Success Strategy: Take Care of Yourself

One of the most basic strategies to professional and personal success is to take care of yourself. There is an old saying to the effect that if you have your health, you have everything. This contains a great deal of truth. If you are healthy, you feel better. If you feel good, you can accomplish more and you can enjoy all your successes more. And those not-yet-successes do not seem so overwhelming.

The first step in taking care of yourself is to live a healthy lifestyle. Eat healthy, exercise regularly, don’t smoke, drink in moderation if at all, manage stress, etc. We all know what we need to do. The tricky part is doing it most of the time! Remember that small steps are better than none and any improvement is better than none!

Leading a healthy lifestyle will help not just now, but in the future as well. Taking care of yourself now is the best investment you can make in yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is meant to be a time to give thanks for all that we have. It is not meant to be a time to worry about whether the house is clean enough for guests, if the food is just right, and if we have forgotten anything.

Easy to say, difficult to do, at least for me! My goal for this Thanksgiving is to plan the meal, the house, the decorations as I always do but focus on what is most important—getting together with family. The really important aspect is to appreciate what and who we have in our lives and enjoy being with the ones we love.

I hope you have a wonderful, low-stress, Thanksgiving!

Veteran’s Day

If you know a veteran, please thank him or her for the service provided to you and your country. If you do not, please at least send out a mental “thank you” to those that have served. It is because of them that we have the freedom that we enjoy today.

Success Strategy: Be Persistent

Rarely do we get anything we want immediately. Usually it takes months, even years, to reach our goals. We cannot reach our goals if we are not persistent.

Those that achieve their goals are those that persevere during the difficult times. It takes a great deal of time and effort to obtain a college degree, especially if you are working and/or raising a family at the same time. It takes time and effort to put in the extra hours and work to advance in your career. It also takes time and effort to build personal relationships with your spouse, children, family, and friends.

Although it is often extremely tempting to give up, if we do, we will never get what we really want out of life. A key to success is to be persistent and keep working until we achieve the life we want.

Success Strategy: Take Responsibility

The most important strategy for personal and professional success is to take responsibility for your life. We are where we are in life because of the choices we have made.

If we take responsibility for the consequences of the good decisions, we gain in self-confidence and self-esteem. If we take responsibility for the bad decisions, we can learn from them and do better next time. The worse we can do is to make excuses and try to place the blame (responsibility) on someone else.

This topic is so important that it cannot be contained in one blog. More on responsibility will follow in future blogs.

Success Strategy: Take Advantage of Slow Times

For most of us, it seems like we are extremely busy all the time. The reality is that there are probably times, if not exactly slow, at least are not as busy as normal.

It is always tempting during those times to relax and take a little time off. Sometimes we need to do this.

Usually, though, it is better to take advantage of these slow times and work ahead. Things will get busy again! If we have worked ahead, when the busy times come, we will not be quite as stressed to try to get everything done.