Do you think you have the right mindset to reach your big goals? Or does your mindset hold you back and keep you stuck where you are?

Your attitude and mindset are vitally important to helping you achieve success no matter your profession or business. Limiting beliefs can chisel down at our resolve and motivation and keep us stuck or hitting a plateau in life.

Having a millionaire mindset will help you move forward rapidly.

On March 31st and April 1st I’m going to a Millionaire Mindset training in Washington DC given by super trainer Buck Reed. At the event he’s going to be teaching how to:

♦ Learn to think like a millionaire.
♦ Build your team — find the right partners.
♦ Be powerful and effective when you speak.
♦ Deepen your listening skills to connect effectively and close the deal.
♦ Create self assurance and presence.
♦ Develop strong body language that conveys success.
♦ Expand your network.

If you live near Washington DC or can get to the event I really believe that the skills you will learn there have the power to change your life.

Join me – I’d love to meet you and have fun! It’s just $149 for a ticket for the full 2 days plus a game of flag football on Saturday night.

Check out http://www.peacetable.net/ to get more info

And once the ideas started flowing today I felt myself becoming more creative in everything I did.

So … if you want to get more ideas I recommend:

• Read stories about other creative and/or innovative people
• Look at what others are doing around you (social media is a great place to look) and see how you might implement their idea in a different way
• Brainstorm and talk about ideas with others

Have you read any books lately that have stirred your creative spark?

I’d love you to share them with me by leaving a comment below..

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This is number 7 in the 10 reasons why you don’t have what you want – yet!  This one is really helpful if you are impatient for success.  There is always a long path to true success – even behind all those “overnight success stories” we read about.

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure – George Edward Woodberry

Take a sprinter on a long run with a marathoner and you’ll notice something: The fastest man in the world isn’t so fast once you get past the first 10 miles. The marathoner, who started out at a more moderate pace, slowly overtakes the sprinter who has trained himself for short distances. It’s the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare.

If you tend to start out with a bang on a new idea or project, only to get discouraged when you hit that mental “wall” around mile 13, you may be out of shape. And while you may be banking on becoming the next overnight success, you need to know that:

1. The true overnight successes of today become the one-hit wonders of tomorrow, and
2. Most overnight successes were many years in the making.

Look behind virtually any rags-to-riches story, from Susan Boyd to Zappos, and you’ll see that years went into the preparation for their time in the limelight.

If you see yourself having trouble with your stamina, it’s time to work on building your endurance. Here are some exercises to help you:

1. Track your progress. Often progress is so incremental that you can become discouraged before you hit your goal. Write down the successes – small and large – and review them regularly to remind yourself that you are making progress. You may even want to make a large visual representation of your goal and track your progress towards it, just like schools put up huge thermometers to show how much money they’ve earned towards their pool fund.
2. Pace yourself. The marathoner knows that going out as fast as possible in the first mile is usually a recipe for disaster. Yes, you’re excited about your new venture, but keep some of that excitement in reserve. You may feel like staying up until all hours working on your business plan, and while that’s great, don’t expect to be able to maintain that level of commitment for weeks or months on end.
3. Cross-train. Find other activities to give you a break from your main focus. You just might find that time away from your goal refreshes and energizes you, and keeps you from burning out. Even if it’s just an evening a week, make sure you take mini-vacations.
4. Find a partner. Partners are great whether you’re heading to the gym or working your way through med school. Sometimes an outside commitment is needed to help you stay accountable and stay on track. Having someone who understands the challenges you’re facing can make all the difference between giving up and going on.

While a sprinter can be in great physical shape, most goals require a long-distance mindset. Remind yourself what the tortoise knew: Slow and steady wins the race.

Taking small steps on your path everyday and sticking with it is what will lead to your success in business.  What small step can you take today?  Tell us in the comments below..

Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture. - Lydia M. Child

Someone can know academically how to remove an appendix, but you wouldn’t want someone to take a scalpel to you who had never been trained – no matter how many books they’d read and videos they’d watched. There can be a big gap between knowledge and skill, and that may be what is holding you back.

