Saturday, July 21, 2012

Getting Fired Is The First Sign That You Will End Up A Success

Source:
http://www.successstories.co.in/getting-fired-is-the-first-sign-that-you-will-end-up-a-success/




Disheartened of getting fired? Never be. It can be a sign that you are destined not to work for others and it is high time you should pursue your passion. You are going to be a winner so start thinking and looking like one. All you need to do is take some time off and listen to yourself. Think about these most successful people who would have continued their jobs if they had never been fired. You might be the next! Getting fired isn’t the end of the world; it can be the beginning of a brand new life.

One night in 1867, while Edison was busy experimenting with a lead-acid battery, he was preoccupied and accidently spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. He was fired the next morning. Today he is known as the most famous American scientist and prolific inventors of all time.

Radio legend Howard Stern, famous as “shock jock” for being too straight-forward and blunt, was fired from NBC. Today, apart from being a famous radio host, he is a successful television host, author, actor, and photographer, earning over $US70 million a year.

While working at the Kansas City Star Newspaper, Walt Disney was accused of lacking imagination, creative ideas and sincerity by his boss and was fired immediately. Today, we remember him to be the most creative,imaginative, and talented cartoonist in the world.

JK Rowling was a secretary for the London office of Amnesty International, but she was passionate about writing and dreamed of becoming a writer. She was fired when her boss saw a daydreamed story and teenage wizard named Harry Potter in her computer. Today, she is the multi-billionaire author of the most
successful book series of all time.

Vogue Editor Anna Wintour began her career as a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar in New York. Fromthe very beginning she was creative and created her own impression for her original shoots. Her boss was pessimistic about her try and fired her. Today, she is the most innovative and widely praised and acclaimed fashion editor in the world. She says from her own experience, “I recommend that you all get fired.”

Madonna, a fame seeking stylish cheek, had a rough start and got fired for many times from her fast food and waitressing jobs before finally getting introduced to the city’s punk rock music scene in 1979. Today,
she is known as the world’s top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records.

Mark Cuban, founder of MicroSolutions, started his career as a salesman at a computer store. One day he was late in opening the shop because of his important meeting with one client and he got fired for his being late. It was the last time he ever worked for anybody. He pursued his own passion of creating and cultivating business opportunity and started his own company MicroSolutions which has made over $2.4 billion.

Jerry Seinfeld, an American stand-up comedian, actor, film producer, who is widely known for his playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, had a considerably small role on the sitcom Benson and was finally fired after three episodes. He was accused of lacking talent and humiliated.

David Sarnoffs Quotes

Source: http://www.successstories.co.in/david-sarnoff-from-office-boy-to-leading-the-radio-corporation-of-america/

David Sarnoffs Quotes To Live By:

    “Nobody can be successful if he doesn’t love his work, love his job.”

    “Success, in a generally accepted sense of the term, means the opportunity to experience and to realize to the maximum the forces that are within us.”

    “The will to persevere is often the difference between failure and success.”

    “What the human mind can conceive and believe it can accomplish.”

    “Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving.”

    “Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.”

10 Choices Winners Make



Source:http://www.successstories.co.in/10-choices-winners-make/


1. Never give up! We are all born to be winners! It just is that some of us have lost the way to success.

Winners are people like you and me but what distinguishes them is their master plan to win with strength intenacity, courage in heart, limitless spirit and focused mind. They are determined to keep on dreaming and
accomplishing what they feel they deserve by walking on the most dangerous and difficult path with a series of short perseverance in long term plan to success.

Howard Schultz is an American business mogul who is best known as CEO of the global coffee house

Starbucks. His father would do several anonymous jobs such as truck driver, factory worker as taxi driver to

support his family. But he encouraged Schultz to dream big and be what he wanted to. Later, Schultz

became the first person from his family to attend university education. To accomplish his dreams, he went to

several banks with his business plan but his loan applications were turned down because of his poor

background. Even after being rejected for over 200 times, he never gave up. Had he given up, Starbucks

would not have been in the shape what it looks today.
“It doesn’t really matter how many times you fall, what matters is how many times you get up with craze,

and continue the journey toward the destination.”


