Where is the Love?

By Shazad

One of the strongest emotions humans have is LOVE. I am sure you know all about love and its deeper meanings, or do you? Let’s talk to about where love comes from and the many kinds of love.

Our parents and more specifically, our Mother, is the first person to teach us how to love someone in a pure and honest way. Let’s explore each kind of love and learn how to celebrate more than just romantic love every day of the year.

Start by loving yourself in a kind and grateful way rather than an egotistical or narcissistic way. Really care about your life by living with intention and consideration for yourself.

Next, learn to love “learning” for the joy of understanding something new or trying a new skill. The passionate pursuit of knowledge and wisdom that fulfills us is so vital to our happiness and success in life.

Loving people like you and different from you is also an essential kind of love. The awareness of how many similarities we have with different cultures across the world should inspire love in you. Truly accepting our common humanity and successful co-existence on this planet creates loving and caring communities.

Another kind of essential love is the pursuit of personal development and personal growth. This is a loving journey to becoming the best version of yourself.

Finally, we come to loving life itself and the blessing of being alive to see the wonders of the world. Appreciating the gift of existence and the opportunity to do so much good in life should be like a halo we wear throughout life.

Go beyond the commercialized celebrations of February 14th and express sincere gratitude to those who instructed you on the many kinds of LOVE in the world!

What's your moonshot in life?

By Shazad

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” John F. Kennedy (September 1962)

A “moonshot” is defined as something big or very challenging. It may be something almost impossible to achieve or never done before. In the early 1960’s, the USA committed, through president JFK, to literally send a man to the moon and bring him back safely before the end of the decade. This was achieved as a historic moment in the history of America and humanity as a whole.

Whether you are an organization, a country or an individual, you have the ability to create at least one moonshot goal in this life. It may take you years to achieve or even an entire lifetime but it’s something you commit to and work on continuously until it is achieved. Your ultimate success is the greatest reward but the process of working on a moonshot is also very rewarding and can lead to successful milestones that transform you for the better just like the 1960’s Moonshot program accelerated the scientific and technological progress in America that is still driving innovation today!

Your personal moonshot will require a lot of your energy, focus and dedication to complete and you will literally be changed by the whole process. Everyone will have their own challenges and obstacles in life which means everyone has the opportunity to create and work towards at lest one personal moonshot. Some examples could be achieving a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree, writing a best selling book, climbing Mount Everest, building housing for everyone in a given city or simply transforming your body from overweight to extremely fit and strong for the rest of your life.

Decide on what your moonshot is and truly go for it. To qualify as a moonshot, it should make you uncomfortable and somewhat intimidated. Once you achieve it, start on your moonshot #2 and so on. How many moonshots can you rack up before you make your final “exit” from planet earth? 

The key to your moonshot in life is to gather your energies and skills; accept the challenge; be unwilling to postpone it and be intent on succeeding!

Actions:

1. Write out some challenging and long term projects you consider to be moonshots worth pursuing. What is your most compelling moonshot idea? WHY do you want to achieve it? WHEN do you want to achieve this goal? How will it make you feel?

2. Find a person who has already achieved the same goal or is working on the same project and learn as much as you can from them. What lessons have they learned? What roadblocks did they run into and how did they overcome them?

3. Create your detailed plan of what you will do each week to move you closer to your moonshot goal. Decide what you will give up so that you have the time, energy and resources needed and don’t get distracted or burnt out by pursuing too many things at once.

Here Is What May Be Missing From Your Gratitude Exercise

By Ahsan
When I think of gratitude, I think of the little and big things of life that make me happy. How about you?

If we consider the quotes below, you will see two perspectives on gratitude that are undeniably evident:

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." ⎯Epictetus, Greek Stoic Philosopher

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” —Willie Nelson, Country Music Legend

Epictetus reminds us that we should be grateful for what we have and not lament what we don’t have.

Willie reminds us to count our blessings.

Both of these quotes can help us to capture a greater sense of happiness and contentment in life. After all, life is not a 24/7 banquet, sometimes you get lemons and other times you get lemon-aide.