Once you’ve identified what you need to learn, the next step is to try it. Skill can only be developed in one manner: Through practice. You can’t create a top-notch video… until you create a bunch of not-so-great ones. You can’t cook a gourmet meal… until you create a bunch of so-so ones. You can’t give a standing ovation-worthy keynote speech… until you give a few snoozy ones. You can read, study, learn, and learn some more – but until you actually try and refine your skills, you’re not going to get better.

There are a couple of misconceptions that hold us back from putting our knowledge to work:

1. We think we need to “know it all.” The problem with gaining knowledge in today’s online world is that there’s no end to what we can learn. There’s always another class, blog post, video, article, or guru that we can consume. Solution: Pull the plug. Remind yourself that you cannot have perfect knowledge, and that is okay.
2. We think knowledge is better than practice. In fact, the opposite is often true. Practice, as the old saying goes, makes perfect. There’s no substitute for picking up the golf club and swinging it over and over again – but that practice could very sell substitute for reading another book on hitting the perfect drive.
3. We fear imperfection. We somehow think that “everyone else” is perfect and never falls down, sends out an email with an embarrassing typo in it, or otherwise struggles at first. This is so false; anyone who has mastered something, from making money to making a cake, went through failure first.

Sometimes, the only solution is to get out there and try. Publish the first blog post. Send in the first article. Sing the first song. Refinement comes through practice, and there is no shortcut to mastery. You can read as many books as you want, but true skill will only come with trial and error.

Leave a comment and let me know which skill you need help developing this week so that you can get your journey to your Max life started.

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Do you want your life to be a certain way because that what the movies and pop culture deem success to look like? The only way to be happy is to want what is right for you. So don’t be persuaded to live you life the way that you think you should – be courageous and shape your life to look exactly right for you and you alone.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask.   Act! Action will delineate and define you. – Thomas Jefferson

Everyone wants 2.4 kids and the white picket fence… right?
Everyone wants a vacation home in the mountains… right?
Everyone wants to look like Jennifer Aniston or Brad Pitt… right?
Everyone wants to run their own business and be their own boss… right?

Wrong.

When it comes to dreams, one size most definitely does NOT fit all. Our dreams and goals are as individual as we are, and adopting someone else’s goals as our own can feel like wearing someone else’s shoes: It looks okay to everyone else, but to us, it feels awful and gives us blisters.

There are thousands, if not millions, of people out there striving for the wrong goals. Wrong not because there’s anything inherently bad about them, but wrong because the goals they’re aiming for are wrong for THEM.

There’s the med school student who loved her accounting and finance classes in college… but set any thought of being an accountant aside because her mom and dad are both doctors.

There’s the successful salesman who would really love to chuck it all and teach English, but he’s making too much money and only a crazy person would throw away a six-figure paycheck.

There are frustrated dentists, bakers, and candlestick makers. There are frustrated sheep farmers, personal trainers, bail bondsmen and police officers. Frustration knows no geographic, socioeconomic, or race or religious boundaries.

The only way to know if the goals you’re aiming for are the right goals is to figure out if they are your heart’s desire. Sometimes it takes some detective work to peel back the layers of societal and family expectations to get at what YOU really want.

There are clues all around you: If you fall asleep dreaming about something, wake up thinking about something, and find yourself perking up whenever you meet someone doing what you’d like to do, you’re on the right track. Meanwhile, if you get a sinking sensation when you pull into the garage of house with the white picket fence, or find yourself calling in sick to that six-figure job “everyone” would kill to have, then you may be in the wrong place… for you.

So what do you do if you find you’ve been chasing after the wrong dream? You readjust. You find ways to move your current life closer to the one you really long for. Maybe that means getting up an hour early to work on your mystery novel. Maybe it means spending your weekends teaching art to inner city kids. Maybe it means volunteering to do taxes at the senior center. Take a small step and see how it feels. Then take another, and another, until you know deep in your heart you’re on the right track. If you are, the momentum will carry you forward.

If you are ready to share what you have discovered is uniquely right for you – I’d love to hear it.  You may just inspire others by sharing your story by leaving a comment on this thread.