Walt Disney failed in almost every front of his life, went through hellish experiences, suffered from

depression, and anger but took his extreme struggle as a road to opportunity and finally reached his

destination. He was fired by a newspaper editor who accused him by saying “he lacked imagination and had

no good ideas”. He went bankrupt several times before finally building the Disneyland, but his wisdom and

never-give-up attitude rewarded him at last. He was rejected by over 300 investors but he didn’t give up. If

he had given up, there would be no Disney Land today.

An American physicist and inventor Robert Goddard who is known as the father of modern rocketry found

himself to be severely and bitterly criticized and his ideas were rejected by his own scientific peers on the

grounds that ‘rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space’ but he didn’t give

up and continued to work on his idea.

If there is no extreme struggle, there is no greater accomplishment!


2. Improve your financial condition and get rich; if can’t, then die trying. Curtis James Jackson (50 cent) has

sent out the message loud and clear through his first album, “Get rich or die trying”. He was the son of a 15

year old single mother who was forced to work as a drug dealer, and he himself worked as a drug dealer. He

was caught as a teen and sent to correctional center but returned a better man determined to change his

life. At the age 25, he was shot 9 times, faced his fears but took every chance to improve his life and he

successfully did.

Promise yourself to try your best, if Curtis James Jackson could, why not you? If you feel like giving up, read

about those great achievers on how they did it. You will feel light and thankful to be blessed with everything

required to accomplish.

3. Appreciate what you have instead of complaining because it does not make you smart or sophisticated.

Wishing or lamenting over what we don’t have is like letting the valuable time go from our hand with which

we can achieve what nobody could.


The South African Double-amputee Oscar Pistorius will be the First ever Amputee Track Athlete to Compete

at Olympics against able-bodied Athletes. He is known to be the ‘Blade Runner’ and “the fastest man on no

legs.” He lost his legs when he was only 11 months old in a rare disease. He had several difficulties to

stumble upon (what is saddest to me is that despite of his physical disabilities, he had to face difficulties

created by the able-bodied people) but he didn’t give up and will never.

Still you feel you should compliant about your trivial difficulties?

4. Avoid negative people around you. Successful people were always discouraged or criticized by

naysayers but they continued their voyage ignoring them. Naysayers will always try to hold you back

because they haven’t walked on your shoes and are always in search of a safe and comfortable journey.

When Alex Tew came up with the idea of The Million Dollar Homepage, negative people tried their best to

criticize his concept as weird or strange. Think what would have happened if he had listened to them? The

Million Dollar Homepage wouldn’t exist and he wouldn’t be called the Fastest Internet Millionaire.

5. They dedicate themselves for their passion. Nurture your passion which makes the world go round.

Remember, nothing great has ever been achieved without passion.


Steve jobs would be the finest example to cite. He was extremely passionate about exploring new

technology and distinct design. He nourished his passion so religiously that he made Apple one of the biggest

companies in the world. Experts say Apple could be worth US $535 dollars, and there are many who call it

to be equal to three Googles and two Microsofts.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you

believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet,

keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great

relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

– Steve jobs

6. Fail but don’t fear to fail. Dare to take risk and accept challenges; dare to go for impossible; dare to fail

better and repeatedly because that’s how successful people find their way of success.

Thomas A. Edison, the most influential scientist in the world, failed over a thousand times but he had no time

to think about failure. He kept on working on his questions, actions, and experiments; failure or success was

only the answer of the experiments.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~Thomas Edison


7. Winners are always open to consistent learning. Exploring, dreaming, discovering and learning new things

should never be stopped; otherwise, some years down the line, you will regret standing in the same place.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did

do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.

Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

8. Challenge your brain because nothing is more challenging than that. There is no constraint like

‘LIMITATION’ in thinking or imagining your brain as it is the most powerful resource of everything, and if there

is any then that is given to you by your mind and not brain. The more you challenge your brain, the more

you explore. You can play puzzles, develop a habit to read and explore, learn new languages, spend time

with problem solving games, do photography or try hands in painting.

Sir Isaac Newton would keep questioning to himself and spend hours and days seeking answers to the

self-imposed questions. He used his brain in the best possible way and therefore considered to be the most

influential and powerful mathematician, physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, and theologian and

alchemist on earth.


9. Great people stay inspired and make positive changes by taking action. Your positive thinking makes a big

difference; when you are positive, you grow even in stressful circumstances, see the invisible, and

accomplish the impossible.

“There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is

attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” - W. Clement Stone

10. Great people always complete their duty without wasting much time on thinking about the result. Waiting

for result is like sentencing yourself to continuous frustration. Result is inevitable when action is done with

soul and heart – positive or negative.

Paulo Coelho: A Common Man’s Uncommon Journey

Source: http://www.successstories.co.in/paulo-coelho-a-common-mans-uncommon-journey/



Once, a child born in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil was admitted to a mental institution when his parents discovered

that he was an introvert rebel, aspiring to be a writer. It is difficult to control those who express their

rebellion through action, but difficult to contain the rebel minds. After fleeing three times from the institution

he was finally released at the age of twenty.

Going against his wishes, Coelho joined law school but dropped out and began living as a hippie. He travelled

where life took him to, got addicted to drugs, wrote songs, and became an actor, a journalist and a theatre

director before discovering his true passion of becoming a devoted writer.

What makes an all time best-selling Portuguese language author who has his work published in over 71

languages with a widely increasing following say, “My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.”? Be it The

Alchemist (1988), The Valkyries (1992), By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994), Veronika Decides

To Die (1998), The Devil and Miss Prym (2000), Eleven Minutes(2003),The Zahir (2005), The Witch of

Portobello (2006), Aleph(2010) or the 10 second to 1 minute posts on his blog his stories strike a chord with

teens and adults making them feel as if it’s their unique life picture. And his work paints a different colour

every time one reads it.

What makes the every reader identify himself with Paulo Coelho’s work?
It’s the remarkable journey he has taken, which is a symbol of our life; which is filled with fear of the

unknown, hatred, frequent pangs of depression, of love which we are afraid of expressing, the way we are

pulled back into this ‘civilized’ society time and again, where we are told to ‘keep quiet and stand still’ as

children and participate in workshops to ‘develop our personality’ as adults. In a society which expects you

to behave according to the conventions, where an artist’s freedom of expression is sometimes censored by

politicos, Paulo is a being who wants to experience and express life in his own manner regardless of what

others think. As he says in The Alchemist, “Wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure”. It

seems he has found his.

It is a different matter altogether that he has become a widely read author. It is a paradox of our society

that we seek majority and authority for making things a part of our life. The year was 1999 and the sale of

Russian version of The Alchemist was failing. The publisher dropped him. He posted a digital Russian copy of

“The Alchemist on his website. Today the sales of his books in Russia are over 10 million and growing. The

Paulo Coelho Institute founded by him provides support to children and the elderly.

Paulo’s life is a story of seeing the divine within the dust. While his followers on Twitter will soon cross the

five million mark Paulo continues to write, sharing the song of his life.

World Champions








I always find world champions interesting and I love to observe and learn from because they had done what most people could not have achieve and it will be great to know what model their mindsets so that we can achieve excellent results too.
So here are some of the winning habits that I found in world champions.

15 Winning Habits

1. Preparation is key
World champions understand that preparation is the key for them to win the competition. They knew that without thousands of hours put into practice, winning the competition is not possible. That is why they spent most of their time honing their skills and doing it everyday without fail.

2. Extra Effort
One millisecond can make a difference between winning and losing. Athletes in Olympics know this best as they know the difference of a millisecond can make them world champion or just runner up. In order to become the best in the world, they always make the extra effort in their training and push themselves to do more even when they are tired.

3. Have A Goal In Mind
If you can’t see it, you can’t get it. It is not possible for you to get to where you want if you do not know where you want to be in the first place. World champions do not end up as one by chance, they become world champions by having a goal in mind and they will create a plan and follow through it.

4. Get Things Done
Once the plan is laid out for them, they always complete their tasks without fail. With the commitment to always complete their task at hand regardless of how hard it is, there is no doubt that they will achieve incredible results.

5. Momentum
Consistent performers know the secrets of momentum. Once they have a winning run, they know how to ride on it and knock down their opponents. They increase their rate of success by identifying the momentum and tap on it.

6. Play To Win
High achievers have the mindset of playing to win. They do not play to protect their lead, they go all out for a win. In order to become the best, they know that they need to compete with the mindset of becoming number one in the world instead of avoiding to be the last.

7. Persistence
Without persistence, it is hard for anyone to reach the top because the journey towards the top is laid out with obstacles. World champions have the persistence to keep on going forward regardless of how much obstacles they faced. They know it can be hard at times, but they kept on going because they knew that if they don’t give up, they will eventually reach the top.

