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Be Your Future … Now

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Self-Talk and Self-Awareness

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Last night on PBS I saw a program on success and winning. The following fact almost floored me.

The self-talk in our heads runs at about 300-1000 words / minute.

Imagine the power of that barrage of thoughts. Whether positive or negative, that much energy can direct a life.

Just being aware of when we’re talking to ourselves makes a huge difference.
Taking responsibility for it can make a difference in our lives.

Be Your Future … Now

I believe that to know yourself is key to succeeding in both business and life. Once we figure our own direction and intentions, those of other people have less power to shape and bend us.

For a few years I spent significant time exploring self-actualizing questions.

Am I being true to myself?

I could tie my mind in complex knots over that one question. Being myself, being true to myself, knowing when to trust my perception of others, I found all of these far more complicated than I needed to make them.

In an attempt to sort myself, I did the math. I thought …

I have so many emotions. Do I always have to go with the one I feel most? If I’m 10% happy does that count less than the 20% nervous I feel? Is one thing I’m feeling more truly me than another? Which should I act on when I’m feeling, love, jealousy, anger, hurt, ignored?

Your answers might be easy, but I could think myself into a tizzy over such questions. Most situations offered too many possibilities.

Finally I looked outside myself for an answer. I saw Dorothy’s personal sense of class, Jo’s open acceptance, and Martha’s grace under pressure. I wished for my mother’s strength and my father’s generosity of spirit. I sought out the people who had the qualities that I admired, qualities I wished I could cultivate in myself.

Eventually, I found that I would grow more and with less angst if I used a different question.
Eventually that question became …

Am I being true to who I want to be?

That question I can check in mirror.

The person I want to be would respond like this …

And the benefits of this future question were lovely. I spent less time out-thinking things, more time doing. And with less and less future before me I want to be the future me now.

Who is the “me” in your future? You get to decide that.
This works for teams, couples, and individuals. Try it.

How will you be your future now?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

The ABCs of Scheduling

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Rosemary O’Neill

The ABCs of Scheduling

You can burn the candle at both ends, but eventually you end up in the dark with no candle.
Therefore, one of the most important skills a business owner can have is the ability to take control of the schedule.

A-Always. B-Be. C-Calendaring.

(Apologies to David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.)

Get out in front of your schedule

One of the most embarrassing incidents of my life was in high school (aren’t they all). I was Junior Class President, riding high, and responsible for putting together the whole-school Spring Dance. Unfortunately I was also a world-class procrastinator. Let’s just end this sad tale by saying that there was no Spring Dance, for the first time in years. Picture a 16 year old girl fielding phone calls from angry parents who had bought dresses for their 16 year old girls.

That humbling experience made me a goal-setting, calendar-keeping nut.

Use the calendar tools that work for you

If you don’t wrangle the calendar, and your daily events, it will wrangle you. Here are a few tips for scheduling sanity:

Take advantage of your natural rhythms – Liz recently posted about kicking in your peak productivity time. Don’t try to work against your body, if you’re an early riser, schedule accordingly.

Have a central, master calendar – I use Google Calendar for everything, and have it synced to all of my devices. You can make different colored sub-calendars for various aspects of your life, too. I have an editorial calendar, family and kid activities, business meetings, birthdays, and personal development time displayed together in one master calendar.

Tell people how you want them to schedule with you – If you use an online appointment system like Tungle.me, or you have a virtual assistant, let people know how to get on your calendar. Ideally, you don’t even have to be directly involved. The key is to use only one mechanism.

Start your month, week, and day with the calendar – Everyone should master the art of visualization. When you start out by planning and picturing how the month, week, or day is going to go, you’re already ahead of the game. Put aside sacred time (yes, put it on the calendar too) that you will use to prepare your mind for what’s ahead.

What’s on your calendar this week? How can you start making next week look even more productive for your business?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss