Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, is a friend.  The other day I got an email from him that was so compelling, I decided I had to share it with readers of this career success blog.  Check it out…

It’s here, the 4th quarter of 2011 is about to begin and it’s time for a serious reality check!

To help you do that, I’ve assembled a number of important questions for you to consider as you take inventory of your year to date performance and subsequent results.

1. What big accomplishments have you made so far this year?

2. Have you increased profits or are you losing money?

3. Have you gained more customers or are you struggling to survive?

4. Have you increased your savings or gone deeper into debt?

5. Have you achieved your important goals or going around in circles?

6. Have you improved your quality of life or are you merely holding ground, or worse falling behind?

7. Have you lost the weight or are you still wrestling with your waistline?

8. Has this been the best year of your life? Why?

To make the best use of the FINAL quarter of 2011, you need to analyze your behavior and the results derived from those behaviors, and you need to DO IT NOW.

WHY?

Because, if you’re not happy with the answers to the questions I just proposed, and simply plug along doing the same things you did all year long, than I really feel sorry for you, your family and your future as your heading for a cliff.

THE BLUNT UNVARNISHED TRUTH

You must understand that the single best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and if you continue to repeat the same behaviors, you’re delusional if you think things will improve in any area of your life.

NO WAY–NO HOW!

Let me be as direct as possible; If you want better results, you must change your behavior NOW before it’s too late.

SO what exactly should you be doing RIGHT NOW to make full use of this 4th quarter – this final quarter of 2011?

What better behaviors should you be practicing?

The answer is so simple and transparent that it will escape most people who read this message.

The things you NEED to be doing in the 4th quarter are the EXACT same things you should have been doing all year long!

REREAD THAT LAST LINE

It deeply concerns me when people think that they can really improve their 4th quarter performance by engaging in the same performance, the same habits, the same strategies, the same beliefs, and the same work ethic that got them in the lousy situation in the first place.

THE GOOD NEWS

It’s not too late to turn your year AND your life around, just a bit later than it was, and I’d like to show you how for less than $1.

I’ve put together the most extreme goal achievement and performance acceleration program that you’ll ever find.

The program is called the 100 Day Challenge and enrollment is taking place right now at:

http://www.100daychallenge.com

Use this code ( group97 ) to save $50 and your entire investment for this life changing program comes in at only $97.00.

That’s right, for less than $1 a day, I will show you how to turn it all around and finish the year strong!

I’ll also GUARANTEE it and give you back every last penny if I’m not able to deliver on my promise.

So what are you waiting for?

I have made this as affordable as I can, I provided you with a guarantee and the 4th quarter is about to begin.

As mentioned earlier, if you are currently behind target and do not do something different, and do it immediately, I really feel sorry for you as your future is already written and it’s not a happy ending.

This is your chance to redeem yourself.  More than 42,000 people from 87 countries around the world have already proven that the 100 Day Challenge is a life changing experience.

Don’t waste another minute, get started right now:

http://www.100daychallenge.com

Use this code ( group97 ) to save $50

Everything Counts!

Gary Ryan Blair

I’ve joined Gary’s 100 Day Challenge.  I’m working on my goal of getting 300 new members for my corporate career success membership site My Corporate Climb.  Gary’s ideas are powerful and moving me close to my goal.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Your life and career success is dependent on setting and achieving high goals.  As Tweet 29 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Aim high.  Set and achieve high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve your goals.”  Enrolling in Gary Ryan Blair’s 100 day challenge is one thing that you can do to achieve your 2011 goals and position you for your career success in 2012.

That’s the career advice I have for you on achieving your goals.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thought with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  One is 140 bits of career advice, all in 140 characters or less.  The other is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Gary Ryan Blair, the Goals Guy, is somebody you need to know.  His book Everything Counts! is right on.  Everything does count if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.  The other day I got an email from Gary talking about the importance of breaking down large projects so they don’t seem so overwhelming.  Check it out…

In computer science there exists a term called the divide-and-conquer algorithm.

