Mindset

This year and any time of the year, there is another great opportunity for everyone. You might be awake until midnight to meet this new chapter of your life but not for food or drinks. 

Deep down, you want to be as conscious as you can so you can whisper every wish and every hope you have for your coming journey. “I want a new beginning! I want a new life! I want to travel! I want to feel alive! I want a fresh start!” 

Those are a few common phrases you shout out. It’s not only fireworks, barbeques, and wines that we put on the table to welcome this brand new chance. We also hope that this year, our demand for a restored life be granted.

New Beginning Quotes

A new beginning is everybody’s wish. Who wouldn’t want to reset a process? Who wouldn’t want to start the first step again? A new beginning is often misunderstood by people. 

They believe that for you to have a new start, you need to forget the past and move forward. This year, this moment, that’s not going to work. You have to use your learnings from the past to make an unremarkable beginning. 

The secret to becoming a new version of yourself is to carry the memories of your previous life with you so that if you need something to rely on, you won’t need other people.

But also to let go of the past that is not anymore part of you and who you want to become.

As they say it, your own mistakes teach you to do greater things. Don’t depend on what other people say, it’s always your decision. Lucky you, because this year is going to open up the doors of beginnings so you can live your life according to your desire!

Learn not to forget about the past, use it to make greater beginnings. Here are a few inspirations so you can start with your life over again.

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” – Brad Paisley

“If you have the courage to pursue your dreams, they will eventually come true” – this is what Walt Disney said in this famous quotation.

“As you move towards this new chapter of life, I hope you learn how to let go of the idea that it’s too late.”

“If you are looking for a time to get it right, this is going to be your year” – the famous Oprah Winfrey made her own quotation from this idea.

“No one can go back and back a brand new start. But anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

“Let go of all that holds you down, the next three hundred sixty-five days are for you.” – Emily Byrnes

“365 new days, new chances.”

“It’s a good chance to have a good year.”

“There are opportunities hiding in each day. Find them and you will have a good approach for the year.”

“It all depends on what you bring forward. Make sure to carry a great deal with you as you move on with your life.”

“The language of the past won’t determine your future. There is another voice waiting.”

“Be a better man this new year. Forget about all your vices and make peace with your friends and neighbor.” – this concept came from the famous Benjamin Franklin

“You don’t have to leave your past to start a new life. Instead, use it to forge your beginning.”

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – C.S Lewis

“There are things that have never been. Welcome this new door with those things!”

“Don’t bring in the grudge of what happened to you in the past. Leave them behind.”

“Focus on where you are going rather than where you came from.” – Brian Tracy

“Talking, wishing, wanting, this is not the year for it. This is the year to get all those done!” – Eric Thomas

“What we call the beginning is often the end. The end is where we start from.” – T.S Eliot

“The year gone by is now in the past, learn from it but don’t dwell on it. Look forward with motivation and expectation. Find the good in each and every day no matter what the circumstances there are good. Do this, and you will find happiness.”

Fresh Start Quotes

You deserve a fresh start this year, at this very moment, whatever it is that happened in your past. Your mistakes and failures don’t define who you are. 

Let that sink in your mind so you can be motivated in the coming days and months. Do what you have to do, and never regret it. It’s not too late to undo what has been done. There is another year waiting for you.

You can have a fresh start by beginning to execute what you have written on your New Year’s Resolution list. There is still a chance and a hope for you. Do not take it for granted. Start a brand new life. Create unforgettable memories.

This year is going to the best because you are going to be the best version of yourself. If you are wishing for a fresh start this year, here are some of the popular motivational quotes from different famous personalities.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” – Albert Einstein

“New Year’s most glorious light is sweet and hope!”

“I resolve to write a new chapter of my life every new day” – Lailah Gifty Akita

“The books will be opened for you with blank pages. Write words on them. Call the book the Opportunity and let New Year’s Day be the first chapter.”

“It’s okay to break the rules and your resolutions. Just don’t forget about the virtue that will help you stand even if you fall.”

“There are infinite possibilities out there. Have a new soul, eyes, ears, feet, and nose that will help you find the goodness this year. “

“We all need a fresh start every year. It’s important that we jump in with an open mind and a new way of thinking.” – Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

“New Year = A New Life! Decide today who you will become, what you will give, how you will live.” – Anthony Robbins

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

“We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks t be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives. Not looking for flaws but for potential.” – Ellen Goodman

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca

“You are never too old to reinvent yourself.” – Steve Harvey

“It’s not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare

“The beginning is the most important part of work.” – Plato

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

“The new year is like a chapter of a book waiting to be printed.”

“Whatever it is you’re afraid of doing, do it. Make your mistakes next year, and forever.” – Neil Gaiman

“You are going to be better and bigger than what you are right now.”

“Each year’s regrets are like envelopes. There are messages that talk about hope.”

New Journey Quotes

A journey is something only you can decide on. Today, it’s either you continue your journey with the past, or you formulate a method to make a new journey for your present and future.

This is applicable not only in your career, but you can also use this concept in your business and in your studies. A new journey for every aspect of your life, if that’s how you want to call it. 

A lot of people want a fresh start and a new path to walk on. This just means that everyone is looking forward to a new journey. No one wants to start the year walking on messy roads.

This is a new chance for you to start your journey right. You have one year to make every step count. Utilize this new book given to you to make success stories.

Do not avoid struggles, that’s part of who you will become. Embrace the challenges and use them to become wiser and smarter as you walk on a new road.

For new journey inspirations, discover what other people believe in.

“Better things are ahead. They are greater than what we leave behind.” – CS Lewis made an impact using this quotation.

“Be thankful to your past years. Those centuries and decades made you reach your present. Without those staircases, you cannot arrive in the future.”

“Dreams should be left unrealized. This year, all you need is a dream that needs to be executed with the right mind.”

“You always have what it takes to cope with whatever comes your way. Don’t forget about that.”

“There are always options. Fly, run, walk, crawl. Do whatever you have to do keep stepping forward.”

“Ask the Source for your dreams to come true but don’t forget to take a leap of faith. This year, you have to believe in yourself.”

“Remember: Life is short, break the rules” -James Dean

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

“The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead.” -Edward Payson Powell

“It depends on whether you will leave the page unwritten or the road unwalked. Time will tell how you will read the book. what we find along the way, will largely depend on us.” -Esther Baldwin York

“Everybody was once a beginning, even the greatest people. You should not be afraid to take that first step.” – this is popularized by Muhammad Ali.

“The initial impressions are that things are difficult at first. But don’t retreat. Master yourself.” – Olga Korbut

“We are meant to keep focused for a new life, for new beginnings, for new experiences, and to use our abilities to move beyond all those things that may serve as excuses to confine us to the now.” – Byron Pulsifer

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao-Tsu

“The start of something new brings the hope of something great, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.”