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Continuing on with the 10 reasons that you don’t currently have what you want – yet!

Number 4 is a big one – it can really suck your belief in yourself and your dreams but luckily it’s also one that can be easily fixed.  In fact tomorrow I’m going to introduce you to a group of entrepreneurs you all believe that you can do it.  Of course – you’ll find many avid supporters right here and on the To The Max Facebook page.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want. - Muhammad Ali

In the last section, we discussed lack of resources, including lack of support. In my experience, that is the biggest obstacle for people reaching their goals. Isolation, or even downright discouragement, can thwart even the most dedicated individual. To put it bluntly, you need a cheering section.

Few people like change, especially change they don’t ask for or control. Those closest to us in our everyday life have a vested interest in keeping things – including you – the same as they’ve always been. After all, if you lose weight/get out of debt/get a new job/quit drinking/start a new business, what does that say about them?

There will be three groups of people in your life:

1. Those who are avid encouragers. They get up early to go to the gym with you, find magazine articles on starting your own business, and offer to house-sit while you go to a conference. These people are golden!
2. Those who don’t get it and don’t talk about it. They watch from the sidelines, scratching their head, as you start eating green, talk about SEO or autoresponders, and wonder what you’re up to now. They won’t actively discourage you, but the fact they don’t even ask about your latest accomplishments can leave you feeling bereft and slightly depressed.
3. Those who are out to make you fail. That sounds harsh, but it’s true; a certain group of people will not want you to quit smoking, or find a new job. They like things just as they are, and they take it as a rejection of them and their choices if you succeed. Note: Unfortunately, these are often the people who are closest to us.

The solution is to minimize your contact with those who discourage you, and maximize your contact with those who want you to succeed. Avoidance can be tough if you happen to be married to a discourager; this is when you’ll have to make a decision about what’s most important in your life, maintaining the status quo or reaching your dreams.

If you need more supportive people, you can find them! Here are some resources online to track down like-minded individuals:

• Meetup.com. Type in your city and your interest and find other small business owners, organic farmers, or model train aficionados.
• Yahoo! and Google Groups. Search for others who are interested in the same types of things you are.
• Twitter. Search by hashtag (#) for your area of interest.
• Facebook.com. Tons of pages on everything from mothers who run to pet groomers.

One other way to find supportive people: Find a coach! A personal trainer, a business coach, a dietitian… there are tons of experienced professionals who can help get you where you want to be. The benefits of their experience can save you time and money as you pursue your dreams.

There’s no need to go towards your goal alone. Whether you hire a coach or find a virtual buddy to back you up, there are people who would love to see you succeed.

Leave a comment and tell us about the supporters that you have in your life.  And if you need one – just drop me a line at daniellechonody@gmail.com

Jenny is giving away a free copy of her interview with Life Coach Bev Barnes and a free copy of Bev’s course – Find Your Calling No Matter What.

You can find her blog post with the links here : The Secret to Finding Your Calling.

Here is some overview info from her post:

What is a calling?

A calling is your purpose in life. It’s who you are and what you do in the world.

Great. How do I find mine?

Bev will give you all the details in the interview, and here’s a summary.

1. Set the intention to find your calling
2. Every day, give yourself time and space to be quiet
3. Play
4. Follow the clues
5. Have faith

My calling is to help you plan, launch, and succeed in growing a business that is built on your calling and passion – so you can jump out of bed everyday with an unbounded enthusiam for your work (which no longer feels like work!).

Take a listen to the call and post a comment here when you get clear on what your calling looks like (or of course if you already know what it is!)

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed. – William James

Have you ever watched a show like Clean Sweep, Trading Spaces or The Biggest Loser and said to yourself, “Of COURSE they can lose weight/clean out their clutter/redesign their home. They have a team of experts at their beck and call!”

Well, while not everyone – and in fact, very few of us – can have Oprah’s dietitian, Jillian Michaels for a personal coach, and an interior designer to rework our home, we do need to find and use resources to help us achieve our goals. If we find ourselves stymied on the way to success, we just might be experiencing a lack of resources.