If we follow the advice of these two sages, we might focus on having greater awareness and be more likely to notice things. For example: having a job is better than being unemployed and having clean water to drink is a blessing. These realizations are essential, however, sometimes they only provide temporary and short-lived bliss.

What is missing if gratitude is the attitude that determines your altitude of feeling happy and content?

At the heart of any state of gratitude is not only being aware of your blessings but being thankful for them. Typically, when we are grateful for something, we are thankful to someone. For example, the person that hired you as in the case of your job or the intelligent person that invented water purification for the clean and safe drinking water.

Why not think about who you are grateful to and include them in your gratitude practice?

If you are a spiritual person, you might like to also do the following:

1. Make a list of the things you enjoy.

2. Thank God for providing them to you.

3. Go inward via prayer or meditation and thank the Source of your blessings.

4. Pray or meditate daily and when you are done asking for more grace, consciously think of the things that make you happy and thank your God for giving you what you enjoy.

In other words, just being thankful for what you have and counting your blessings may not bring you intense happiness and contentment that is lasting. Thanking the Source is the missing piece of the gratitude puzzle.

Just as you are thankful to someone who opens a door for you or quenches your thirst on a hot day, take time to go inward and thank the Source who gave you what you have.

Be blessed and blissed!

Why You Need Encouragement To Succeed In Life

By Ahsan

Have you ever considered giving up on your dreams? Perhaps it was a goal or an idea that you pursued for days or even years.  You were fired up, but then because of some difficulties or dwindling courage, you decided to shelve it forever.

Consider the time of year we are in. It's January, the critical month of New Year resolutions. Are you fearlessly pursuing the goals that you so bravely resolved to accomplish?

On the other hand, have you ever powered onward in the midst of doubt or flagging courage and were glad you never gave up? What happened at the moment you considered giving up but decided not to? Take a moment to think if you will.

Whenever I have faced this situation, I thought genuinely about the cost to me of not going for my dream and encouraged myself with some positive thinking and prayer. In other words, I was able to fill myself with courage, get it? I encouraged myself.

In life, you need to do this, that is, be your own cheerleader!

However, there is another more effective method.

This secret can make all the difference in the world.

It will have two effects: one is the achievement of your goals and second, an elevation in your mood and outlook on life.

The secret is having someone whom you care about, encourage you. This my friend, can mean the difference between succeeding in life and giving up on your dreams. Having a spouse or friend or colleague fill you with courage will quadruple your success in life.

If you go by the dictionary definition of encourage, you will find it says: to make (someone) more determined, hopeful, or confident.

We all need this, don't we? More determination and a greater sense of hope and confidence! This is a gift of immeasurable value.

So now you know the secret and here is what you need to do with it:

Step One: Write down your major goals for 2019  all over again for clarity sake.

Step Two: Make a list of your “encouragers” and let them know you appreciate them and need them to cheer you on.

Step Three: Get on someone else's list of "encouragers." Help others by filling them with courage, hope, determination, and confidence.  

Good luck to you in 2019. I know you can do it. You are smart and talented and brave enough to make things happen!

Your Identity and Lasting Happiness

By Shazad

Who AM I? I used to wonder about this question a lot until recent years. I finally have some clear thoughts to share on the concept of personal identity. You are NOT your job or education or your stuff such as houses, cars, clothes, etc. They are all parts of your life. Your relationship with each of these and people at different stages of life, are what make up your identity.   

What you do in different parts of your life are just like stations or ports you are visiting on a journey.  What comes after formal education is usually working life and building a family. What happens after full-time work or leading a business is up to you to define.  Some call this phase “retirement” while others see it as just another long and exciting journey to start using all the knowledge and experience gained from the past journeys. I found that the more I keep learning and challenging myself, the more my identity is revealed to me. This happens all the time and needs to continue when we retire as well because our minds are capable of continuous growth past the age we decide we longer want to work full-time. I’ve also seen many successful transitions into retirement through volunteering efforts and stronger community involvement. The skills a person has developed over the decades during their working life can still be practiced in these new settings.

The good relationships, routines and values we have developed are the most important parts of our identity.  Let’s make the best of where we are and prepare for whatever’s next by keeping focus on what really matters at each stage of life. Keep pushing yourself to have a growth mindset all throughout life because your identity is not fixed to a place, time or your assets.

