15 Sep 11 How to succeed at anything
How to succeed at anything
by Catlin Reid
It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to succeed at work, in your relationship or with your wealth the principles are the same. Accredited nutritionist and exercise physiologist Caitlin Reid provides you with the top six tips that will help you succeed no matter what.
1. Know what you want
You must have the desire to succeed. This means you need to know what you want in life and be able to identify the actions that you need to take to achieve your goals. Goals provide a guide to your destination in life and without them, others determine where you’ll end up.
2. Never give up
Persistence is the number one thing for being successful. It’s easy for people to become disheartened when they are criticised or encounter a hurdle while trying to achieve their goals, but to be a true success you must persist through the criticism, rejection, pressure and failure. A fighting spirit will make you succeed.
3. Believe in yourself
To be successful you need to have a positive outlook and believe that you can achieve your goals. When you feel good about yourself, you react more confidently to life’s challenges. If you believe in yourself and push yourself through shyness and self-doubt you will succeed more far than you will fail. Believe and you will achieve.
4. Never stop learning
Successful people never stop learning. They learn from their mistakes, new experiences and other people. Learning at every opportunity increases your knowledge in old and new areas and keeps you ahead in your field. Read books, acquire new skills and seek additional training and it will definitely set you apart from the rest.
5. Do what you love
To do something well you must at least like it, but it helps to love it. Being passionate about the things you spend your time on is energising and motivates you to succeed. Do what you love, and success will come.
6. Avoid conditional happiness
Too many of us believe that if some problem resolved itself we would finally be happy. But striving for happiness without sitting back and finding happiness at this particular point in your life is no way to live. Successful people avoid delayed gratification and don’t sit around waiting for problems to resolve. Successful people find happiness at every instance, rather than just when they think things are going right for them.
29 Jul 11 Study Backs up Strategies for Achieving Goals
Psychology professor Dr. Gail Matthews has advice for those who put ‘stop procrastinating’ on their list of New Year’s resolutions: Share your goals with a friend.
Research recently conducted by Matthews shows that people who wrote down their goals, shared this information with a friend, and sent weekly updates to that friend were on average 33% more successful in accomplishing their stated goals than those who merely formulated goals.
Matthews became interested in the study of procrastination about 10 years ago after reading an article in Fast Company magazine about the “1953 Yale Study of Goals.” The premise of the study — that people who write down specific goals for their future are far more likely to be successful than those who have either unwritten goals or no specific goals at all — has inspired the teachings of many self-help authors and personal coaches.
The only trouble is that the study was never actually conducted. The 1996 Fast Company article debunked the Yale study as little more than an often-quoted urban legend.
However, Matthews’ research now backs up the conclusions long attributed to the mythical Yale study.
“With the proliferation of business and personal coaching and the often anecdotal reports of coaching success, it is important that this growing profession be founded on sound scientific research,” Matthews said.
Matthews recruited 267 participants from a wide variety of businesses, organizations, and networking groups throughout the United States and overseas for a study on how goal achievement in the workplace is influenced by writing goals, committing to goal-directed actions, and accountability for those actions. Participants ranged in age from 23 to 72 and represented a wide spectrum of backgrounds.
Participants in Matthews’ study were randomly assigned to one of five groups.
Group 1 was asked to simply think about the business-related goals they hoped to accomplish within a four-week block and to rate each goal according to difficulty, importance, the extent to which they had the skills and resources to accomplish the goal, their commitment and motivation, and whether they had pursued the goal before (and, if so, their prior success).
Groups 2-5 were asked to write their goals and then rate them on the same dimensions as given to Group 1.
Group 3 was also asked to write action commitments for each goal.
Group 4 had to both write goals and action commitments and also share these commitments with a friend.
Group 5 went the furthest by doing all of the above plus sending a weekly progress report to a friend.
Broadly categorized, participants’ goals included completing a project, increasing income, increasing productivity, improving organization, enhancing performance/achievement, enhancing life balance, reducing work anxiety, and learning a new skill. Specific goals ranged from writing a chapter of a book to listing and selling a house.
Of the original 267 participants, 149 completed the study. These participants were asked to rate their progress and the degree to which they had accomplished their goals.
At the end of the study, the individuals in Group 1 only accomplished 43 percent of their stated goals. Those in Group 4 accomplished 64 percent of their stated goals, while those in Group 5 were the most successful, with an average 76 percent of their goals accomplished.
“My study provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of three coaching tools: accountability, commitment, and writing down one’s goals,” Matthews said.
29 Jul 11 What They Don’t Teach you at Harvard Business School
What They Don’t Teach you at Harvard Business School (Audio Book)
Bantam | ISBN: 0553345834 | 1986 | MP3 | 82 MB
"Business demands innovation. There is a constant need to feel around the fringes, to test the edges, but business schools, out of necessity, are condemned to teach the past.’
– Mark H. McCormack, from "What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School" published by Bantam Books.
Mark McCormack is the founder of International Management Group, a multimillion-dollar, worldwide corporation that is a consultant to fifty Fortune 500 companies, a major producer of television programming and credited as the single most important influence in turning sports into big business.
Listen to McCormack as he tells you how to — read people — create the right first impression — take the leading edge -run and attend meetings — the secrets of successful selling and moving up within the organization.
McCormack shares his experience, technique and wisdom, his street smart insights and skills, in a practical, how-to manner. Business will never be the same!
29 Jul 11 Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined
The Harvard MBA program is extremely competitive, and today admits approximately 15% of applicants. In the 60′s the acceptance rate was about 30%, down to 25% in the 70s, and has fluctuated between 10-15% ever since. Students who make it past the application process are typically standouts, and already fairly successful by most traditional definitions – they have an undergraduate degree, typically three to five years of work experience and were considered suitable for acceptance into the Harvard Business School.
The average Harvard MBA graduate starts at $115K with a $20K signing bonus. Nonetheless, some graduates of the Harvard MBA program end up being MUCH more successful than others in the long run.
(Source: Harvard’s MBA Statistics Page)
So, Why Do 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined ?
The answer is a simple question: “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” In 1979, interviewers asked new graduates from the Harvard’s MBA Program and found that :
- 84% had no specific goals at all
- 13% had goals but they were not committed to paper
- 3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them
In 1989, the interviewers again interviewed the graduates of that class. You can guess the results:
- The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.
- Even more staggering – the three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.
(Source: from the book What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, by Mark McCormack)
29 Jul 11 My Goals free online software – writing goals – part8
Try our free online software tool “My Goals” to write your goals. register now
Watch Video Demo
Read More on Goals
Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined
