Get Over It & Get At It

Get Over It! Get At It!
By: Joseph Norman

"Though you cannot go back and make a brand new start, my friend, you can start now, and make a brand new end." - John C. Maxwell, Today Matters

What you did yesterday is not nearly as important as what you do today. We fail and we do it often. It's a necessity of life because failure breeds true success. My challenge to you this week is two fold. Get over it and get at it!

You have something on your mind which is holding you back. You're not proud of the way you reacted to something or someone in the past. You didn't close the deal. You didn't exercise. You ate too much fatty foods last week. You think you're overweight. You are struggling to pay your bills. You got stood up. You broke up with your significant other. You pissed somebody off. You didn't think before you opened your mouth and spoke.

GET OVER IT! Move on. Forgive yourself for your stupidity or inaction and file the experience away. It's over and you can't take it back, so learn from it and leave it.

Now that you have made the choice to evict the insecurities caused by your past, make your new day one focused on living the life you need and want to live.

GET AT IT! Today is your opportunity. It is your open canvas. You are the paintbrush and your life is the paint. What are you going to create? Who are you going to influence? What message are you going to deliver? What story are you going to write on the hearts of the people admiring your life's canvas?

Let them experience that narrative by making it a priority to live it today.

Goal Setting Secrets of the Greatest Achievers

By: Mohammad Latiff

A 7th century Arabian genius once said, "Success is the result of foresight and resolution, foresight depends upon deep thinking and planning, and the most important factor of planning is to keep your secrets to yourself." The name of this genius was Ali Ibn Abi Thalib, one of the most illustrious, noblest and brilliant leaders of the continent-sweeping Islamic civilization that was left behind by the Prophet Muhammad.

However, it is not the object of this article to discuss a religious figure or the history of a civilization. The quote provided above is to set the impetus for the rest of this article.

"Success is the result of foresight and resolution, foresight depends upon deep thinking and planning, and the most important factor of planning is to keep your secrets to yourself."

It is impossible and illogical by definition and reality to achieve any measure of success without any thought, planning or goal setting put into it. Any attainment that is born out of randomness and chance is not to be regarded a success at all, just as a momentous lottery winning should not be called an achievement.

The achievement of a goal, by definition, requires that there be an element of conscious planning and subsequent effort put into it, because a goal is a purpose that any person, entity or enterprise is working consciously towards. No matter how vague or clear the goal is, some degree of planning, implementation, tracking and refinement is definitely involved.

If you are to observe the life stories of achievers either in your lifetime or in history, you would realize that the truth about their success can be attributed to a number of very common, universal, timeless and unchanging factors - or principles.

These undying principles are universally applicable to almost every area or field of endeavor, from industry to academia, from the ivory towers of the corporate world to the warmth, comfort and safety of a nursery. Changes and challenges that are developing in the world neither add to nor subtract from the validity of these principles. They only serve to create permutations and evolutions in the application of them and not the essence.

Now, what are these principles exactly? Here I shall be listing a few of my findings -

1. The greatest achievers are driven by a huge, humongous, all-consuming Vision either for their lives or for the world. They view the world as a perfect playing field to manifest and make concrete their visionary ideas and are often driven by this vision, whether or not they are consciously aware of it from moment to moment.

2. They set targets and objectives that are in alignment with this grand vision of theirs. They also have the discipline to reject and ignore so-called opportunities, developments, innovations and temptations that are not in alignment with their great vision, often creating enemies because of this. Nevertheless, those who stayed faithful to these achievers and their vision prove themselves worthy as true friends and partners in bringing about their visions to reality.

3. They seek out the best possible methods to accomplish what they seek, never settling for mediocrity or lackadaisical efforts. To these achievers, the terms 'laziness' or 'hard work' are concepts foreign to them. What they are driven by is their vision and the goals they must achieve in order to meet that vision. Whatever it takes to accomplish those targets of theirs, they will accept, and although they are humans too and can feel exhaustion, they do not view the necessary work as something to dread, but something to live with, even enjoy.

