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• Giving Yourself Permission to be Imperfect

  Confidence Riffs

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  If you want to rapidly increase the pace at which you overcome personal obstacles and weaknesses, let me give you a simple perscription: Give yourself complete and total permission to be imperfect. Just decide you’re going to be okay with it. Stop sweating the fact that there are 57 different things you wish were different about your life and let it go.

  Here’s why: If you don’t give yourself permission to be imperfect, you’re setting yourself up in a position of weakness. You’re starting out with the “I’m so screwed up” or “My situation is so bad” perspective, which doesn’t do anything to help you overcome things. In fact, it just keeps you there longer, because you get depressed about how many problems there are with you and your circumstances. Your ability to take action to change things dissolves.

  The way to successfuly work on overcoming your “imperfectons” is to use a different strategy – the triple tactic of honesty, realism, and action.

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• Never Tolerate Excuses

  Productivity Riffs

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  I’ve set my home page to show me a sign that has five words in tall bold black letters: NEVER TOLERATE EXCUSES FROM YOURSELF. I load it up and look at it several times a day (at least.) It’s an angry looking sign, and it should be – because once you allow yourself to get in the habit of tolerating excuses, it’s all over.

  I’m not talking about the excuses other people give us. You can’t control their behavior, so don’t even worry about it. I’m talking about you and me, and the excuses we give ourselves for why we aren’t taking the actions we know we should be. We even have a special name for these excuses, so we’ll feel better about making them: we call them “reasons.”

  Let me give you a few examples of common “reasons” we use when faced with challenging situations:

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• How To Become a Stronger Person

  Confidence Riffs | Motivation Riffs

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  I still remember how Mike lost his job. When I was a teenager, I rode the bus to school – you know, those big yellow ones that slow down traffic so much. If you’ve never had the opportunity to ride in one, you may not know that the engine is equipped with a little device called a governor. It’s purpose is to limit the top speed of the bus to 35 miles an hour for safety. (That made for a long ride to school.)

  One day, my bus driver Mike (not his real name) decided that he was going to taste a little bit of freedom and figured out how to disable the governor on his bus. Being one of the kids in the back, I wasn’t in a position to see the spedometer, but I’m guessing he had that bus going about sixty miles an hour at the top of his game.

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• Multiple Streams of Productivity

  Productivity Riffs

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  I briefly mentioned “multiple streams of productivity” in an earlier post, and I’ve received a few emails from people asking to know more about it, so that’s what today’s post is all about.

  What is productivity anyway?
  You can define productivity in a lot of ways, most of which boil down to “getting things done.” But the “things” you’re getting done could be anything – and activity is not the same thing as accomplishment.

  For the purposes of simplicity in explaining Multiple Streams of Productivity, we’ll define productivity as “making rapid progress on your goals.” I say rapid because it’s just the basic mindset of productivity – you want to get to where you’re going in a relatively fast (if not the fastest) manner.

  You can make rapid progress on your goals in four ways. Let’s take a look at each of them and some examples of each.

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• How Big Is Your Question?

  Productivity Riffs

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  In life, it’s not about what you deserve, what you desire, or even what you hope for. When it comes to the results you generate, and the goals you accomplish, it’s all about what you expect.

  Expectation is Everything
  I’ve talked about the importance of expectation in a lot of posts so far, and it’s for a good reason – I want to drill it into you as much as possible, because it’s that important. Whatever your level of expectation is, that’s what will fuel your motivation, and in turn drive your action.

  If you attack your goals with the expectation that you will eventually win out, you will. It’s that simple, because that level of expectation pushes you to keep working until you find the right combination to unlock your goal.

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• Where Motivation Comes From

  Motivation Riffs

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  You can’t achieve the goals you set for yourself unless you consistently take action. And you can’t consistently take action unless you’re strongly motivated. And you can’t become strongly motivated until …
  Until … until you expect to succeed in advance.

  The common thread in motivated people
  When you look at people who consistently achieve the goals they set for themselves – these are the people who take consistent action regardless of the odds or obstacles that stand in their way – you’ll see that they all have this in common. They’ve committed in their mind that they are going to succeed, even if it’s a longer road, or a tougher fight than they signed up for. When it comes to motivation, expectation is everything.

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• How to Get Things Done Faster

  Other Riffs

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  In my earlier article, How to Get Exactly What You Want, I mentioned the importance of holding firm to the expectation that you can accelerate the process of getting to your objective. This is an important strategy for success, but oddly …

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• How to Get Passionate About Taking Action

  Other Riffs

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  It’s easy to get passionate about setting goals. We all get excited about the things we want. But when it comes to taking consistent action on them on a daily basis until they are done … well, that’s another story. If this rings true for you (even a little …

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