ACTIONS:

1. If you haven’t already retired from work, imagine that it is about to happen next week. What do you think it will be like?

2. What do you plan to do in order to be challenged through retirement?

3. What skills and experiences do you want to have by the time you retire? What are you doing about that today?

What Happens To Your Success Levels By Closing Your Eyes?

By Ahsan

We mention a precious story in our book Awesome Life. It is about a miner digging for gold who essentially gives up and sells his land to someone else. The new miner continues the search and finds the gold by digging a few feet more than the previous miner.

There are many versions of this story in various cultures around the world, and it teaches the lesson of not giving up on your dreams.

As we enter the first weeks of 2019, no doubt you are focussing on your 2019 goals and working on your plan. We are too. The recipe for success is always the same: Think, Do, Have. It is often in the “Do” phase that people get either frustrated or discouraged and then sell their land to another miner. Or abandon the land altogether!

What if you could increase your chances of success by adding one more step as you do the “think” part of the recipe?

Imagine in your mind’s eye the answer to the following three questions:

1.     What would you be doing if you had three times the confidence you have now?

2.     What would it be like if you had three times the courage, you have now?

3.     What would it be like if you had three times the inner joy about who you are becoming?

 Close your eyes and imagine. What steps and actions will you be willing to take? What obstacles will you be willing to endure?

What would you Do and what would you Have?

If you have unstoppable confidence in your abilities combined with the attribute of being fearless and felt joyful, what potential will you realize?

Best of luck to you in 2019.

Don’t be the miner that is 3 feet from the mother lode.

The MTHR of all Relationship problems

By Shazad

Whether you are in a personal relationship with your spouse, friend and family or you are in a business partnership, you will run into a few common issues. it’s important to know where the problems will be and what you can do about them. These challenges come up even if you started off great with all the best intentions so it’s important to pay attention to strengthen or rebuild your relationships when they are starting to decline.

The first challenge in all relationships is MONEY. Not having enough income or not handling it well because of too many expenses. A lot of arguments and stress will happen because of money so be aware of it and make sure you have the right discussions frequently about how to make and spend income in a way that you both can live with.

The second challenge that will come up is TIME. Just like money, you may not have enough of it or are handling it poorly so get together and decide what is the right amount of time to spend on the relationship and adjust as needed. Money problems often lead to Time problems because you are trying to solve for lack of income in many cases, by spending more time away from the people you care about.

The third and very interconnected issue is HEALTH. Experiencing frequent Money and/or Time problems will lead to health issues and keep going around in a vicious circle that will continue to cause relationship pain. Make sure you are spending enough time and money to maintain health so you can effectively earn income and spend quality time with the people you need to otherwise your health will continue to decline with your relationships.

The fourth and very important issue for healthy relationships is REST & Relaxation. To achieve good lasting health, frequent rest periods are needed. Rest is also motivation for making more income and is what the free time we are seeking is for. Not having enough time each week, month and each quarter for some fun with your friends, family and business partners will result in lack of enough connection. That hurts relationships or causes them to just stall instead of improving over time. You need to schedule some Rest time and take your relationships to a higher level.

Pay attention to MTHR and see all your relationships improve.

How To Win the Lottery In 2019 Without Ever Buying a Ticket!

By Ahsan

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

Have you read this Scottish proverb before?

What does it mean?

One meaning is that wishing does not get you much; otherwise, the homeless person would live in a mansion. Yet we all have at some point wished to win the lottery, haven't we?

Nothing wrong in wishing unless of course, you don't really have to. What if, you could win the lottery at some point in 2019⎯guaranteed! Not only that but without spending a dollar on buying a lottery ticket.

Let’s think about this for a minute. If we did win the lottery in 2019, what would that mean? After buying a few luxurious possessions and paying off all your debt, what else would you get, be, have or do? Go on….dream a little. What would this mean to you?

Ah…to win a million or two that would be so awesome!

I need to let you in on a secret, if I may. You the reader have already won the lottery, you just may not have realized it!