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

“Let your first success be just a beginning. Let your dreams chase you.”- Amit Ahlawat

“You need to learn from your mistakes because if you stop then you will not able to accomplish your goals in life.” – Ivan Hakin

“Each day is a new beginning, the chance to do with it what should be done and not to be seen as simply another day to put in time.” – Catherine Pulsifer

“When things are hard, it doesn’t mean that they will be like that forever. Don’t let past experiences bring down your enthusiasm. There is always hope for better beginnings.”

A final note

All people are dreaming of having a better life every new year. If you are one of them, it’s normal. You don’t have to mask what you feel because everyone has regrets. Challenges, failures, regrets, mistakes, and every negative event in our life is part of the process.

Even if you try to observe the life of people other than yours, you will see that they are struggling, but they keep on fighting. That’s how you will succeed in writing a new chapter of your life. As long as you are not afraid to take a step, it’s going to be worth a try.

Whatever it is that you want to happen in your life, you have the right to make the decision. This year is for you, not for someone else. People have their own set of promises and resolutions for themselves. 

Everybody is unique, so you don’t have to take the steps other people are taking. Make your own path. Walk the unwalked road and make sure to pick up every piece of learning and realization and use them to become a better version of yourself.

It’s never too late!

Whether you are an entrepreneur leading your online business or heading a team in an organization, one essential quality that is absolutely necessary is the quality of leadership. 

Different people may define leadership differently, and that depends on the way it is perceived. Leadership, as per many contexts, is defined as the fine art of motivating a small or relatively large group of individuals to work collectively towards achieving a set of common goals and objectives.

However, that is the fundamental definition of what a leader does or should do.

A leader should have the perfect blend of leadership and other personality traits that makes it possible for him to mobilize his followers to work towards that one goal and aim. 

He should be able to inspire his followers to accomplish those goals and imbibe in them the confidence to work consistently towards and past them.

So what are those personality traits in a person that makes the difference? 

What are those traits that define and distinguish a good leader from a bad one? In this article, I will point out all those qualities that make a great leader.

Let’s point out the must-have qualities for a leader:

1. Clear communication
2. Community building
3. Delegation capabilities
4. Leading by principles
5. Positive attitude
6. Futurism
7. Inspirational
8. Innovative mind
9. Emotional intelligence
10. Accountability

1. Clear Communication

Being a leader, you should be able to clearly and effectively communicate with your team. Possessing excellent communication skills is, therefore, extremely crucial. 

Knowing the culture and the language used in your business is, of course, needed, but what’s more important is to be able to communicate in a manner that is understood by your team. 

However, the most crucial part of communication begins with the most basic exercise i.e., listening.

To be able to communicate effectively and lead people, you need to make sure that you listen first. You cannot make people follow you or listen to you if they do not feel heard. 

Make sure you listen to them. Talk about things that directly impact their lives, their interests, and make them feel that they can trust you. Once that trust factor comes in. You can simply make them move mountains for you.

Ideas, inner drive, innovations, none of those can be manifested to their true potential if communication is not at its highest level.

There are some quick tips for effective communication:

• Communicate effectively and whenever needed.
• Be simple and direct while communicating
• Listen carefully and ask for inputs
• Give illustrations through exciting stories.
• Affirm by ensuring actions are taken.

Clear communication is needed to articulate your vision clearly to your team. Using the right words in the proper manner with your team can do wonders. So to become a good leader, effective communication is the key.

2. Community Building 

It is imperative for an excellent leader to create an environment of mutual trust and co-operation so that it gets more comfortable for the team to work without any fears and apprehensions. 

You, as the leader, should be able to able to make sure that all team members work together without any personal differences. A good leader ensures that his team members share a good bonding among themselves. 

You ensure that the reasons for differences between them are kept at bay and do not hamper their productivity and work. In case of any personal bitterness against professional colleagues, you should be able to intervene and try to eliminate the differences.

To create an environment that is conducive for good work, you have to make sure that the team members get to know each other from a personal perspective. 

You can create such opportunities by engaging the team members in team-building activities such as going for a lunch or dinner with the team or an occasional trip or outing. 

Organizations invest a lot in such team building activities because they understand the importance of having a team that knows each other. 

When the team knows each other personally, it creates an environment and culture of compassion and spirit of oneness that acts as a key driver to achieve common goals.

Hence a leader should be able to effectively engage his team in team building activities to create a fun working environment.

The best leaders create a community that is not driven by competition against each other but a competition to become the best of the best in the market.

Related: 20 Of The Best Quotes From The Top Managers In The World

3. Delegation capabilities

More than often, you can find it extremely difficult when you have to transition from doing some task yourself to getting it done through your team members.

And this is where the qualities of good leadership come very handy. When you have just taken up a leadership role, you may be accustomed to doing everything yourself. 

As a result, you may not be able to let your team handle and do what they have to for the fears that they make mistakes. As a good leader, you have to understand that the idea is to get it done and not do it yourself.

You have to make sure that though you are an essential part of the team in ensuring and overseeing and guiding them with the way it is done, you should not be involved too much in how it is being done.

You need to ensure you provide them with all the tools and knowledge they need to accomplish their tasks and deliverables, and then you stay out of it. 

Ensure you set clear expectations and clearly define their goals. You shouldn’t be someone who would be scared of his subordinate’s success and would not be scared to push him for higher roles. 

Your job is to elevate your team members by giving them the power in their hands to do what they need to accomplish goals, vision, and mission of your business while you lead them and lend them the direction they need.

4. Leading by principles

You lead by example and live on solid principles that define and drive their lives. 

You may be vocal about those principles and talk about them, but you have to follow those principles in real life too. First, there are certain principles of honesty and integrity, humility, transparency, etc., that you must have in order to become a successful leader.

These principles would not only help you become a good leader but also help you in being successful in your lives too. But if you only talk about these principles but do not follow them, you will surely lose your credibility, and then it will get difficult for you to instill these principles and values in them.

For instance, when you talk about being honest and transparent, and you are not doing it yourself when you deal with things, they may just ignore it when you talk about such behavior.

You should be able to lead by example through demonstrated behavior where-in you are living by all the values you believe in. The values of honesty, integrity, humility, and transparency should not merely be in your pep-talks; you have to ensure they are demonstrated as well.

Principles define your business’s success. Working, acting, doing things in a certain way, years on end, creates principles that you can then hand-down to your team. 

Creating strong principles creates a strong vision and path for your company.

5. Positive attitude

A good leader is the one who is positive in every situation. You should be able to stay positive in every circumstance. In an office setting where, at times, the business decisions might not be that fruitful to your team directly, it is the immediate leader who plays an important role in keeping the environment positive and upbeat.

In fact, as per many surveys, most employees reflect the attitude of the behavior of their immediate supervisor or manager. And if you are a business owner, you are the one they look at, in difficult times. 

Even the best of companies and offices will have stressful times in the day to day work and operations, and as such, it is vital to ensure there is always a positive and upbeat attitude that is maintained. 

And that can happen only when the leaders know how to handle the stress. A good leader will not let the stress trickle down to his team members. You keep the stress away from your team and let them enjoy the working. 

