“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.”
Thefirst stepyou need to take is to get a complete picture of whatever challenge you are facing, including the good that will come out of it when properly handled. One example is improved relationships.
“Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.”
Thesecond step is to pinpoint the specific challenge area or areas where you need strengthening.
Using the example, let’s say that after careful analysis of all the factors, you look atthe following:
The seriousness of your efforts to meet and befriend new people and, then, to generate interest in your product, service, or opportunity.
The degree of discipline you demonstrated in following up with interested prospects.
The leadership ability, or lack of it, you showed in helping those people come on board as associates or clients.
Your caring enough about the people you are working with to help them in whatever way they needed assistance and encouragement from there on.
“Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's OK to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing.”
The third stepis to brainstorm about your specific challenge, and write down some solution ideas.
Analyze it from both your viewpoint and that of potential prospects’.
Analyze it relative to how you are handling the situation and how successful leaders in your industry are handling it.
Compare your success at it now with your success at it a year ago, two years ago, or even five years ago. Are you improving? If not, is this maybe one of the reasons you might be stuck in your progress?
Take into account all the factors, some of which you need to deal with to reach your goal, that you may have carelessly ignored before now.
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
Thefourth stepis to give the analytical half of your brain time to compute the pros and cons of the possible solutions.
Each time your subconscious pops a possible solution into your mind, jot it down and save it. Give your subconscious mind time to analyze the full scope of the situation.
“We choose to go...not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize 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.”
Thefifth stepis taken one to three days after your brainstorming session.
Analyze your best options, while focusing on win-win solutions. This requires compassion, understanding, humility, and forgiveness so you can heal any broken relationships that may exist.
Using our business expansion challenge as an example, you may have had such responses as:
Strengthen your desire by focusing on your dream.
Make a list of opportunities to meet new people and schedule them into your planner.
Learn to meet new people and make more friends.
Explore continuing education opportunities in your industry to better prepare yourself to present what you have to offer in an appropriate, interesting way.
The sixth step and final step is the most obvious one: Choose what you believe is the best win-win solution and get behind it with dedicated, focused effort so you can make it work. Press forward with action, and have confidence in your ability to succeed while striving for an excellent result. But, if you don’t attain it, keep going. At the very least, you learned what doesn’t work and you can begin again, more intelligently, with increased vigor and renewed commitment.
You don’t have to do it alone and you shouldn’t. The stronger your team, the more inevitable you are.
“You can make it, but it’s easier if you don’t have to do it alone.” Betty Ford
“Will you help me? Those are the only words you need to say, and someone will help you.” Tom Harken
“You can’t do it all yourself, Don’t be afraid to rely on others to help you accomplish your goals.”Oprah Winfrey
“It’s easier to be ignorant and say I don’t know about the problem. But once you know, once you’ve seen it in their eyes, then you have a responsibility to do something. There is strength in numbers, and if we all work together as a team, we can be inexorable.” Craig K.
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.”Pearl S. Buck
“If you don’t know something, don’t be afraid to ask for help.” Gertrude Boyle
“The most important thing about establishing goals is to make sure they are important to other people in addition to you”Billy Payne
Building Your Team
Behind every great achiever is another achiever. No one attains greatness by themselves. Once you’ve committed yourself to becoming inexorable, you can begin to draw on the vast number of people and resources that can help you.
Step 1:Identify Role Models for Strength and Inspiration
The determined people were inspired by all sorts of individuals: great leaders from the past, people who achieved excellence in a particular field. Inspirational role models demonstrate what’s possible and provide an invaluable source of motivation, strength, and hope.
Arnold Schwarzenegger found hi role model, Peg Park, in a bodybuilding magazine. Peg was the powerful person in bodybuilding at that time, and Arnold dreamed of having huge muscles like Peg’s. Arnold learned everything he could about Peg – his training routine, diet, and lifestyle. The more he learned about Peg and followed his example, the more Arnold realized it was possible for him to become like Peg.
