When Success is Slow, What Can You Do? When Success is Slow
by Jack Canfield
Pop Quiz: Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What’s the secret for seeing huge results right now?!
I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey – despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.
Let’s get one thing straight…
When we admire someone’s success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort (and time) that it took to get there. This can cultivate unrealistic expectations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and an execution of sound advice.
The truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core – your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.
If you focus on what’s not working, guess what: You’re likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong.
You may even have negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” “It will never work,” or “Something must be wrong with me.”
What this mentally does is engender more of these counter-productive feelings. And given what we know about the Law of Attraction, you attract what you are feeling. So negative experiences, people, and results will beget more negative experience, people, and results. There’s not much success in that.
The key, then, is to focus on what IS working. To do so, I recommend two simple practices: journaling and meditation.
Maintaining a journal (I call it an Evidence Log, Results Journal, or Gratitude Journal) is a great way to steer your attention to the positive and continually renew your vision for yourself.
Start each day with reflections on what you are grateful for in your life (list them out!) and end each day with notes on what went right (again, write them down), however small they may seem.
Spend time each day in quiet contemplation, prayer or meditation.
Meditation can be powerful tool for arriving at solutions to problems and shifting your attitude so you can attract success sooner rather than later. The magic of meditation is its ability to essentially shut down the outer layer of your judgmental, highly-critical brain and allow your unconscious mind to take over. This is where you enter a deeper state of inner peace and joy, tapping into a higher level of creativity that will help usher in the results you want. (Don’t know how to meditate? Lots of books and materials are available to guide you this practice. It’s easier than you think. )
Let’s say you’re doing ALL these things, but you still aren’t happy with your results…
I’ll ask you then, are you taking real ACTION?
You may be taking the actions you are used to taking. But if you keep doing what you’ve already done, then you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten. It’s a matter of practicing some new behaviors. Shake things up a bit and see if you can take new actions or modify existing ones.
Remember the Rule of 5.
Every day do five specific things that take you toward your goal. Change up the five actions regularly and be open to feedback so you know when you’re off course.
Lastly, I want to remind you about patience.
It’s natural to underestimate how long a certain goal can take, especially a profound one. When I set a goal to become a millionaire the year was 1983. How long did it take? Eleven years. It took time for Chicken Soup for the Soul to hit the bestseller lists. You could say our tenure on the New York Times list was more than a decade in the making. That’s a lot of patience for someone who initially wanted overnight success.
So, yes, patience is a virtue. But keep at it, and in no time, you’ll be only one week, or one day away from your ultimate success.
Remember… be grateful, reflect on what IS working and continue to take ACTION!
Source: http://www.soapqueen.com/business/when-success-comes-slowly-2/
“What hurts more? The pain of hard work, or the pain of regret?”
"The Truth is that Running Hurts. No one gets faster without meeting their personal pain barrier straight on. No amount of junk miles, fun runs or affirmations are going to get you over the hill at the five mile mark in a 10k. However, what will pull you through is solid prep with hard hill runs and interval work."
- Manciata's explanation of the Truth about Running
"The pain of disipline is far less than the pain of regret"
- Sarah Bombell, synchronized swimmer
"Your training partner's name is pain. You start out trying to ignore him. Can't do it. You attempt to reason with him. No way. You try to strike a bargain. Hah. You plead. You say "Please stop, please go away. I promise never ever to do this again if you just leave me alone." But he won't. Pain only climbs off if you do. Then you're beaten. "
- Scott Martin
"Sweet is Pleasure after Pain"
- Dirigo Rowing Shell advertisement
"You have never lived till you’ve almost died. For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know.”
A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.
The moth seemed to be stuck and appeared to have stopped making progress. It seemed as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. The man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth; so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily. But its body was swollen and small, its wings wrinkled and shriveled.
The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to and able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a small, swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
The man in his kindness and haste did not understand that the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was necessary to force fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight upon achieving its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the moth of health.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets, and don't forget the power in the struggle.
Source: http://www.motivateus.com/stories/lifes.htm
Don't ask me what fairness is, even myself cannot differentiate.
I need to learn to let go of the past and learn to love from now on.
*Xiao Girl left today at 9am plus.
To all across the world, whom I've had the precious opportunity to meet.
To all walks of life, whom I've had a great childhood, high school, college days with.
Wow, it's been 21 years and I must say it's been a long journey.