Resources fall into several types. Let’s look at each one and discuss ways to get the resources you need to get where you want to go:

Monetary. Usually, when we think we don’t have the resources to complete a goal, we think it’s a monetary issue. It’s true that some goals take cash, but most of the time, we think of money as the solution to all our problems. While it can definitely help smooth the way, there are other methods to getting the resources we need besides purchasing them. For instance:

• Bartering. Trade your expertise for someone else’s services. If you’re looking for a personal trainer, swap your Internet marketing skills for her training.
• Borrowing. One of the biggest disadvantages to our geographically disconnected world is the inability to borrow from each other. But why not reconnect with your neighbors? Someone may have a car they’re not using and would be glad for you to use it to get to your night class across town.  Someone else may have a summer house on the shore and would be happy to let you camp out there for weekends in the winter to work on your book. You won’t know until you ask.
• Renting/Timeshare. Pretty much anything you want or need, from a horse to a car to a ski house, can be available for a timeshare or rental. Go online and google your desire and see what comes up.

Time. Time may be even more of an issue than money when it comes to reaching your goals. We often say, “I just don’t have the time!” when we mean, “It’s just not important enough to me right now.” The truth is, we all have the same number of hours in the day. You don’t have any fewer hours than the person who’s out there training for an Ironman, or staying up late to work on her new business idea. If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way.

Support. Our cheering squads are resources, no doubt about it. And while the people closest to us may not understand why we want to build a log cabin in the woods or start a summer camp for disadvantaged ferrets, there are people out there in the greater world who would gladly cheer you on. All you have to do is find them.

And you are in the right place to find supporters.  Here at To The Max you have a community of people who will get behind your goals and dreams.  So don’t be afraid to ask for help here whenever you need it. Post a comment with a question on this blog – or send me and email and I’d be happy to help too!

There really are no valid excuses when it comes to lack of resources. Put it this way: Whatever you think your excuses are, someone else in a tougher position than you has already found a way to achieve what you want to achieve. You can do the same.

Please leave a comment and tell me what resources I can provide or support I can give you to help you start taking steps towards you goals

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It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Yesterday I kicked off this post series with the number 1 reason why you don’t have what you want – yet! If you haven’t read that yet make sure you go back so that you can start to get clear on exactly what it is that you want in life.  We carry on today with the #2 reason – you don’t have a plan.

You can know specifically what you want to achieve, what it looks like, and when you want it – but without a plan, you’re like a vacationer to Paris who forgot to buy his plane ticket. Whoops!

The next natural step after determining WHAT you want is laying out a plan for getting it. Where many people make mistakes is assuming that having a plan is an all-or-nothing proposition: They need to have a carefully scripted path from A to B, and then on to C and D, with no unknowns, and no changes.

Not so! In fact, ask any visionary who’s achieved anything of merit, and they will say that the path they thought they were going to take wasn’t what ended up happening. But they’ll also tell you that knowing the first few steps and committing to them were critical to their success.

Take someone who wants to lose weight. They know what they want to weigh, and they’ve decided to try Weight Watchers combined with walking 30 minutes a day. That’s all they need to get started because it gives them the next steps: To sign up for a meeting, attend the meeting, and begin walking.

What they can’t anticipate, though, is the weather. Or pizza night with the girls. Or the fact that they seem to be having trouble losing weight on the prescribed plan after a few weeks of success and need to shake things up a bit.

Situations change; that’s a given. Rare is the plan that is laid out in excruciating detail on Day One and followed without adjustments. You have to be prepared to make changes along the way, but you also have to know what “the way” is. Without any plan at all, you are a victim of your circumstances, not knowing what’s going to move you closer to your goal and what’s going to take you farther away.

So after you’ve set your end goal in living color, figure out that one next step you have to take. Trust that when you take that step, you’ll see the next one and the next, forward to success. You’ll know when you need to move left or right, but only if you move until the point you see ahead of you. Sometimes it’s only in retrospect that the whole path is clear, like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs strewn behind them.

Again if you are ready to share I’d love to support you in your end goal.  Tell us about it in the comments and let us know one step you are going to take TODAY to move closer!