What this algorithm basically does is that it breaks down a larger problem into smaller sub-problems and each of those sub-problems are then broken down into even smaller sub-problems.

You continue to break down all the sub-problems until you have a bunch of small and easily solvable problems — if you solve all of these small problems, then you’ve solved the main, bigger problem.

You can apply this same algorithm to your life and to your goals.

I find that many people have big dreams and big aspirations but when it comes time for them to actually start working on them, they stand there confused and unsure about which direction to take. The most common complaint they have is that they don’t know where to start.

This reminded me of the career advice in Tweet 87 in my career success book, Success Tweets.  “Break large projects into small chunks.  They are not so overwhelming that way.  Set mini milestones for yourself.”

Jill Koenig, the Goal Guru and one of my on line friends, posted this bit of wisdom on her Facebook page a while back…

To accomplish big things, you must do the small things.  This overcomes inertia.  To accomplish the small things, visualize the big picture outcome.  This overcomes overwhelm.

That’s exactly the kind of career advice I’m talking about in Tweet 87.  Small steps and mini-milestones, will help you overcome the inertia that can stop you from beginning a big project.  At the same time, you need to keep focused on the big picture to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer number of small tasks involved in completing a big project.

I’ve written 15 books.  Writing a book is a huge project.  It can be difficult to get started.  I’ve found that breaking down the writing process into manageable chunks helps me to get started, and keep my momentum.  I am in the process of finishing a new one called, My Corporate Climb: A Common Sense Roadmap for Becoming the Corporate Career Success You Are Meant to Be! I am in the final editing stages.  Here’s how I went about writing My Corporate Climb.

First, I created an overall model of corporate career success.  This model has seven main components:

1. Clarify the purpose and direction for your life and career.
2. Commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.
3. Build unshakeable self-confidence.
4. Become an outstanding performer.
5. Create positive personal impact.
6. Become a dynamic communicator.
7. Build strong, lasting mutually beneficial relationships.

Then I spent time figuring out the career advice that would tell readers exactly what they need to do to apply each of these components to create the life and career success they want and deserve.  Check it out…

Clarity

• Figure out what career success means to you personally.
• Create a vivid mental image of yourself as a career success.
• Determine your personal values.

Commitment

• Take personal responsibility for your life and career success.
• Set and achieve high goals.
• Choose to react positively to the people and events in your life; especially the negative ones.

Self Confidence

• Choose to be optimistic.
• Face your fears and act.
• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Find a mentor to help you create your career success.
• Share your knowledge and wisdom through mentoring others.

Outstanding Performance

• Keep your skills up-to-date by becoming a lifelong learner.
• Master the numbers.  Understand your company’s balance sheet.
• Manage your time, life and stress well.
• Live a healthy lifestyle.

Positive Personal Impact

• Create and nurture your unique personal brand.
• Be impeccable in your presentation of self; in person and on line.
• Know and follow the basic rules of business etiquette.

Dynamic Communication

• Develop strong conversation skills.
• Write clearly and succinctly.
• Master public speaking skills.

Relationship Building

• Become self aware.  Use your self-knowledge to better understand others.
• Pay it forward; give with no expectation of return.
• Resolve conflict in a manner that strengthens — not weakens — relationships.

Once I had these 24 ideas down – and this took quite a bit of thinking and work – I was ready to begin writing.  Each chapter became a mini-milestone.  Writing 24 focused chapters was easier for me than writing a book on such a large and complex topic as career success.

This process works for me, primarily because I break the overwhelmingly large project of writing a book into a series of small steps that are relatively easy to accomplish.  That’s the beauty of the career advice in Tweet 87 in Success Tweets and in Gary and Jill’s advice on achieving your goals.

