Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success. Enjoy this refreshing look at the nature of success from Alain de Botton. It’s just over 16 minutes long, but I think you’ll enjoy it!

Alain certainly provides a great way of thinking about success. Far too many of us are going through life searching for success that eludes us… searching for someone else’s idea of success.

When you take the time to reflect and discover what success truly means to you, life becomes infinitely easier and more managable.

No matter what area of life you are trying to achieve personal success in, you can boost your results by clearly defining your goals and deciding just what success will look like in your life. It comes down to a matter of mindset. If your mindset includes clarity and purpose you are well on your way to living the success that you envision.

Chances are, if you are aligned with your true purpose you will find your vision of success filling your life!

Keep living your dreams!

Peace,

p.s. Many times all it takes is a single decision to transform your life. A great decision would be to become a part of a success oriented group of motivated people. Learn how.

Decide to Succeed!

Are you clear about the direction you are heading in? Or are you simply taking whatever life throws at you? If you find yourself struggling everyday you are probably stuck in the first step of the manifesting process, which is deciding exactly what you want your life to look like.

Now, you might say that deciding what you want is not the problem, you know what you want… you are just having a hard time getting it to manifest in your reality, but the truth is that knowing what you want is not the same as deciding what you want.

We all have dreams. We all have wishes. We all have desires. But none of those will become a reality for you if you don’t decide to make those dreams real, if you don’t decide to change. It is the decision to focus on your goals and move toward them that changes them from wispy dreams into solid reality.

But that’s not the end of the battle, is it? You have probably decided to reach out toward several dreams and even though you have made the decision, you’ve decided that this is what you want, you can still struggle to make those dreams real. You can still find yourself faced with obstacles and roadblocks that make you doubt your ability to actually make this happen.

How can this be?

It happens because getting clear about the changes you want to make, in other words, deciding what you want, is not really one decision, it is actually two separate decisions.

The first is a decision to move toward a specific goal. This is where you’ve narrowed down your desires and chosen a particular dream that you want to create. This is the decision that gets written about and talked about all the time. Decide what you want, decide what you want, decide what you want… unfortunately, that’s not enough.

The second decision in the process is the important one. This is the step that gets left out and causes you so much grief and struggle. The second decision is when you decide to make the changes necessary to bring your goal to life.  You see, it’s one thing to decide to lose weight, it’s another to decide to change your eating habits or alter your beliefs about eating.

It’s easy to decide what you want. What causes you struggle is your resistance to the changes you need to make.

Every new thing that you bring into your life, every new part of your being that you want to express, requires you to change.  YOU.  Not the world, not your neighbors, not those annoying people in your life… YOU have to change.  You have to decide that the changes you want are worth the effort. This is what throws many people off track. They decide what they want, but they are unwilling to change anything in their life to get it.

One of the biggest misconceptions about self improvement is that once you learn the process you can have everything you want in life. That’s what all the books and movies tell you, right?

WRONG.

You can have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything at once. Many of your desires are actually at odds with each other, and if you try to have both in your life at the same time you wind up feeling blocked and you meet with mountains of struggle.

Let’s stick with the weight loss example. You may decide that you want to lose weight, that may be an important goal that you want to create.  But at the same time you find yourself unwilling to change your eating habits, or your exercise, or even the very thoughts that you have about food. This unwillingness to change is at the heart of your struggle. This is true regardless of your goal.

The solution is simple, but one that you might find yourself having a hard time committing to. You have to prioritize your wants and desires and see which ones are most important to you. While you may enjoy gorging yourself on your favorite foods, you will discover that you can’t lose the weight unless you change your eating habits.

You see, the decision to lose weight is not enough in itself to power your success. You must also look at your decision and see what changes you have to make right now in order to bring that dream to life. You might look at your decision to lose weight and discover that there are many changes you must make in your life. Each one of those changes requires you to make another decision. You can feel like you are ‘giving up’ something. It can be frustrating.

The secret to success is looking at your desires and honestly assessing the changes you need to make. If you find yourself unwilling to give up your fast food addiction then you probably aren’t really committed to making weight loss a reality.

A happy, successful life is not about punishing yourself or going without. It is about learning your true desires and deciding which ones are important enough to you for you to begin changing. Life is full of choices and many times you will find yourself being pulled in more than one direction at a time.

The key to your happiness lies in understanding that you CAN have everything you want, just not all at once. Decide which of your dreams is most important to you and decide to make the changes that will make your dream a reality.

Peace,

p.s.  There are lots of great ways to help you choose your path and succeed in life, but none are matched by the power of a strong support network and positive feedback.  Those are just two of the benefits that a mastermind-style group can provide you.

p.p.s. Don’t forget to DREAM BIG!

Create Your Day!

You can learn to create your day, you can learn to improve the very quality of your day, simply by deciding to. You may not believe it but you are the one who is really in control of how you perceive your day to be.Are you having a good day today?

Or is today one of those days… you know, one of those days that seem to drag on and on, one of those days where one thing goes wrong after another, one of those days where you can’t wait until the day is finally over?

We all have those days, don’t we?

The problem is often that you have too many of them. It can feel like nothing ever goes your way… like the sun never shines.  It can feel like you have no power to control the quality of your day… stuff just happens ‘to you’ that brings you down and ruins your day.