8. Understanding Your Weakness
Everyone has their fair share of weaknesses and champions have them too. Instead of whining and turn a blind eye about it, they make their best effort to eliminate or minimize their weakness.

9. Play Your Strength
Each and everyone of us have our own unique strength and champions play their game to their strength. They train their strength to expand it to it’s fullest potential so that it will give them an edge over their opponents.

10. Resilience
There are going to be testing times when they missed a last second shot or going through a bad patch but champions have the resilience to bounce back from failure. Instead of letting failure drag them down, they learn from their mistakes and work harder.

11. Play with courage
In order to win the game, champions learn how to conquer their fear. They do not fear mistakes and doubt themselves. They know that once they allow the fear of mistakes and indecisiveness to take over them, they lose their game.

12. Mentor
All champions have their own mentors and they can say that they can’t be where they are today if they do not have any mentor by their side to guide them. A mentor will help them to point out their weaknesses, strengths and also help to give them that extra push whenever it is needed.

13. Passion
Ask anyone who succeed in their field whether they love what they are doing. It is almost guaranteed that they enjoyed it and have great passion in it. Without a passion for the things you do, it is hard to succeed because most probably you are going to give up when the going get tough. Doing things that we are passionate about also help to increase the probability of us following through because we are enjoying every second of it.

14. Optimal Zone
Champions know where is their optimal zone and they focus in staying within it. They create a routine and stick to it so that they will keep their mind and body in optimal condition.

15. Teachability
You can’t be a world champion if you are not teachable. That means being open to new ideas, able to listen with humility and also have the mindset that there are things you can learn in your field regardless of how good you are. Champions know that in order to excel, they need to keep an open mind and absorb knowledge like sponge.

9 Beliefs of Remarkably Successful People






I'm fortunate enough to know a number of remarkably successful people. Regardless of industry or profession, they all share the same perspectives and beliefs.

And they act on those beliefs:

1. Time doesn't fill me. I fill time.

Deadlines and time frames establish parameters, but typically not in a good way. The average person who is given two weeks to complete a task will instinctively adjust his effort so it actually takes two weeks.

Forget deadlines, at least as a way to manage your activity. Tasks should only take as long as they need to take. Do everything as quickly and effectively as you can. Then use your "free" time to get other things done just as quickly and effectively.

Average people allow time to impose its will on them; remarkable people impose their will on their time.

2. The people around me are the people I chose.

Some of your employees drive you nuts. Some of your customers are obnoxious. Some of your friends are selfish, all-about-me jerks.

You chose them. If the people around you make you unhappy it's not their fault. It's your fault. They're in your professional or personal life because you drew them to you--and you let them remain.

Think about the type of people you want to work with. Think about the types of customers you would enjoy serving. Think about the friends you want to have.

Then change what you do so you can start attracting those people. Hardworking people want to work with hardworking people. Kind people like to associate with kind people.

Successful people are naturally drawn to successful people.

3. I have never paid my dues.

Dues aren't paid, past tense. Dues get paid, each and every day. The only real measure of your value is the tangible contribution you make on a daily basis.

No matter what you've done or accomplished in the past, you're never too good to roll up your sleeves, get dirty, and do the grunt work.  No job is ever too menial, no task ever too unskilled or boring.

Remarkably successful people never feel entitled--except to the fruits of their labor.

4. Experience is irrelevant. Accomplishments are everything.

You have "10 years in the Web design business." Whoopee. I don't care how long you've been doing what you do. Years of service indicate nothing; you could be the worst 10-year programmer in the world.

I care about what you've done: how many sites you've created, how many back-end systems you've installed, how many customer-specific applications you've developed (and what kind)... all that matters is what you've done.

Successful people don't need to describe themselves using hyperbolic adjectives like passionate, innovative, driven, etc.

Remarkably successful people don't need to use any adjectives at all. They can just describe, hopefully in a humble way, what they've done.

5. Failure is something I accomplish; it doesn't just happen to me.

Ask people why they have been successful. Their answers will be filled with personal pronouns: I, me, and the sometimes too occasional we.

Ask them why they failed. Most will revert to childhood and instinctively distance themselves, like the kid who says, "My toy got broken..." instead of, "I broke my toy."

They'll say the economy tanked. They'll say the market wasn't ready. They'll say their suppliers couldn't keep up.

