“Progress equals happiness.” – Tony Robbins

If there is one thing that nearly guarantees success in life, it is this: progress. No matter whether it is in your business, your marriage, health, or your finances, if you just make a little bit of progress towards your goals every day, you feel like you´re on fire. Your energy and passion increase, your happiness skyrockets, and you wake up every day like you are on a mission. You feel the energy and excitement that comes from chasing your vision of a better future and can´t wait to wake up again when you go to bed each night because you are so eager to create something new.

If you haven´t felt like this lately, it is time to supercharge your days with these 10 awesome strategies to becoming better every single day!

Wake up early to work on yourself

As Henry Beecher said, “the first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.” I believe this to be absolutely true. How you start each day is likely how you end it. If you roll over five more minutes after your alarm goes off, watch TV while having an unhealthy breakfast, and then need to hurry to get to work on time, those are all habits that ruin your day before it even starts. They take away your energy, enthusiasm, and self-discipline, leading to nothing more than mediocrity.

But what if, instead, you started out your day succeeding? You wake up early, go for a morning run or walk, feel the gratitude for being alive, and read a book on your chosen profession while having a nutritious breakfast. While everyone else is still sleeping or at least half asleep, you are up, rocking the day and becoming a better you.

Think of the countless hours most people spend commuting to and from work each week. Instead of listening to the radio, why not increase your skills by listening to audiotapes? Simply by doing this, you can become an authority in your field in just a few years. Do you think that kind of morning routine would change the way you think and act throughout the day and therefore your results in all areas of your life? You bet!

See Also: Do These 5 Things To Wake Up Energized (And Productive) Every Day

Rewrite your goals every day

There are few things as powerful in getting you focused and enthusiastic about your vision for your life as rewriting your goals every day. Way too many people go through life, without any idea on why they are actually doing what they are doing. They are like the ship without a rudder, drifting aimlessly through life.

And even if they have set goals at some point in their lives, it is all too easy to forget about them, isn´t it? Do you even remember this years New Year´s resolutions or all the goals you set in your life at any other point? If not, how on earth do you want to achieve them?

Rewriting your goals every day is powerful because it zeroes you in on what you want out of life and how to get there. Greatness in anything requires an utterly obsessive focus on what you want and what you need to do every single day to make your dreams come true. A million dollar dream doesn´t happen overnight, and it will surely not happen without the necessary focus and determination to do whatever it takes to be successful.

Rewrite your most important goals every day, and when you do so, recommit to paying the price for their attainment. Anything you want comes at a cost of energy, pain, effort, and time. Commit to paying this price every day, and you will find yourself seeking out new challenges and following through rather than giving up.

Plan every day in advance

After rewriting your goals and committing to their accomplishment, the next step is to plan your day in advance before you get caught up in your work. If you want to accomplish greatly, it is absolutely essential that you focus on your non-negotiables – those tasks that would create the most value and that can only be done by you.

In nearly any job, there are only a few such key activities that create the most results. Your job is to find them and then pursue them rigorously until they are finished. Only in this way can you ensure that you get the most value out of your time. Once your high-priority tasks are finished, you can go on to less important tasks. Things that determine your success and failure must never be at the mercy of things that barely make a difference.

Focus on one thing at a time

In his great book Deep Work, Cal Newport makes the case that any time we interrupt out workflow by doing unrelated things, we lose enormous amounts of time. Not only does it take time to pick up another task and then come back to the first one, but we also lose focus and take a while to get into a productive state. By doing this, we jeopardize both the quality of our work and the time it takes to get it done. To avoid this, start the task you deemed most important in step 3 every morning and focus on it until you are finished.

See Also: 3 Tips for Being More Focused and Staying That Way

What gets measured gets done

The easiest way to make sure you are on the right track is to measure your progress. How many miles are you running? How many calls are you making, and how many products are you selling? How many hours do you spend working on yourself? Only when you see in black and white what you are actually doing or not doing are you able to track your progress and become better.

If your goal was to run 20 miles this week or to make 40 sales calls but the numbers don´t add up, you know there is something wrong. Now you have two choices: Admit to yourself that you are not doing what it takes to succeed and recommit or throw in the towel and quit. The choice should be obvious.

In either case, tracking your progress raises your awareness. You can´t lie to yourself anymore, saying you did enough when actually you didn´t. It´s all there in black and white for everyone to see. A great way to hold yourself accountable is to have other people check your progress. Whether that is your boss or your wife, find someone to hold you accountable and call you out if you are not doing what you said you would do.

The two magical questions

After each sales call, presentation, or any other significant performance, ask yourself these two questions: What did I do right? And what can I do better next time? Doing this allows you to be your own coach. Find out what you are great at and what you need to improve.

After a while, patterns should become obvious. For example, do you always lose your sales on a specific step? By something you say? Find your weaknesses and then systematically eliminate them. Always look for ways to improve and become better. Doing this alone could completely change the direction of your career.

Which one skill, if developed, would change your life/career the most?

No matter how great you are at what you do, there is always something you need to work on. If you can´t find anything, you should probably check again! The problem with our weaknesses is that we often like to avoid them. It´s like the student that has some bad grades in math and then decides that it´s not for him or her – and stops trying altogether. The problem with that is, ignorance doesn´t excuse failure. After all, just because you don´t like math doesn´t mean that it won´t show up as an F on your report.

The same goes for anything. Just because you are in terrible shape doesn´t mean you can forget about your health completely. In fact, it should be even more reason to double down and change your diet and workout routine! But sadly, that´s not what most people do. Instead of addressing their weaknesses, they tend to ignore them until it´s too late.

The good thing is, by addressing your weaknesses systematically, you can set yourself apart from the masses and constantly upgrade your skills. Ask yourself, which one skill, if developed, would change my life/career the most? Which one skill am I missing that is preventing me from further success right now? Asking these questions and then working on solutions may be hard work sometimes, but will surely pay off in an increased ability and therefore higher income in the long run!

Count your wins and losses

Every night before going to bed, I review my day. Where have I succeeded, where have I failed? What could I have done better? And how can I apply that tomorrow? What is the biggest lesson I have learned today?

Looking back and counting my wins and losses every day has become one of the most important rituals I have. It helps me learn more about myself and enables me to improve every day. I can only recommend reviewing every day to work on your skills and learn from your mistakes. Doing this, together with the techniques outlined before, can drastically change the course of your career and speed up your climb on the ladder of success!

 

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Staying motivated is one of the most difficult things for entrepreneurs. It is the lack of motivation that causes many entrepreneurs to quit.

Below are some tips on how some of the world’s successful entrepreneurs stayed motivated despite the ups and downs in the business.

Joe Martin, President of Merchandize Liquidators, LLC

Joe Martin, an Israeli-born, founded Merchandize Liquidators while pursuing a Business Administration degree at Florida International University. Hardworking and persistent to finish college, he opened Merchandise Liquidators to pay his way through college. Although faced with different challenges during the start of his business such as time and money for capital, it didn’t stop him from reaching his goal.

He was an international student during that period, which means he had to stay as a full-time student for legal reasons. The main issue he faced regarding his business was to convince major chain stores that he could get their closeouts on a consistent basis regardless of the lack of capital to buy goods and space to place it.

According to Joe Martin, socializing with the most successful people is the key to staying motivated. He says that when you socialize with people who are at a higher level of success than you, you get a mental push that will help you break the barriers that are stopping you from making millions.

See Also: 7 Power Habits of Great Leaders, Business Icons and Inspirational Achievers

Chase Jarvis, CEO at CreativeLive

Chase Jarvis, along with Craig Swanson, founded CreativeLive. Chase, a leader and a renowned creative himself, dedicated his company to providing an online space for visionary instructors to connect with creative professionals. He was not just the present CEO at CeativeLive, but also a director, an award winning photographer, and media maven. Furthermore, he created campaigns for Starbucks, RedBull, Nike, Apple, and other companies. He is also known for creating Best Camera, the world’s first photo application that lets the user share images to social networks.

Chase Jarvis first took the spotlight when he became the world’s best photographer at a young age. He went ahead to create CreativeLive which is the world’s biggest live-streaming education company.

Chase says that much of his success and motivation was from following his passions. He says that you should go after something that is dear to you and not random market opportunities. If you go for random opportunities, you will only be doing it for the dollars and thus you will not have the passion to stay with it.

Juanita Hines, Regional Consulting

Juanita Hines, passionate about helping people succeed, founded Regional Consulting. Because of her ability to help craft perfect resumes for her clients, she was known to be the “Resume Whisperer.” Her passion for helping has led her to start her company dedicated to professional empowerment by providing interview coaching and training in communities where no such opportunities were previously available.

Juanita also does a lot of speaking engagements at youth camps and schools. She also works with other non-profit organizations in encouraging students to start planning for their futures and assist professionals with insights on how to heighten their careers.

Juanita says that you should surround yourself with people who are striving to pursue their own success. This will encourage you to succeed in your own life as well.

See Also: 5 Women Entrepreneurs Who Failed Before Becoming Millionaires 

Tim Ferriss, best-selling author and CreativeLive instructor

Tim Ferriss, considered as one of “Most Innovative Business People, is also an author. He wrote “The 4-Hour Workweek, the 4-Hour Body, and the 4-Hour Chef”, considered as Wall Street Journal and #1 New York Times bestsellers. Furthermore, he is an investor and consultant in Twitter, Facebook, Shopify, Uber, Duolingo and much more. His podcast was also recognized as the “Best of 2015” by Apple and the #1 business podcast on iTunes.

Tim’s key to success and staying motivated is to choose your friends wisely. He says that the best advice he ever received and still keeps him going is that you become an average of the 5 people who you associate with most.

Will Curran, President of Endless Entertainment

Will Curran, who was only 17 during that time, started his interest in DJing. He found a need missing in the entertaining industry and went head-first into satisfying such need.

Due to his passion for putting on events, each mistake he made became building blocks to grow his company further. One of his discoveries during the journey towards his goal was how customers would start coming to him if he provided excellent customer service after which everything would fall into place.

