Category Archives: Personal Development

Posted on

Five Keys to Achieving Your Goals

Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals works! Many people want to achieve goals and as an executive life coach I work alongside them. But success is never an accident. It starts with a goal and it’s only by studying the success of others that this pattern emerged and was crafted. As a homebuilder our company success was based on setting and achieving goals. This strategy worked as the net profitability increased 10 fold.

SettingGoals

We thrive when we set and achieve goals. God gave us these desires in the first place and He wants us to take action to achieve His purposes.

Posted on

See How Easily You Can Achieve Your Goals

Coaching people I help them uncover their opportunities and obstacles. The single biggest obstacle for people is unclear goals. Why aren’t they clear – they’re not written down! Sounds simple right, but when you miss this important first step it’s easy to drift aimlessly in generalities without the capacity to look 3, 5, or 10 years ahead with focused direction.

Brain

Opportunities are often missed when your goals are vague and not in writing!

God gives us clear direction on this topic:

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.

Proverbs 21:5

Posted on

The Magic of Thinking Big

“Go big or stay home!” You’ve heard it and you’re ready to take your success to the next level. How? Where’s the game plan for BIG ideas and BIG success. Are you tired of making little achievable goals because the epic, grand vision, blue sky thinking goals are too lofty?

Only 3% of people set goals. Fear of failure holds most people back. But wouldn’t you rather be the person who is brave enough to imagine possibilities at the expense of being occasionally disappointed? Someone thinking big and setting a big goal enabled the masses to enjoy electricity, light bulbs, cars, radios, airplanes, T.V., computers, cell phones, iPods……you get the picture.

iStock_000023936029Small

Recently I saw a video that inspired me to write down my giving goals. This little girl wants to make the world a better place by providing 500,000 chickens for the poor. That’s a big goal for this little girl!

What’s your BIG goal? Where do you start?

Posted on

How To Become Smarter…Part 2

Married? Have kids? Have parents? Got any clients? If you’ve got a pulse, someone in your life regularly says to you, “listen”

How to become smarter…..choose wisely who you listen to. Listening leads to learning. It’s got BIG consequences.  My life has been defined by the voices I have listened to and those I have tuned out. If there was a “rewind” button for life there are voices I should have turned up and some should have been turned off!

iStock_000022059437Small

But we can’t turn back time. What we can do is learn to listen with greater discernment now. There are many competing voices and there is the voice within us. The voice within us needs a source of wisdom.

Posted on

How To Be Smarter……Part 1

Education – getting “smarter” is a major part of the development of our society and a key component of development worldwide.  But what about YOU, have you figured out how to be smarter?

As an old Chinese proverb says, “many receive advice, but only the wise profit by it”. The wisest man who ever lived, Solomon said it best. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he”. Proverbs 23:7

iStock_000026909189Small

What are you thinking? Where are you getting advice for making the important decisions in your life?

It is said that 5 years from now you will only be as smart as the books you read and the people you meet. Let’s start with books. Watch for my next post on people!

Posted on

Retirement: Wild, Happy and Free!

Retirement is a relatively new concept. Our great grandparents didn’t outlive their usefulness in order to indulge themselves in the thought of retiring. I used to think that if I had enough financial resources I could retire. But I have decided to RE-wire!  I’ve changed my focus from building homes to building people.

Society baits us into thinking it’s all about the nest egg. We don’t want to think about work when we retire. Certainly scripture is clear about the need and reward of work. I do not believe in retirement, as I do not think it’s Biblical.

iStock_000026763161Small

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Genesis 2:15

How can you “Re-wire” and change your work focus?  Do it in balance and with different rewards.

Posted on

How To Find Your Mission In Life

At 36 I woke up.  Until then, my focus was on the drive to achieve success as a builder and investor. Then one question changed my focus. What do I want to be remembered for?

Maybe you haven’t really thought about this yet.

Look around and then look inside. The frantic pace of life and business leave many unexamined lives. Instead we need to learn to find our mission in life.  Once that mission in life is discovered a whole new focus will emerge. Do you know your personal mission in life? We all want our life to count.

Football-03

In planning, the best place to begin is at the end. Imagine your funeral. What are people saying about you? You still have time to shape that conversation. If you don’t think about this question, it will cost you – for eternity. Picture your life like a dollar bill, how do you want to spend it?

Posted on

Achieve Your Goals

How can I encourage and motivate others to achieve what they set out to do? These are questions I’ve been asking myself.

How can I be engaging, inspiring and helpful in motivating others to achieve their success?

iStock_000010184686Small

I’ve made a habit of writing out my life goals .. checking and updating them regularly. Looking back it is amazing to see, by God’s grace, how many have been achieved. Apparently, only 3% of people have written goals. If you don’t write your plan down … you are less likely to achieve it.

Posted on

Balance Work and Life

There is a lot written about gaining balance in your life. Everyone has their story and I’m happy to share mine.

In the early years of starting our home building business, 60 hour weeks were the norm! When we hired staff 10 years later, long workweeks were STILL the norm. There was never enough time to get everything done at work. Work was cheating my family time. It was nearly impossible to achieve the elusive work life balance.

iStock_000020224274Small

Picture the work life balance like a scale…one side wins and the other side loses. We need to learn to “cheat” at work and stop cheating at home. We often cheat our family by spending too much time at work, or on fitness, or a hobby. Cut back on being so “busy” and be balanced!

Posted on

How To Handle Change

Do any of us like change?  For the most part, we are set in our ways. We have our favorite shirts, our usual cereal, familiar routines, and consistent habits.

I never welcomed change. Though, I can still hear my father’s words, “The only constant in life, is change.” It wasn’t easy embracing this truth, but I don’t think I’d be where I am today, unless I did.

God knew we would struggle with this. That is why he gave us his Word.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”    When faced with the prospect of change, I remember this verse.

iStock_000011925389Small

A great resource that has helped me with this Biblical truth, Who Moved My Cheese? has sold over 26 million copies and is one of the best selling business books of all time. It helped me realize that I should CHANGE. Get out of building the same homes I had been building for 10 years, and get into a niche market with less competition and greater profit.  A worthwhile CHANGE! All too often, it’s easier to keep doing the same thing, heading farther down the same path rather than changing direction.