Important Relationships That Support Your Success

Let me state the obvious.  Success isn’t a solo act.

 

Surrounding yourself with good people and mutual supporters is essential for success. We need the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual support of others.

The point is simple. The quality of your life will be in direct proportion to the types of relationships you choose to build.

Here are 4 that lead to success.

1.  You need models that inspire you. Models in life help you know where you are going. When we create and build, we are better off if we use a model—whether it’s physical or financial. It’s easier, saves time, shortens the process, and reduces the number of mistakes.

This is also true with “life” models. They help us learn better and at a faster pace than if we were to take the lonely trail called originality. Find someone who is already where you want to be — financially, spiritually, emotionally, vocationally, relationally — and find out how they did it. Sometimes it makes sense to take the road well- traveled.

Models cause us to break through barriers that we thought were impassable. When Roger Banister did the “scientifically” impossible—running the mile under four minutes—within a year, over a dozen others accomplished the same thing. So look at the people who are headed where you are headed and learn from them. Models aren’t perfect, but they are inspirational.

2.  You need coaches that propel you. A coach doesn’t do things for you. They bring out the best in you. The best advice comes from inside you. A coach helps you get rid of the anchors in your life that are dragging bottom so you can go faster, further, with less fatigue. Where do you want to be at the end of the year? Another year gone by, or the best year of your life? They will help you flesh out your intentions, which in turn becomes the rudder that guides you through the year. They help keep you growing and on track. They are committed to your goals. They don’t do the work for you (nobody can), but they help guide your energy.

No matter how successful you become, you will always need coaching. Albert Pujol is a very successful baseball player (now an Angel). Do you think he has a coach? Josh Groban can sing circles around the rest of us. Do you think he has a coach? Come to think of it, all pros have coaches! That’s why they ARE pros! Successful people who are sharpening their skills seek out coaches. It’s about who I am and what I want. A coach keeps me on track with what I value.

3.  You need partners that assist you. You need helpers, coworkers, teammates, and a support group of people who form your network. They are people who share your commitment to a life mission. You were not meant to go through life fulfilling your goals and objectives by yourself.

Benjamin Franklin formed a support group long before it was ever popular. He called it, my most ingenious friends group (I didn’t make that up). They met every Friday night for 40 years. In his 80’s and 90’s he was still accomplishing things, with his greatest inventions coming after the age of 70.

Thomas Edison had a group he called, my mastermind alliance. Within a six year period that group came up with over 300 patented inventions. They were averaging one minor invention every six weeks and one major invention every six months.

You get the point. You might not invent the iPhone, but you will shock yourself with what you can accomplish.

4.  You need friends that support you. Yes, they DO provide emotional support! True friends walk in when others walk out. They don’t abandon you. They stick with you in a crisis. And they also provide intellectual stimulation. Do your closest friends make you think or do they put you to sleep?

“A true friend is one who makes us do what we can do.” Emerson

They stretch us, press us, envelop us, and put the pressure on us to grow. My point is that you will never rise above the level of your closest friends.

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” 

-Jim Rohn

If those 5 people average a 6 on a scale of 1-10, you will probably not rise above a 6. Who are the empowering people in your life?  Spend more time with them.

Who are the models inspiring you? Can you identify the coaches that are propelling you? Who are the partners assisting you? Are your closest friends causing you to grow or regress?

The quality of your life will be in direct proportion to the types of relationships you choose to build. So choose well.

How do your relationships impact you? Your comments are valued.

Achieve Your Full Potential! Book a complimentary coaching session at http://www.denisedema.com to get the support you need to excel in your professional and personal life.

Why Would You Need A Business Coach?

Business coaching is for professionals who want to attain more control over their work and personal lives. Individuals who use a business coach benefit from another point of view, honest feedback, and real support in a confidential setting. This results in both personal growth and professional benefits. Good coaches help clients achieve breakthrough awareness levels and measurable results.