In life, we have people:
1. who are important to us
2. who were important to us
3. who used to be important and still kind of important
In the end, when will we be free to connect with all these important people?
When we are so caught up in the busy-ness of life? The impossible schedule at school? at work?
The fact is, we don't really break out of this cycle until well, when we choose to. =)
so Let's break this cycle, because... It's Been A While..
It's Been A While since I took the time to write..
Because there are too many unspoken words
and words only distort the true feeling I want to convey
It's Been A While since I care enough to write..
Because caring always seem to come at a cost
and caring so much confuses people .
It's Been A While since I make time to do so anyway..
Because making time is scary
and "having no time" is the perfect excuse.
It's Been A While since I choose to reflect no matter what..
Because reflecting reminds us of all the people who we shared this journey with
and appreciate life for what it really is-- good or bad.
It's Been A While since I thought of telling you this..
Because it's been too long that I have waited for
"Thank you, for each laughter, each tear of joy.. tear of sadness, you made my life a bit more interesting.. would have not been as amazingly awesome and crappy without you! haha.." ;)
When was the last time you appreciated someone simply for making your life more interesting-- simply for who they are?
Best Wishes-- wherever you are in the world, whenever we met,
King/Andy-- the person who is quiet, shy, talk a bit, talk too much
Laugh when you need to laugh
Cry when you need to cry
LIVE when you want to LIVE!
The emptiness within me can only be filled up with love and compassion for others.
We will leave this world with nothing but memories
I recently talked to 2 friends who have pretty different perspectives on money. But both of them have one single worry – money is not enough.
1. One of them is my ex-colleagues. I dropped him a message in MSN (not sure if he’s reading this) and asked how is he doing. He told me life sux when one is not a millionaire. My immediate reply (yes, I didn’t even spend more than 10 seconds) was that he might still think life sux when he is a millionaire but not a billionaire. And he agreed. I can sense he’s under some financial pressures but well, is life really all about money? What happens to contentment? What happens to appreciating what you have?
2. Then few days later, the other friend of mine related to me about his baby daughter having fever. It was quite bad, around 39 degrees. And for someone that young, it was very dangerous. Fortunately she has recovered. My friend then decided to try and get a thermometer in case the daughter gets fever again in the future. However, he soon found out that the cheapest thermometer is around RM 140. My friend is a very thrifty person since he alone has to support his entire family. His wife is working but her salary is not enough to cover her own expenses. She spends a lot on dresses, bags and other branded goods. So in the end, both my friend and his wife decided not to buy the thermometer. Oh yea, my friend did not know how his wife spends her salary. =_=
Notice what is wrong with these 2 scenarios? I’m sure you can.
The first one lost track of what matters most in life and keeps chasing after money. It’s a typical thing that most of us would do, myself included. Let’s be honest, money is always important but if we allow the lack of money to ruin our life and label life as SUX, then it’s pretty obvious something has gone wrong. Our life should not be dictated by the amount of money we have. There are still plenty of things that cannot be bought by money. Why not learn to accept what we have, enjoy our life and also learn to appreciate things as they are? Why want to make ourselves suffer by keep thinking that life’s sux if we’re not millionaire? And most importantly….what’s next once you’ve achieved the status of millionaire? Billionaire? Then what’s after that?
The second one, on the other hand, lost track of what matters more to him – his daughter. Is his daughter’s well-being less important than RM 140? It’s not wrong to be thrifty but there are things that should not be avoided. And what about his wife? Why is she willing to spend thousands on luxury goods but not RM 140 on the daughter? Will they be happy if their daughter gets seriously ill? What if something bad happens to the poor girl? Will they look back upon this stupid decision of theirs and regret?
Sometimes, it saddens me to see how money is changing the world. People have forgotten what matters most to them. Either that, or they have defined the wrong meaning of ‘happiness’. Yes, we can’t survive without money but no, money is not everything in this world.
I recently finished Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith. It’s a very good book and in one of the pages, they talked about how a baby gets born to this world with a clenched fist. Because it is human nature to try and grab everything we can. But when we leave this world, our hand will be pale and empty.
Because, at the end of the day, there’s nothing we can bring together with us except for 1 thing – the memories our loved ones have of us while we’re still here. And how long those memories last would depend on what we do while we’re here.
http://blog.alvinlim.info/2010/06/02/we-will-leave-this-world-with-nothing-but-memories/