After some of the downturns and challenges of 2012, do you expect 2013 to be as lucky as Friday the 13th?
One person I had a conversation with was just that pessimistic. Her opinion was, “I can’t take an entire year of Friday the 13ths.”
Personally, I’m determined to make 2013 a lucky year. 2013 is unwritten. The pages of the book are blank. I have the opportunity to get up every morning and write my positive professional and life experiences…but I have to make them happen.
Success in life does not come to you by default. Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Perhaps there is one exception: Will Smith. I saw a clip on Will Smith’s life. It told how his Dad always urged him to work hard, be diligent, pay the price, keep going, don’t give up, etc. After his success in the movie Independence Day, his Dad looked at him and said, “Forget everything I said about hard work. You are the luckiest kid I know.”
For us without Will Smith’s luck, we have to follow Will Smith’s Dad’s advice and work hard. This hard work involves visualizing a better future, a more profitable company, new innovative products and service. It involves looking at alternatives and options to make success happen in a million different ways.
Maya Angelou said that “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities.” What is your solitary fantasy, that elusive dream of yours that can transform 2013?
F. Hawes instructs us to “Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.”
It is very difficult to see beyond your level of experience. That is why the visualization process is critical to success. You must be able to visualize yourself in different circumstances, doing something new, playing a different role. Once the visualization is clear in your mind, you begin the process of providing crystal clear goals and objectives. Like rungs on a ladder, the goals and objectives take you consistently and methodically upward until you reach the height of the arrow you aimed at the sun.
If the vision is strong enough in your mind and the goals and objectives are written down to the level of daily tasks, having the self-discipline and motivation to get up every morning and take positive steps into the future is relatively easy.
If in 2012, you made several resolutions on January 1st only to wonder what your resolutions were on January 10th, then I recommend in 2013 you increase the visualization process, not the goal setting process. Concentrate, focus, and create a vision for 2013 that literally catapults you out of bed in the morning to take one more step forward to the realization of your dream.
Visualization means you visualize yourself already doing your goal, already being there, already achieved your dream. Make the picture vivid. Add details.
The goal setting process will happen automatically as you work to make your new year’s resolution and visualization a reality.
You will make 2013 the luckiest year of your life.
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You are free to print this blog post in your company newsletter if you keep my byline intact.
Karla Brandau is a Certified Speaking Professional and CEO of Workplace Power Institute. She is an expert in building charismatic leaders who craft superior relationships with employees. Visit www.WorkplacePowerInstitute.com for more information or call 770-923-0883.