Lacking Energy, Motivation, Confidence?

Are you lacking in Energy, Motivation, or Confidence?

Or perhaps all three?!

Picture this, you've had a hard week at the office, and on the weekend you partner reminds you that the garage needs sorting, the spare room needs painting, visit the mother in law, or some other chore that you really don't want to do. You say "Honey, I've had a tough week, I'm tired, the boss is on my back, I'm really stressed out, I'm really not sure how to do that, I just want to chill out in front of the TV".

All of a sudden, your friend calls up and says he has a tee-off in one hour at the golf course, and they are missing one player, they'll be picking you up in 15 minutes.

And Bam! Just like that there is energy, motivation and a confident spring in your step, and you are waiting eagerly on the doorstep for your buddies to pick you up.

What happened? What made the difference?

If your goal, lets take painting the spare room as an example, is not aligned with your highest values, you procrastinate, hesitate and frustrate yourself (and your partner, boss, etc.).

If your goal is aligned with your highest values, then you get disciplined, focused and reliable.

You will always have time, energy, money, to achieve things that are aligned to your highest values.

You are inspired to do them. You don't need anyone to motivate you.

"But" I can hear you say, I really 'should', 'ought to', 'got to', paint the spare room. How do I get myself to be inspired to achieve this goal?

The answer is to simply link it to your highest values.

Painting the spare room may not be high on your values, but impressing the relatives that are visiting from overseas might be. Or getting the room ready for you new baby.

Once you have a good enough, reason or reasons WHY painting the room will align with your highest values, you will find the time, energy and a way to do it.

The goal then becomes something that's ON the way, rather than an obstacle that's IN the way.

To your success,
Trevor Long

The Imitation Game

Thank you, Alan Turing.

The Imitation Game is an excellent movie, and an excellent example of having a specific goal, a plan, overcoming obstacles (many of which were people who were on the same team), of perseverance, and of taking inspiration from the cues around us.

When you have a goal and you take massive action towards it, the Universe conspires for your success.

What, or whom, could you be imitating?

To your success,
Trevor Long

Choices, Choices...

The Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, talks of choices taking you towards or away from your spirit.

I like to say that we are faced with choices every moment, that take you towards or away from your goals.

Mars Bar or apple?
Coke or water?
Read or watch TV?
Exercise or watch TV?
Make that call, or procrastinate?
Say something nice to your partner, or ignore them, or worse?

Most of the choices we face, and there are thousands every day, are very simple.

The choices you make in each moment lead you.

To your success,
Trevor Long

To Train, Or Not To Train?

Often I speak with people who tell me something like, “I’ve done all these trainings and gone to all these seminars, and all I feel now is lost, and that I’ve wasted so much money.”

Have you felt like this?

Unfortunately this is all too common. Only about 1 in 20 people will actually do anything with what they learned at a training or a seminar, and only about 1 in 100 will be really successful as a result of the trainings. That is a harsh reality.

Many years ago, when I was doing network marketing, they told me those figures, that I would need to put 20 people into my business before I found one spark, and 100 people into my business before I found someone who would work as hard as I did in the business.

I didn't believe them. I thought that the opportunity was there, the system was there, all you had to do was have a goal, and work the system.

I was right, and so were they.

I had a goal - to achieve a new level every quarter, and I worked the system. They said 'show the plan' and 'demonstrate the products'.  And that's what I did. Almost every night I was out showing the plan on a whiteboard or a piece of paper, or I was covering my hands in boot polish and getting them clean with the products. Then I would go home, shower, wash my only 'business' shirt while I was in the shower, and hang it up to dry ready for the next night.

Pretty soon I was standing up in front of groups of people getting my awards. In front of people who were older than me, more experienced than me, wealthier than me, better looking than me, had better cars than me. But I was shooting past them in the business.

I asked myself why? The answer was simple. They weren't doing the do. They weren't persisting.

Soon I had 20 people in my group, and I found one 'goer'. Then there was a hundred, and I found another 'me'. Then there were 300, and there were three people working the business just as hard as I was. the numbers work.

How do you tip the odds in your favor?

Be the person who has a goal and persists.
Do what the others aren't willing to do.
Then you can Have what they can't.

We'll explore training further tomorrow,

(Oh, btw, I'm no longer in network marketing, so I'm not going to ask you to come to a meeting!)

To your success,
Trevor Long

Off the Court

The Australian Open Tennis Championships are dominating the media and conversations this Australia Day.

Just like any major sporting event, we see the best of the best of the best of the best congregate to do battle.

With the exception of one player, all of the players in to the top 8 Men's singles are in the top 10 ranked players in the world.

The cream floats to the top.



We look at what they do on the court and are impressed with their skills and determination.

But what about what they are doing off the court? How did they get to enter such competitions in the first place?

Well, the majority of them started very young, they played, they persisted and continued playing.

They traveled away from home over 30 weeks a year, and spent another 15 or so in off season training. They shared rooms with other players, they ate junk because that was all they could afford, yet they had a dream, goals, and they persisted.

And even when they've 'made it', they are still training about 4 hours a day, even when they have a grueling match. They've got strength training, endurance training, and that's on top of tennis training.

There are no overnight successes. There is no success without hard work and commitment.

What are you doing 'off the court'?

To your success,
Trevor Long

Is everything within you?

When I first got into personal development, way back when, Tony Robbins had me chanting "All I need is within me now, all I need is within me Now, all I need is within me NOW!"

Problem was, I didn't believe it. I'd set my goals, visualise them, do affirmations, but deep down inside I really didn't believe it was going to happen for me. And guess what? I was right!

Recently my fiancee was germinating some seeds, supposedly an 'activated' seed is better for you in your smoothie than a regular dry seed.

 We took one of those germinated seeds, and planted it in our little vege patch.

Soon it shot up, and all too soon, it became a beautiful towering sunflower

When you look at that little seed in the palm of your hand, do you see a massive sunflower? Where is it? Is it in the seed? Could you find it if you cracked the seed open? No, all you find inside is a seed that contains the possibility of a sunflower, an idea of a sunflower.

Yet if you plant that seed in fertile soil, the seed will attract to it the water, the nutrients, the sunlight and the air. It will attract to itself all that it needs to transform that invisible, immaterial idea into a fully formed sunflower.

Note that the seed didn't just sit there and wait for everything to happen - it took massive action - by sending out roots and leaves to be able to attract even more of the things it needs to achieve its goal.

So when we first planted that seed, where was the sunflower? It was not in the seed - it was scattered in pieces of sunflower potential throughout its environment.

Goals are achieved in exactly the same way. When you have the idea for a goal, the actual goal is not inside you, but several weeks/months/years from now, your goal will reach fruition.

And remember it takes time to grow a sunflower, you don't go digging it up every five minutes to see if its growing. You just go about watering it, doing what you have to do, while it does what it has to do, all the while knowing that the sunflower is coming.

You'll see it when you believe it.

All you need really is within you, the rest is around you, and its yours, you just gotta believe it is.

To your success,
Trevor Long