Will says that you succeed by fighting the small battles. He says he finds joy in overcoming obstacles and celebrating even small wins. He rewards himself after all the jobs are well done. According to Will, you can get overwhelmed if you focus too much on the bigger picture.

Justin Palmer, Founder & CEO of MedSaverCard

Justin gets his motivation by thinking about his future freedom. He says that entrepreneurship requires a lot of hard work but if you concentrate on your business now, it will give you the freedom and resources for the years to come.

 

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Have you ever tried to define the comfort zone? It’s that place that you don’t like, but you’re afraid to change. You know you’re supposed to do greater things. You want to be more successful. You want to learn more. You need to make a change. Still, the comfort zone is like a disease that kills your ability to make that change. It frightens you with the assumption: “What if I fail?”

Why is this state of inactivity called a comfort zone? Why does it make you comfortable where you are, even though you’re not happy with your accomplishments? You feel comfortable because you know nothing unexpected can happen. You have a vision of how your day, week and year are going to end.

Sooner or later, we all get the call to action. Something inside is telling us that we were not born to be comfortable. We were made for challenges – both on a personal and professional level. At that point, you have two options:

• Honor the call and step out of that box, or
• Keep convincing yourself that you’re perfectly well as you are.

What are you going to do (or not do)? I challenge you to make a change. Do you want to be something more than mediocre in this lifetime? If that’s the case, I invite you to keep reading. Together, we’re going to make an effort to get out of the comfort that’s slowly killing us inside.

Long-Term Comfort Zone = Dead Personal Growth

After reading a few biographies of successful people, here’s the conclusion I came down to: They never stop learning. In order to bring a change in this world, one has to possess powerful beliefs, creativity, the will to learn, and the courage to take action.

Successful people turn learning into a habit. They perceive life as a journey towards growth, which they achieve through knowledge and personal progress.

How do they turn that philosophy of life into practice? They always take action. They consistently step out of their comfort zone. They expand their mental and physical boundaries and they keep making their lives better.

Sometimes they fail. Failure is part of the journey, and it’s not devastating as long as it doesn’t push you into a comfort zone. As long as you keep trying, you’ll go towards improvement.

See Also: 7 Power Habits of Great Leaders, Business Icons and Inspirational Achievers

Comfortable? It’s Fake Comfort!

Maybe the decision to stay away from change keeps anxiety at bay. However, this feeling of comfort is fake. Do you know how it feels when you blame yourself for something you haven’t done? At one point, you look back and you realize: “If I did what I was supposed to do back then, my entire life would be different now.” Each decision leads to a chain action that has consequences on your future. When you don’t assume responsibility for your future, that doesn’t mean you’re not affecting it.

Assuming responsibility for your own life means taking responsibility for your beliefs, actions, and thoughts. You can’t control all factors and you can’t completely direct the outcome of your actions. However, when you take full responsibility for everything you do and the consequences that follow, you are stepping out of that zone on the path towards accomplishment.

People who are deeply chained in the state of comfort find different ways to put the blame on someone else. God, karma, bad luck, and mostly – other people. They always find ways to justify their inactivity and blame someone else.

That’s what’s comfortable in this zone: the thought that it’s not your fault and there was nothing you could do. If you find yourself somewhere in that description, it’s time for a realization: You ARE responsible for what happens to your life.

It’s about time you start being responsible for your own actions.

Without Risk and Challenges, there’s No Great Accomplishment

Do you know why you keep hearing about the success of Bill Gates, Richard Branson and other great leaders? They constantly do something that gets them in the headlines. That’s because they can’t afford to stay in a comfort zone. Clint Eastwood started off as an actor, but he didn’t stop there. He felt like acting in a film or two to earn money for a good life wasn’t enough. That’s why he keeps challenging himself: the thought of staying in the comfort zone of peaceful retirement would destroy the chances for any other great accomplishments.

Famous people are not lucky. They are persistent. They did something to deserve other people’s respect. They did that because they were brave enough to take risks and set huge personal and professional challenges.

See Also: 9 Powerful Lessons from the Success Story of Bill Gates 

You’ll Find Your Motivation as Soon as You Step Out of That Zone

Our lives are fueled by action. When you have a lousy day, think: did you do something to improve it? Stepping out of your comfort zone is enough to find inner motivation. Start exercising or read a challenging book. Sign up for an online course. Start looking at job ads. Do something!

If you’re willing to be active throughout your life, you will find the inner drive that keeps you going. We live in a time when doing anything is easy. You can find any information and start learning about the things you’re interested in. You can book a plane ticket and go see the Northern Lights in person. In other words – you can start searching for happiness instead of waiting for it to hit you (which won’t happen, anyway).

How exactly can you step out of that comfort zone? It’s all about the mindset. When you believe you can do something, you’ll find the strength to do it. Once you realize that all your actions form your future, there’s no other choice: you have to do something in favor of your happiness.

Comfort is bad. It keeps you inactive and unwilling. Challenges, on the other hand, are beautiful. Go live!

 

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