How You Can Use Proposals to Achieve Your Goals

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Note:This is a guest post by Loren Blinde of Writing Power.

The proposal format is one of the most formidable tools in the writer's toolbox. Although normally relegated to the professional/business realm, the proposal is also useful in many academic and personal writing situations.

Its variability aside, the proposal's real magic is that its effectiveness is not limited to written communication. With a little ingenuity, you can unlock the proposal format's power and use it to accelerate your progress toward dreams and goals. Master the logic of the proposal, and you'll get more out of your personal and professional interactions.

What is a proposal? At its most basic level, a proposal is an offer. You are offering something of value to a person or group in exchange for something you value, such as money or time.

Although specific proposal requirements can vary, they generally follow a simple structure. Let's consider each part of the proposal structure separately and analyze how we can apply a proposal-style approach to getting more out of life.

1. Introduction.

A strong proposal's introduction doesn't mince words. Rather, the introduction clearly and concisely states what you propose to do.

For example, if an employee writes a proposal designed to negotiate a remote working agreement with his or her employer, the introduction should state that aim.

Living Proposal Style – Be Direct

The lesson from the Introduction – be direct – is simple to state but difficult to do. Yet think about how much of our communication could be streamlined if we all worked to be more clear and concise. It would change modern life dramatically. For proof, try the following for one week:

• State your precise reason for writing in each email's subject line. The key here is "precise." For example, instead of sending an email labeled "Party?" in the subject line, replace it with, "Invitation to Loren's Housewarming Party on May 3rd."
• State an opinion or a preference each time someone asks for one. For example, when someone asks you what you want to do today, don't respond with, "I don't know. What do you want to do?" Instead, offer a suggestion. You'll be amazed at how much time this saves. (For an entertaining primer on this technique, see Tim Ferriss's book The 4-hour Work Week.)

2. Description of the Problem.

Before you can convince the reader to accept your proposed solution, he or she has to be convinced that there is a problem that needs to be solved. The problem section should vividly describe an undesirable condition; further, the problem section should highlight reasons why the reader should care about this problem.

Returning to our remote work proposal, the employer may not understand why the employee needs to work from home. To make the employer understand, the employee would explain the problems he or she has faced while working in the office: commuting stress, commuting cost, office distractions. But to make the employer take a serious interest in this proposal, the employee should also explain that these factors are decreasing his or her productivity and motivation. Considered from this angle, keeping the employee working in the office is actually costing the employer money.

Living Proposal Style – Adapt your Behavior to Suit the Situation

People can be stubborn creatures, intent on proving their perspective's validity at the expense of another's. Unfortunately, people also don't like to be proven wrong. This means that the more rigidly one person defends his or her position, the more the other person is going to dig his or her heels in. Often, taking a less rigid tack would be much more effective. When it comes down to everyday interactions like these, would you rather be right or happy?

3. Solution.

After reading the problem section, the reader should be concerned about the problem you have described and motivated to do something about it. In the solution section, you describe the solution you have proposed in detail. A strong solution section will assure the reader that the solution will fix the problem. Moreover, the writer should provide details to give the reader confidence in the solution's efficacy.

Continuing the above example, the employee should focus on how working at home will increase the employee's motivation and productivity in this section. The employee should also provide some specifics to increase the employer's confidence that the solution will work. The employee should not highlight how much more convenient or desirable it would be to work in his or her pajamas, even though that may be a significant benefit from the employee's perspective.

Living Proposal Style – Step Into Someone Else's Shoes

Writers in particular often struggle to communicate because they fail to step into their readers' shoes. They don't consider whether the piece meets the readers' needs, focusing instead on saying what they want to say. Writers don't always think about what would make it easier for readers to understand the message, and their writing suffers as a result.

There's a simple, yet powerful, psychological reason that considering another person's perspective works so well. People love to win. It doesn't matter whether they're winning an argument or a carnival prize. It just feels good.

When you highlight a plan's benefits for others rather than yourself, it demonstrates compassion. A compassionate gesture, in turn, builds goodwill. And if a person feels goodwill toward you, they're more likely to agree to your suggestion. And if they agree to your suggestion – that's right – you win.

4. Plan of Action.

This section flows naturally from your solution. Your reader has many questions about how you will implement the solution, and you must convince the reader that you have the knowledge, skills, and resources to turn the solution from a good idea into reality. For example, the employee might explain how he or she would attend meetings, complete projects, and meet with clients from home.

Living Proposal Style — Concreteness Inspires Confidence

What prevents people from making changes in their lives or environments when they know that their lives would be better if they made the change? A common problem is that their desires are too abstract. The sentence, "I wish I could get organized" They are much more likely to make changes if they have specific, actionable steps to complete. This is one reason that many of us (myself included) never seem to tire of reading organizing and decluttering tips.

A concrete plan not only tells what steps need to be taken, but it also provides a clear vision of the result. It's the vision that empowers change.

5. Costs.

Worry over how much it will cost to put the proposal into action is the major obstacle for most proposals. Like the other sections, this section needs to have specifics. Specific numbers give the reader needed information and help to convince the reader that your proposal is well researched.

But the crux of this section is rhetorical, not economic. Whatever the specific costs are, the cost section should aim to convince the reader that the proposal's benefits are well worth the implementation cost.

Living Proposal Style – Consider Both Absolute and Relative Costs

When considering an expenditure of any kind, it's easy to focus on the price tag alone. But this is only half of the information: you must also consider whether its cost is reasonable given its value to you. I am not suggesting that you use the concept of relative cost to rationalize unneeded expenditures or a wasteful lifestyle. But "frugal" and "cheap" are not the same thing. Being frugal means getting the maximum value, use, and joy from each dollar you spend.

6. Conclusion.

A strong proposal concludes with a stirring call to action. The writer wants to propel the reader out of his or her chair. Passion for the outcome is a proposal writer's secret weapon.

Living Proposal Style – Passion is Everything

Modern life can wear anyone down. Many of us have forgotten what it is like to have dreams. Too often, we trade the-sky's-the-limit dreams for five-year plans. If there is one thing to learn from the proposal, it's that it is never too late to recapture our excitement for life. The time is now. The proposal has concluded; now, get out of that chair.

This is a guest post by Loren Blinde of Writing Power. Loren teaches college English and helps people enrich their lives by improving their writing. Her recent articles include Seek And Destroy Your Writing Style Enemies and Well Dressed Writing: Tips For Effective Page Design. Feel free to contact her at loren@writingpower.net

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

Picasso’s Top 7 Tips for Creating an Exciting Life

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web."

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor and creator in many creative fields. He's perhaps the most well-known painter from all of the 20:th century.

He also had some interesting things to say about life. Here are my 7 favourite tips from him.

1. You have to believe to be able to do.

"He can who thinks he can, and he can’t who thinks he can’t. This is an inexorable, indisputable law."

This is a great quote because it doesn't just say that you should "believe in yourself!". It explains why you need to believe in yourself and your ability to do something to actually do it.

The funny thing is that it's hard to see how much your beliefs control your performance and how you see your world when you are used at looking at things from just one perspective.

When you think you can do something instead of not your perception of that thing changes. And your perception of yourself too. Without those changed perspectives it will be hard to find the courage, motivation, enthusiasm and whatever else you may need. And then there are self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you think you'll fail you are likely to hold you self back or even trip yourself up (sometimes unconsciously). If you on the other hand think you can do something your mind will start to find solutions and focus on fixing things instead of whining about them. From all of the stimuli around you things, solutions and opportunities will just start to pop up. Without that focus on the right thing, on your ability to do, your mind may not find the resources and solutions that are needed.

2. Push your limits.

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

Pushing yourself and stretching is necessary to grow. And the more you push yourself the quicker you can grow.

But it can be scary. My best tip so far: stay present as much as you can while doing something you cannot yet do.

This can greatly decrease possible negative feelings that are holding you back. And with those feelings out of your mind and body it becomes easier to focus, to feel positive feelings and actually perform well and learn to do whatever you have set your mind upon.

For tips on that check out 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment. My three favourites among that bunch are at the moment: focus on what's right in front of you, pick up the vibe from present people (I listen to Eckhart Tolle cds very often) and focusing on your breathing.

3. Don't wait for inspiration or the right moment.

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working."

Inspiration can show up on its own, waltzing in through a door or a window. But doing things that way makes work inconsistent – both in quality and quantity - and you spend a lot of time waiting.

I find that it's better to follow Pablo's suggestion and just start working. For the first minutes what you do may suck quite a bit and it's hard going. But after a while inspiration seems to catch up with you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.

If you feel inspired one day that's great. Use your inspiration. But don't limit yourself to the moments where you feel inspired or you feel like the moment is just right to do something. Act instead. A lot of the time you can find inspiration along the way. Or accomplish whatever you want to do despite the moment not looking just as you would like it to.

4. Act.

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

I know. If you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed that taking action is included in a lot of the articles. But that's because, as Picasso says, action is the foundation. Without taking action any information – no matter how useful – will be pretty useless. This is also the part of personal growth or just life that is often forgotten or perhaps avoided.

It's scary. It can feel difficult to do it. Or you may not feel like it's the right moment now. But developing a habit of taking more and more action can make a huge difference. Have a look at How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips for help to develop such a habit. My favourite tip among those is the same as for when pushing your limits: stay present to decrease inner resistance to taking action.

5. Ask the right questions.

"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not."

It's easy to ask yourself the wrong questions. To ask yourself questions that just will give you answers that confirm that you are incompetent, foolish, wrong and tell you that your future is limited. Questions that will sink you instead of help to lift you up.

So instead, ask yourself empowering questions.

• When having a seemingly negative experience ask yourself: what is good about this? What can I learn from this? There is always something you can learn and have use for to create positive experiences later on.

• When interacting with others ask yourself: How can I bring even more value (understanding, help, practical solutions, fun, excitement etc.) to this interaction?

• In just about any situation you can always ask yourself: what's great about this situation/experience? This is a quick way to shift your mood and thoughts into more positive, resourceful and empowered forms through gratitude.

There are of course many more empowering questions you can ask yourself. I think the main point is to reframe the questions you ask yourself into positive questions that open up - instead of closes – the door to opportunities and possibilities.

6. See the hidden beauty by not judging.

"If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes."

One of big advantages of becoming more present in your everyday life is that you decrease the amount of analysing and labelling you do to the things/people in your surroundings. You don't judge as much.

This might sound strange but in the moments when you are present the ordinary world becomes more interesting and wonderful. Colors can seem brighter. Your see more aliveness in trees, nature and in people. You see the wonder of all your man-made gadgets and stuff. Things that most often seem common, routine and boring become fascinating and something you can appreciate.

It's like you are observing your world with more clarity and curiousness. Like a little kid again, discovering things while they still feel fresh. Before they have just become walking, talking and growing labels with years of associations and thoughts attached.

This is a bit like the first tip in this article. Before you actually use it – if you just think about it in your mind – it may not make that much sense. I highly recommend reading/listening to Eckhart Tolle to gain a deeper understanding of being present. He and Oprah are doing free 90 minute talks about his book A New Earth right now. Check out the book and those webcasts.

7. It's not too late.

"Youth has no age."

Don't let social conditioning tell you what you can or cannot do just because you are of one age or another. Age is most of the time just in your head anyway. Take tip #1 into consideration and choose for yourself what you can do. And use tip # 6 and ask yourself the right questions instead of ones that limit you.

And, remember, the present moment s all there ever is anyway. So don't get caught up in the past too much. Most of the time you really don't have to act consistently with what you have done before. If you do, then that's your choice. And you can decide to do something different too. Right now.

It is really only too late to change if you look at your life as a time-line. If you learn to become more present, if you learn to live more in the now, much of that thinking just falls away. You realize that you can consciously choose and do pretty much whatever you like in the present moment and built a future with new possibilities.

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School

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I am 28 now. I don't think about the past or regret things much these days.

But sometimes I wish that I had known some of things I have learned over the last few years a bit earlier. That perhaps there had been a self-improvement class in school. And in some ways there probably was.

Because some of these 16 things in this article a teacher probably spoke about in class. But I forgot about them or didn't pay attention.

Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. Or just been too far outside my reality at the time for me to accept and use.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for society in general.

So here are 16 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just would like to have known about earlier).

1. The 80/20 rule.

This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. The 80/20 rule – also known as The Pareto Principle – basically says that 80 percent of the value you will receive will come from 20 percent of your activities.

So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think.

You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a whole bunch of things.

And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfilment and so on.

2. Parkinson's Law.

You can do things quicker than you think. This law says that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity depending on the time you set aside for it. For instance, if you say to yourself that you'll come up with a solution within a week then the problem will seem to grow more difficult and you'll spend more and more time trying to come up with a solution.

So focus your time on finding solutions. Then just give yourself an hour (instead of the whole day) or the day (instead of the whole week) to solve the problem. This will force your mind to focus on solutions and action.

The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week on the task, but as mentioned in the previous point, 80 percent of the value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway. Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven't overcomplicated or overpolished things. This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to focus and give you more free time where you can totally focus on what’s in front of you instead of having some looming task creating stress in the back of your mind.

3. Batching.

Boring or routine tasks can create a lot of procrastination and low-level anxiety. One good way to get these things done quickly is to batch them. This means that you do them all in row. You will be able to do them quicker because there is less "start-up time" compared to if you spread them out. And when you are batching you become fully engaged in the tasks and more focused.

A batch of things to do in an hour today may look like this: Clean your desk / answer today's emails / do the dishes / make three calls / write a grocery shopping list for tomorrow.

4. First, give value. Then, get value. Not the other way around.

This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thing. There is often an idea that someone should give us something or do something for us before we give back. The problem is just that a lot of people think that way. And so far less than possible is given either way.

If you want to increase the value you receive (money, love, kindness, opportunities etc.) you have to increase the value you give. Because over time you pretty much get what you give. It would perhaps be nice to get something for nothing. But that seldom happens.

5. Be proactive. Not reactive.

This one ties into the last point. If everyone is reactive then very little will get done. You could sit and wait and hope for someone else to do something. And that happens pretty often, but it can take a lot of time before it happens.

A more useful and beneficial way is to be proactive, to simply be the one to take the first practical action and get the ball rolling. This not only saves you a lot of waiting, but is also more pleasurable since you feel like you have the power over your life. Instead of feeling like you are run by a bunch of random outside forces.

6. Mistakes and failures are good.

When you are young you just try things and fail until you learn. As you grow a bit older, you learn from - for example - school to not make mistakes. And you try less and less things.

This may cause you to stop being proactive and to fall into a habit of being reactive, of waiting for someone else to do something. I mean, what if you actually tried something and failed? Perhaps people would laugh at you?

Perhaps they would. But when you experience that you soon realize that it is seldom the end of the world. And a lot of the time people don't care that much. They have their own challenges and lives to worry about.

And success in life often comes from not giving up despite mistakes and failure. It comes from being persistent.

When you first learn to ride your bike you may fall over and over. Bruise a knee and cry a bit. But you get up, brush yourself off and get on the saddle again. And eventually you learn how to ride a bike. If you can just reconnect to your 5 year old self and do things that way - instead of giving up after a try/failure or two as grown-ups often do – you would probably experience a lot more interesting things, learn valuable lessons and have quite a bit more success.

7. Don't beat yourself up.

Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too much. But it's a kinda pointless habit. It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes your precious time. It's best to try to drop this habit as much as you can.

8. Assume rapport.

Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an awkward conversation.

The best way to do this that I have found so far is to assume rapport. This means that you simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one.

This works surprisingly well. You can read more about it in How to Have Less Awkward Conversations: Assuming Rapport.

9. Use your reticular activation system to your advantage.

I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in class but nobody told me about the reticular activation system. And that's a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things you can learn about. What this focus system, this R.A.S, in your mind does is to allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts on. It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for.

