Author Archives: teds
Author Archives: teds
Embrace Your Dreams and Become an Action Taker
Maybe you have a dream. You want to create a successful online business. Or maybe you’ve already created your business, but you dream of obtaining a level that seems far off into the future.
Dreams are wonderful and should be nurtured. But if all you do is dream about what you want, the odds that it’ll become a reality aren’t that great. Instead, what you have to do is change from just dreaming to dreaming and doing.
It’s time to step away from the sidelines and put everything into motion. Don’t look at improbabilities or what looks impossible. If you do that, you won’t have the right perspective.
Anything is achievable with hard work, even if you can’t necessarily see a way right now. Action is what will make your dreams come true. Sometimes people think that they have to take giant steps and upend their entire life to show progress toward their goals.
That’s not true. Even small steps move you forward. And many small steps will equal up to major change. If you dream of writing an eBook for your business, just writing a few hundred words a day will allow you to complete that book over the course of a few weeks.
Consistent action steps make a difference in whatever you want to see happen. Decide what your goals are involving your dream life and break them down into bite size pieces. This gives you a timeline to bring everything to fruition.
You need to establish the month or year that you want to see your dream turn into a reality. By setting a timeline, you have days and weeks to work with. You’ll know what you need to accomplish to keep moving forward.
Having this keeps you accountable. Tune out what doesn’t help. Don’t listen to people who want to tell you all the reasons why your dream won’t happen. Just because they didn’t achieve it, it doesn’t mean you won’t.
Tune in to what does matter. Read motivating stories about people who had a dream and turned that dream into a reality. Learn what you don’t know if there’s an action step you need to take, but don’t have the skills yet.
Protect your mindset. Believe that your dreams are worthy and that they will come true regardless of any circumstances that might seem contrary to that. Having the right mindset will allow you to continue taking action when something doesn’t work out the way you want it to on the journey.
Find your people. Connect with people you can learn from, people who have a dream and are excited about living it out. This will help keep you motivated and focused on achieving everything you want in life.
Learn to Be Resilient in the Face of Failure
One of the most common mistakes made - not only by entrepreneurs, but by people in general - is giving up in the face of failure. If you spend days, weeks, or even months planning out your roadmap to success as an entrepreneur, the moment something goes wrong, you’re going to panic.
You’ll start to have these wild thoughts about how everything isn’t going to work out and you’ll end up worse off than you started. However, you have to push these thoughts out and stand strong.
The only time that you can truly fail is when you give up entirely. Until then, they’re only setbacks. You should expect to have setbacks and roadblocks along your path to success.
It’s just something all entrepreneurs have to put up with. There are obviously different levels of severity when it comes to setbacks, but no matter what happens, you have to keep making forward progress if you want to succeed.
One thing you have to understand is that setbacks and failure are not always your fault. Sometimes, that’s just what happens. Even if you do nothing wrong, you can still encounter some resistance.
So be fully prepared to face that head on. In these particular situations, it can be extremely frustrating, because you may not have anything to actually learn from it, since it just happened to not work out.
Other times, your failures may be caused by one or many of your own personal mistakes. This should be seen not as a disgrace, but as a learning opportunity. If you look at what happened and what you did wrong, you should be able to understand what to do in the future by avoiding that same mistake.
This is actually how many people become successful to begin with - through failure and repetition, with adjustments made after each unsuccessful attempt. Being set back can have many negative mental repercussions, so it’s important for you to be mentally strong above all else.
If possible, you should work on that even during times when things are going well, by doing things like yoga and meditation to keep your mind strong and stable. If you’re unprepared for it when failure strikes, you’re going to be much worse off.
By preparing and anticipating failure along the way, you can significantly dampen the blow to your mental state that it will bring, allowing you to act fast and get yourself back on the right track - even stronger than ever before.
Be the Kind of Person Who Thrives with Every Challenge
Obstacles are inevitable for entrepreneurs. You’ll encounter them no matter what kind of business you have. You really only have two choices when it comes to dealing with them.
Either you allow them to cause you to shrink back in fear and self-doubt, or you embrace them, refusing to allow them to intimidate you. Believe it or not, a successful business is one that welcomes obstacles.
Being an entrepreneur will come with many ups and downs emotionally because of hindrances. You might experience fear, disappointment, anger and more. Thriving with challenge means that you don’t allow your emotions to guide you.