In the typical business coaching relationship, client and coach work together to identify a goal or a particular business roadblock. Together they explore possible root causes and develop strategies for taking the client's performance to a new level. The coaching process combines brainstorming, goal setting, action planning and progress reporting. Coaches hold clients accountable to their own objectives in a supportive, non-judgmental manner.

Benefits of Coaching are Professional and Personal

Individuals who use a business coach are often surprised by the gains made in their personal lives while they pursue professional goals. Who you are is closely intertwined with how you work and how you relate to others. When improvements are made in one area they can't help but positively affect other aspects of your life.

Who Uses A Business Coach?

A wide variety of individuals use a business coach for an even wider variety of reasons. For example, business owners often use business coaching to increase revenue in their businesses and create more balance in their lives. They also use business coaching to motivate employees, decrease employee turnover, and provide themselves with increased accountability.

CEO's, executives and even mid-level managers often rely on their coach's ability to provide honest feedback because, as is often the case, very powerful executives don't have anyone who will be totally honest with them. The resulting opportunity for personal growth and professional improvement are lost. A good business coach will help an executive identify areas needing improvement, enabling that executive to reach new heights of success.

While mid-level managers often receive feedback from both superiors and subordinates, they, too, use coaching to advance their careers. A business coach can help managers learn how to create a motivated staff as well as how to interact with staff and superiors more effectively. Confident and productive management combined with a receptive and communicative work force is an undeniable recipe for success that is well within the scope of any business - including yours!

Sales professionals, entrepreneurs and individuals seeking a career change can also leverage the business coaching relationship to their benefit. It is not uncommon for a sales professional to use coaching as a springboard to increase sales, which generally translates to an income upgrade. Individuals wanting an occupation upgrade can use business coaching to identify a more enjoyable career path and develop subsequent strategies to follow it. 

Entrepreneurs who are starting up a new business often use coaches to help provide the structure and resources needed to implement an accelerated path.

Whether you're looking to improve, redefine or change your work life altogether, the first step is contacting a coach to discuss your objectives. A prospective coach will provide a free consultation over the phone to explore your professional needs.

A good business coach can help you get back on track, so that you can enjoy your work, and more importantly, your life more fully.

Are you ready to take the next step? The answer lies within you. Get the support you need to move in the right direction. Work with a Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years’ experience empowering individuals, executives & business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. Give yourself a gift and book a free coaching session at http://www.denisedema.com

Boost Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a realistic, appreciative opinion of oneself. Realistic means that we are accurately aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Appreciative means that we have overall good feelings about the person that we see. It’s about feeling whole and secure in oneself.
 

The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. The strongest single factor in acquiring abundance is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it. People are motivated to have high self-esteem, and having it indicates positive self-regard. 

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.

Do you like and accept yourself? Are you happy with whom you are? Do you have faith in yourself? Do you believe that you have what it takes to be able to lead a rich and fulfilling life? These questions are all related to your level of self-esteem.  Self-esteem is essential for success and happiness. It’s also essential in order to be able to achieve your goals. People with high self-esteem say the following about themselves:

• I like myself as a person.
• I’m as good as everyone else.
• I like what I see in the mirror.
• I am happy to be me.
• I respect myself.
• I’d rather be me than anyone else.
• I’m not affected by what others say to me.
• I have the skills and qualities to make myself a success.
• I like taking risks.
• I’m not afraid to make mistakes.
• I can laugh at myself.

Here are a few ways to boost your self-esteem.

Recognize Your Intrinsic Self-Worth

The basic premise of self-esteem is that all people have intrinsic worth as a person which does not have to be earned. Intrinsic self worth is basically self love. When you feel intrinsic self worth, you are happy and satisfied with yourself as you are. Someone with intrinsic self worth does not require external awards, kudos, gold stars, or the acknowledgement of authority figures (parents, priests, teachers, etc.) in order to feel good about themselves. Someone with intrinsic self worth loves themselves unconditionally. This core human worth is not affected by external factors, this means that you don’t need to compete in order to establish your worth, or be constantly comparing yourself to others with money, looks or physical things. It means that your self-esteem is not something that is developed by any external factors.  One of the building blocks of self-esteem is recognizing your intrinsic self-worth. Seek respect mainly from thyself, for it comes first from within.

