives 80 emails/day?
b) 25% of all emails are deleted unread?
c) 2/3 are either incomplete or confusing for the recipient? I saw Tim Burress, CEO of Get Control!, speak recently at a conference I presented at in Vegas. His clients include a host of Fortune 500’s such as Starbucks and McDonalds. Here are some really useful tips:
1. More emails lead to more stress. If you want fewer emails, send fewer emails, avoid using a PDA, and avoid using social media. 2. Before you click send, check that your email is:
a) Truly needed – timely, relevant, complete
b) Appropriate – compliant, professional, inoffensive
c) Targeted – avoid ‘reply to all’, and ‘cc’
d) Delayed by two minutes: This is a great idea! Use ‘rules and alerts’ in the tools section to defer sending all emails by two minutes. Burress calls this the ‘career saver’!
His main point is that when we send emails, we think we understand them but fail to put ourselves in the recipient’s shoes.
3. Don’t read your emails in order
If you’re an ER doctor and have one patient with a sore throat and one with a meat cleaver in the back, which do you see first? Do the same prioritization with your inbox.
4. Phoning is better when:
a) Money and jobs are involved
b) Vocal inflection is needed: “there are no emotions in email.”
c) You have several emails from the same person to respond to.
d) Someone has just emailed you and can assume they are in their office or by their phone (to avoid more email/phone tag).
Keep in mind that 70% of all calls go to voice mail. Avoid rambling when you leave a message!
5. Schedule more mini-meetings by phone.
He suggests 10 minute meetings especially before the next hour, e.g. 8:50 am, 3:50 pm etc.
6. If an email can be responded to in less than 2 minutes, do it right away.
7. When deferring a response to an important email, schedule time to handle it as you would an appointment with a client or prospect. “People who get things done block time to get things done.”
8. Either check your email fewer times each day or delay emails arriving to every 30 minutes so you are interrupted less.
9. End emails with NRN or NTN
This stands for No Reply Needed or No Thanks Necessary
10. Think harder about your subject headers and make them more compelling/relevant.
Burress joked that he got a ‘RE: holiday party’ email in February because someone was too lazy to change the subject.
Pick three of these and use them right away. In this case, thank you replies would be appreciated!
Please forward this on. Author: Matt Anderson, The Referral Authority, Author of Fearless Referrals
http://www.thereferralauthority.com/ Copyright 2011 |
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