Anyone who has good health⎯won the lottery. Anyone who sleeps peacefully at night without fear of war breaking out⎯won the lottery. Anyone who lives in a free country⎯won the lottery. Anyone who can pursue their dreams, pay for their living and save a bit for a rainy day⎯won the lottery.

It’s all a mindset, isn’t it? The moment you come to realize that you have advantages over 80-90% of the people on the planet, will be the day in 2019 that you, my friend, win the lottery. If you need a bit of help to develop this mindset, please do the following exercise without delay:

Must Do Exercise # 1: Brainstorm Your Strengths

Sit with a blank piece of paper and write down 20 things you are good at.

Must Do Exercise #2: Brainstorm Your Blessings

Sit down with another blank piece of paper and write down 20 blessings that you are grateful for.

Must Do Exercise #3: Multiply Your “Wealth”

Sit down with another piece of paper and come up with a three bullet point action plan for each of your blessings from exercise #2 to be strengthened by one or more of your strengths from exercise #1. Why not combine your strengths with your blessings? It’s a wealth multiplier.

Here are two examples to make things clear. Let’s say you are good at teaching concepts and you are blessed with children, you could consider using your teaching skills to help your kids to excel at public speaking. If you are good at making friends and you are in the middle phase of your career, why not mentor new immigrants at a local job seekers club?

This three-part exercise should take you an hour if you do it conscientiously; however, the richness of the experience and the dividends it will add to your wealth will compound over the rest of your life. No lottery ticket purchased and treasure upon treasure found!

Don't Make Resolutions! Create Your Identity and Live it Every Day!

By Shazad

It's that time of year again!  People will be thinking about what their New Year's resolutions will be and sharing with everyone only to abandon them by mid-February if not sooner.  Resolutions don't work for most people because they are just actions.  Actions need to be tied to something deeper than a date on the calendar or social customs.

Identity is that special something you need to consider and develop.  What is your identity? What are the characteristics or things about you that you believe define you?  What would others say defines you? That is your current identity and the one you are subconsciously supporting whether you know it or not.  Don't be passive about this any more! You need to consciously think about your identity on a regular basis and intentionally define it from now on.  What do you want to be true about you in 2019 and the rest of your life? What actions will you take to make sure they are part of your best possible identity?

Once you figure out those attributes that define you, you will willingly and consistently take the necessary action steps to support that identity. This can be as simple as saying, "I'm the kind of person that takes care of my health every day, no matter what!". This identity would require the person to always eat good food in moderation and make sure they get their daily movement to maintain health. Another example of an identity is "I'm the kind of person who is patient, kind and considerate to everyone." and this kind of person would make sure they are always polite, they would never get angry at small things or use harsh language towards anyone. 

Write down all the words and phrases that you want to be part of your Awesome identity and review these once a week, if not every day!  This will help you to define the best New Year's and Life Resolutions for you... and motivate you to truly live accordingly to this clearly defined and personalized identity.

Happy Awesome New Year to everyone!

Why Travel is Awesome

By Shazad

Both Ahsan and I love to travel and we have been fortunate to see a number of countries and cultures. I have personally been across both Canada and USA from coast to coast and have also visited UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Turkey and Pakistan. I plan to visit many more cities and countries to improve my awareness and understanding of humanity. Let’s look at 3 reasons why I think Travel is an awesome part of the journey of #HumanTransformation.

Travel helps you become more aware of people around you and their background. By going to a different place with a different language, you get some more perspective on what people value and think compared to you. You will often find a lot of common points with all people of the world no matter where you go.

Travel gets you out of your comfort zone and forces you to grow through challenges as well as pleasant experiences. That delicious new dish you eat for the first time or the awkward hand waving conversation you have with someone who speaks a different language changes you for the better. This is how some great memories are made!

Travel is movement for the body, mind and soul. You can look back in time at historical places and cultures as well as look towards the future by seeing new kinds of thinking or new ways of doing things. You will experience holistic change in your being without the use of any special pharmaceuticals.

I hope you are inspired to travel more and will make 2019 the year you get out there to discover a new place or return to an old favourite one with new perspective. See what you might have missed and go where the people are because the world is meant to be seen!

