Clear Goal Setting Helps to Clearly Define Your Road Map to the Buried Treasure

Don’t underestimate the importance of goal setting. If you set goals correctly, the finished product is your road map to the buried treasure. Excitement will quickly follow because you now know EXACTLY how to get to it. Because it’s no longer a needle in a haystack, you have the ever so important, and much needed – CLARITY!

So, now all you have to do is follow the road map.

What’s that? “goal setting is difficult”, you say…

Yeah it can be SOMETIMES, but the more and more you do it, the easier it becomes. But more importantly, it’ll eventually become a habit! And, instead of looking at goal setting as a tedious task, you’ll start to enjoy doing it! Besides, the mere fact that it isn’t ‘easy’, should encourage you because life is ‘designed’ in a way that the easier things DON’T yield the greatest results!

The fact is, MOST people DON’T bother setting goals, and so it makes perfect sense that most people are NOT where they want to be in life. So, take my foolish advice…

It’s often good practice to use the majority as a CONTRARY indicator of what to do in a given situation. For example, the majority don’t take time to set goals, so you would do the opposite!

In a nutshell, we ALL need to set goals if we want to really achieve in life, but…

Do you know what you want to be successful at?

PUT IT INTO PERSPECTIVE

Obviously, I would recommend everybody to carry out goal setting, but I must stress the importance of setting the right type of goals, in the right order. Put another way, it’s important to prioritise your goals. Does that make sense? NO…

OK, I’ll quickly explain…

Does it make sense to go out and buy a car stereo BEFORE you own a car? You obviously need to put first things FIRST! When it comes to planning your DREAM life, getting first things first is CRUCIAL. Many people overlook the important of strengthening their foundational values, BEFORE even thinking about following self improvement strategies. This is often the route cause of successes and failures in life!…

So basically, make sure YOU have STRONG foundations FIRST, before you start making any plans to rule the world. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself, and me hopefully, for it!

Moving Forward…

In wrapping up this article, I’ll quickly pinpoint what elements a good plan should have…

Your desired outcome or goal. Ideally this should be broken up into smaller goals, with each being clear and precise! For example, I want to be retired by the age of 40 with 2 million pounds in the bank and mortgage free. Attaining your goals should be logical, structured and more importantly, believable!

If you take anything away from this article, let it be this…

There is no goal you can set that is more important then living a meaningful, passionate, abundant life, PERIOD! You just need to work out what your life needs to entail so you can achieve this!

Before you begin goal setting, make it your top priority to look into Ishmail Downes’ superb FREE audio product “Live Your DREAM Life!”. In it, he talks about setting goals for every department of your life, but this is goal setting with a difference. Check it out…

Goals Lead to Success

By Howard Litwak

So much has been written about goal setting. My favourite is Zig Ziglar who says “A goal well set is half way achieved.” Goal setting is one of the most natural things that we do as humans. We don’t move from place to place without a goal. But most people don’t fully harness the power of it.

From my experience, there is a magic in setting goals. Especially when they are written goals, because writing clarifies your thoughts. Committing to something that you are passionate about, short term or long term, sets your sub-conscious mind to work on achieving this desired new reality. You find yourself coming up with inspirations on how to move you forward. Also, you will find yourself unexpectedly doing things that move you towards your goal.

I’ve been setting goals for 20 years. And I have achieved many of my goals, despite myself. What I have learned is that you will hit many of your goals as long as you take the step of deciding what it is that you want. However, you will hit all of your goals with CERTAINTY and also much quicker if you have an action plan to:

1) provide solutions to all obstacles that stand in your way

2) have daily actionable steps to accomplish your solutions

3) set time frames on what gets done by when

Setting goals is the first and most important step towards any achievement. The action steps and the action itself are the catalyst to turn the goal, which is inert, into something which is dynamic.

If you find that you are a planner, like me, but the steps don’t seem to get done, I would recommend that you find an accountability partner to help. That way you can commit daily or weekly to someone besides yourself on what steps you will accomplish. This simple action can greatly accelerate your success because it keeps the action part of the process in your conscious mind.

Until next time, my best wishes for the accomplishment of all of your goals.

Article Source:Howard Litwak

Success Strategies – The Power of Positive Thinking

By Howard Litwak

Is there a key for people who achieve success?

It is our choice of how we look at the world. Is the glass half empty or half full? Our view of the world determines how we think about and act in any situation, which of course leads to our results. Our results lead to the life style that we lead.

We can only have one thought in our minds at a time so why not make it a positive one? Our thoughts are something that we have complete control over. They are the one thing that directly leads to our success or failure.

If you don’t like your life style, you need to look at and change your attitudes or the way that you think because that where it all starts. Is it positive or negative? (Hint: If you think that your thinking is positive you may want to get some insight from some of the people that are closest to you. Just ask them. It may not be as positive as you think …)

Having a positive attitude takes constant reinforcement. Due to past conditioning and constant bombardment of negative stuff (i.e. Have you watched the news lately?) is it any wonder we tend to think “That just won’t work…” or “I can’t do that…” It’s easier for us as humans for our thinking to go there instead of how things can work out.

Here are a few strategies to help keep you on the path of positive attitude achievement:

- Smile before leaving your house each morning. While you are at it, smile all day long. A smile sets a positive tone for you internally. It also attracts people to you in a spirit of friendly cooperation, which will aid in your achievement. How can you ensure that you smile more often?

- Set clearly defined goals for yourself. Well set goals create enthusiasm and the motivation to change. You will be most successful and fulfilled when you are working towards the accomplishment of your goals. Goals are necessary to understand attitudes. They provide us with a measurement. If you are not reaching your goals, you need to change the way you think or your attitudes. Do you have clearly defined goals that drive your achievement?

- When you suffer a “defeat” immediately go about restoring your positive attitude. Frustration and disappointment are worthless emotions. They waste both time and energy. They take away from us having a positive attitude and will hinder achievement. So learn from mistakes to make the experience productive. Look back on other victories in your life to regain your positive focus. Do you keep track of what you have achieved in your life?

It’s really quite simple: If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms you will get positive results. Our subconscious mind can help us achieve success beyond our wildest dreams. All you need to do is control your thoughts because we become what we think about.

Decide now what it is that you want. It’s going to be the most important decision you ever make.

Article Source:

Do you have a career advancement plan?

Do you have a career advancement plan? Let look at how to implement one.

1. Set a SMART Goal

Begin by creating a battle plan.

 Your plan should include a SMART goal (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goal) that means that you need to define an end objective (for example, mastering computer networking and pass you’re CCNA) and a timeline for achieving it.

 2. Follow your battle plan

Then you need to have a scheme for achieving your goal. Your scheme is the “how to achieve your goal” part. So without a good plan, you are not going to achieve your goal, no matter how hard you try.

 Your core strategy needs to include: “gaining the requisite knowledge, skills and experience” needed to advance in your career as well as soft skills like “interviewing skills”.

 3. Executing your battle plan

You need to define the specific tactics that would allow you to achieve your plan. You need a day to day plan that you will carry out that will help you achieve your overall goals. This is the execution part of the plan and if you don’t execute your plan, all the goal setting and strategizing in the world won’t help you.

How to Follow Through On Your Planning

How do you ensure that on a daily or weekly basis, that you will get the knowledge, skills and experience required to succeed in your career?

To ensure that you succeed, you need to define:

 How you will gain the requisite knowledge

 How to gain hands on, real-world, experience. Note that without experience, you won’t get be able to transition to new roles or get hired or get promoted

 Here is some more information on how to gain more knowledge, skills and experience needed:

 How Will You Improve Your Knowledge?

 Will you use books, free website content, onsite technical training, online training, coaching or news groups, etc? You need to work out with which works best for you based on your work, family and budget

 How to Turn Knowledge into skills:

 Note that knowledge and skills are not the same. Knowledge is theoretical and skill is practical. You must turn theoretical knowledge, certifications, education, etc into practical skills to succeed in your career

 How To Gain Hands On Experience:

 The most valuable asset is your hands on, real-world, experience. IT careers unlike some other professional disciplines put more emphasis on experience than accreditation.

 So, before you do anything, you need to make sure you have defined the specific steps you will take to get your hands on experience.

 Certification or Not?

 This is a hot topic. There seems to be two schools of thought. One school asserts that certifications and education are everything. The other school asserts that certified technicians may not necessarily have the experience to back it up and that certifications don’t matter anyway.

 There may be a better way to answer this question. Instead of worrying about your certifications or lack there of. Focus on a developing complete, end to end career plan. In a complete plan you may get additional certifications and educational qualifications as long as you do not neglect the core essentials needed for information technology career success skills knowledge, and experience.

 Here’s to your success. Success will not be determined by the plan. Success comes from its implementation.

IT Career Training And Study Courses In The UK In Detail

by Jason Kendall

Good for you! By landing here we guess you must be considering re-training to work in a different industry – that puts you way ahead of the crowd. Only one in ten of us are content with our jobs, but most complain but just stay there. Why not be one of a small number who make a difference in their lives.

It’s advisable to get some help before you start – find someone who knows the industry; someone who’ll give you career advice based on what works best for you, and then show you the learning programs which are appropriate for you:

* Is collaborating with others important to you? Would that be with the same people or with a lot of new people? Perhaps working alone with your own methodology would be more your thing?

* Building and Banking are a little shaky today, so which sector would suit you best?

* Is this the last time you plan to retrain, and based on that, do you believe this career choice will allow you to do that?

* Do you have niggles about the possibility of getting another job, and staying employable to the end of your working life?

We would advise you to find out more about the IT sector – there are more positions than employees, because it’s a rare career choice where the industry is still growing. Despite the opinions of certain people, it isn’t a bunch of techie geeks lost in their PC’s the whole day (though those jobs exist.) The vast majority of roles are done by ordinary people who enjoy a very nice lifestyle due to better than average wages.

IT has become one of the more exciting and ground-breaking industries you could be involved with. To be dealing with leading-edge technology is to be a part of the massive changes that will affect us all over the next generation. We’re barely beginning to get to grips with how all this change will affect us. How we communicate and interact with everyone around us will be profoundly affected by technology and the internet.

Should lifestyle be high on your scale of wants, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the income on average for a typical IT worker is noticeably greater than with much of the rest of industry. The good news is there is no easing up for IT industry increases in Great Britain as a whole. The market continues to develop enormously, and as we have a skills gap that means we only typically have three IT workers for every four jobs it’s not likely that there’ll be any kind of easing off for years to come.

Looking around, we find a glut of professional positions up for grabs in Information Technology. Deciding which one could be right for you is generally problematic. Reading a list of IT job-titles is just a waste of time. Most of us don’t really appreciate what our own family members do for a living – let alone understand the intricacies of a particular IT career. Arriving at the right answer really only appears through a thorough analysis across many unique criteria:

* Personality plays a major role – what kind of areas spark your interest, and what are the areas that get you down.

* Are you looking to pull off a closely held objective – like becoming self-employed as quickly as possible?

* Where do you stand on traveling time and locality vs. salary?

* Some students don’t fully understand the amount of work needed to achieve their goals.

* You have to understand the differences across all the training areas.

For most of us, dissecting each of these concepts tends to require the help of an experienced pro who can investigate each area with you. And we’re not only talking about the certifications – you also need to understand the commercial requirements and expectations of industry too.

The somewhat scary thought of landing your first IT job is often eased because some trainers offer a Job Placement Assistance service. The need for this feature can be bigged up out of proportion though – it’s quite easy for training companies to overplay it. At the end of the day, the massive skills shortage in the United Kingdom is why employers will be interested in you.

Ideally you should have advice and support about your CV and interviews though; and we’d encourage everybody to bring their CV up to date the day they start training – don’t delay until you’ve graduated or passed any exams. You might not even have taken your exams when you will get your initial junior support role; however this won’t be the case unless your CV is with employers. The top companies to get you a new position are most often specialized and independent recruitment consultants. Because they get paid commission to place you, they have the necessary incentive to try that bit harder.

Essentially, if you put as much hard work into securing your first IT position as into studying, you’re not going to hit many challenges. A number of trainees strangely spend hundreds of hours on their course materials and then call a halt once they’ve passed their exams and would appear to think that businesses will just discover them.

One area often overlooked by people thinking about a course is the issue of ‘training segmentation’. Basically, this means the breakdown of the materials for delivery to you, which makes a huge difference to where you end up. Often, you’ll enrol on a course staged over 2 or 3 years and receive one element at a time until graduation. While this may sound logical on one level, consider this: What if there are reasons why you can’t finish every single exam? Maybe the prescribed order won’t suit you? Through no fault of your own, you might take a little longer and consequently not get all your materials.

To be straight, the best solution is to obtain their recommendation on the best possible order of study, but make sure you have all of your learning modules right from the beginning. Meaning you’ve got it all in the event you don’t complete everything within their ideal time-table.

A so-called advisor who doesn’t ask many questions – chances are they’re really a salesperson. If they push a particular product before learning about your history and whether you have any commercial experience, then you know you’re being sold to. With some work-based experience or some accreditation, you could discover that your appropriate starting-point is very different to someone completely new. Commencing with a user skills module first may be the ideal way to start into your IT programme, depending on your skill level at the moment.

About the Author:

The author: Jason Kendall has worked in IT for 20 yrs. He now advises on commercial certification. For advice on IT Training, visit LearningLolly IT Courses.