When Life is Spiraling Out of Control

With the economy, the pressures of daily life and the impending holiday season, control teeters on a delicate balance. Demands for our time and energy press inward from all sides.
Stop! Breathe! Relax your shoulders! Calm the swarm of butterflies in your system! Right now is the time to collect your thoughts and set up priorities. One of the age-old examples is a jar of rocks. Sort your “to do” list into three sections: major and urgent tasks, major but not urgent tasks and minor duties. The major and urgent tasks are the largest rocks. The major but not urgent tasks are the pebbles and the grains of fine sand are the minor duties.
If you fill your jar with the fine sand first, all of your time will be consumed with minor tasks. You will not have any time available for major and urgent activities. It is easy to become distracted with minor personal emails and little daily interruptions. When you allow your mind to wander rather than focusing on the task at hand, you are filling your time jar with fine sand. Spending time with minor distractions consumes all of your time and accomplishes nothing to move your business or your life forward.
Schedule your time in manageable blocks. One hour blocks work the best for me for the major activities. For instance every business everywhere requires marketing. Without marketing, you do not have customers and without customers, you do not have a business. This rule holds true from major corporations to franchises to home based businesses. Marketing is a major activity for all businesses. Schedule time to work on lead generation. Whether you choose to use online marketing, print media, social network marketing or recruiting friends and family, you must perform marketing. Marketing represents the biggest rock in the jar. Without leads you do not have customers and without customers, you do not have a business.
Another major rock is mindset. Developing a mindset for success is imperative. Remember “The Little Engine That Could?” That was a book from my childhood. The little engine kept saying “I Think I Can.” Believing that you will be successful and visualizing that you already are successful is so important. Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about seeing it from the end. See your success in all of its glory as already achieved. Experience that success with all five senses. Know it, feel it and believe it. When your mind totally accepts the success as a reality, the subconscious mind goes to work on making it happen.
When you place top priority on placing the big rocks, the major activities, in the time jar first and blocking time for their accomplishment, you are more likely to complete those duties. Naming the big rocks and blocking time for them is still not enough. You absolutely must focus totally and completely on those tasks during their time slot and finish them. Making the decision alone is not sufficient.
There were 5 seagulls on a dock. Two decided to fly away. How many were still sitting on the dock? All five. Making the decision did nothing until they took action on the decision.
Name your priorities, allot time to each one, focus on task completion and finish the job.
Once the major rocks are in the jar, then add the major but not urgent tasks. Follow exactly the same method. Decide what must be done, set aside the time to do them, focus on the completion and do the necessary task.
There will always be time in the day to pour in the fine sand of minor details. No need for guilt when you have already completed all of the big rocks and then the medium size rocks and pebbles.
Life is all about priorities.

Good, Fast and Cheap

As a rule of purchasing anything, reality dictates that we will only receive two of the three of these at any one time. If you want it fast and you want top quality, you are not likely to also receive the lowest price. By the same token if you want something at a very very low cost, you will either sacrifice quality or the speed of receiving the goods or services.

This rule holds true in the home based business industry as well. Wise business decisions require quality and an investment of time, energy and money.

Life and business do not deliver legality and ethics as a “get rich quick” scheme. A company with integrity and products of extreme value to the marketplace will absolutely require some time, effort and investment to achieve significant short range and long range goals. You made a commitment to yourself, to your sponsor and to WMI when you purchased the products and enrolled in the business opportunity. That was not a five minute or 5 day or even 5 week commitment. Starting a business means giving your all for as long as it takes to be successful.

Make a conscious decision about the 2 you value most in each area of your choices. How much you invest depends on your current financial situation, your belief in yourself and the opportunity and how much you choose to earn. Choosing goals which make you stretch and grow will increase your financial situation. Many of us stretched George (George Washington and the one dollar bill) until he flinched in pain. We were so far out of our comfort zone but we believed in the company and ourselves. Big thinkers go for the gusto; they push the envelope. Big goals require massive action. Great achievements were never accomplished by snuggling in to the comfort zone and hiding there.

“Perseverance is not a long race, it is many short races one after another” states Walter Elliot. Big achievers (big shots) are little shots who just kept on shooting. In the home based business industry as in life, the one who keeps learning, growing and persisting sets the standard for the true success story. Influence with integrity.

As important as personal development is to the home based business industry, so is marketing. Once again the law of good, fast and cheap comes into focus. The best and most effective marketing will absolutely require either time or money and probably both. Once again you can’t place one ad and quit. Persevere and learn all of the fine points of whichever marketing venue you choose. Develop your skill. Become a master marketer. Invest in yourself and your business. Refining marketing will require being good and spending the time to learn. Free leads, cheap leads, may be worth exactly what you pay for them. That is if you do not invest your time or your money, those free leads will probably be of little or no value.

Baby boomers may remember song lyrics that said “I want you, I need you but I am never going to love you” “Two out of 3 ain’t bad.” In business, personal development, marketing and ever so many other aspects of life that rule still holds true. Choose the two which create the greatest value for you in each situation.

Sometimes a decision needs to be made quickly rather than “getting ready to get ready.” If you are making a “reversible” decision, fast is preferable. You may choose fast and cheap. For instance, getting some text up on a web site. Get it up and start marketing. You can tweak the words or layout a bit later and improve the quality. Get moving. Take action.

Another example is calling prospects or applicants. Call them. Don’t wait until you are polished and smooth and know all of the answers. Take action and start dialing. If you make a mistake, so what. In that case, fast is absolutely preferable. Don’t wait to be good. They may even feel good about the fact that you are new and rough around the edges of the script. They will know they do not have to be perfect either to get started.

Evaluate the situation and select the best two out of three. Remember “2 out of 3 ain’t bad.” Out of good, fast and cheap, you will most likely only receive two, not all three.