One more piece of career advice.  I always start large projects late in the afternoon.  I do this to create momentum.  Even though I barely scratch the surface of the project, I get up the next day ready to go because I have accomplished something on the project and have momentum on my side.  Try this the next time you are faced with a big project.  It works.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are good at taking on and accomplishing big projects.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 87 in Success Tweets.  “Break large projects into small chunks.  They are not so overwhelming that way.  Set mini-milestones for yourself.”  Jill Koenig nails it when she says, “To accomplish big things, you must do the small things.  This overcomes inertia.  To accomplish the small things, visualize the big picture outcome.  This overcomes overwhelm.”  Gary Ryan Blair gives great career advice when he suggests breaking large problems into small, manageable ones.  Small steps in the right direction are the best way to get big things done.  One final piece of career advice here: start big projects late in the afternoon.  You’ll have momentum on your side when you get to work the next day.

That’s my career advice on breaking big projects into manageable chunks.  What do you think?  Please share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

Happy Memorial Day to my readers in the USA.  I hope you are enjoying the first three day weekend of the summer.

My latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.  I am in the process of blogging about each of the tweets in it. You can get a free copy of Success Tweets at www.SuccessTweets.com.  If you like it, I’d appreciate a positive review on Amazon.com.

Today’s focus is Tweet 31…

Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.

Your goals won’t get done just because you’ve written them.  Common sense career advice says that you have to work your goals.  There are two steps here.  First plan how you will achieve each of your goals.  Second, work your plan.  You can have all of the good intentions in the world, but if you don’t plan how you will achieve your goals and then work your plan, you will not achieve the life and career success you want and deserve.

Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, and author of a great little book called Everything Counts makes an important point about the importance of working your goals…

“Good intentions, while honorable, are of little use when you let weeks, months, and years of potential and possibility slip by.”

Gary has a weekly ritual of reflecting, reviewing and updating his goals.  He said that this ritual has allowed him to continue to grow and make significant performance gains for twelve straight years without missing a beat.

Check it out. 

Every Sunday night, or Monday morning, isolate one goal and ask yourself the following five questions:

1. What are my current year to date results in relation to this goal?
2. What has gone right so far this year?  Why? Identify strengths and strategies to repeat.
3. What has gone wrong so far this year? Why? Identify weaknesses and strategies to drop.
4. What corrective actions will I immediately implement to remain on target?
5. What will I commit to doing this week to ensure that I will meet or achieve this goal?

I love this exercise.  I have committed to doing it every Monday morning.  I began today.  As a career success coach, I encourage you to do the same.  Give this exercise the time and attention it deserves, and as Gary says, “you will have positioned yourself for having a breakthrough week.”

Tweet 31 in Success Tweets provides some no nonsense career success coach advice.  It says “do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  Gary Ryan Blair, the Goals Guy provides a great exercise to help you stay on target and moving ahead toward achieving your goals.  Even if you don’t feel like reviewing one of your goals every week, I suggest you do it.  This is common sense career advice.  The more you focus on your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them.

There is a Japanese proverb that I like and is appropriate here…

Vision without action is a daydream.
Action with vision is a nightmare.

No matter how big, your goals, plans, thoughts and dreams will never become a reality until you act on them.  You have to commit to taking personal responsibility for achieving your goals and for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  And action is the single most important word when it comes to demonstrating your commitment.

On the other hand, action without vision truly is a nightmare.  You’ll never get where you want to go if you don’t have a clear idea of exactly what you want to achieve.  That’s why you have to set goals.  Your goals are your vision for the career success you will create.

Goals give you direction and focus.   Action makes your goals a reality.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people follow the career advice in Tweet 31 in Success Tweets.  “Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  Goals are the foundation of your success.  You need to do two things to achieve your goals.  First create a plan.  Second, implement your plan; do whatever you have to do to achieve your goals.  Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, suggests focusing on one of your goals every week.  Figure out how well you’re doing on this one goal.  Then commit to doing the things necessary to move you closer to achieving it.  If you rotate through your goals, one week at a time, you’ll be moving in the right direction.  You’ll be on the road to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  This technique works.  Take it from a career success coach who uses it.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 31 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud