Prioritize

Continuing with our exploration of the Seven (7) Habits of Highly Effective People, Lesson Three (3) is focused with the concept of “put First Things First”. This concept involves a person’s ability to PRIORITIZE efforts that will lead to short term goals and immediate gains at the expense of effort that may appear to be urgent but has no benefit what so ever.

I often hear employees talk about how “hard” they work. This is about working smart and not hard. A smart skill to learn is the art of delegation. Delegation allows you to magnify yourself through others and thus getting more done with the limited time you have. Again working smart and not hard.

When you are feeling frustrated because you feel like you are spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere, evaluate if you are expending energy in work that has no gain. Also evaluate why you may be stuck in the rut of high expenditure and low gain. Remember the lesson from last week; be careful not to follow behind something stupid which is what we do when we waste our energy in efforts with little or no gain.

Maya Angelou put it beautifully when she said, “Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking places, honor their credit cards, get married, have children and call that maturity. That’s not maturity it’s just AGING!

Visualize

Continuing with the 7 habits of extremely successful people, the second habit states that you should begin each day, each project, each adventure, each new phase of your life with the End in Mind! What this means is that we should each set long term goals for our lives. VISUALIZE! Form a mental picture of where you want to be next. If you have an ideal body weight and shape, visualize yourself that way and fixate on it. You will find that you will curb your eating habits and exercise habits to match your visual image of yourself. If you want wealth, then visualize yourself wealthy and you will find yourself adopting those habits that puts you in wealth and not in debt. If you want a successful business visualize what that means down to the stationary paper you will buy.

After my first marriage, I didn’t know if I wanted to be in a relationship again. After about a year, I decided that I wanted to be married again. I began to pray and visualize specifically the type of man I wanted. I stated his height, his ethnicity, his temperament, his ability to love my children, and the most important fact was that he had to share my spiritual beliefs and be MY PRINCE. I also visualized the date at which I wanted to be engaged and then married. I repeated this mantra each day and never lost site of the END GAME! Exactly in the time frame I specified I got my Prince down to EVERY detail! That makes you want to holler and cry out for help! VISUALIZATION and long term planning works! Try it! How can it hurt. You see most people don’t try this technique because they fear disappointment. The fear of disappointment is the single reason that blessings are blocked in your life.

Stop being disappointed and begin to believe in your true North Compass! Visualize your future and get out the rut of disappointment and lost!

Fabric of Humanity

In our journey on this earth, each of us has a part to play in the fabric work of humanity. Each of us is responsible for each other and responsible to support the efforts of each other here and in the world at large. I would hope that as we play our part we would be respectful to one another in how we talk to one another and treat each other. Please be mindful of each other this week and let’s work toward providing an atmosphere of growth and positive energy