Remember, a good working environment yields good results. Trust in you creates trust in the future. You are the one with the vision, and when you keep the atmosphere positive, your teams’ creativity is lifted on higher plains.

As such, being positive is an essential leadership quality that helps in the smooth functioning of the business as well as the day-to-day office operations.

6. Futurism 

A good leader is a leader who works with a long term vision in mind. And that does not stop at merely conceiving a vision. A good business leader is able to articulate his vision to his team effectively and strives relentlessly for the completion of that vision. 

You, as a leader, need to be able to sell your vision to your followers and be able to mobilize your team to work towards your vision. You should be strong enough to make your people believe that the vision is achievable and full of gains for them in the long run.

Making your team activities and work towards your vision is the true test of leadership. Your team should share a common vision and should be clearly aware of the organizational goals in order to work collectively as a team. A true leader has the ability and the prowess to imbibe and transform this vision as a common dream of his team.

Without a clear vision, your team is walking in the dark, no path available, and no goal to go towards. Future thinking, sharing thoughts about your vision for the company, enables your team to have one clear goal and objective to go for.

7. Inspirational

You should be able to inspire and motivate your team to give their best performances and to be at their best always.

A good leader understands the pulse of his employees. He comes to know when they are down or when they feel discouraged, and as soon as you find that happening, you do everything possible to make sure your team is inspired enough to get back to work again. 

A leader would leave no opportunity to inspire his team to do great things. If they are already doing good, he will inspire and push them to do even great.

Becoming the best requires effort; it requires your thoughts, ideas, and the much-shouted vision. Inspiration can be many things, but the end goal is always the same, feeling energized.

A very important aspect of inspiring is taking regular pep-talk sessions with your team. Most projects which work on a target driven basis make sure they have regular briefings and sessions with their team to keep them inspired and pepped up at all times. 

Especially when it is a highly competitive sales environment, the employees need that extra push and inspiration to achieve the targets and exceed them.

A good leader is someone who is able to do this seamlessly and consistently every single time. He will make sure he knows what needs to be said to the employees to give them the required impetus.

You can make use of awards and other recognition tools that your company might provide to ensure your team knows clearly the rewards of working and achieving a set goal.

So if you want to become a leader that is recognized, you need to know the art of inspiring your team and mobilize them to work for you the way you want.

8. Innovative mind 

Another extremely important trait that defines and forms the most important part of the qualities of great leadership is the ability of the leader to innovate.

You need to be an intelligent man or a woman who has an innovating mind. You have the ability to think out of the box. You understand the ins and outs of the business, and you are able to devise innovative solutions to the problems and ideas to maximize the profits and get new business expansion opportunities.

A leader should be able to think differently to create something new and better. An innovative leader is someone who can think and influence others in that direction of creating that new and better thing.

You should be able to perceive things the way others won’t and find solutions that were never there. Being innovative, you can solve problems, mentor the workplace efficiently, and achieves growth in the best possible manner. 

When you have an innovative mind, you can create unique paths to the goals. Whether it is about increasing the profits or expanding their current products and businesses, an innovative leader is able to map and create a path that helps accomplish the goals and attain the highest levels of success. 

You as an innovative leader are creative, and as such, you are able to translate that into your team as well, thereby generating breakthrough ideas through brainstorming sessions.

Innovation is the future of business. With this understanding, there’s no way your business will succeed in the coming years. Uber, Tesla, Apple, Nike, these are big brands with big ideas, but also with innovations. 

These companies are here for the long run, will you be?

9. Emotional intelligence

When it comes to good leaders, they always know how to influence their team members. But how do they manage to influence them to the extent that what a leader says is acceptable to them?

What works for them is the fact that they connect with their team emotionally. They know exactly what to talk to each member of their team to connect to them emotionally and at a level that their team listens to them.

You, therefore, need to be emotionally intelligent. And there are a few reasons why this emotional intelligence is essential. Let’s take a look:

• It allows people to manage the emotions of the team members effectively.
• It creates that personal connection with the team members.
• Knowing the emotional backgrounds of the team members helps the leader to communicate with them seamlessly.
• It allows people to resolve all conflicts and issues with their people.
• You know how to listen and also how to talk with each team member.
• The right tone of voice, language, verbal rhythm, all of these make you a leader worth talking and listening to.

Being emotionally intelligent, the leader is able to prevent negatives from affecting their decision-making abilities. They are caring and can make their peers and followers a better version of what they used to be.

10. Accountability

Last but not least, a leader should know that he is accountable for the successes and failures. Ideally, when it is about the blames of any wrongdoing, a leader should not hesitate to take it on him, and when it comes to credit, a good leader gives most of the share to his team members. If not, everything.

A good leader knows that he and his team are accountable for the success of the business and hence is able to create that sense of responsibility and ownership within the team.

You will ensure that each team member understands their accountability and appreciates each other when they do something great.

And when they falter and make mistakes, the leader ensures that proper feedback on the mistakes is provided and works together with them to improve on the same.

You will always take the blame when necessary and give credit to the team when necessary. A great leader stands up for the team and deems himself accountable for the failures and credits the team for success.

If no one in your team feels accountable to you, why would they give it their best? There needs to be a certain tension between you and the team. They need to feel like there’s something on the line. 

They need to show up every day, and so do you, you most of all.

A final note

In the end, it is only fair to say that leadership is a skill that may not come naturally to many. It is a blend of things that you can learn and certain things that are imbibed in your personality.

But of all the things, if you ensure you have the above leadership qualities in you, you will surely make an impact and cut above the rest.

So if you are already a leader or are getting ready to take up leadership, make sure you have these qualities in place. While most of it is about handling and motivating your followers, some of it is also about traits you can learn with time. 

Make sure you get the perfect blend of the two to become that great leader you always wanted to be.

This post is for online business owners and the ones that want to make it happen while working 9-5 jobs.

It seems like everyone is shouting that you should hustle, do imperfect work, take action, get it done, hustle baby. That’s all there is, hustle.

I did this for a few years, I hustled. I worked 7 days a week (and somewhat still do) every day, multiple hours. Every single day it was work, get back home and start working on my online business. 

Getting bed at 01:00 AM sometimes. It was brutal. I was burning the candle from both ends. It was a melting pot. 

That’s running an online business. You work all the time, and you think about it all the time. It’s your baby, as many says. And it’s so true. You want to make it your best creation, just like raising a child. You want to take care of it and cherish it.

Though we can’t go further comparing raising a child and raising business, I guess you got the point already. It’s important to you, and you want to make it rain. 

You want your online business to provide to your family. Give you the freedom you are seeking and maybe even get some money to invest back into the business.

So you put everything you have in you, to your business, and sometimes you get to this flow state of mind, and you just push through. You do what is needed from you, and you don’t look back. And you certainly don’t look at the clock.

Working for your own business does that. It doesn’t feel like work, and while we can’t say it’s a hobby. It feels like it. The feeling is the same. You enjoy working so much that you don’t care about the time.