How To Solve Your Biggest Challenges

As long as we continue to breathe, we will all have challenges. Overcoming our challenges is what makes life both interesting and well…challenging.

We tend to find varying solutions to our challenges, many of which the school of life teaches us.

These solutions may seem random when compared to the previous ones we used; however, they do have an underlying commonality in their birth. It is the purpose of this article to draw your awareness to what is the common denominator of all these solutions.

Solutions to problems are often born out of deep contemplation and often flash into our minds. They feel intuitively ideal, when they do.

The common denominator is awareness. Being aware, is the initial step to progress in any challenge, endeavour or goal you might have. 

Become aware.

AWARE---that is to say Accept Willingly All Reality Empathetically.

Be accepting of the situation and circumstances.

Do this willingly, that is do not resist or ignore your issue/challenge.

This mindset is to be applied to all of your knotty challenges/problems/conundrums.

Handle your challenges by asking what is the reality of things.

Be empathetic and kind to yourself so that you can see and accept your situation.

Use your emotional and intellectual intelligence to get to the heart of your challenges. Contemplate. Deeply.

Awareness is an overlooked aspect of overcoming challenges. Let’s look at a few examples below:

To be grateful for your many blessings, you must be aware of them. Gratitude requires awareness. To improve your marks in school you must be aware of your study habits in the classroom and at home. Good marks require awareness. To excel at your career or business, you must be aware of the key skills you need to address. Career/Business success requires awareness. To be healthy you need to be aware of your diet, sleep, exercise, and stress habits. Good health requires awareness. Once we are aware, we can start to see the obvious next steps.

Don’t despair, become AWARE. Beware of not being AWARE.

Accept willingly all reality empathetically so as to advance yourself. You are not an average person if you are reading an article like this, in this day and age. You are one of the seekers and an obvious winner.  By becoming

AWARE you will separate yourself from the crowd. 
Action Steps
1. Make a list of 5 things you feel you need to address in your life right now.

2. Let's say it is: 1) Improving your health 2) Paying off debts 3) Strengthening a relationship 4) Improving your happiness and 5) Organizing your important personal files and documents. Think deeply and summon your power of awareness, as you consider each item, one by one.

3. List each revelation and turn it into an action step. 1)Eating more vegetables on a daily basis. 2) Earning more by taking a course. 3) Giving attention to your significant other. 4) Spending dedicated time daily, to enjoy a hobby. 5) Carving out time to clean up and update your files on a weekly basis. 

4. Implement. And bask in the glory of your sense of accomplishment from having acted.

5. Share AWARE often and always!

How Do You Eliminate Fear?

By Ahsan

I am sure you are eager to find out the answer to this important question. The interesting thing is that the answer may not satisfy you because you might think it is too simple.

Fearing something is not an unnatural thing to do. We all have fears. The majority of us have two or more major fears. These fears can often make our lives difficult and sometimes make life miserable.

Let us imagine for a moment that you have a fear of going out to new places, so much so that your life is now limited to living at home, going to work, visiting your best friend and the local mall. You routinely decline invitations to go out with coworkers or to the movies with friends with the excuse of being busy. Your life is limited.

So how do you eliminate fear? Just follow this two step process:

The first step to is to ask: Why eliminate fear?

If you think about it, life is most enjoyed when we are feeling relaxed and happy; not tense and fearful. This is why we should give attention to the question of: Why eliminate fear? So you can fully live life and enjoy it. Life is short and it should be awesome!

The second step is to do what you fear.

It was the American Philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson who said: “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain”. Start accepting invitations and see how it goes. Hopefully you can try. I know this is easier said than done. You might find that it is not as bad as you imagine. Your imagination is part to blame. We make monsters in our heads and we need to chase them away by doing the things that we see as horror movies.

This then, is how you eliminate fears.

Ask why you should eliminate your fear. Face it and do it, even if it is in baby steps (psychologists call this desensitization). Get yourself a bit more comfortable each time you “face and do”. Just give it a try. Fears are indeed personal. Fears are best understood by the person who deals with them. They are however, handcuffs on your wrists for a crime you never committed. Try to unlock them with the key of “face and do” and start to really enjoy your life! Live Awesome!