You recognize the challenge for what it is - just part of doing business - and you pick yourself up and get right back to focusing on moving your business forward to the next step.
If you do some research, you’ll find that businesses that see success today once faced seemingly insurmountable challenges. The only thing they did differently than the businesses that folded up shop did was that they allowed those obstacles to fuel their determination rather than defeat it.
Challenges weed out the weak and less determined. They help those who dig in their heels and see challenges for the opportunities they can be become forged in the fire that these problems bring.
In the end, they come out stronger and better than before they encountered whatever they faced. You can become the kind of person who thrives through challenges by having a winning strategy.
Make sure that you have a group of go getters you can turn to when the setbacks surface. This might be other business owners that you reach out to or successful people that you read about and you can hold onto their advice while you’re going through your challenge.
When you’re struggling with an obstacle, hold onto the reason why you wanted to start your business to begin with. Reminding yourself of your why will help you stay determined to succeed no matter what.
Make sure that your mind is set on the right things. If negativity crops up, kick that thought out and cultivate positive thoughts. If you have a negative mindset toward obstacles, overhaul that thinking and become determined to find at least one good thing about the obstacles you face.
Remember that not every obstacle will leave you the winner. When a challenge feels like it’s driven you to rock bottom, decide if it’s time to create a fork in the road in order to go around it.
For example, you may have a product that you want to launch by a certain date, but one issue after another has developed and that launch date just isn’t going to happen. Go around that obstacle by setting another launch date and using the extended time to add more to your project so that it becomes even more profitable.
31 New Year's Resolutions That Can Change Your Life
For many of us, the approach of a new year is a time for self-reflection and evaluation. It's the time when we find ourselves taking stock of the past year; what we achieved and what we failed to achieve, our brilliant successes and dismal setbacks.
More importantly, we review the resolutions we made at the beginning of the past year and assess whether we actually stuck to them. Often, the fact that we were unable to achieve all or none of them can be very depressing. That's the weird thing about New Year's resolutions.
Everybody makes them but very few of us actually see them through. If you fall into this category, welcome to the club!
The advent of a new year always inspires and motivates us to make a lot of optimistic resolutions. But as time goes on, the majority of us forget all about them amidst the day to day distractions of a crowded, hectic life. That's a real shame because certain resolutions can change your life.
This book will provide you with a number of powerful resolutions that cover every aspect of your life. They will work to change your behavior, form positive habits and allow you to achieve your dreams.
There's only one catch - you need to stick to them. So, let your first resolution be to steadfastly stick to your resolutions! Once you see the powerful logic behind them, you will definitely make achieving them a priority.
Now, read on (by clicking on that blue button here-below) to find out how the new year can not only be your best year ever but also transform the rest of your life!
Allow Limitations to Be a Thing of the Past
Starting your own business is a difficult task, and unless you’re extremely lucky, you’re going to run into situations where your limitations are inhibiting you from moving forward.
These limitations could be a variety of things, from a lack of money or time to a certain underdeveloped skillset. This can be frustrating, but there are ways for you to work around these limitations and get them out of your way.
You may not be carefully examining all of your options. For example, if you needed a particular program to do some of your work, but it cost too much for you to purchase, you would think that you’re stuck.
However, there are ways around this type of obstacle. There are often free versions of programs or free alternatives that you can use until you have the money together to afford the version you wanted.
For example, Photoshop can be a bit pricey, but there are free alternatives available that can do many of the same things. It may not be perfect, but it’s definitely better than nothing and it can provide you with a foundation to work off of.
When it comes to the limitation of time, you may have to start cutting out things in your life that you enjoy doing. Look carefully at your own schedule and how you allocate your time.
You might be spending a lot of free time watching TV or engaging in other activities, and you might have to temporarily cut those out in order to get the ball rolling. This doesn’t mean that you’ll never relax again, but in the early formative stages of a business, there’s not much room for recreation.
In fact, you might even have to lose out on some sleep if you want to really get things going. Finally, there’s the limitation of skill sets. You will no doubt encounter a situation in which you’re poorly equipped to deal with the task at hand due to a lack of certain skills.
There are many options available for learning new skills. You could ask somebody that you know who does have experience in that area who might be willing to share some of their knowledge.