To say it better, time is your enemy. It feels like there’s not enough time in the day for you. The day is too short, and so the days roll by. Clock ticks near 03:00 AM and you are still awake, building your business and doing everything you can to make your business succeed.

However, with this kind of drive in you, you are slowly creating a burnout situation. You will burn out eventually, and it’s not because you don’t enjoy working, it’s because your body and mind need rest.

With one or two setbacks in your online business, and you will burn out. It’s not because you didn’t enjoy working, it’s the feeling that I’ve done so much work, and it didn’t pay off. I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve.

You’ve done so much, but the setbacks only remind you that things take time, and rushing into things won’t make it any better.

Rushing your business to success rarely happens. It’s not the funnel you are building that will make the success; it’s not the latest social sharing plugin to your website that makes your business succeed.

It’s time, and working 7 days a week non-stop won’t give you the breathing room to see what matters and what doesn’t.

You need to slow down to see the big picture.

Slow down

I’ve experienced total meltdowns, and I know how it feels when the things you’ve built didn’t come to fruition. You didn’t get to collect the check at the end of the work. 

After all, we are building an online business, and the paychecks only come with time and with insanely hard work. There are no shortcuts, so slowing down and seeing what is working, whatnot, and making the correct adjustments is critical.

I rushed, I hustled, I tried to make it happen in a few years. However, building something great, and long-lasting takes time. Time will also tell you what you did wrong and what you did right.

When something works, it works like a charm. Slow down and see what is working. Slow down and see what is just hype and what is for real. 

So many people just go the fast lane, and like Oprah said: “Forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion.“

And that is precisely what you should do. You should dig deep and see what your true passion is. What is it that you want to do? Like seriously!

Building an online business is super fun, but when it becomes a burden, then you need to slow down and take a breather for a while. It could be that you haven’t rest in a long time and you should definitely do that.

Your body and mind will only take it so long, and eventually, the mechanism will break.

Your body and food

One thing that I’ve been doing for a while now is that I regularly go to the gym, and I try to eat healthy food as much as possible. With protein-rich food and regular exercise, you are making sure your body can last longer.

Some online gurus for some stupid reasons advise you to cut back on the gym, cut back on resting, and whatnot. I truly don’t know why they say such things. 

Some reason that you only do it for a few months until your business thrives. But what happens when the few months turn into years because you are still working and waiting for your business to thrive.

Your body and mind are deteriorating, while you wait for the success to hit you. But it won’t hit you (but burnout will) because you are not taking care of your body and mind. You need to rest, exercise, eat healthily. 

You need those things to succeed. You are an entirety and not a combination of pieces, from which you can shut down one part and live a normal life. 

You need everything you have, and when that is the case, you also need to make sure you repair everything you have. Logical!

Sleep and rest

When I was rushing and working insane hours, every single day, I also cut back on my sleep. I thought I could survive with 5 to 6 hours of sleep. When, in fact, the more you sleep, the more refreshed you are. 

It doesn’t mean you should never get up from the bed. It means that when you wake up, you get off the bed and start working.

With 9-5 jobs, you naturally go and do your job, but when you get back home, you work on your online business, but when it comes time to sleep. You do that too.

You see, brains need rest, they need sleep. And while our brains never shut down, you can think of sleep as a defragmentation process. 

During the day your brain gets fragmented, it processes new bits of information. It gets bombarded with stimulus. New thoughts, feelings, visuals, audio, also the food you eat signals different things to your brain.

Your brain is active even if you would lay on the couch without moving a muscle. It’s still processing an immense amount of data and information.

So if you don’t give your brain any rest, it will surely overheat, and you can welcome burnout to your life.

To avoid that overheat to happen, go to sleep early. Don’t activate your brain later in the night anymore. Don’t take your mobile phone next to you and surf the web. Read a book or just lay down and relax from the day.

With enough rest, you will see how your performance the next day is totally on another level. Sleep and rest do that. I believe you can relate when I say that if you only slept 3 hours a night. You surely don’t feel too energized the next day.

When you only sleep 1 hour a night, the feeling is even worse. When you sleep for 6 hours, you feel better, and when you sleep for 8 hours, you feel even better.

There’s a direct correlation to the amount of sleep you get and the performance you have the next day.

The more time you give your brain to process the data it had today, the better it can perform tomorrow. 

A final note

Working 7 days a week is exhausting, it’s doable, but it’s draining. With a healthy balance of protein-rich food, enough sleep, and the correct drive to do the work. You can work seven days a week. 

However, it’s healthy to have a break now and then. Taking a week-long vacation abroad can do miracles and gives you that extra energy you need to push it through the year.

Having an online business and working 9-5 job is a marathon long trial that many are not suited for. Not everyone has the stamina, the willpower, motivation, or drive to make it happen.

When you own an online business, you automatically work 7 days a week. It’s almost guaranteed. While you might think that the reason you build a business is exactly to quit working, well, it doesn’t quite work like that.

It’s after all, your creation, and you want to make it the best it can be, so you will put the time and effort into it. And most of all, you put your mind to it.

Working 7 days a week is doable, but rest, sleep, bodily exercises, and healthy food is required for you to keep up with this way of life.

Being a manager is far from an easy task. It can be rewarding, but achievements always come at a cost. The responsibilities and daily activities of managers might be, at times, challenging, or might seem hard to achieve.

Managers are usually responsible for organizing and coordinating the activities of one business department to achieve a set of specific objectives successfully. 

A manager’s job is essentially to guide the department towards the achievement of the vision, mission, and goals of the organization. They control the resources assigned for the department’s activity and will set both long and short terms goals to achieve.

The variety of tasks and challenges a manager is faced with require managers to have a certain set of qualities that are not always easy to find in every individual, which is why great managers are so valuable. 

For example, the best and most successful managers all are characterized by excellent organization skills, effective communication, and the ability to lead a team effectively and to be followed.

A good manager is a good leader, and a good leader is one that establishes a culture of success.

The good news is that everyone can be trained to manage a company: some characteristics can be easily taught. However, only a few people learn to successfully lead and become great leaders, making such an impact that will be remembered. 

Hard work, ambition, and a touch of creativity are often required abilities, but still, they are not enough alone, especially in today’s competitive market.

Some of the greatest and most brilliant managers were able to become billionaires (many started from the bottom and worked all their way up to the top, thanks to their abilities alone) and showed the world that being a manager is a task that can suit everyone with natural leadership skills. 

Such managers can become role models for anyone wanting to become a better manager or to learn how to lead.

If you want to get inspired, here are some of the best quotes about management from the top managers in the world. Whether you are new to the world of management, or you just need some motivation to keep to influence your team positively. 

Or you just need a boost of energy, these quotes from some of the pros of the field will be very useful to both your personal and professional everyday life.

Sometimes a good, concise quote straight to the point can be more effective than long reports and figures, and that is the reason I crafted this list of twenty quotes from some of the best businessmen (and women) out there. 