They'll say it was someone or something else.

And by distancing themselves, they don't learn from their failures.

Occasionally something completely outside your control will cause you to fail. Most of the time, though, it's you. And that's okay. Every successful person has failed. Numerous times. Most of them have failed a lot more often than you. That's why they're successful now.

Embrace every failure: Own it, learn from it, and take full responsibility for making sure that next time, things will turn out differently.

6. Volunteers always win.

Whenever you raise your hand you wind up being asked to do more.

That's great. Doing more is an opportunity: to learn, to impress, to gain skills, to build new relationships--to do something more than you would otherwise been able to do.

Success is based on action. The more you volunteer, the more you get to act. Successful people step forward to create opportunities.

Remarkably successful people sprint forward.

7. As long as I'm paid well, it's all good.

Specialization is good. Focus is good. Finding a niche is good.

Generating revenue is great.

Anything a customer will pay you a reasonable price to do--as long as it isn't unethical, immoral, or illegal--is something you should do. Your customers want you to deliver outside your normal territory? If they'll pay you for it, fine. They want you to add services you don't normally include? If they'll pay you for it, fine. The customer wants you to perform some relatively manual labor and you're a high-tech shop? Shut up, roll 'em up, do the work, and get paid.

Only do what you want to do and you might build an okay business. Be willing to do what customers want you to do and you can build a successful business.

Be willing to do even more and you can build a remarkable business.

And speaking of customers...

8. People who pay me always have the right to tell me what to do.

Get over your cocky, pretentious, I-must-be-free-to-express-my-individuality self. Be that way on your own time.

The people who pay you, whether customers or employers, earn the right to dictate what you do and how you do it--sometimes down to the last detail.

Instead of complaining, work to align what you like to do with what the people who pay you want you to do.

Then you turn issues like control and micro-management into non-issues.

9. The extra mile is a vast, unpopulated wasteland.

Everyone says they go the extra mile. Almost no actually one does. Most people who go there think, "Wait... no one else is here... why am I doing this?" and leave, never to return.

That's why the extra mile is such a lonely place.

That's also why the extra mile is a place filled with opportunities.

Be early. Stay late. Make the extra phone call. Send the extra email. Do the extra research. Help a customer unload or unpack a shipment. Don't wait to be asked; offer. Don't just tell employees what to do--show them what to do and work beside them.

Every time you do something, think of one extra thing you can do--especially if other people aren't doing that one thing. Sure, it's hard.

But that's what will make you different.

And over time, that's what will make you incredibly successful.

John Stephen Akhwari: The Greatest Last Place Finish in the Olympic History

Source: http://www.successstories.co.in/john-stephen-akhwari-the-greatest-last-place-finish-in-olympic-history/

 
 The story goes back to October 1968 when the first Olympic Games were being staged in Latin America. It was one of the hottest Sunday afternoons of Mexico City when men’s marathon started at 3:00 pm local time.
Out of 74 participants, 17 could not finish the race. At 7pm, it was almost an hour since all marathon runners had crossed the finishing line of 26 mile Olympic marathon in the grueling hot day, suddenly a lone runner wearing the colours of Tanzania emerged through the stadium gate literally hobbling. The event left the last few thousand audiences amazed with what they experienced next – the man emerged was John Stephen Akhwari who, while running, had fallen down and had badly hurt himself. He was bleeding and his knee had got dislocated from the joint.
Considering the severity of his injuries, Akhwari was repeatedly asked to quit the race but he denied. He fell, dragged himself, ran in between but finished the marathon limping over the line. On the finishing line, he received a huge applause and almighty cheers from the little crowd. His body was exhausted but not his spirit; his competitors crossed him one by one but his determination rewarded him in tremendous pain. Akhwari never won any Olympic gold medal but he became the greatest example of never-give-up spirit, and a tale of courage.

When he was asked the reason of doing such kind of crazy act, he replied,

    “My country did not send me 10,000 miles just to start the race; they sent me to finish the race.”

Ever since, John Stephen Akhwari has been honored and symbolized as the living example of courage and determination. In 1983, he was awarded a National Hero Medal of Honor. In 2000, he was invited to the Olympics in Sydney, Australia and 2008 he was invited in Beijing as a goodwill ambassador to inspire the Olympic athletes for the 2008 Games.


