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Personal development training - How to make 2013 your best year ever

Personal development training - How to make 2013 your best year ever

We are at the beginning of a new year.
Presumably, you want this year to be better than last year.

How can you make this year better than last year?

You have two major options:
1. You can “hope for the best” and rely on the government to save you.
2. You can do something yourself to make this year better than last year.

Our advice is this:
• Don’t just hope for the best.
• Don’t rely on the government to save you.
• Instead do something yourself, to make this year better than last year.

Do something specific to make 2013 your best year ever!
But what can you do to make this year, your best year ever?
Let us analyse that question and derive some answers.

Your results in life are dependent on many factors.
Those factors can be sorted in four main categories. They are:

1. The environment in which you live.
2. The system in which you operate.
3. Other people: their actions and inactions.
4. Yourself: Your own actions and inactions.

If you live in a nice environment, if you operate effective systems and have good people around you; and if your actions are well organised and well executed, then we can expect things to go well for you.

But if you live in a poor environment, if you operate unsystematically, and if you are surrounded by lazy people and you take no effective action to remedy this situation, then we cannot expect things to go well for you.

We do want things to go well for you so let us work on each category in turn:

1. Work to improve your immediate environment
You are affected by your environment. If you are in a bad environment then it’s hard to win.
If you are in a good environment then it is easier to win.

But your environment can be further categorised into two subsets:

1. Your General environment and your
2. Immediate environment

Your general environment is your town city or country
You cannot easily change that.
Your immediate environment is the room you are in.

You can more easily affect the room you live in.
The advice is to make your immediate environment as conducive to success and peace of mind as is possible. Make sure that you live in a clean, orderly and attractive room.
Don’t allow your space to become untidy, disorganised, unattractive, smelly.

Make it tidy, colourful, fragrant. Hang up examples of good art and play only the best background music; make your immediate environment an inspiring and pleasant place. Make your environment suggest that your life is moving in the right direction.

Remember that you are affected by your environment.
And that your environment can be affected by you.

2. The system in which you operate
You are only as good as the systems you operate.
If you have bad systems, then you will be in the doldrums. Going nowhere fast.
If you have excellent systems then you will be on the right track; making progress fast.

Systems are important.
Good systems = good results.
Bad systems = bad results.

Question
How systematic are you?
Do you have a systematic approach to problems?
Are you in chaos?
Many people are not systematic enough.

So they:
1. Lose things too often
2. Too often, they forget to do things
3. They are late for appointments
4. They aren’t ready in time
5. They let themselves down

If the same person trained themselves to be more systematic they would over time:
Never lose anything because everything has its place.
Never forget to do things because they operate according to written lists.
Never late for appointments because they leave in time to take into account the delays.
Be always ready in time for the event because they have prepared in advance.
Show themselves to be a top contender for the bigger prize.

We suggest you look at improving your systems.
Become a more systematic person.
If you did that, your results would improve.

Other people
Other people affect the quality of your life.
If you surround yourself with people who are going nowhere, and not even trying to make improvements, then you will find it hard to motivate yourself you keep going.

If you surround yourself with people who are trying to achieve something’s worthwhile and are continually trying to make progress in their field of endeavour then you will find it easier to motivate yourself to keep going.

Make a list of the people with whom you spend the majority of your time.
Then evaluate them and make a judgement.
Which of these are in the progressive group; i.e.; the people who are trying to achieve something worthwhile.
Which of these are in the non progressive group?; The people who are not trying to achieve anything worthwhile.
Spend less time in the company of the non progressives.
Spend as much time in the company of progressive people. You are affected by the company you keep. And in return you affect the people with whom you contact.

Be selective

Some people are good for you
Others can kill you.
Be selective in choosing the company you keep.

Your own actions and inactions
The most influential person in your life is you.
You are always there.
Wherever you go there you are.
Because you are a ubiquitous presence in your own life it is easy not to notice the effect you are having on yourself; i.e. That you are the main cause of your problems.

It is easy to blame all your problems on the other elements we have discussed; it is easy to blame your problems on:

The environment you live in
The system
Other people

And it is common for people not to realise that they are the major cause of their own problems.

People don’t notice that most of their problems come from the following:

They are not doing enough of what they should be doing.
They are doing too much of what they should not be doing.

For example
Do you tend to:
Not eat enough good nutrition (fish, fruit and veg.)
Eat too much bad food (chocolate, cake and alcohol)

Do you tend to?
Not read sufficient educational books
Watch too much telly

Do you tend to?
Not exercise enough
Sit around too much in the evenings

Do you tend to?
Fail to appreciate all the good things in life that are free.
Worry too much over doomsday scenarios that probably won’t ever happen.

Do you tend to?
Say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment
Fail to say “thank you” and “I love you” as often as you should.

If you want the next year to be better than last year then reverse all the above points:

For the next 12 months
Eat more good nutrition (fish, fruit and veg.)
Consume less chocolate, cake and alcohol

Read more educational books
Watch telly less

Exercise more
Sit around less

Appreciate all the good things in life that are free.
Worry less about doomsday scenarios. They won’t happen.

Keep quiet and don’t say the wrong thing in the heat of battle.
Remember to say “thank you” and “I love you” as often as you can.

Combine all the advice in this blog and implement it for the year.
If you did you will find that this year will be your best year ever.

For more information about personal development training visit the Corporate Coach Group website

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