It is absolutely vital to be in control of your life and career. When you fail to control your life, someone else will step in to do so and fit your life into their plans. Understand that it is in others’ interests to establish control over your life and work, and instead exert control yourself over your life and the events around you.
People owe their success to concentrating their energies and taking prompt action; they understand the importance of maintaining a positive attitude. People notice and gravitate towards those with a positive approach to their work, just as they notice – and do not respect - indifference and half-hearted work. A positive attitude, therefore, is your greatest asset.
The character of your goals will determine your accomplishments, your impact on the world, and the quality of your life. The world respects people whose goals are of good character, and having such goals will motivate you to great achievement. Goals predicated on harming others will never take you very far, and people with such goals never retain their positions for long.
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People always seek the diametrically opposed goals of security and improvement. Security and stability necessitates keeping things the way they currently are, while growth and progress necessarily mean changing the status quo. Change always leads to uncertain outcomes; balancing elements of certainty and uncertainty will greatly affect your life. You must find a balance in your life between certainty and uncertainty.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of imagination and visualization. Harrison believes that the most important skill any of us can master is creative visualization. Creative visualization is the art of creating pictures in your mind of something you would like to happen in the future. There have been an incredible number of studies that have confirmed the power of positive thoughts. You can get tremendous amount of strength and power from visualizing positive as opposed to negative results. Therefore it is crucial that you are able to visualize positive events and outcomes. Focus on the results you want to achieve.
The influence of relationships can inhibit business growth and lead to disaster. At the same time, however, relationships constitute your greatest assets in your career. All aspects of your job search and your career depend on the relationships you cultivate, so you must strive to form the best relationships possible. You must engender affinity and genuine connections with those around you to achieve success.
Your life’s ultimate goal is happiness; your drive for happiness guides the course of your life, and you need to be happy regardless of the external circumstances in your life. The happier you are, the better jobs you will get and the more successful you will be in your career. In order to achieve happiness, turn away from externalities and instead focus on the happiness that is already inside of you. Your life is too important to be unhappy.
Many people have a single weakness that they have failed to address, which holds them back in their careers and leads to job hopping. Job hopping indicates that something is wrong with a person’s attitudes and outlook rather than with their employers. Identify and fix the things that are holding you back rather than leaving your position when you should not, and much more success and happiness will come to you.
Several years ago a long-term relationship I was in ended and I felt absolutely terrible: the person I was with could not stop fraternizing with other men. At least a few times a week, she would be out with a different man and say it was related to work. We lived together and she would come home late – sometimes she would make excuses that she was staying with friends and would not come home at all. Eventually, I was so angry about this all the time that the relationship ended.
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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