Get ready to be inspired!

1. Marissa Mayer

“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” – Marissa Mayer (Business Woman and Investor, Co-founder and Executive of Lumi Labs)

2. Ronald Reagan

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.” – Ronald Reagan (Politician, former US President) 

3. Howard Schultz

“Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can’t tell you whether someone will fit into a company’s culture. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, you need to cut your losses and move on.” – Howard Schultz (Businessman and Billionaire, CEO of Starbucks) 

4. Paul Hawken

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.” – Paul Hawken ( Entrepreneur, Author, and Activist)

5. Kat Cole

“Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace, it’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees and the communities where you do business, it’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect.” – Kat Cole (Businesswoman, CEO Focus Brand) 

6. Richard Branson

 “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them, so they don’t want to. I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers and that people flourish when they are praised.” – Richard Branson (Magnate and Entrepreneur, founder chairman of Virginia Group) 

7. John D. Rockefeller

“Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” – John D. Rockefeller (Business Magnate and Philanthropist) 

8. W. Edwards Deming

“What should be the aim of management? What is their job? Quality is the responsibility of the top people. Its origin is in the boardroom. They are the ones who decide.” – W. Edwards Deming (Engineer, Professor, and Management Consultant) 

9. Carlos Slim

“Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.” – Carlos Slim (Billionaire, Investor, and Philanthropist) 

10. Indra Nooyi

“As a leader, I am tough on myself, and I raise the standard for everybody; however, I am very caring because I want people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in the future.” -Indra Nooyi (Business Executive, former CEO at PepsiCo)

11. Mike Huckabee

” A leader is the one who can outline the broad vision and the direction, and say here’s where we are going to go, here’s why we need to go there, and here’s how we are going to get there. A manager is the one who gets up under the hood and tunes the carburetor.” – Mike Huckabee (American Politician) 

12. Hillary Clinton

“Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.”- Hillary Clinton (Politician and former First Lady of the United States) 

13. John Quincy Adams

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams (American Statesman and diplomat) 

14. Jack Welch

“Focus on a few key objectives … I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I’m really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas.”– Jack Welch (Business Executive, former chairman and CEO of General Electrics) 

15. Oprah Winfrey

“Forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion.” – Oprah Winfrey (Media Executive, Actress, Producer, and Talk Show Host) 

16. Warren Buffet

“When you have able managers of a high character running businesses about which they are passionate, you can have a dozen or more reporting to you and still have time for an afternoon nap. Conversely, if you have even one person reporting to you who is deceitful, inept, or uninterested, you will find yourself with more than you can handle.” – Warren Buffet (Billionaire, Investor, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway) 

17. Jeff Bezos

“Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.” – Jeff Bezos (Entrepreneur, Founder, President and CEO of Amazon.com) 

18. Henry Ford

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford (Business Magnate, Founder of Ford Motor Company) 

19. Marissa Mayer

“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” – Marissa Mayer (Business Woman and Investor, Co-founder and Executive of Lumi Labs)

20. Mark Cuban

“It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone. And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.” – Mark Cuban (Businessman and Investor, owner of the National Basketball Association (NBA)’s Dallas Maverick and of 2929 Entertainment) 

 “Part of leadership is knowing when to go ahead with a decision that’s within your authority because you’re really convinced it’s the right thing, even if other people don’t understand it at that point.” – Dr. Ingrid Mattson (College Professor)

From these quotes, you might have noticed a pattern: being a great leader is not about telling other people what to do. It is rather about understanding how to guide such people to do better and thus contributing to the organization’s objectives. 

Good managers are also leaders, and they do not only control but also inspire trust and provide clear guidance. 

One of the strongest characteristics of a leader lies in the great interpersonal influence that he or she can have on other people and the contribution, through such influence, to a better and more functional working environment, where the job gets done not only efficiently but also with excellent quality.

A great manager does not only focus on the execution of a plan, although planning is essential. Instead, good managing practices include the developing and the empowerment of the working force.

The best lessons about important stages of life are better learned from the experts. Not only their words can inspire us to follow their lead, but also they can make us become better managers who will have the capacity to influence others and to make positive changes in the business.

Five years is a long time, and with every plan, there are always events that shape the plan further.

Did I imagine owning an online business five years ago? No. Did I imagine understanding how to invest money in the stock market? No. Did I imagine five years ago having two healthy kids? No. Did I want all of the mentioned? Yes.

And, here I am. Owning an online business and knowing enough about the stock market to invest with confidence. I have two lovely, energetic boys running around the house and keeping me and my wife happy (yet a bit tired ;)).

Five years IS a long time. A lot of things happen in that time, but the biggest thing you have to understand right away is this:

Nothing happens to you without hard work; You will achieve nothing by doing nothing.

And by achieving nothing, you have nothing.

Even if you would have the perfect plan set up and ready to go, nothing, absolutely nothing happens, if you don’t do the work needed from you.

Instead of creating a detailed 5-year plan, where every week, month, and the year is planned out, approach the planning from the mindset of who you want to be in the next five years. Not even what, but more of who.

In this post, I will describe the process and the mindset you can use to create a five-year plan to succeed in various areas of your life.

Steps we will cover:

1. Mindset for your success
2. Imagine who you want to become
3. Fear and doubts
4. Getting it done
5. Seeing the progress

1. Mindset for your success

Everything begins with you understanding who you are and who you want to become. You have to understand your weaknesses and strengths.

If you don’t understand your weaknesses and strengths, how can you accomplish something that is more than likely out of your comfort zone.

When you want to achieve something big in your life, it requires you to become a person capable of achieving those things.

For example, you want to have a relationship, a new car, a new house, a new life. The things you have done to this point are the results of your current self. The life you now have is the result of your decisions in the past.

Getting a new girlfriend requires a new set of skills from you. And those skills are learned only with hard work. When you are creating your five-year plan, you have to realize what skills are needed from you to achieve the thing you are after.

Should you go to a gym? Get a new haircut? How could you do things differently to attract the girl of your dreams? It’s all on you and your decisions.

If you want to own a bigger house in five years, you have to realize what amount of money is needed. And what is required of you to achieve that amount of money?

You need to understand that the results are always related to you and your work. The effort you are willing to put forth. 

By having the correct mindset towards your five-year planning, you are more capable of achieving the goal you have set for yourself.

When you know yourself, your limits, capabilities, and skills, you know how you get to your goal.

2. Imagine who you want to become

When you know your strengths, weaknesses, you understand yourself and know what skills are at your disposal; it’s time to imagine.

Imagine who you want to become. Many people start with what they want to have. But it’s rarely the case that matters. Remember it’s the who that achieves the what. What doesn’t achieve the who.

You are the who, and it’s you who does the work. So imagine what you have to be to get the what.

If you want to own a bigger house, think who you need to become to get the money for that house, what you need to do to get to be the one who will own a bigger home. 

You might have to get a new job, build a business, or something different to gather the money for the bigger house. But if you stay the same and do things the same way you have always done, your plan might very well fail.

You are doing the same things that got you the life you now have. By becoming something else, you can get to different places and achieve different things.

Imagine the person who is capable of achieving the dreams you have, who you need to be for your plan to succeed.

Imagine what you want and who you need to be.

By knowing these two things, you are already on the winning side. Most people don’t ever get to know themselves. They don’t know who they are and what they are capable of.

Imagination is cut-off the moment they don’t know how to get there. The loop of how can I do this or how I can do that is born. When the real question is who do I need to become.

Imagine the person you want to become. You can think of the persons you admire and think about the qualities they have. How can you become that person? What is truly required from you? Imagine the path to that transformation.

Follow the footsteps of those before you.

3. Fear and doubts

The 5-year plan is planning. And with planning a seed of doubt is present. How can I do this or that. What if this or that happens. Maybe this or that doesn’t work out. What if I fail. What if success never happens.

These doubts are natural and healthy. This is the part of your brain that says STOP. Stop changing yourself. Stop moving forward. Change is not good, and so you shouldn’t move forward. This is fear.

With every change, there’s the option of what if this doesn’t work out. What if I fail.

What if you fail? What happens? What are the consequences? Should you try or not try. Should you go for it or not?

Do you see what this all is? Do you see how these kinds of thoughts bring you zero progress to anything. These kinds of thoughts kill your evolution, your dreams, and your goals.

Doubting your capabilities is natural, but it’s also the one thing that 

prevents you from achieving that 5-year goal.

You are living your life through fears, hopes, dreams, and desires. 

Fear and doubt are the things that do not belong to a five-year plan. The plan is a plan, and if things don’t go exactly as you have planned. It’s ok. The crucial element is to realize that you don’t let fear and doubt hold you back.

4. Getting it done

How many times you have planned something and just when it’s time to do it. You bail. You just don’t do it. You back out and leave it hanging.

That small task you had given to yourself, you just don’t feel like doing it. I’ve been there so many times.

It’s that small voice shouting in your head with a megaphone. NO! I don’t want to. And it’s yet again, completely normal. More than often it’s more comfortable (remember the going outside your comfort zone part I was talking about earlier) to just not do it.

It’s easier not to do anything than to do the thing you know you need to do.

This is all about planning. Stick to your five-year plan, don’t falter, get it done.

If you know, you have to study, then study. Pick up the book and read even if you would do it one chapter a time. Read the book and when you are done with it. You can see the progress in you.

Completing a five-year plan in one year is not the thing here. A five-year plan is about getting small parts in order. Doing the things needed from you little by little, until the goal set five years ago is now done.

The key here is to do the work. You won’t achieve your goal if you don’t start today (or tomorrow, just get it going). 

Only with work can you get what you want. Start the work by changing yourself first to a person who can get to the goal you have created for yourself.

5. Seeing the progress

This time I have to share an example from my personal life. I hated studying. I didn’t like to read books. I thought I was dumb and just didn’t get things. 

Without going too deep into why that was so, the more important thing here is to realize that this isn’t me today. The person I described there isn’t me anymore. That was my past self, the person five years ago.

In five years, I have realized that knowledge is the key to EVERYTHING. Everything is behind knowledge. Whatever you want to achieve in life, you need knowledge. 

That is the thought process I currently have, and that is very different from the thought process I had five years ago.

When you start to change yourself and start to realize what is needed from you to get to your five-year plan, you will also see what’s the progress that needs to happen.

Even though I wasn’t able to track my progress entirely on how I changed myself to start liking to read and study. I can say that the breakthrough happened in months.

It was through good experiences and some mindset work that I started to like books and reading. 

It’s vital for you to see that progress, to see those small changes in you. When you see those, you realize that the old-self you had, wasn’t the only self you could have.

By seeing the progress, you KNOW you are moving in the right direction. Small macro-level wins are the things you need. You don’t need big wins; you need small wins. You only need to see the progress.

When you see the progress in you, you realize that things are possible. And when that happens, imagination grows, doubts fade, your mindset gets better, and you start to do the work at double speed.

You need to see the progress but focus on the small things first. Then you can see the bigger picture.

And soon you realize you’ve achieved a lot in five years and while the plan changed along the way. You’ve become something more.

A final note

Setting a five-year plan is less about planning and more about you realizing your abilities. In five years, things and life changes in so many ways that planning it all out is impossible.

What you should focus on is understanding yourself and what you are capable of. Setting a five-year goal is more about understanding who can achieve the want you have.

We want things, and we want to see ourselves somewhere in five years. But the cruel but comforting reality is that you will not get to your five-year goal by doing nothing.

It’s easy to imagine what you want and what is missing from your life; it’s harder to imagine the person having the things you want for your life.

In five years, things change, and thus creating a bullet-proof plan is not possible. Focus on the major tasks, the big goals, and what you want to achieve yearly — slowly moving towards the goal. See the progress in those small wins.

Even a one-year plan is hard to keep unchanged. Your daily life brings so many changes to your life that it’s easier to keep the plans a bit flexible so you can give space for unexpected changes.

You can achieve your goals by first understanding yourself and then the principles that control your work, life, and actions. Without understanding how you operate in life. No amount of goal setting can help you. You achieve goals by understanding yourself and your goals.

We have to understand ourselves first, and then you can achieve the goals you have set for your life.

The path to achieving goals looks something like this:

1. Breaking old beliefs and habits
2. Forming new beliefs and habits
3. Change your surrounding
4. Goal setting in a S.M.A.R.T way

You and I can probably agree that we as humans, have almost unlimited capabilities, potential, and abilities inside us.

We are a species that have evolved the most. We can create new things and evolve our surrounding. We have abilities that no other species have.

We can do amazing things with our bodies and minds. I think that the sky is not the limit to human potential and this was already witnessed by NASA being able to land a man on the moon.

So how do we tap into the inner power we have. How can we achieve the goals we want in our lives. Why is it important to accomplish the things we dream of?

For us to evolve, we need to pursue the things we desire the most. You can desire wealth, health, relationships. There is always something we dream of. Something we desire. Goals that we have.

It is more than likely something you have heard, seen or experienced and want to have it for yourself. You might have seen a cool car, have read about a lifestyle, have tasted delicious food. You have experienced something, and you want more of it, or you want to have it in your life permanently.

It’s that inner desire that is driving you forward, that inner dream of achieving something, becoming something more. Something you have visioned yourself to be or something to have.

Lets’ go through how you can achieve your goals in life and anything you set your mind to.

1. Breaking old beliefs and habits

If you think what is keeping you from achieving your goals in life. Is it your mindset, habits, thoughts on life, the way of living. What is it?

It’s the combination of all those things. However, the key to success and achieving your goals, dreams, and desires is to break your old belief patterns and habits. 

The thing that is restricting you is your mind.

There’s no greater power than the power of the mind. At least that’s what I like to think. I haven’t always felt like this. I have gone a process of evolution that has enabled me to believe I can achieve anything in life. 

