Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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Sorting Is a Breeze, a Day at the Beach

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 11 Comments

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Thoughts that Say Easy . . .

I love those idiomatic phrases that mean things are easy …
Easy as pie …
It’s a piece of cake.

My most favorite of them are …
It’s a breeze. . . .
a day at the beach.

I use them when things get stressful or hard, especially when my head gets too filled with details and options.

When I have too many options, those last two idioms help me sort them. A breeze and beach conjure up images that let me sit back for a thought, no matter how busy or anxious for answer the world is.

I imagine a day at the beach where the sand and the sky are big and open. No clocks or buildings interrupt a chance to spread out my thoughts. I need to see the spaces between the options to know what I’ve got and sort them.

A few well-spaced thoughts and I remember that my life is my creation. I’m in charge of valuing the options. I choose the path, the curves, and the interactions. When I listen to what I know, seeing where I am and I’m going is easy. It’s a day at the beach drawing possibilities in the sand.


How do you sort too many thoughts and options?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image: sxc.hu
Image: sxc.hu
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Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Filed Under Business Life, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 14 Comments

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

insideout logo

The road to success — We’ve all heard of that one. Do the things everyone does and you’ll probably get to something that’s . . . well, . . . not broken. But if you want to be successful and outstanding. Doing what everyone does won’t get you there . . . because to be outstanding, by necessity, you have to be individual.

To do stand and shine as uniquely valuable, a business or an individual needs a road that leads in a singular direction.

Note that I used the word leads.

A Plan to Be Irresistibly, Outstandingly Successful

Any effective, efficient project, business, or life has structure and direction. It starts with a destination — literal or figurative — and then a route to get there. Without a plan, we leave ourselves open to winds that push us toward distractions or detours. A plan, well thought and well provided for is the only way to get where we want to that shining end point.

Have a plan and work the plan is sage advice.

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Last week we talked about making decisions. Here are the reasons that outstanding success demands a plan.

  1. If we don’t have a plan, we’re just wishing.
  2. If we don’t have a plan, we’re always here and success is always out there.
  3. Without a plan, we have no direction. Any road will take us anywhere, but we won’t end up there.
  4. Without a plan, every decision is likely to have as much power as a whim.
  5. A plan is the only way to benchmark our progress and to build on what we’ve accomplished.
  6. A plan is keeps us focused when other ideas tempt us away from our dreams.

Decide. Plan. Get determined. The plan makes a dream into an outstandingly success. It’s the plan — the decisions and determination — that fuels the reality. Distractions are easier to disregard when we can hold them up to a plan we know we can achieve.

Without a plan, we’re always getting ready to succeed. Christine Kane says it eloquently.

“How will you go the long, long journey,
if you’re always about to begin?” — Christine Kane, Falling in Love with the Wind

If you want to be outstandingly successful, plan for it. Outstanding is a stake in the ground that we keep our eyes on. It’s a path that we plot for the life that we want. It’s as easy as a decision.

Have you planned outstanding success into your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Decision or Choice: Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

Filed Under Business Life, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 16 Comments

Possibilities and Direction

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You walk into an ice cream store. So many flavors sit in the case before you. You consider or you know right away. You place your order.

You have a meeting with your boss only to find out that the job you love is likely to be gone in six months. You have an opportunity to take a higher position in another state or you can stay in the city you love with a fair certainty that your job is going away.

One is a choice. The other is a decision.

One is about possibilities. The other is about direction.

Decision or Choice

Whether we’re thinking about sending a child to private school, where to go on holiday, or buying office supplies, every day we opt for one thing over another. Sometimes we’re choosing. Sometimes we’re deciding. Doing one when the other is called for can get in our way.

Do you know the difference between a choice and a decision? Consider what the words mean and how that might apply to your business and your life.

The Definitions [via Answers.com ]

The Etymology — History of the Words [via Merriam-Webster Online,]

Synonyms [via Thesaurus.com]

When we choose, it’s like picking an item from a menu. If we come back the next time, we can make another choice. But a decision, cuts off — kills — other options. By its very definiton a decision is a turning point.

Is the Difference Stealing Your Focus and Your Time?

Decisions and choices build our character, form our life path. They’re the sum and substance of what makes our resume and our business success. Even so, what is a decision or a choice for you, me, or anyone is, in itself, a decision or a choice.

How we handle decisions and choices deeply affects our lives.

Those two mistakes steal time and focus and often generate stress.

The difference is fairly simple.
A decision marks a direction.
A choice marks an option until we return to choose again.

How will you use this information?

It’s your decision . . . or your choice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Related:
When Is Being Good Not Good for Business?
7 Ways to Carve a Path to the Future of Your Dreams
How to Know If You’ve Lost Track of Your Vision

Change the World: One Choice Decides

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 9 Comments

Go On and Do That

Change the World!

Ever watch someone building a dream? Ever wonder about building a dream and catch yourself thinking, I wish I was meant to do that?

Why would some people get to have their dreams and other people have to go without?

It can’t be luck. It can’t be money. It sure can’t be smarts. Look around. Those things don’t decide who gets what.

How would a universe choose which stars get to shine and which don’t?

Is it that some people know their dreams? Deep in our hearts, don’t we all? We did when we small enough to still dream big, giant dreams. It’s in ourselves. It’s in our hearts. We know.

Ourselves. What’s so scary about going after a dream? Is it the self in ourselves? Is that the question, the word, that stops us from being who we are? We can’t be ourselves because of our self?

Self-directed doesn’t mean self-serving. Self-determined isn’t self-absorbed. It isn’t selfish or self-centered to be who we are.

Truth is, we give our self to a dream.

What’s the difference between the person who changes a dream into reality and the person who looks on?

One changes the world.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Sunday Morning Light: Answering Why Givers Don’t Ask to Get Paid

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

A New Answer and a Hit

Last night, I asked a question.

Then an audience came. Real folks showed up to push me out of my head into the daylight. I got advice, ideas, tough love, and friendship. I listened carefully to every word, and I’m still listening.

The best part of community is finding out that other folks have stopped where you’re stuck standing.

From the comment, I saw the dots connecting to form the message I took from that conversation. It’s simple enough.

When If I give away my time, I’m agreeing to that contract.
If that’s not working, I need to stop doing it.

hitting one out of the park

Thank you all for helping me stand outside of myself
to see the disconnects in my thinking.

I’m a lucky girl . . .

. . . a lucky girl who’s decided that
I’m hitting one out of the park in 2008.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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(Dear Jeff, I know you hate baseball analogies.)

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