Be Awesome NOT Average

By Shazad

Many people spend so much of their time blending in or joining crowds of average people. We then wonder why we cant stand out from everyone else when looking for a job, a partner in life or in a service we are trying to offer to the public.

I want you to think of “average” as a bad word for many areas of life. It means being lumped together with the masses of people and not having an individual personality or voice in your life. It’s better to make your own path and your own future by being extraordinary in whatever you do. If you are looking for an amazing place to work or to establish an amazing business, you have to become that yourself. You need to raise the bar and go above and beyond expectations. It’s the same for finding a partner in life who should not be just an average human being that you can tolerate. You want to have lifelong bliss and growth with a person who believes that life gets even better when two above average people get together. These same two people have children who they encourage to aim high and live up to their full potential in everything they do. That’s how we break away from the majority of people who are just trying to survive life.

In the future as in the present, it’s not doing anyone any good to blend in and become an ‘average’ person. The world needs every one of us to live up to our highest capabilities on a regular basis to move ourselves and society forward. This is the only way we can each win in work, relationship and life as a whole.

Are You Driven to be AWSM?

By Shazad

Acronyms help us remember important things. Those things we know we should develop in our life or become. The familiar gear pattern in an automatic car has the acronym PRND. I want to give you a new one to think about to drive your life - the acronym is AWSM.

AWSM stands for Awareness Wisdom System Management and each word represents a “gear” you will cycle through to live your best life. Awareness means being aware of what’s happening around you, inside your own mind as well as your responses to situations. Using the best practices and thinking from all of human history to deal with daily life is called wisdom. A step by step approach to improving yourself in a structured way with daily practices that work together is your systems “gear”. The 4’th “gear” in AWSM is like the Drive gear in your car. This is the one that involves taking all the awareness, wisdom and systems and putting them into motion to get somewhere. The Management gear is where you move your entire being towards a greater goal and keep moving until you achieve that goal. The M also stands for movement. You keep moving faster by building strength, guidance and focus from the A-W-S gears to accelerate forward. This will put you on the road to many Awesome destinations in life!

3 Skills for the Future

By Shazad

Many people are concerned about what the future of jobs will look like 5, 10 and even 20 years from now. I believe many of the top skills of today will be amplified in the near future for success in the coming years. I will briefly cover 3 of these high demand skills below.

First, the power of curiosity and desire to learn cannot be understated. Whatever your age is or will be, you need to learn and keep on learning. Learning to learn new things is the ultimate career and life skill humanity will always need.

Second, the ability to communicate clearly and in multiple formats for multiple audiences. Whether this means you become a better speaker or writer or online video content creator, the choice is yours. Find out what areas you need to improve upon and work on them to become recognized leader in your field.

Third, and certainly not the least important, is the ability to make sense of information so that it becomes wisdom. There is so much information being generated and transmitted today and it will increase even more in the future. Those who can extract meaning and useful knowledge will become leaders of tomorrow. Those few who can combine the knowledge to make it into a big picture viewpoint will be the Leader of leaders and the most valuable for humanity.

Don’t wait for the future to arrive. It’s just a day away and your ability to develop yourself in the 3 key areas above will determine how well you do. Prepare today for an Awesome future.

Join a Team to Multiply your success!

By Shazad

There is a lot we can do on our own but so much more we can do when we join forces with other people who are focused on improving themselves and changing the world.

Find someone who is willing to give up short term gain for long term success. Partner with one or more people like this to work on problems together. It can be simple things in your community or bigger issues affecting the world. The concentrated effort of many people working on improving things cannot be understated. There is nothing that has changed the world as much as groups of people working together to solve problems.

Even superheroes get stronger when they work as part of a team. Who will be in your team of Awesome people?

How To Make Progress in Your Career and Life

By Shazad

Having progress or forward momentum in life is what makes life interesting as well as giving us purpose. That feeling of being stuck or standing still for many days without progress can make a person seriously ill as well as non-productive. I’m going to offer some ideas on how to move forward and keep moving forward every year.

Step 1 is to Increase your awareness of the industry you work in and learn the industry vocabulary as much as you can. Learn new terms, phrases and ideas every month by reading your industry blogs, newsletters and articles.

Step 2 is to Design your work using a specific and detailed career plan. This helps to make sure you are heading in direction you intended through your daily and weekly work. Write out your ideal next level in your career or business.  Describe in detail what your daily routine would be, what your expected income will be and how you would feel during the day.  You should list your top 3 responsibilities in this next level role and what you will be contributing to society when you reach this higher level.

Step 3 is to Review your career development plan.  Revise or confirm your plan as needed with more detail or refine it to take out any unnecessary parts. Check your current actions, beliefs and habits to make sure they align with what you are aiming for. If they do not align,  adjust to get back on track to achieve your ideal future state.

That’s it. Just 3 steps to become more aware, develop a forward moving plan and then executing on that plan every day. The goal is to keep creating and achieving higher quality plans in life and not stopping once you have achieved the immediate next level plan. This is how you keep making progress and keep growing in life.

Start a New Year in September

By Shazad

In my opinion, it feels like a new year every September!  Young and older students are heading back to school while others are headed back to full-time work after some vacation time.  The weather usually starts to change  and everyone seems to be focussed on achievement again.

This is perfect time to review your goals and renew your pledge to achieve them.  Perhaps you want to start new goals in September and get a head start on next year by marking this month as your New Years moment.  Everything around you is offering motivation for doing so and it's not likely to be any easier on January 1. Use this energy to make changes and become better.  Make this month your time to start or re-start something great and Live Awesome!

When the Coachable Student is ready, the Teacher appears

In business and in life, there are teaching moments worth noting. This is especially true in the beginning when you are starting something new and may feel you are not able to do anything right. It can be frustrating time for anyone starting a job or a new business but it’s normal to go through the pain.  You should have some more senior people around you can coach you and you should listen to them!

You will receive useful guidance on how to address problems as well as follow through on important tasks.  You will, no doubt, make some mistakes along the way which is expected and you will get feedback quickly about your mistakes - listen to it!  That feedback is valuable coaching for you to listen to and understand and then act on.  Make sure you understand what went wrong and then follow the coaching you are getting for improvement. This will make your progress at work a lot faster and your productivity that much better.  Remember, it's not personal criticism and we all need good coaches in our lives to get to the next level.

Managers and Business people are not looking for “Perfect” people to work with but they are looking for coachable people that will listen and learn.  If you become one of these people from the very start and then remain coachable throughout your working life, you will always have opportunities to advance and succeed.

Why You Need to Think Big to Be Happy

By Ahsan

Have you ever been hit with the blues? Have you ever lost a bit of that pep in your step or just felt a bit aimless? Contrast that with how you feel when you are preparing for a big occasion, like a night out with friends or attending a wedding. Usually, the feeling is one of being engaged, focused and generally happy. When we are feeling off, it is usually because we are thinking about things in the past and ruminating over a “I wish I had…” thoughts or we are looking at the present and feeling bored.

It is in the future that we begin to see ourselves in motion and start feeling engaged, focussed and happier. In other words, when you are feeling blue and with nothing to do, pivot your thoughts to a bigger future.

What does this mean? A bigger future is all about challenging yourself to be, do or have something that represents growth and change from your current situation. It could mean pursuing higher education, it could mean becoming fitter and stronger, it could mean adding one hundred thousand dollars to your present investments by working on your earning abilities.

Why does this work as a way for getting out of a funk? It’s simple isn’t it? You become engaged in planning how you will build your bigger future, you get focussed on the doing and action steps and habits and all the while, compared to being in Bluesville, you change your address to happy town.

Action Steps:

1. Sit down with yourself and or a good friend and brainstorm something that you want for your future. Here we mean a “be”, “do”, or “have” type desire.

2. Repeat step one another two times so you have three things in front of you.

3. Now that you have the three things to contemplate, imagine yourself accomplishing your bigger future.

4. Note and internally capture that feeling.

5. Get working on the one you intuitively feel most excited about.

6. Keep the other two handy so you can begin on them when you know the time is right.

There you go. Don’t stay in first gear, get going by seeing a bigger future for yourself and multiply your happiness.