You could also find free or paid online courses that you can learn from, but be sure to take the time to properly learn it. Many people will watch and online course and quickly apply the skills they just learned, only to promptly forget about it. In order to avoid these problems in the future, make sure you get a firm grasp on that information.
Every individual has reasons why he or she wants to manifest what they like for his or her own life.
The art of manifestation may be simple for some people. But, when they start their journey to manifest something they desire, they find it hard to make it possible.
From Chapter #1 - The Basics
But, how can you master the art of manifestation? What are the things that you need to consider? Why do you need to manifest something?
There are different approaches that you may take for consideration when making manifestations. These approaches may vary depending on how the person handles the situation.
But, before everything else, you have to know what manifestation means before you take any necessary steps. You also have to know the abilities required for you to make successful manifestation. This is because there are things that may assist you while you are applying the steps to manifest anything.
So, what are really the secrets to successful manifestation and why do you need to master it? Is it a requirement in this life?
Or, is it another way for you be successful in life? The answer is simple and it depends on the person...
Adopt a Positive Outlook on Your Efforts and End Goals
As an entrepreneur, you’ll find yourself dealing with many hardships. Getting your own business off the ground is no small task, and it comes with challenges and other hurdles that will make you doubt yourself and the possibility of achieving your own end goals.
If you start to face these challenges with a negative attitude, then you’re going to increase your chances of failure. However, by adopting a more positive outlook on what you’re doing, you will increase your chances of success.
Even if you think you can still work efficiently with a negative attitude, you’re not going to be doing as well as you think you are. It has been shown time and time again that those who are more positive in their outlooks and demeanors are more likely to be successful in their endeavors.
This is due in part to something known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that your work won’t pan out the way you want it to, then you probably won’t put in as much effort, which inevitably leads to things not panning out.
You fail - not because you were right in your assumptions, but rather because you believed those assumptions, which caused you to change the way you work. Having a negative attitude about your own job will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you have a startup company that you’re running, but you have serious doubts about it being successful and you don’t anticipate it lasting, then you’re certainly not going to give it your all.
Why would you give your all in something that you don’t believe in? By failing to give 100% of your effort, the startup ends up failing and you have proven yourself right. Instead, a positive outlook will motivate you through the toughest times, but you have to really believe in the positive outlook.
If you’re just phoning it in, when times get tough, you’re going to find yourself unable to move past the tougher obstacles that you’re faced with. When you truly believe that the project you’re working on or the business you’re starting will work out, then you won’t hesitate to put more effort into it.
You trust that it won’t be for nothing. Being positive will not only influence you to be better, but it may also influence others around you if you have people working for or with you, leading to an overall more productive situation.
How to Boost Your Courage
It’s important to understand that the meaning of courage does not mean that you don’t feel afraid. It means that you feel the fear, but you do “it” whatever “it” is anyway. If you’re not afraid, you don’t need courage. If you want to do more things with courage, you’ll need to learn more and get help from others.
The more you know about anything the less fear you’ll feel. Whenever you are needing courage, the best thing to do is learn more about the situation. Learn about every single angle, learn about different outcomes, read all studies, and get as much information as you can about whatever it is that causes you to fear.
You may wonder how some people act even in the case of fear without totally losing it emotionally. One way is to practice stoicism. That means that you recognize the fear, but don’t let your emotions succumb to them. Doing this will help you calm down any responses that your body makes such as shaking, crying, and so forth.
There is always power in numbers. Doing particularly scary things with someone else almost always makes the activity easier to accomplish. When you find the right people to put on your team or to join with to get things done, you can boost your courage exponentially.
Another way to boost your courage is to focus only on the results that you are trying to achieve instead of the process. For example, if you know that when you finish this project that fewer people will suffer that is going to help even if it’s hard to get it done.
Like most things, the more often you follow through on taking an action, the more your skill will grow. The more you take that action, the more secure you’ll feel because you know what to expect and you have more self-confidence due to past experiences. Your mind and body will remember that you can do it, even if you feel nervous or scared.
If you’ve done your research and you’ve taken precautions, just do what you feared for at least two minutes. The key is to start because once you are engrossed in the activity, you don’t usually feel the need to stop.
As mentioned, the definition of courage is to feel fear but keep going anyway. This is truly the only way to conquer fears. No amount of education or planning will take away all the fear if courage is needed. Therefore, feel it, and do it anyway.