Create your own Gallery of Role Models.To create your gallery, first identify three or four individual who truly inspire you. Find pictures of these people and hang the pictures in a place where you spend quiet time for reflection. When challenging situation or feeling discouraged, look at the pictures of your role models. Draw strength from their spirit. Remind yourself that they have been where you are and that they prevailed. If they prevailed, so can you!
“The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It gives human beings a sense of destination and the energy to get started.”Norman Cousins
Step 2:Inventory Your Existing Contacts
You’re Only a Phone Call Away from ANYONE. There’s a saying that anyone is only a six people from the president. You know someone who knows someone who knows someone… right up to the Palace. And if you’re only six people away from the president, you’re only six people away from anyone you want to meet, whether it’s corporate CEO, a celebrity whose help you’d like to enlist to support a cause.
Draw on Your Existing Relationships
People like doing business with people they like, and they also like helping people they like. “If you don’t have a big name, borrow one.”
Make a list of all your contacts. Think of everyone you know and have done business with right up to the CEO of a company that has been a past client. Design a strategy that best uses your contacts. Maybe you’d like someone to make a phone call on your behalf, refer you to a contact in a particular industry, or write a letter of endorsement.
Step 3:Develop Your Own “Inner Circle”
The relationships were developed over years of invested time and energy. Networking is a skill that is never taught in school but is absolutely crucial if your dream requires the support of others. What ever your goal is, the principles are the same. Everyone can benefit from their own inner circle.
“From the beginning of time, those who became leaders were not necessarily the strongest or fiercest…but those with the most friends or connections.”
Find Candidates for Your “Inner Circle”
Nonprofit organizations: The absolute best place to find caring, action-oriented people is at nonprofit organizations. The board of directors of most nonprofit, comprise corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. No matter how busy you may be, if you’re not involved in a nonprofit, you are missing a great opportunity to invest in people. Identify a nonprofit that compliments your purpose and passion. Volunteer for a committee. By giving of your time and resources, you’ll gain the opportunity to make a difference in your community and meet great people you might not have ordinarily come in contact with.
Professional associations and conventions: People gather from all over the country to share ideas, methods, and techniques at industry conventions. These meeting offer an excellent forum to make a new connections and personally meet top achievers in almost any field. Do your research. After identifying the industry or field you want to pursue, go to the library or go on-line with your computer and look up the associations listed under that category. Call the association and request an information kit along with a list of upcoming conventions, seminars, and available publications and other materials. Identify the people you most want to meet, attend the meetings, and introduce yourself. Don’t be shy!
Your existing place of employment: If you are currently working for a corporation, don’t miss a valuable opportunity to maximize your existing resources. Every employee has a title and a job description. Unfortunately, many employees refuse to do anything outside of their job description. If you want to grow and become unstoppable, you must step “out of the box” and move beyond the confines of your job description. Think of opportunities that you could develop more fully. How could you maximize the job you currently have? What special projects could you volunteer to lead? Whom do you admire in your company and want to learn from? Step outside the “box.” No one will create these opportunities for you. You have to do it.
Find a coach: Personal coaches are becoming a unique profession of the 1990s. Coaches work with all types of individuals to help define and achieve goals: career, personal, or most often both. Find an individual who has expertise in an area where you require support. Think about the skills and abilities you have that could be useful to that person and then trade time coaching each other.
Action: Identify an area where you would like to learn more. Talk to your inner circle, and ask them if they know anyone in that field. Usually, each name you get will result in another referral until you meet the person you need to meet. If all of your leads eventually become dead-ends, do some research. Even Bill Gates can be reached by email. Take advantage of technology, and most important, take action! You have nothing to lose, and each step will bring you closer to your goal.
“A wise man learns by the experience of others. An ordinary man learns by his own experience. A fool learns by nobody’s experience.” Vern McLellan