4. The great achievers are constantly learning. They learn from their mistakes, from other people's mistakes, from their observations of the necessary goal-attaining processes in which they are engrossed.

5. They do not stop at simply learning, they also put their learnings into action, dynamically and consistently refining their methods in real-time. Sometimes the growth and improvements they obtain from their gradual evolutions borne out of their learnings can be very minimal, sometimes they may achieve tremendous improvement, even breakthrough.

But in their minds, they do not discriminate between small improvements and big improvements, neither obsessing over making huge improvements nor being content with only small improvements. All sizes and manners of growth are welcomed by them.

If all the goal setting secrets of the greatest achievers could be condensed into a handful of principles, the 5 listed above would suffice. Every other discussion of planning, thinking, programming, intending, organizing, managing or controlling are simply corollaries of the above 5 principles.

About The Author:
Mohamad Latiff is giving away his amazing FREE $997 value goal setting and accelerated wealth attraction technology on how you can achieve all your goals and your inherent unlimited potential for wealth, success & happiness in your life! Only at http://ultimatesecretsofsuccess.com/

Amanda Senft

SUNY Geneseo Student

How do you define success?
I think success is defined by a personal standard. If you honestly believe that you committed yourself to something 100% and did the best you possibly could, that is a successful experience whether you reached the goal or not. Success is not necessarily the opposite of failure, it's how much you learn and grow out of a particular experience, and how you feel about it at the end of the day.

Who inspires you? Why?
I am unbelievably inspired by my aunt, who is a very independent woman and has the most positive outlook on life I've ever encountered. She is living proof that bad things happen, but the way you handle it has everything to do with how things turn out. I think it's also important to inspire yourself a little bit - sometimes I look back on the things I've accomplished in the last week or in the last month, and they prove to me that I am capable of making things happen.

If you could pass any bit of information or an idea to everyone in the world, what would it be?
That the values and ideas of every single person count. I think the world is in limbo a little bit right now, with economic crises, the threat of global warming, and the shadow of nuclear capabilities. Now more than ever it is imperative for people to understand that every human on this planet needs to do all they can to preserve it for future generations - the time for letting others take the reins is over.

What do you consider your greatest personal strengths?
I was afraid of this question! Whenever I have to answer it, I always say something about how much drive I have to accomplish things, my open-minded approach to solving problems, or how I consider myself a "people person". The thing is that none of these attributes by themselves mean much - I am who I am because of a beautiful combination of strengths, weaknesses, personal qualities, and character flaws. I've just chosen to let the "strengths" define who I am more than the weaknesses, which I suppose is a strength in itself.

What do you consider your greatest personal weaknesses?
The need to make sure everyone else is satisfied and inconvenienced as little as possible. I don't always delegate, or say no when I become too overwhelmed, because I would rather sacrifice my own time than disappoint others. I have to constantly remind myself that sometimes it's okay to slow down and just let things be.

If you could snap your fingers and create anything, what would it be?
A 26 hour day!

Where do you want to be 5, 10, 20 and 50 years from now?
Five years from now I hope to at least be on the right track to deciding what I want to do with my life. At the moment I'm thinking of exploring publishing, advertising, or school counseling. Hopefully in ten years that will have culminated in supporting myself in a career I enjoy that is making some kind of impact on the world, even if it's just a local community. I do look forward to settling down and having a family, but it's important to make myself happy first. Twenty and fifty years down the road will take care of themselves after that!

So, why English and Psychology?
English because I am in love with the written word. Books, quotes, articles, writing, poetry, all of it. I think there is something incredibly beautiful about the ways people express themselves. Also I think being able to write well and interpret material are valuable skills to have. I added Psychology during sophomore year because it's really fascinating to learn why people do the things they do. I'm hoping the combination will serve me in publishing or advertising.

Final thoughts
A very wise teacher once told me that if you can't think of a profound way to end something, let someone more articulate do it for you.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in, but forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Contact: ars12@geneseo.edu