Thoughts Determine Self-Esteem

Self-esteem and circumstances are only indirectly related. Self-esteem is 100% determined by your thoughts.

One example to illustrate this point is what you say to yourself when you’re standing in front of a mirror. If you look in the mirror and think, “I’ve gained five pounds; I look fat”, you feel bad about yourself. If, instead, you think about something positive, “My hair looks nice like this”, you then feel good about yourself. The reflection in the mirror remains the same; only the thoughts change.

In addition, certain external circumstances can make it easier for you to feel good about yourself. However, external circumstances are never as powerful as your own thoughts. Here are two examples:

• If you’re the vice-president of a major corporation and you say to yourself, “By my age I should be the President of this corporation”, you feel bad about yourself even though you hold an important position.
• If, on the other hand, you hold a job that is not regarded by society with as much prestige but you say to yourself, “I do my job well and it allows me to pay my bills on time and spend quality time with my family which is my priority”, you feel good about yourself.

You can increase your self-esteem by changing the way in which you interpret your life, and by uncovering the negative self-statements you habitually make. You then need to create new, positive self-statements. They add that research indicates that it is more effective to stop telling yourself negative things, than to just tell yourself positive things.

In order to understand self-esteem, you need to be aware of the Pathological Inner Critic. This is the voice you hear in your head which is constantly reminding you of your failings and shortcomings. The inner critic destroys your self-esteem. In order to silence the inner critic, I recommend the following process:

1. Pay attention to your thoughts and learn to become aware of when your inner critic is doing the talking inside your head.

2. When you hear the inner critic, talk back. You can mentally say to yourself any of the following: “That’s a lie”; “Shut-up!”; “I don’t believe that”; or “That’s not so”. You can also wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it when you hear the inner critic talking, in order to break your chain of thought.

3. Instead of being occupied with thoughts about past occurrences which may result in feelings of anxiety, sadness, regret, shame, or guilt, based on what your inner critic is saying, get up and go do something else. You can also shift your attention: look out the window, look at an object nearby and study it intently, think of something pleasant you’ve done lately, or think of someone you enjoy spending time with.

4. Schedule time to address the things you need to think about or figure out. If there’s something that’s not resolved, set aside a specific time to think about it. Then, only think about it during that designated time.  If you catch your inner critic trying to get you to think about things prematurely that interrupt your day, stop the thoughts and make it wait so it has a place and time instead of allowing it to rummage through your head the entire day. Worrying about things with no result in sight only disrupts your ability to focus on other things that are important.

5. Replace the inner critic with a positive voice. Compliment yourself or repeat a positive affirmation. Stop the thoughts that are negative and replace them with good thoughts to create a habit that will become second nature in time. 

Keep Your Self-Esteem Muscles Strong

Self-esteem is a mental muscle that must be developed and maintained through regular psychological workouts. Here are some of the “workouts” recommended.

1. Pursue something you’re passionate about each day, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes. This can be gardening, hitting golf balls, taking a walk at the beach, reading a chapter in a book or reading a bedtime story to your child over the phone if you have to work late. Actively seek out activities and projects that generate passion.

2. Instead of just giving yourself credit only when you achieve a goal, stop to recognize your efforts. Make a list of things that you give your 100% to.

3. Put up a self-esteem bulletin board in a place where you can see it often and fill it with things that make you feel good: an email from a client thanking you for your great work, a photo of yourself that you like, a painting your child made especially for you, and so on. Update your collection once a month. This is a visual aid that does wonders for your mental state of mind each day when you see it. It sets a positive path for you.

Conclusion

The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life. 

Get the tools you need to excel in your life by working with Denise Dema, a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years experience empowering individuals, executives and business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. Book a complimentary session at http://www.denisedema.com to get started in reaching your personal and professional goals today!

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love & affection. ~Buddha