I’ve had wrong beliefs and wrong attitude towards life. I have thought that I don’t have the resources or strength to evolve. I’m not smart enough.

These are called false beliefs. Beliefs that do you no good. Beliefs that restrict you from achieving your goals.

Beliefs that don’t make you any good

Beliefs are all learned and something the outside world has given you as facts through experiences. You believe something and take it as a fact or as the sole truth. That is so far from the truth, though.

Your inner beliefs are one of the things that are holding you back, and that should be broken for you to advance. It’s so logical if you think about it. 

If you have old beliefs that are holding you back, how can you ever move forward into new territories? You can’t. You have to break your old beliefs to move forward.

Example: You fell with a bike when you practicing for the first time. The experience was pain and the consequence was a belief that riding a bike is hard and that you can’t do it. Logical!

You have to leave behind the things you have believed to be the sole truth. The truths that have taken you this far are also the things that are holding you back and limiting you to move forward.

Stop with your beliefs. They belong to your past. If you want to move forward, you have to leave your past in the past.

You can’t move forward if you have wrong beliefs. For example, you could believe that you are not good enough, not worthy enough, you are not young enough, not old enough. 

These are all beliefs that are meant to be broken. You are not defined by your past, or by your thoughts. You are defined by your actions. 

Let go of the past. Let go of the beliefs that are holding you back. Let go of your thoughts that are not supporting you anymore. 

Habits that don’t support your dreams and desires

Habits and beliefs go hand in hand. Beliefs control your actions and actions forms your habits.

Habits can be dangerous to yourself. They can harm you, not in the way of physical harm but more like mental harm. You see, habits that don’t support you may harm you.

You live your life by the rules you have created for yourself. You have created habits that either support your new goals in life or are harming those. 

I’ve had to change my habits quite a bit. I needed to change my habits to evolve. I had to cut out things in my life that didn’t support my path to success. 

I needed to create new habits to achieve more. Old habits were limiting me. One habit I had before, was playing video games. I have always loved video games and haven’t been able to let go of those.

I have always played a lot of games, like a lot. It’s a habit. The habit of playing games. However, at one point in my life, I realized that if I play video games, I don’t blog, I don’t grow my business. 

If I don’t grow my business, I don’t achieve the thing I am after. I can’t achieve my goals in life if I do things that don’t support the goal I have set for myself.

It’s so logical but so damn difficult to change your habits. You have always lived in a certain way, and now you have to ditch the old life and start a new one. 

You need to do that to achieve the thing you are dreaming of. Your old habits don’t support you. You have gotten this far by doing things in a certain way. Now, you have to change those. You have to do it for yourself. 

You love yourself, and you need more in your life. You can’t spend your life on things that don’t push you in the right direction.

2. Forming new beliefs and habits

Key to achieving your goals in life or anything really starts by forming new habits and beliefs. You need to have new things in your life that turns your dreams into reality, turns desires into your way of life. Makes you take action. 

First, we needed to break old beliefs and habits, and now you need to form new ones. But how do you do that? How do you form new beliefs and habits when you have lived a life in a certain way before?

Let’s assume you are new to these concepts but kind of know, that you need to change yourself for the better. You need a change in your life.

You start with the thought of what you want in your life, what is your goal. What you need in your life.

One of the best parts of being human is that we start to think of possibilities and we are natural problem solvers. We start to think about options and ways to achieve a set goal. You kind of have an idea of how something could be, but that idea hasn’t yet fully manifested.

Creating new beliefs to achieve your goals

You need to create new beliefs. You start inside. You tap into your inner power and start thinking what is the thing you are good at, what is the area you excel in. Maybe you are a natural problem solver, and maybe you enjoy doing things with your hands, maybe you like math. It can be anything.

The most important thing for you to evolve is that you leave your past behind. Every time your mind says that, no, you are not good enough. You can’t do this. You don’t know how to do that.

You need to stop thinking destructively. You need to start to think as you can, you will, I am, and I can do anything. If you think about it. What is stopping you? You can think of this way if you want to.

If you are reading this, you are already a person that has realized a change is needed. You need more for your life, and you and I are the same. I am just like you, and you are just like me. 

We both have dreams, desires, hopes, and fears. We have goals, and we want to achieve them. You need to believe in yourself. You have all the resources you need, inside you. All you have to do is say to yourself. I can. Say it. I can and I will. 

It’s all about reprogramming your inner beliefs to make yourself believe that you can. And here’s the key when you believe (not think) you can, you start to find ways to transfer your beliefs to action.

You are creating yourself a new you. Your old you took you this far, now you need to create yourself anew. I needed to do that.

A small personal story about belief creation

 To give you a small personal story. I was once bullied in middle school, and it left scars inside me. The bullies told me that I was dumb and not good enough.

The time period was destructive to me and very difficult to live through. However, when I gained more confidence and started to develop my mind, I noticed that all I needed to know was my strengths and the walls of ‘me being stupid’ came crashing down.

You see, I needed to find the reason why I thought I was stupid. It wasn’t because they said I was stupid and dumb. It was because I said the same thing to myself. I increased the feeling myself. It was a feedback loop built inside me, by me.

 Yes, I still regard myself as stupid in some matters, but the thing is I don’t care. I know that if there’s a topic I want to learn and want to know everything about it. I can learn. There’s no stopping me; I can learn anything there is to learn. I know that. 

There’s nothing that you can’t learn. It’s all about you and your desires to learn. If the subject you would like to learn is something that you don’t want to learn, of course, you don’t learn it. This was the case with me.

I needed to learn that I can learn.

Believe that you can change and you can. Create new beliefs, and the world will open to you. It has opened to me, and it will open to you too.

You are able, and you have all the strength inside you already. You don’t need anyone else to achieve your goals. 

You are the one you need.

Habits that are formed from new beliefs

Having a new belief system inside you. You start to create new habits for yourself. It’s not even that hard. You are now a new person and want to achieve the goals and desires you have inside you. 

You form new habits that support the goals you have set for yourself. You believe in yourself. You start to act in new ways, and the habits follow along. They will form themselves anew.

Once I started blogging, all was new and scary. Obviously, because I hadn’t done that before. I knew, however, that for me to succeed, I needed to change my habits. I needed to start doing the work and quit playing those video games.

I had to change my habits of watching movies, tv-series and doing unnecessary things for me to evolve. I just had to. If you think about it. What is it that you have in your life that is finite? Time. You don’t have time as much as you have money, you don’t have time as much you have air.

Habits and the things you do in your life is all tied to time. Time defines your progress. Time defines what you can achieve. If all you do is use time to something that is not pushing you toward your goals, you are doing yourself a disservice. 

You are not using your time efficiently. Time, habits, actions, desires, beliefs, all are tied together. You need to change those. You need to align them towards your goals. 

You can’t achieve anything if you haven’t developed habits that are aligned with your goals. It’s so simple and so cruel at the same time.