So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. And keep that focus steady.

Setting goals and reviewing them frequently is one way to keep your focus on what's important and to help you take action that will move your closer to toward where you want to go. Another way is just to use external reminders such as pieces of paper where you can, for instance, write down a few things from this post like "Give value" or "Assume rapport". And then you can put those pieces of paper on your fridge, bathroom mirror etc.

10. Your attitude changes your reality.

We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps that "you need to change your attitude!". That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more reasons to do it is very easy to just brush such suggestions off and continue using your old attitude.

But the thing that I've discovered the last few years is that if you change your attitude, you actually change your reality. When you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you before. You may think to yourself "why haven’t I thought about things this way before?".

When you change you attitude you change what you focus on. And all things in your world can now be seen in a different light.

This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create an insane change in your world. It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism might seem like realism. But that is mostly because your R.A.S is tuned into seeing all the negative things you want to see. And that makes you "right" a lot of the time. And perhaps that is what you want. On the other hand, there are more fun things than being right all the time.

If you try changing your attitude for real – instead of analysing such a concept in your mind - you'll be surprised.

You may want to read more about this topic in Take the Positivity Challenge!

11. Gratitude is a simple way to make yourself feel happy.

Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful. Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I should do. But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I would probably have practised gratitude more. It is also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the right things. And to make other people happy. Which tends to make you even happier, since emotions are contagious.

12. Don't compare yourself to others.

The ego wants to compare. It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself ("I've got a new bike!"). But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself to others who have more than you ("Oh no, Bill has bought an even nicer bike!"). And so you don't feel so good about yourself once again. If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a rollercoaster of emotions.

A more useful way is to compare yourself to yourself. To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and how you have grown. It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings.

13. 80-90% of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.

This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

14. Don't take things too seriously.

It's very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big problem right now you may not even remember in three years.

Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering. So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. It can do wonders for your mood and as an extension of that; your life.

15. Write everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine then it's like a leaking bucket. Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don't make a habit of writing things down. This is also a good way to keep your focus on what you want. Read more about it in Why You Should Write Things Down.

16. There are opportunities in just about every experience.

In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to grow. Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even better than a success because it teaches you something totally new, something that another success could never teach you.

Whenever you have a "negative experience" ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation? One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very positive experiences.

What do you wish someone had told you in school or you had just learned earlier in life?

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How You Can Use Storytelling to Inspire Success

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Note: This is a guest post by Andrew Rondeau of Great Management.

Remember the times you have been a member of an audience. It could be on a course, at a team meeting or on a night out. Which ones do you remember? The really great ones and, maybe the really bad ones.

Why?

It may be because you remember the presenters / speakers being dynamic, engaging, and inspirational. Alternatively, if they were bad the complete opposite. Didn't those engaging presenters who made everything simple and entertaining, with seemingly little effort, jump into your mind first? What was it that made them excellent presenters? How come they are making the presentations so engaging and fun? What are they doing that's different?

Tap Into Our Imagination

In my experience, the use of stories makes the difference between a really great speaker and a bad one. Stories bring things to life. They tap into our imagination to see and do things differently. They touch our emotions and help us understand. The best stories make us think – what would I have done in that situation? How could I do that? What would it be like here if we could achieve that? If they can do it, then why can't I?

All you need are some stories and the courage to tell them.

Bring your team meetings and workshops to life through telling stories. Coach people with stories to inspire them to find an answer.

Most of the best stories in life contain the same simple ingredients: good characters, a difficult problem or challenge, attempts to beat that problem and a powerful conclusion.

Identify the message you want to communicate and look for stories that you can tell which visualise your message and bring it to life.

4 Techniques to Improve Your Storytelling

1. Theatrical.

Get people’s attention and then hold their attention by varying your voice and you use silence effectively. Sometimes you will be talking very softly and then "PAY ATTENTION because I’m about to say something VERY IMPORTANT". If you talk in a monotone, it will be hard for people to pay attention.

And until you have their rapt attention, you’re not about to change their views on anything significant. So you need not their background attention, but part of their mind where they’re sitting on the edge of their seats and hanging on your every word. Until you have that kind of attention, you’re really wasting your breath.

2. Negative stories.

The kind of story that will get the attention of the audience is a negative story, a story that is unexpected and relevant to the listener. Studies have shown that we pay much more attention to things that are negative. So you can use this for attention by dwelling on the negative.

You can, for instance, tell a story about the audience’s problems if you know what their problems are and the things that they are currently worried about. Say, “Let me tell you about your problems. Those problems are worse than you think they are! Let me tell you how bad they really are! And if fact, they’re going to get worse. Let me tell how really bad they’re going to become!”

Now they are listening because you’re telling them a story about something that’s relevant to them. It’s unexpected, it’s relevant, and it’s negative. And so that’s a story that’s negative and it gets attention.

3. Positive stories.

To stimulate the audience's desire for change, another crucial step is you tell a story that’s positive in tone, particularly one that’s a true story that’s about something that’s happened, where the change has already happened. And it’s the positive tone of the story that can stimulate desire for positive change.

4. Reinforce the future.

Once you’ve got people wanting something to change, then reinforce that with stories about the future, about what the change will bring and how it will be implemented and why it will work. These are fairly neutral stories; they are neither negative nor positive.

Understand the difference.

And so it is understanding the different role of stories, negative stories to get attention, positive stories to stimulate desire, and these neutral future stories that reinforce the reasons for undertaking this change.

Andrew Rondeau writes about ways to eliminate the loneliness and fear of being a manager. You can benefit from lots more simple and effective ideas by subscribing to his feed, or read this article and receive numerous more practical tips from 14 top successful people.

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

J.C. Penney’s 7 Keys to a Smashing Success

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"Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it."

"The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself."

As you may know, John Cash Penney was the founder of the very successful chain of American department stores that bear his first two initials and last name. He founded the company in 1902 and everything went swimmingly until the big market crash in 1929 and the following Great Depression. Penney went into a big financial crisis and as a result of that a health crisis too but managed to work his way out of them both.

In his spare time he spent time on philanthropy with other positively minded people like Norman Vincent Peale – of The Power of Positive Thinking fame – and IBM-founder Thomas J. Watson.

Here are 7 of my favourite tips for success from J. C. Penney.

1. You receive the value you provide.

"We get real results only in proportion to the real values we give."

"A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition."

The Penney chain of stores was actually first named The Golden Rule stores, and that rule was Penney's guiding principle.

So the key here is not to keep your main focus on the money.

The key is to focus on the value you can give your customers. By giving value you get value back.

And the more value you give the more satisfied and loyal customers you get. And the more money you make. There are exceptions of course, but generally I think this is how things work.

I also think that, for at least a whole bunch of people, it's important to focus on the value for motivational reasons. If you focus on the value you can provide you can maintain and even increase your motivation and keep going. If you focus on the money and it doesn't flow in as fast as you'd hoped it's easy to be discouraged and give up. Plus, money alone isn't always a strong enough long time motivator.

I think this is why many blogs/websites fail as the owners have been focusing too much on the money and too little the value they can provide. This makes the blogging less fun and if you are thinking about the money all the time then you're probably not thinking as much about your audience as you could. And so little value is received because little value is given.

The people that are really successful financially often seem to – a large degree at least - not care that much about the money. They love what they do and therefore provide a great amount of value to their customers and fans. And so they are richly rewarded.

2. Give more value than expected.

"It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most."

One of the big reasons people get "normal" results is because they give a normal amount of value to others. But some people go beyond that. They give even more. And so they not only receive more value because they give more, but also because they stand out amongst the rest. And, as Penney says, it's that value that is most important because you don't really have to give it and few do.

I believe that the smashing success of personal development bloggers like Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta is to a large degree because they give extreme amounts of value – practical or inspirational - to their readers on a consistent basis. Other factors like strategic thinking and who you know also play a part but without that value in the content you won't get that far.

3. How you treat people determines your success.

"Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement."

"The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts."

Here's one way how bringing the extra value pays off. The best promotion is said to be word of mouth recommendations from one friend to another. It is also one of the harder things to get because people only recommend really good and valuable stuff to their friends.

So you have to provide a big or, even better, an extreme amount of value to people to access this form of advertising and relationships. It is also the extreme amount of value that keeps people coming back over and over no matter if it's to your store, your blog or to just to hang out with you.

Now I'm not saying that I'm doing this consistently online or offline. Such a thing is quite difficult. But it's a rewarding and useful ideal to move yourself closer and closer towards.

How to bring this extreme amount of value is something everyone has to figure out for themselves depending upon who you are and what area of life we are talking about. In blogging an extreme amount of value may lie in very practical and useful tips or something very entertaining. In relationships between people some factors may be the amounts of fun, positivity, authenticity and support a person can bring to others.

4. Listen.

"The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success."

People want to be understood. If you are just waiting for your turn to talk instead of listening then you'll often miss much of what is said (verbally or non-verbally). There will be a lack of genuine understanding.

One way to become a better listener is to stay present – you can find 8 tips for doing that here - while listening. This will help you to decrease the bad habit of thinking about the future and what you should say next while trying to listen. If you are present and really there while listening then that will also come through in your body language, which gives the person talking a vibe and feeling that you are really listening to what s/he has to say. Being present also improves your focus and allows you to better tune out possible interruptions or distractions in your surroundings.

And, if you really listen then that alone will often provide you naturally with a better and more genuine answer than a clever response thought up while trying to listen simultaneously.

A couple of other small tips are to keep eye-contact while listening and to be open to the possibility that whatever the person is about to say will actually be interesting. If you have already made up your mind that he or she will say something boring then it will be hard to pay attention.

Listening isn't just good to avoid miscommunications and improve understanding while managing people or working in groups. If you have a blog, company or a friend then listening to what your audience/clients/friend really want can help you to serve their actual needs. Instead of the ones that you just presume that they have.

5. Books are good. Experience is even better.

"The greatest teacher I know is the job itself."

"Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless."

To really learn you have put what you have learned into practise. You have to take action over and over. Try one thing, then another. Learn from your mistakes.

The more action you take, the more valuable feedback you'll receive. The amount of practical knowledge and results you get is largely decided by how much action you choose to take and how much you are able to learn from previous experiences. You can then use that real-life knowledge together with lessons from external sources to readjust your aim more accurately for the next attempt.

Check out How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips for some pointers on how to develop a habit of taking more action.

6. Think for yourself. Prepare yourself.

"Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Don’t live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Don’t be an automaton."

"As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for."

Social conditioning may not get you where you want to go. It will tell you to do certain common things and to provide adequate value.

But to fulfil more of your actual potential you have move beyond that. You can do that by educating yourself, by reading and talking to people who already are where you want to go. And, as the previous tip mentions, you must also do that by taking action over and over to learn, readjust your aim and to receive the rewards from the real world.

And to actually wind up where you want to go you need know what you are looking for. What is it that you really want? What is your mind focused on?

What you focus your thoughts on will generally be what you find amongst all the different shapes, sizes, people and information that is your world. Without being focused on what you want opportunities will pass you by like anonymous strangers on the street. And without the proper knowledge – both from external sources and from your own experience – you may not be able to grasp that opportunity and turn it into gold.

So you can build your view of the world upon the shoulders of giants and other people. On what you focus your mind on. Then you try. And you see what actually works for you out in the real world.

And so you refine your maps of the world to – over time - make them more and more accurate and useful for yourself and perhaps for others. Because, as J.C. Penney says in the tip that will end this article, to have continued success you must…

7. Improve.

"Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change."

"Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them."

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

5 Kick-Ass Reasons to Give a Genuine Compliment, and How to Do It

"A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil."
Victor Hugo

"Do not offer a compliment and ask a favor at the same time. A compliment that is charged for is not valuable."
Mark Twain

Compliments.

Some are sincere. Some are quite the opposite.

Some like to get them. Some feel a little uneasy and self-conscious about them.

And from time to time I think to myself that there is too few of them. They are underused and underrated and are often forgotten amongst gossip, negative self-talk and complaints about the boss, the job, the weather and milk prices.

Negative observations about reality are plentiful. Positive observations are much fewer.

So, here are 5 compelling reasons why it's a good choice to use more genuine compliments in your day to day life. And a bit further down, three tips on how to give them.

1. You can make someone's day. That's a nice thing to do.
2. Increased positivity. Keeping your focus on the positive parts in people expands your own positivity. You'll notice more positive things about yourself, your own life and other things in your surroundings. What you focus on in your everyday life you'll see everywhere, not just in other people.
3. You get what you give. Don't keep this in the forefront of your mind while giving a compliment. It may make the compliment seem insincere and like you are just out to get something from the other person. But still, people often have a strong feeling of wanting to give what they got. Perhaps not right away, but over time reciprocity and a positive relationship can build. And in general, what you give you tend to get back from the world around you.
4. Attractiveness. Positivity, appreciation and being able to genuinely express yourself are three attractive traits both in personal and professional relationships. People tend to want to hang around and work with people that have such traits.
5. It's fun. When you give a genuine compliment you ignite a spark of happy feelings inside of yourself.

Now, here are three tips for sharpening your compliment giving skills.

The compliment has to be genuine.

Otherwise you are just trying to take something from the one you are complimenting. And that will not work so well. Your insincerity will often shine through.

A compliment delivered with positive words but with a body language and voice tonality – the two most important parts of interpersonal communication – that aren't saying the same thing may often not go over so well. And the rule that you get what you give still applies.

What you feel when you deliver the compliment will come through. So make sure that there is a genuine feeling behind the words.

Cultivate a habit of appreciation.

This will let you discover all the genuinely nice things about people. With this filter closed it will be harder to see the positive things in people and to give compliments that are actually totally genuine. Try to appreciate the things around you - your home, friends, family, co-workers, computer, weather, food etc. - a few minutes a day to build this habit.

Compliment on something the other person feels is important to him/her.

It may be - at least in some cases - a good practise to not compliment on something that the other person doesn't have much control over. Or something that he or she has been complimented on a thousand times before. Looks and other more superficial stuff are examples of such things.

A compliment that is kinda expected will not be that powerful. And even though your compliment is genuine it may just be lumped together with all those other similar and not so genuine compliments the person has recieved.

Instead, observe what makes this person tick. What are his/her passions, qualities, interests and proudest achievements? What can you genuinely appreciate about those things?

And finally, remember, pretty much no matter what the response is you can still feel good about giving a compliment. As Seneca says in tip # 5: how the other person responds - what s/he says or feels - isn't your responsibility.

Image by *Zara (license).

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

Seneca’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Finding Happiness

Image: Seneca taking his own life in a painting by Luca Giordano.

"Life, if well lived, is long enough."

"I don’t consider myself bald, I’m just taller than my hair."

About 2000 years ago a lived a man named Lucius Annaeus Seneca. He was a man of many talents. He was a philosopher, statesman, dramatist, humorist and tutor/advisor for the famous emperor Nero. Together with Nero and others he ruled Rome during the first nine years of the emperor's reign.

Only a few years later his influence over Nero and Rome came to an end. Nero suspected Seneca to be involved in failed attempt to assassinate the emperor. He ordered his former friend to take his own life. Which Seneca did.

But during his years on earth Seneca said some very useful things about life.

Here are 10 of my favourite fundamentals from Seneca on how to find happiness.

1. Happiness is optional.

"A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is."

What you think about most of the time you become. If you see the world and yourself through a lens smudged by negativity then you'll find much misery. If you look outwards and inwards through lens brightened by positivity you'll find much to be happy and appreciative about.

So being happy or miserable is seldom so much about the external circumstances at the moment. It's more about how you look at them, yourself and your world.

Now, thinking about things with a positive attitude is easier said than done. But you can shift a negative attitude into a more positive one. It will probably not happen like flicking on a light switch, but gradually you can spend more time with a positive attitude than a negative one.

A few starting points for adopting a more useful attitude are Take The Positivity Challenge! and Top 5 Ways to Live a More Positive Life.

2. You don't have to create anger and other negative feelings.

"A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two."

Sometimes it is of course necessary to bring up and resolve a conflict. Often though, conflicts or quarrels are just a waste of time and good way to create negativity within and in your environment. Perhaps someone wants to be right. Or release pent up emotions created elsewhere.

Avoid taking such bait by others or giving in to temporary negativity in yourself. Just let it go.

3. Grow and deepen.

"As long as you live, keep learning how to live."

Each day, month and year we can learn more about how to live in better way. Getting to know yourself and the world around you is simply an awesome way to find more depth in yourself and to handle and manage your life and happiness better and better.

How can you learn to live?

• Learn from others. There is a vast selection of books, cds and dvds from all ages on what people have found out throughout their own lives. Make it a habit of exploring such material – you can find a selection of recommended products here – and talking to people around you about what they have learned about life.

• Learn from yourself. What you learn from others can have a bad habit of not sticking so well. But if you are open to what you can learn from your own mistakes and successes then there is much to be found there. And lessons to revise over and over again as you discover new things and that your old assumptions may not have been as correct or useful as you believed.

4. Will more solve your problems?

"For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them."

"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."

"What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more."

Society is to a large degree built on getting more.

Of course, to a degree this is very useful. But it may not be the thing that will solve all your problems.

You may not find your answer or happiness in more. It may just alter your troubles and problems. And/or give you more of them. What is already there inside of you perhaps gets highlighted and magnified when you get more. Instead of getting whatever you want when finally making all that money your wanted you may find that greed, jealousy and selfishness within you and in your world increases.

You may have thought that when you finally arrived at that place your problems would just disappear. But the ego always wants more and is never satisfied.

So trying to fill yourself up with more – money, power, smartness, prettiness, a feeling of being more enlightened than others – and then finally becoming happy may become like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

5. Give without wanting something in return.

"He that does good to another does good also to himself."

"It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so."

Shared joy is increased joy. And one of the best ways to become happier is simply to make others happier. When you do that positive feelings seem to be generated from within.

And when you make someone else happy you can also sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling flows back to you.

And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong there is another upside. People will feel like giving back to you. And so the two – or more - of you keep building an upward spiral of positivity and happiness.

Seneca has a very good point here about how it is your responsibility to give and the receiver's responsibility to be thankful. But just because s/he may not be thankful doesn't mean that you can't feel happiness or should stop giving.

I also think it's important to try and give without wanting something in return (something that is not always easy though).

Why?

Because if you give something but your mind and body says that you are just doing it to get something in return then that will often shine through. People will see and feel it in your reactions and your general vibe. And so they are less likely to be thankful or reciprocate. Giving, at it's finest and for maximum usefulness for all involved, has to be genuine.

6. Know what you are looking for.

"If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind."

If you don't know what you are looking for you probably won't wind up finding it. You'll just drift along with different currents and winds.

So you need to know what you actually want. Then set a direction and keep your focus on that direction. Then it will not only be easier to reach your destination but also to use the focus system in your mind – your reticular activation system – to help you filter out information and opportunities that can help you along and that previously may have just blended into the background of your world.

7. Laugh

"It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it."

"No one is laughable who laughs at himself."

Taking things too seriously can make life a lot harder and painful than it needs to be. It may be a common or "normal" way to look at things. But you are always free to choose how to view, react and think about things.

Taking things and yourself less seriously can really help you to decrease conflicts, anger, sadness and anxiety. And laughing at the life and yourself releases tension and tends to make you less susceptible to the gray and dreary clouds of negativity that may plague others. Check out Lighten Up! for more on this.

8. Excess may not be the key.

"It is quality rather than quantity that matters."

"It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess."

I guess this one ties in to # 4: to seek happiness in more.

An excess of things may often look wonderful when you imagine it. But when you actually get it and are taking it all in then it loses the magic you imagined. So quality and moderation may bring more joy than an excess.

The first five pieces of candy always taste better than the rest. And if you eat the whole bag of candy you often wind up feeling a bit nauseous and sick.

One awesome gadget or tool is often better than five OK ones. One great looking shirt or skirt often brings more joy than five OK looking ones.

9. Be in charge of yourself and do a great job.

"Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters."

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power."

"Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself."

Just going along with whatever happens and just doing your job may not bring much happiness.

But taking control of your own life - instead of floating along - and doing a great job brings satisfaction and joy. Not just from the people around you but from within. When you feel like you are in charge of your own life and that you are doing your best there is an exhilaration and happiness that you create inside of yourself. Such a self-generated happiness makes sure that external circumstances – that always fluctuate – have less of an impact on how you feel.

10. Live in the present.

"There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse."

"True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

"There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality."

What is there?

Tomorrow isn't here yet. Yesterday has passed. Now is the present moment. And all three of them are always the present moment when we are living in them.

So there is no real space where you and I can change or live in except the one you and me are in right now. And now. And now.

But still we insist to spend much time regretting yesterday. Or fearing tomorrow. That's normal. But it's isn't so useful.

We can't really do anything about the past. We can learn valuable lessons from it but after that it's not so important.

And most of the things we fear will happen in the future never really show up. A negative attitude can do wonders to create monsters within the mind to occupy much of your time. So, planning your future is very useful but over thinking it is seldom helpful.

So much time is lost thinking compulsively, over and over again, about things we have little control over. And it can create a huge amount of suffering inside that is projected and acted out into the world.

And it distracts us - blurs our vision and shatters our focus - and keeps us from fully enjoying what is really the most important time.

Now.

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips for Solving Your Problems More Easily

How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips

Image by goodsurfers2008 (license).

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
Leonardo Da Vinci

To get things done you need to take action. Things seldom happen on their own.

But taking action can be difficult and hard. And so it's easy to wind up in Lazyville or Procrastinationland a lot. How can you break out of such behaviour and develop a behaviour of taking more action?

Here are 10 tips that you'll hopefully find useful.

1. Reconnect with the present moment.

This will help you snap out of over thinking and just go and do whatever you want to get done.

This is probably the best tip I have found so far for taking more action since it puts you in a state where you feel little emotional resistance to the work you'll do. And it puts you in state where the right actions often just seem to flow out of you in a focused but relaxed way and without much effort.

One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on you breathing for a minute or two. Check out 7 more tips in 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment.

2. Be accountable to others.

If you tell a bunch of people that you are going to do something then it will be hard to not do it. You don't want to disappoint them. Or have to face up to them the next time you meet.

If you have a hard time getting going with something get some support. If you for instance workout, do it with a friend to motivate each other to take action - and actually go to the gym - when motivation runs low. Motivating each other and bringing enthusiasm when one of you is feeling low can really help to develop consistency and useful habits.

Think about how you can involve others to help all of you to take more action.

This tip works well. But it can put you in situation where you take action to avoid pain, to avoid judgement. And it can help you create pressure within yourself. Such a state may not always be the best one to be in to take action and perform well. One way to lessen such problems is to use this tip and then when you are about to take action you reconnect with the present moment to quiet negativity within yourself.

3. Be accountable to yourself.

In the long run a more consistent and perhaps healthier way to develop a habit of taking more action is to answer to yourself instead of others. To set your own standards and principles for how you will behave.

The problem with this one is that you are likely to cheat on yourself and rationalize how you don't need to take action or follow your principles. When the social pressure of having to answer to others isn't there it's easy to slip and fall into laziness or procrastination.

But over time you can become more and more consistent with acting according to your own standards. I believe that one of the keys to develop this kind of thinking is to get off a dependence on external validation and be more internally validated. You can read more about that at # 8 in 9 Great Ways to Make Yourself Absolutely Miserable.

If you can develop accountability to your own standards then it can be more consistent than the one you get from relying on being accountable to others. It comes from within so it doesn't have to rely on other, outer circumstances that may fluctuate.

It is also very useful to help you feel good about yourself and to help you grow. If you rely on being accountable to others and their validation then you may grow but also feel confined by what others expect from you. If you are accountable to yourself then you set your limits wherever you want them.

4. Lighten up.

One way to dissuade yourself from taking action is to take whatever you are about to do too seriously. That makes it feel too big, too difficult and too scary. If you on the other hand relax a bit and lighten up you often realize that those problems and negative feelings are just something you are creating in your own mind. With a lighter state of mind your tasks seems lighter and becomes easier to get started with. Have a look at Lighten Up! for more on this topic.

5. Use a limited to-do list.

A to-do list is a simple and great way to remember what you are about to do. But it's easy to get overly enthusiastic when writing it and putting in to many items. And then when you look at that big list you feel drained and an urge to procrastinate.

But do you need to do all those things?

Think about what the absolutely most important items on the list are. Just two or three. Then put them on a new to-do list. This list will seem less daunting and I have found that it makes it easier to actually take action and get those things done.

6. Choose instead of should.

Here's a small but useful tip. You don't really need to do anything. You always choose what to do. Thinking about things this way removes the "shoulds" and "need tos" that take your personal power away and make you feel like you aren't in control. When you think that you choose to do whatever you do then you regain the control and power. And it becomes easier to take action.

7. Focus on the how instead of the if's.

What if's can really mess with your mind. You can spend days, weeks or years thinking about what may happen if you take action. So instead of letting your mind get lost in what if's focus on the how. In a situation focus on how you can do something, how you can solve a problem or achieve a goal. Do some research if you need to. Or get support and help from other people.

Focusing on the how puts your mind to better use and creates a positive attitude within rather than a negative and uncertain one. This makes it easier to take action without too much hand wringing and time spent over thinking things.

8. Get enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm is great emotional state to be in to get going and take action. And if you aren't feeling enthusiastic then that's OK too. You can pretty much always create enthusiasm within yourself. Check out 4 Powerful Reasons to Up Your Enthusiasm, and How to Do It for tips on how you can do that from both me and you (there are some really good suggestions in the comments section of that article).

9. Start small.

To get from a state where you just feel like sitting on your chair and doing nothing much to one where you take action over and over you can do this: start small.

Getting started with your biggest task or most difficult action may seem too much and land you in Procrastinationland. So instead, start with something that doesn't seem so hard.

One of my favourites is simply to take a few minutes to clean my desk. After that the next thing doesn't seem so difficult to get started with since I'm now in a more of a "take action" kind of mode.

What is your best tip for taking more action?

If you like this article, please give it a thumb up in Stumbleupon. Thanks a lot! =)

Further reading:

- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
- 16 Practical Tips fo