Are You A Failure Germaphobe?

It’s been said that if you want to increase your success rate, you should increase your failure rate. Success comes at least partially from your volume of attempts. If you want to sell more, make more sales calls. If you want more dates, ask more people out. Pretty simple principle — one that’s been around…

Used Goals For Sale

Several people recently suggested that I try using Google AdSense to place context-relevant text ads on the side of the blog. Initially I rejected the idea because I didn’t like the idea of putting ads on the site. I’ve kept Dexterity Software ad-free for years. And when my wife tried using AdSense on her VegFamily…

Post Your Goals Where You Can See Them

One simple tip for staying on track towards your goals is to write your weekly goals on a marker board in your office. This isn’t a to do list. It’s a list of the important items you expect to have accomplished by the end of the week. On the left side I write my primary…

Enjoying the Journey

If you work really hard to achieve your goals but don’t enjoy the journey, you’re delaying the essence of life. Committing to your goals doesn’t mean you slave away at work you dislike, celebrating only the destination. A real abiding commitment means that you love what you do each day. You are at least as…

Read a Book a Week

In 1992 I first learned of the habit of reading one book every week (on average), with most of them being in the field in which you desire to develop expertise. This translates to about 50 books a year. Brian Tracy explains that this habit will make you an international expert in your chosen field…

Your Goal Scoreboard

One goal-achievement tool I just started using is a scoreboard. It’s very easy to create and maintain. You make a page to score your progress towards all your measurable goals for the year. A scoreboard is nothing more than a table with 3 columns. The first column is a list of your goals. The second…

Your Personal Accountability System

A difficult challenge in achieving goals is simply remaining aware of them and staying on track. How many times have you set a goal, started working on it with the best of intentions, and then at some future time, you realize it somehow slipped through the cracks? External influences exert forces to knock us off…

The 8th Habit

I recently finished reading Stephen Covey’s The 8th Habit, which I enjoyed tremendously. It seemed a bit wordy and redundant in some parts, but I liked the whole-person model that incorporates body, heart, mind, and spirit. Covey applies his concepts mainly to large organizations, but most of the ideas scale well to the level of…

The Best Place to Invest Your Money

The best place to invest your money is in yourself. The rate of return from investing in your own knowledge and skills will be much higher than anything you’ll see from stocks, real estate, or other investments. In some cases you can even measure the rate of return. Say you buy a book. Even add…

Contest Season Begins

The 2005 Toastmasters International speech contest season is underway. In the fall I really enjoyed competing in the humorous speech contest, so I was eager to go for it again. Last night I won first place in my club contest (by default since I was the only competitor), so on March 5 I’ll progress to…