I didn’t want to give up video games. I want to watch more movies. I want to do so many other things in life. Time. I don’t have time to do those things. I need to use my time towards my goals.

Habits have to be reprogrammed, but thankfully that can quickly be done by changing your beliefs. As you change your beliefs you see your habits forming anew automatically. You see things from a different perspective. Habits and goals are aligned.

3. Change your surrounding

The last step for you to achieve anything in life is your surrounding, and this is so damn important. This is something I just discovered, and it was the final click I needed to my brain and mind.

When I figured this out it, all became crystal clear. I now understand my life and my potential. I understand what is needed and how I can achieve anything. I just get it.

Let’s dive in and get that change in you going.

Until this point, we have talked about bad beliefs, habits and how to change them for the better. You now know you need to create new beliefs and habits to succeed and achieve anything in life. 

The last piece of the puzzle is your surrounding.

So many say that you should get a mentor, or move to another city, or surround yourself with people that share the same passion as you do. Changing your surrounding in other words.

So few take the time to think, that what if you just don’t have anyone close to you that shares the same passion, what if your whole country doesn’t have anyone that is trying to achieve the same as you. What if you are alone?

Well, surely there are people in your country that want the same things as you do. Undoubtedly, but it could be that you can’t find them. And this was it when it clicked to me.

I realized that the way for me to achieve the success and goals I’m after, I need to surround myself with things that pushes me in the right direction.

As we all know, social media and the internet is something we continuously tap into. We can be present or not in social media. However, what you need to do is gather people (blogs and business owners). Facebook groups, for example, is one way to connect with like-minded people.

You can also join email lists that share the same passion as you do. You can join Facebook groups that are aligned with your goals. You can Pinterest boards that give you ideas to turn your dreams into reality. 

Change your consuming habits. Change your online surrounding. Online is anyway the place you hang out quite a lot of time. So change your news feeds to support your goal.

This was a major breakthrough for me. You see, I have always followed different gaming channels, gaming news, movie news and so on. I ditched them all. I changed them to online business channels, entrepreneur news, I changed my surrounding to support my goals.

So anytime I go to Facebook, Pinterest, read my email, I get a dose of inspiration. I don’t get distractions.  

It’s important to tune in to the things you desire. Surround yourself with people and businesses that you think can help you. Can inspire you, and give you advice. You need to do that.

You need to get information that is aligned with your goals. You don’t need to know what is the latest movie that hits theaters this month. You don’t need that if it’s not aligned with your goals. You just don’t

You can get that information so fast to yourself that you don’t have to follow some movie reviews Facebook groups or anything. Only get the information for yourself when you think you need it.

What you need in your life is a new online surrounding if you can’t change your physical surrounding.

4. Goal setting in a S.M.A.R.T way

Now that we have covered your inner strength and gave you new ways to direct your mind and surroundings to support your goals. We can dive into a S.M.A.R.T way of setting goals.

S.M.A.R.T comes from the words:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

To set yourself goals. They need to have structure and they have to support your willpower and strength of mind. If you set too high goals that are just not going to happen. Like, “I want to be a millionaire, tomorrow 12PM” -that probably won’t happen. Except if you already are one. Then the chances are pretty high.

Let’s look at how to create S.M.A.R.T goals.

Specific

Let’s have an example in blogging. For us to be specific we have to set a goal that creates tangible results. Results you can see your experience.

The specific goal in blogging would be to write a blog post. That is a specific goal as it is defined and is something we can understand.

A bad example would be a goal of “mow a lawn”. This kind of goal isn’t something that has an end or a beginning. It’s not even specified as to whose or where.

Measurable

Continuing with the blog post example. We have set a goal of writing a blog post. Instead of just writing a blog post, we have to define how many words should it have. 

If you just start writing a blog post without limits. Then how can you know, when you have achieved your goal? You can’t.

By defining a word count, for example, writing 2500 words is a measurable and specific goal that you can go and accomplish.

By having defined an end to your goal. You know exactly what is still left of your goal and what you need to do to achieve that. 

Achievable

Setting lofty goals is always useful in life. You are aiming for something and you either slowly make progress towards it or achieve your goals daily. It all depends on your goals.

With the blogging example, we have here. Writing 2500 words is achievable but we have to realize in what time frame we have set that to be achieved in.

Writing 2500 words in 30 minutes is extremely challenging. But writing that in 3-4 hours is already much more achievable.

So when you define your goals do also take into account the time but also your resources.

If you want to become a millionaire. You have to realize what it needs from you. You have to study and research what is needed from you so you can achieve that.

A lot of things are possible in life but there has to be a reality check on time and resources you have to achieve your goal. If you have time and you accept that your goal is a big one. Then also realize that years could be needed to achieve that goal.

Realistic

It’s realistic to write a 2500 word blog post. It’s also realistic to lose weight in a year. It’s also realistic to save 20% of your monthly salary. What might not be realistic is to have a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow if you are dead broke.

It might not also be realistic for you to fly to the moon if you are not an astronaut or a billionaire.

While those examples were a bit of an extreme, it was intentionally done so. Because I believe a lot of things are possible in life if time, resources, realism, and clearly defined goals are present in goal setting.

Timely

While this was already somewhat covered. Timely is here to remind you that not everything is possible to achieve in a short period of time. More than often a long term thinking is required from you to achieve the goal you have set for yourself.

Some goals can be achieved in the next 30 minutes and some goals can take 3-4 years. If and when you have clearly defined goals, do also attach to it a realistic time frame to accomplish your goal.

For example, 2500 word long blog post/day is a suitable goal to have. Though it can create pressure for you. It’s still achievable, realistic, measurable and at the end of the day, you have written that blog post you set out to write.

A final note

Dreams, desires, dreams, hopes, and goals need a new you. You have been able to walk to this point. For you to move forward and achieve your goals in life, you need four things; new beliefs, new habits, new surrounding and a S.M.A.R.T way to achieve those. 

This is so logical if you think about it. How can you ever achieve the things you want in life if your life is not aligned to achieve those. It’s impossible. If I were to play video games and expect my blog traffic to increase 10% next month. The equation is impossible. It’s just not possible.

You need to work on your blog to increase that traffic. You need to do things that are building towards the goal. For my blog traffic to increase, I would need to focus on the things that grow the traffic. Reading a movie review doesn’t do that.

This all might seem like, of course, it works like this. Yes, I know. Changing your beliefs and habits is one of the most challenging things there are. 

You have to ditch your old self and build your self again. You have you to create a new you. And that is not an easy task.

One of the easiest ways to build yourself again is this: You are not defined by your past. You define your future, go and create it.

You need action, and that is the only thing you need. You need to act on things and break yourself free from the things that hold you back.

Don’t be defined by your past. The things you have done in the past belongs to the past. They will always be part of you, but they are not you.

You define yourself and by doing that you will create new habits. Surround yourself with things that support your goals, take you further and finally, you will change your dreams to be the same as your life.