It can be hard to be positive when you’re fighting negative self-talk. fear to focus on the positive. However, if you find a way to do that, you’ll find that you can get so much more done even if you’re scared because you know why.
Courage is an important component in life because there are so many things that take courage. Even getting up each morning and walking out your door requires courage, but it’s likely you never gave it much thought since you have had plenty of practice getting up and out of the house each day.
Sharpen Your Competitive Skills to Have an Edge in the Marketplace
You can start any kind of business online. The marketplace is wide open for entrepreneurs. But, because anyone can do it, consumers have countless options to choose from.
In order to have an edge in the marketplace, you need to be sure that your competitive skills are sharp. Continually honing your skills can make your business one that your competitors have to watch out for.
Don’t look at your competition as something to be afraid of. Having competition is one of the best ways to sharpen your skills as well. Investigate your competition. Look at what they’re doing with their business and see how you can improve on that.
Research how they handle the launch of a product. Look at what their social media and their website has to say when it comes to interacting with customers. See what kind of value they’re offering.
Check out how they handle customer service interaction. Do a quick search to see if they have customer complaints and if so, is there a unifying factor within those complaints?
Take this information back to your own customers. Figure out where they need support and what it is that they’re looking for that you can deliver. Having this information will allow you to be able to do better than other businesses in the same field.
You’ll be able to use the knowledge to gear your product or services to handle whatever it is that your competition is lacking or has mishandled. You always want to make sure that you’re paying attention to what consumers are saying as well as what they’re searching for.
By doing research, you’ll often find that there’s a space between what’s being offered and the needs of the customers out there. You’ll be able to fill this need in the marketplace when you know what’s missing.
When you research, you sharpen your edge because it enables you to be able to understand and prove to the customer why your business is different and therefore, better than the competition.
It allows your brand to stand out. Don’t ever fall into the trap of believing that you’ve arrived and that your company has reached a ceiling. There’s always room to grow your skills and overhaul the ones you’re already using.
Keep an eye on developing yourself professionally. This might mean taking a course or signing up for management classes. It may mean that you invest in new technology for the business so that you it can improve your competitive skills.
Never stop learning. Never stop improving. Never stop meeting consumer needs. It’s how well you build a loyal customer following that will continue to make your business profitable.
Be a Risk Taker without Being Foolish
One of the most misunderstood concepts of entrepreneurship is the concept of taking risks. Risks are a necessity at times, and when they’re not necessary, they can be helpful.
They often provide you with opportunities that you might not have been confident in before. This does not mean that you should take every single risk that you can think of, or that’s presented to you, because they will not all have positive outcomes.
It seems that some people interpret risk as a shot in the dark, or a leap of faith. While those are certain types of risk, they might be the worst type of risk you could take as an entrepreneur.
A risk isn’t just something that you have no idea about. As long as you’re not 100% sure of the outcome, it is a risk of some kind. Therefore, you should carefully analyze what it is you’re going to be doing and what the chances are that the risk works in your favor.
For example, if a company offered you a request for a very large shipment of your goods that you knew you couldn’t fulfill, but they offered a very good price, would you take the risk that may you could meet the demand?
On one hand, you might not be able to properly fulfill the customer’s request, but on the other hand you’d be paid well. So, you must evaluate the risk between your company’s reputation and legitimacy and a slightly larger paycheck.
In this case, you should carefully reflect on whether or not you can meet the demand, or be upfront and honest with your customer and risk losing the sale instead of your reputation and future business.
You should never rush into any decision. Always take your time and carefully consider all of the scenarios that could play out and how they would affect you and your business.
If someone is rushing you into making a decision, you most likely should decline it. Chances are, they’re trying to get you to say yes to something that would negatively affect you and benefit them, instead.
Any time you decide to take a risk, be sure to look it over as closely as possible, and if you can, get some other people to look it over with you to hear their opinions on the matter.
You should try to analyze it as well as you can so that you can make an educated guess instead of a blind one and weigh the consequences if it fails. It’s natural to always assume that the positive outcome will happen, but you shouldn’t be surprised if a risk doesn’t go the way you want it to. This doesn’t mean that you did something horribly wrong or that you should never take a risk again, but rather that you just got unlucky this time or needed to take a different approach.