Curt Rosengren at The M.A.P. Maker blog has developed an interesting take on self improvement. (The M, A and P in the blog name, by the way, refer to Meaning, Abundance and Passion in your life.
In an article titled “Create a Better Life with 30-Day Experiments” Rosengren observes that it’s hard getting himself to do [...]

So you think you’re focusing? Okay… how are your results? Maybe you’re achieving everything you set out to do. Perhaps you’re reaching the targets you’ve set within the time limits you expected.
If so, then your focus is powerful. But if not… maybe it’s time to adjust your ideas about focus and what’s really involved.
This week’s [...]

For another very common-sense take on setting and achieving goals, take a look at Gala Darling’s irreverent fashion blog iCiNG. This blog “presents fresh opinions & views on fashion, style, aesthetics & how to live a better life,” which seems quite a useful and practical combination.
What first caught my eye was Gala’s article titled “How [...]

A lot of the folks I know are setting new goals for 2008. But others, like my friend Patricia Zulkosky, have sworn off new year’s resolutions entirely.
Patricia started 2007 by announcing she was adopting a theme for the year rather than setting goals. In other words, she’d be moving toward a direction, rather than a [...]

Are your goals mostly sterile, lacking the germ of life within them? Here’s how to tell — sterile goals will fade away and die without a trace. They don’t get done.You’ve probably set goals (or resolutions) many times in your life. And you probably achieved some of them, while others you didn’t. But the fact [...]

It’s the year end, and most of us are starting to look at the coming year and all of its potential for making changes. We’re thinking about goals, resolutions and objectives.
Did you have goals or resolutions in 2007? If so, you may have missed some of them. And if you did, here’s a suggestion for [...]

Making decisions seems to be a sticking point for most people. The higher the stakes involved, the harder it becomes to choose an action. Simply put, most of us treat decisions as stopping points rather than turning points.
And the bigger the decision, the bigger the stop. But why?
Again, it’s simple. We fear making mistakes. Sooner [...]

There are a lot of ways to motivate yourself, and Anthony Robbins is well known for his mastery of the subject. Posted today at his blog, Easy Motivational Strategies, he provides a list of things you can do to keep yourself focused on forward momentum.

Remember Terry Dean? Back in the nineties, before many of us had even heard of the Internet, he was already creating a sizeable fortune online. Starting out as a pizza delivery driver, he went online and, by setting some interesting goals, built a million dollar Internet business.
If anybody knows about achievement, Terry does. In a [...]

You’ll need to let yourself do some dumb things now and then if you really want to succeed.
The story goes that a young employee, just hired, asked the company president how to rise in the company faster than average. The president told him, “You’ll need to let yourself make more mistakes than average.”
We all want [...]

The Japanese describe a big, life-changing decision as:
“Kiyomizu no butai kara tobi-oriru.”
That tongue twister translates as:
“Leaping from the high porch of Kiyomizu Temple.”

If you’ve ever been to Kyoto and visited this temple, you’ll know it’s built high on a steep hillside. You can stand on the wide porch that runs all round the temple building, [...]

“I’m just a slow starter,” Artie told me. “While I’m still getting ready, everybody else is in motion and racking up points.”
I asked him why he thought that was.
“Well, as you know, I’m planning to start a website, but there’s just SO much to learn. And I just can’t start before I know what I’m [...]

Michael liked earning $280,000 a year.
But everything else about his job stunk: the 90-hour weeks; the pressure; his boss.
Yes, the pay was good. But as Michael said, “It takes a big chunk of cheese to keep a rat running this maze day after day.”
Occasionally he thought about quitting - just walking away. Then he would [...]

My friend Walter once told me that every summer evening he’d go out in the front yard and sit and wait for a UFO to come pick him up.
As far as I know, he never got the ride he was waiting for.
I also know a LOT of people who’re waiting around, just like Walter, for [...]

The whole business of setting goals has attracted a lot of experts ready to teach you how to get more done more quickly and more effectively.
And they all seem so deadly serious about it. But there’s one expert on goals whose sense of humor and fun are actually still in working condition.
In this guest article, [...]

A decision is a quiet, little thing.
When Jerry decided to build a house, he told almost nobody.
Newly married, he and his bride were living with his widowed mother. One morning he quietly announced, “I believe I’ll put up a house on the lot out back.”
About a month went by, and he said nothing more about [...]

If you sometimes feel confused about goals and getting things done, it may be a simple matter of biting off more than you can chew comfortably.
A goal needs to be something that fits comfortably and naturally into your mind, into your schedule and into your system of personal values. I’ll write more about those matters [...]

Darby quit only 3 feet from gold.
Back in the late 1800’s, thousands of people made their way to the American West in search of riches.
Napoleon Hill, in his classic “Think and Grow Rich,” tells how one man, named Darby, joined his uncle in mining for gold. They filed a claim, actually made a strike, and [...]

Are there parts of your life you sometimes hate?
Wish you could cancel those failures? Dump the defeats and sidestep the lousy breaks? Maybe very little in your life is going right – hasn’t been right for a very long time. There’s a lot of that going around.
But are you ready to change it? … change [...]

We were standing around, heads hanging, listening to the boss berate us for letting quality slide.
In my early twenties, I worked for a few years in a custom color photo lab where we developed film and made prints for professional photographers.
When they shot product setups, weddings or formal portraits, they brought us the film for [...]