Would you like to have less of those kinds of days? You can. Just by applying the ideas that I’ll share with you in this post.

You see, you don’t have to suffer at the expense of your happiness. You can choose the type of day that you’d like to have. You can choose to be happy. Or you can choose to let yourself get bounced around by life.

You can create your day, you can literally mold it and shape it into the kind of experience that you want.

I know that you may find it hard to believe, that you have this kind of power. But it is true! The key thing to remember is that it’s not the events around you that create a good day or a bad day for you. It’s how you perceive those events around you and how you react to those events around you.

That’s what makes the difference between success and failure. Between happiness and struggle. Between having one of those days and having a GREAT day!

It’s your attitude… your outlook. Do you expect today to be another lousy day? Well, guess what? It will be! If you expect today to be full of opportunity, it will be!

In order to create your day you have to be willing to look closely at your perceptions and make a decision that in spite of whatever challenges you may encounter that today will be a good day.

The choice is yours!

You can make today a great day by deciding to focus on those things that matter to you, that are important to you. You understand this on a subconscious level. You know that you are in control, you simply forget to use that control.

Go ahead. Decide that today will be a good day. Decide that in spite of whatever curveballs life throws at you today, that you will create your day in a fashion that suits YOU.

Peace,

p.s. Learning to control your mental attitude is just one of the inner skills that we spend time learning about in the Inner Circle of Success group. I’d love for you to join us and begin your own journey of growth and achievement. You can get all the details at www.bobcrawford.info.

p.p.s. Let me know how you do! Share your comments below and let others know that deciding to have a great day can really impact your life.

Bob and Donna

10 years ago last Saturday I went on a date that changed my life.

It was Sunday, July 18, 1999.

Donna and I had met online and after only a few emails we discovered that we had known each other in the past.

Actually, there is a little more to the story than that… Donna, it turned out, was a bridesmaid in my first wedding! She had grown up living next door to my first wife and they were best friends. Even though she was a bridesmaid in our wedding, I didn’t know Donna that well, and after the wedding, life carried us separate ways.

It wasn’t until many years later that we met again online. In the meantime, I had been married again… and divorced again. I was raising my eight year old daughter and pretty much enjoying life, when Donna came into my life… and suddenly what was good before, was now GREAT!

Now, I’ll tell you, I certainly wasn’t looking for love… lust maybe, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t looking for love. But that’s exactly what I found. Or maybe it found me.

LOVE

Once we discovered that we knew each other, we made a date to meet. After a couple of drinks, a lot of catching up, and a late night snack at Denny’s, we sat in her car talking for hours… until the parking lot security guard decided to park and watch us. Not that we were doing anything (too) inappropriate! I assure you that Donna was a lady. Probably more of a lady than I would have liked right then, but…

I don’t know if it was one more date or two that sealed the deal, but we’ve been together ever since. We’ve had our ups and downs, to be sure, but through it all our love for each other has grown. She is an amazing woman who is passionate about helping others, about animals, and about the people she loves.

She supports me in everything I do, and I am so grateful and so appreciative of her love. I wouldn’t be half the man that I am today without her love and support. We ‘fit’ together in all the important areas and we work out the rest as it comes.

So, I wanted to use my blog today to shout to the world that I love this woman with all my heart. I love the way we still hold hands. I love the way we laugh together and the way we love together. . I love knowing that she is there for me, and I love being there for her.

Ten years ago last Saturday I went on a date that changed my life, and nothing has been the same since. The past ten years together have been wonderful, they’ve been exciting, but the best part is knowing that the next ten are going to be absolutely incredible!

Together, we are living and working on our dreams. Her dreams, my dreams, our dreams.

Thanks for letting me share this with you today.

Peace,

p.s.: I’d love to hear from you. Why not leave a comment below about how love has impacted your life?

Discover Your True Purpose Teleseminar

You probably already know that being in touch with your purpose can help you lead a more balanced, fulfilled life and allows you to focus more clearly on those things that are important to you.

But did you know that NOT being in touch with your purpose can be the root cause of many of your current struggles?

It’s true. When you are not aligned internally with your calling or your passions you can find yourself struggling to achieve, struggling to create, struggling just to manage the pieces of your day to day life.

Discovering Your True Purpose is the key to overcoming all of these problems and much, much more. Purpose can unlock the doors of opportunity within you and help you begin creating the kinds of changes that you want and desire.

I invite you to join me this Thursday evening, July 9, 2009,  at 8pm eastern, for an informative, interactive teleseminar that will help you explore your purpose and show you how you can begin living a life of purpose, on purpose! And best of all, it’s free!

During this hour-long seminar I’ll be sharing with you some eye-opening thoughts and ideas about purpose, and about the role that purpose plays in your life.

Just click here: Discover Your True Purpose Teleseminar and watch a quick video invitation to this ‘can’t-miss’ event.

Be sure to register right now.

I’m looking forward to ‘seeing’ you on the call.

Peace,

p.s.  Don’t delay, don’t wonder any longer why you are struggling to change, register for the call and get ready to change your life!

p.p.s. I did mention that it’s a free call, right? As in it costs you nothing to attend? I thought so.  Just checking.

p.p.p.s  Feel free to send this invitation to all of your friends as well. In fact, I am asking you to please send this invitation to your friends, family, and anyone else that you know who would benefit from being on this call. After all, life is better when we all grow together!