In order to make substantive changes in your life, you must start with dissatisfaction in your current position, and leverage that tension to your advantage. Tension and dissatisfaction will push you forward, as they are the drivers of most of our everyday actions. By constantly creating pressure in your life, you motivate yourself to make necessary changes and bring yourself closer to your goals. Implement dissatisfaction in a way that empowers you to go in the direction you want.
In this article Harrison discusses why associating with positive people is among the most important things you can do in your life. Positive people reinforce positivity and impregnate the environment with positive energy. Negative people sap your energy and make you feel that nothing is worth doing. Even a single negative person in a group of persons is enough to bring down the energy level of the entire group. In order to be happy and successful it is important to surround yourself with other people who are happy and successful. Positive energy spreads quickly–just as negative energy does. You life is valuable and your time is as well. The last thing you need in your career is to deal with another person’s constant negativity. Your career and life will change for the better when you surround yourself with positive people–and keep the negative ones away
Anything that is not managed will eventually deteriorate. Set goals and develop a road map to achieve them, as goals function as a roadmap, forcing you to take action and follow it through. Self-management provides you momentum to tackle other obstacles moving forward. The best businesses and people are well managed, and so must you be.
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Most people are afraid of exposing themselves to failure, and therefore settle for less than what they want or are capable of achieving. Failure to take action due to your fear is itself the biggest failure of all; few people ever reach any degree of success without consistent failure. You must use failure as an inspiration to try harder in the future, and manage your emotions so as not to fear failure and let that fear preclude action.
Being proactive in your job search begins with ensuring that you are actually seeing all of the available job openings. Leave no stone unturned, and apply to every possible job even if it seems like a remote possibility. Targeted mailing is another method of proactive job seeking, and can be one of the most effective means of obtaining your career goals.
It is important to establish rules for yourself that empower rather than frustrate you; creating rules about your goals prevents you from finding fulfillment in your current situation. Rules create the impression that your life is imperfect, and you will never find happiness in your life and career. Instead, make sure you have rules that motivate you to move forward rather than hold you back.
An ability to control worry is a common trait of many of the most successful people. Worry, for the most part, does not do anyone any good, as it makes people constantly look to various past alternatives. Rather than worrying about the future, you must focus on life now and not wait until a distant date to live and enjoy your life.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
True self-esteem comes from within, not from the acceptance of others. When your sense of worth comes from within, you free yourself from comparisons with others and will enjoy a greater sense of internal security. You will no longer be bogged down by the experiences of others and can become much more self-reliant.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
Everyone tries to maintain a certain emotional state, and learning to control your own emotions will have a profound impact on your career. While everyone allows their emotional states to be influenced by outside events, there is no advantage in basing your own emotions on things that you cannot control. Allow yourself to discover happiness and fulfillment naturally, rather than making your emotions dependant on external circumstances. Your outlook will have a tremendous impact on your psychological health, as well as that of those around you.
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