How to Master Any Skill





Once you've mastered a skill, it becomes automatic. Here's how to get it right, without the pitfalls.


Mastering a skill requires both theory and practice.  Theory is important, because if you're all about the "doing," you'll waste energy doing the wrong things.  And practice is important because, well, you can read 50 books about sales (for instance) and still crash and burn on your first customer call.

According to best-selling author Greg Wingard (The Red Bucket Strategy and Guaranteed Success), your mind goes through six specific stages when mastering a skill–three in the “theory” segment, and three in the “practice” segment.

The Theory Segment

    Unawareness: You are unaware that there is a skill to be learned.
    Awareness: You realize you need to learn that skill.
    Clarification: You understand what you need to do differently.

The Practice Segment

    Awkwardness: You attempt the new behavior and find it difficult.
    Familiarity: The new behavior is easier but still not automatic.
    Automatic: You no longer think about the behavior but simply do it.

It's when you reach that sixth stage that you have mastered a skill.  Up until that point, the skill requires requires constant and consistent practice. After that point, however, the skill is automatic, like riding a bike.  You may get a bit rusty, but the skill is always there for you to draw upon.

For example, when my father, who played concert piano, went back to college in his 40s, he spent three years without access to a piano. But when he graduated and finally bought a piano, he was back where he'd been as a pianist within about a month.

That's a personal example, but the same is true in business as well.  Your value in the business world is directly tied to the number of skills you've been able to master.  It's those automatic skills that represent your value over your competitors–who are hopefully struggling with the hurly-burly of steps 1 through 5.

The amount and time and effort it takes reach mastery varies according to the complexity of the skill.

Suppose, for instance, that you want to change a habitual negative thought (like “I’m not that good with people”) to a positive alternative (like “people really like me when they get to know me”). That kind of change can be accomplished in less than two weeks, simply through five minutes of daily affirmations.

    Read more:  How to Be Happy at Work

By contrast, changing something major, like your eating habits, can take a commitment of an hour or more a day for six months to a year, or even longer. The reason that so many people never master their diet is that they never reach the point where healthy eating is automatic.

    Read more: Why Entrepreneurs Gain Weight

What You're Up Against

Practicing a new skill until you reach Stage 6 requires single-minded focus. Unfortunately, that kind of focus is difficult to achieve in today’s business word for two reasons. First, there's the problem of distraction.  Life is full of interruptions constantly vying for your attention.

Second, most people over-commit.  When people attempt to make changes in multiple areas of their life, it becomes difficult or impossible to focus on a single change long enough to reach stage 6.

Think how many times you've heard somebody say: “Starting tomorrow, every day I’m going to run three miles, lift weights, drink eight glasses of water, stop smoking, stop drinking coffee ... and eat 50 percent less fat.”

Yeah, right. I'm sure that will happen. The likelihood that anyone can keep up that regimen for more than a few days (let alone reach stage 6 on any element of the regimen) is practically nil.

To overcome distraction, set aside a very small amount of time each day–hopefully less than 10 minutes–to focus on the change in behavior that you seek.  If it's more time than that, the reality is that other priorities will probably intrude.

To overcome the pesky problem of over-commitment, pick a single skill that you wish to master and then focus on that until it becomes automatic.  Then move to the next skill.
5 Important Steps

If you want to change a certain behavior, use these steps to make create a practice regimen that, over time, will make it automatic. With that in mind, here are five simple steps to carry you through all six stages:
1. Script the new behavior.  Write down exactly what you’d like your new behavior to be.  Be specific and make it quantifiable.  Example: I will make 10 cold calls every workday prior to 10am.

2. Practice it ... perfectly. The homily “practice makes perfect” is itself imperfect.  In fact, “perfect practice makes perfect.”  To hard-wire a behavior, you must push yourself to repeat it religiously–and correctly.

3. Rebound and fix. You will probably stumble and forget at first.  Pick yourself up and keep going.  Don’t let a temporary setback turn into an excuse to fail.  Stick with it, despite setbacks.

4. Accelerate through mental rehearsal. The behavior will become automatic more quickly if you take extra time to imagine yourself doing the behavior, thus creating a positive outcome.

5. Make it part of your identity. Turn the behavior into a character attribute that’s part of who you are and what you value. Example: "I’m the cold-calling champion of the region."

Follow those steps successively for each skill. Over time, your breadth of mastery will exceed your highest expectations.

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