Courage of Convictions

Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

Sometimes it seems difficult to pursuit dreams when the shadows of the past darken your vision.  Sometimes the vision of success is interrupted by the immediate blur from the smoke of the fires we attempt to put out hourly.  Sometimes our vision, our energy, our enthusiasm becomes dark by the many adjustments you make to again remain on your path to successful endeavors.

The past can only affect your vision of the future if you are continuing to look behind you.  The smoke clears as we gain clarity on our commitment to our successful objectives by focusing on the most important activity to accomplish at the moment for the ultimate accomplishment of our vision.  Our vision, our energy, our enthusiasm increases like the strength of a marathon runner who is constantly adjusting to the conditions of his path, when we continue to find the opportunity in the challenge, the celebration of the next step, and the fuel to be excited about our new level of achievement.

Our challenge is to consistently fuel the hope, the commitment, and the next step with the clarity of our purpose.  As God blesses us with the next step, let’s be grateful for the stress that we are challenged with for we will grow stronger in faith, in patience, and in abundance.

Failure would only be in having no enthusiasm to take the next step.

Crawl with no fear.  Walk upright with confidence and clarity.  Run with all the enthusiasm that God has bestowed in you with full expectation of winning your race.

Author —-         Trent Fortner

Recently I was challenged by a “friend” on Facebook to prove that I could help others improve their business or their life in 90 days or less. The challenge got me to really thinking about what this would mean to those who participate, and what it would mean to me and my family as well.  Hey, I want to improve my family’s life as well.

Let’s pretend for a moment, that YOU are the person who accepts this challenge with me. What would that look like for you?  Really, why would you want to improve your life or business?

* We would have to get really serious about where you are in life right now, today. We would have to record the areas in your life that you want to improve. We would have to really get transparent about the pains that you are dealing with and how to eliminate or greatly reduce those pressures. We would have to discover WHY you want to improve those specific areas of your life or business, and what it truly costs you not to achieve your desired results.

* After identifying the problem areas, and the reasons to leave that in the dust forever, we then have to identify what SPECIFIC OUTCOMES you MUST ACHIEVE. This is the area that says what your are committed to. This is the time that it requires you to BE COURAGEOUS! This is when you decide to “burn your ships” because there is no going back to the problems, pains, and excuses of the past.

* Next on our agenda: We would have to write out an ACTION PLAN and IMPLEMENT the steps that we identify that causes you to ENJOY the outcomes from your results. This will require further accountability each week, maybe each day. What good is a plan that is not written out, and what good is a plan that is written that is not followed. This is where the rubber meets the road. You either will be, do and have, or you will not. As YODA says, “Do or do not… there is no try.”

The hardest thing about this whole process is honesty.  You have to become very honest with yourself.  You have to really be honest with me as your coach that you are being accountable to your action plan.

So ask yourself this very important question:  IS IT WORTH IT?  ARE YOU WORTH IT?   We both know the answer is YES!

I was reminded of this when looking at my own life for this challenge:

WHEN YOU COMMIT AND THEN IMPLEMENT TO THE DAILY ACTIONS OF IMPROVING YOUR LIFE BY IMPROVING THE VALUE YOU CREATE FOR AND WITH OTHERS, THEN YOU CANNOT FAIL.

Please accept this challenge with me ONLY WHEN YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE YOUR BEST YEAR YET!  YOU ARE WORTH IT!

BE COURAGEOUS!

In my twenty plus years as an entrepreneur working on my own schedule, I have found the most difficulty for any entrepreneur to be the issue of “time management”. Today, I am absolutely sure that managing time is an impossible task!

Let me explain. There are exactly 24 hours in each day that we are blessed to live. You can break this down in any measurement tool you want, but there is only 24 hours. I have yet to find one person on this earth who can “make time stand still”, or actually stop the day’s clock.

There are two critical points to acknowledge on this topic:

1) you can do nothing to change how much time you have today

2) you are not guaranteed another day

If these two points are the focus of your calendaring for a successful balance and profits, or success, then it becomes clear that you must focus on managing the activities not the time, and prioritizing those activities for the results that are most important.

What are the most important things to you? I do not know what is important to you, but I have learned through much trial and error that you always schedule what is really most important to you no matter what you verbalize. For any schedule to reflect balance and priorities, I have found it most beneficial to break it down to only four areas of life: faith, family, fitness, finance.

Faith: for you to grow and mature in your faith, you must spend time in the activities of study, prayer, meditation, and praise. Scheduling this activity first allows you to have your day full of positive, affirming, confident concentration that allows you to release the rest of the day to your god for his guidance and protection. Most of us work this in when time allows finding only that you are falling asleep in the middle of that prayer at bed time.

Family: for you to enjoy time with family and not be distracted by work (finance) items during this special time, it is important to put your family time as a priority. What classes, ballgames, recitals, practices, meals, date nights, hobby times do you need to include? If you are in charge of your activities then this should be scheduled first and work time next. Many of you at this point are struggling with a faith issue and wonder what is left to produce an income. Your family will greatly enjoy time that you spend with them when they know you have no guilt about the time you share. Prioritization of your activities is crucial in managing your emotional state as well.

Finance: the area of finance is what describes your activities to create an income for your family. As an entrepreneur it is vital that you have a routine that is predictable, accountable, and productive. When you break down the hours you will work and what activities are to fill those hours consistently then you will notice a dramatic improvement in your accountability to family, self, and clients. A sample of activities on my calendar that has worked best for me is attached. You will want to adapt the activities to your own business regimen, but it is very important to stay accountable to this schedule with everyone so that you are not ever in a reactionary state. Once you move from a proactive state to a reactionary state you have lost all control of your business.

Fitness: if you are not scheduling your fitness routine for exercise, eating, and sleeping, then you are in another reactionary state and have little to no control over your other activities. You cannot take care of anyone else, or anything else if you are not in good physical and mental shape. Again, this area, like the priority of faith, gets put on the back burner for most people. It is another vital area of your life. The great news is that if you participate in at least thirty minutes a day of physical fitness activity, other than running to the refrigerator for that last bowl of ice cream before bed, that you will improve the quality of your life tremendously.

A few other tips to help the success of managing your activities for balance and profits:

1) If you have a tendency to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock, then move your clock to a place you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. Also, change the name of your “alarm” clock to “opportunity, or blessings” clock. This will help you jump out to enjoy the day.

2) Whatever you can do the night before to prepare for the next day do it. Set your coffee maker the night before to be ready when you get up. Have your faith based material opened and ready for you when you jump out of bed. Have your clothes laid-out, meals planned and packed, and all briefcases/ backpacks ready then night before.

3) When you get home for family time, make it family time. Do not take any calls from work. Turn your cell phones, blackberries, etc. Off until the next scheduled event. Be proactive. What good does it do to go on a date with your wife and be on your blackberry throughout the date? She may not enjoy interrupting the date with your phone. Be careful you may end up sleeping on the couch with your phone…Relax – no guilt of not working during this time.

4) The best idea is to be proactive so that you are not always rushing to your next event and remain behind on all schedules. Have complete integrity on your schedule. Keep appointment times to a specific time limit. Know what you are going to accomplish in advance. Make sure that you are accountable to your family for that time, they have hobbies too!

Remember, you have no guarantee for tomorrow, so make every moment count!