THE21 SUCCESSSECRETS OF$ELF-MADEMILLIONAIRE$
1623 Words
Determine
Your Highest
Priorities and
Concentrate on
Them SingleMindedly
“A double minded man is unstable
in all his ways.” Do what comes
to your hand to do.
—BRIAN TRACY
WHEN YOU DEVELOP the habit of setting priorities and
concentrating single-mindedly, you will be able to accomplish virtually anything you want in life. This core
strategy has been the primary reason for high income,
wealth creation, and financial independence for thousands and even millions of people.
Your ability to determine your highest priority and
then to work on that high priority until it is completed
is the primary test and measure of your willpower,
self-discipline, and personal character. It is the hardest
habit to develop but also the most important if you
want to be a big success.
Here is the formula. Make a list of everything you
have to do before you begin working toward any goal.
Set priorities on that list by asking yourself four questions, over and over.
Question number one is, What are my highest
value activities? What do you do that is more valuable
than anything else to your work and your business?
Question number two is, Why am I on the payroll? What exactly have you been hired to accomplish?
Focus on results, not activities.
Question number three is, What can I and only I
do that, if done well, will make a real difference?
This is a particular task that only you can do. If you
don’t do it, it won’t get done. But if you do do it and
you do it well, it can make a significant difference in
your business or your personal life. What is that task?
Question number four is, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? There is only one answer to this question at any time. Your ability to
determine the single most valuable use of your time and then to start on that task is the key to high productivity and financial success.
Finally, commit to working single-mindedly on one
task, the most important task, and staying at it until it
is 100 percent complete. Persevere without diversion
or distraction. Push yourself to keep working at the job
until it is done.
The good news is that by continually setting priorities and concentrating on your highest value tasks,
you will soon develop the habit of high performance.
This habit will then become automatic and will virtually guarantee you great success in life. This one habit
alone can make you a self-made millionaire.
◆
ACTION EXERCISE
Identify the most important thing that
you can do right now to achieve your
most important goal and then discipline yourself to do that, and only that,
until it is 100 percent complete. Your
ability to do this, and this alone, can
change your whole life
Develop a
Reputation for
Speed and
Dependability
Do your work; not just your work
and no more, but a little bit more for
the lavishings sake, that little more
which is worth more than all the rest.
—DEAN BRIGGS
TIME IS THE currency of the 21st century. Everyone
today is in a tremendous hurry. Customers who did
not even know that they wanted a product or service
now want it yesterday. People are less and less patient
for anything. Loyal customers will change suppliers
overnight if someone else can serve them faster than the people they are already dealing with. Instant gratification is no longer fast enough.
Your job is to develop a reputation for speed. Develop a “sense of urgency.” Develop a bias for action.
Move fast on opportunities. Move fast when people
want or need something. Move quickly when you see
something that needs to be done.
When your boss or your customers ask you to do
something, drop everything else and do it so fast that
they are amazed. You have heard it said that “Whenever you want to get something done, give it to a busy
person.” People who have a reputation for moving
quickly attract more opportunities and possibilities to
them. They get more chances to do more and more
things faster than other people who just do a job when
they get around to it.
When you can combine your ability to select your
highest priority task with the commitment to getting it
done quickly and well, you will find yourself moving
to the front. More doors and opportunities will open
for you than you can even imagine today
ACTION EXERCISE
Select just one key task that you have
been procrastinating on starting, or
bringing to completion, and resolve to
take action on it immediately. Keep repeating to yourself these magic motivating words: “Do it now! Do it now!
Do it now!”
◆◆◆
Be Prepared
to Climb from
Peak to Peak
Winning is not a sometime thing;
it’s an all the time thing.
—VINCE LOMBARDI
JUST AS A mountain climber who has reached one
peak must go down into the valley before climbing to
another peak, your life and career will be a series of
ups and downs. As you’ve heard, “Life is a process of
two steps forward and one step back.”
All business life is made up of cycles and trends.
There are up cycles and down cycles. Often, trends in
business can lead to a complete change in the industry. We see this today with the Internet and the expansion of technology in all directions, which are
changing many of our fixed ideas and beliefs about the
way business is done.
Develop a long-time perspective. Take the long
view in everything you do. Plan two, three, four, and
five years into the future and don’t allow yourself to
get onto an emotional roller coaster with the shortterm ups and downs of daily life.
Keep reminding yourself that everything in your
life moves in cycles and trends. Be calm, confident,
and relaxed with short-term fluctuations in your fortune. When you have clear goals and plans that you
are working on every day, the general trend line of
your life will tend to be onward and upward over the
years.
ACTION EXERCISE
Identify the key cycles and trends
in your business. Where is the market
going? What is changing and how will
you have to adapt to these changes?
What steps should you be taking today
to be ready to take advantage of the
new world of tomorrow? Whatever
your answer, take those steps now!
Practice
Self-Discipline
in All Things
Self-discipline is the ability to
make yourself do what you should do,
when you should do it,
whether you feel like it or not.
—ELBERT HUBBARD
SELF-DISCIPLINE IS the most important single quality
for success in life and in becoming a self-made millionaire. If you can discipline yourself to do what you
should do, when you should do it, whether you feel
like it or not, your success is virtually guaranteed.
The key to becoming a self-made millionaire is having a long-time perspective combined with an ability
to delay gratification in the short term. It is your ability to set a long-term goal of becoming financially independent and then to discipline yourself, every single
day and with every single expenditure, to do only those
things that will guarantee that you ultimately achieve
your long-term goal.
Self-discipline requires self-mastery, self-control,
self-responsibility, and self-direction. The difference
between successful people and failures is that successful people make a habit of doing the things that
failures do not like to do. And what are those things?
The things that failures don’t like to do are the same
things that successful people don’t like to do either.
But successful people do them anyway because they
realize that this is the price they must pay for the success they desire.
Successful people are more concerned with pleasing
results. Failures are more concerned with pleasing methods. Successful people take actions that are goal
achieving. Unsuccessful people take actions that are
tension relieving. Successful people do the things that
are hard and necessary and important. Unsuccessful
people, on the other hand, prefer to do the things that
are fun and easy and that give them immediate enjoyment.
The good news is that every act of self-discipline
strengthens your other disciplines as well. Every time
you practice self-discipline, your self-esteem goes up.
You like and respect yourself even more. And the more you practice discipline in small things, the more
capable you become of the great disciplines required
for the great opportunities, experiences, and challenges of life.
Remember that everything in life is a test. Every
day, every hour, and sometimes every minute, you are
taking a test—of self-mastery, self-control, and selfdiscipline. The test is to see whether you can make
yourself do the things that are most important and
stay with them until they are complete. The test is
whether you can keep your mind on what you want
and where you are going rather than thinking and
talking about things you don’t want or problems you
have had in the past. When you pass the test, you
move onward and upward to the next “grade.” And as
long as you keep passing the tests, you keep moving
onward and upward in your life. Success requires tons
of discipline. As Jim Rohn says, “Discipline weighs
ounces; failure weighs tons. ACTION EXERCISE
Change one thing at a time. Identify
one area of your life where lack of discipline is interfering with your success.
Decide today to develop discipline in
that area. Launch strongly. Tell others
about your decision. Never allow exceptions until the new habit is firmly
entrenched. This decision alone could
change your life
- Writer
