Get in An Environment That Will Help You Thrive

05/16/2012 By Angela Leave a Comment

Sometimes life’s greatest lessons come from the strangest places.
I learned an interesting fact about sharks today and it is a great analogy
for our personal growth and development.

What I learned is that sharks are very adaptable and grow
to a size that is only as big as their surroundings allow.
When a shark is put into a tank it will only grow to a
size appropriate for that space. A shark in a small tank
may only be inches long fully developed. Now put a shark
in an ocean and it has space to grow, there is nothing
limiting the size it can grow.

I think this is similar to how some humans never seem to do much
while some people thrive and create an amazing life. If we choose
environments that don’t challenge us, keep us in our comfort zone
and surround ourselves with people who don’t build us up we will stay small.

If we choose to expand our horizons and do things that challenge us,
get ourselves out of our comfort zone and surround ourselves
with people who will push us there is no limiting how big we can grow.

So what environment are you choosing?
Are you staying in places that will keep you small or are you willing
to get in a environment that will help you thrive?

To living life by design!

Angela Paige

angela@angelapaige.com

Connect with me on Twitter – Angela_paige

Connect with me on Facebook – Angela Paige

Interested in working with me – Work with Angela

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: thrive

5 Easy Time Management Strategies

02/28/2012 By Angela 2 Comments

Time Management Strategies

There is no denying in the truth of the saying, “Time is gold.”

You never seem to get enough of time. Even if you are given thirty hours in a day, you still won’t be able to get enough of it. Somehow, some things will come up and you will end up wanting more time. Time is a precious commodity. Once it’s gone, it cannot be recovered.

The fact is: when you are busy, time flies swiftly. But when you are not, time seems to be at a stand still. This is true when you are killing time because there is nothing else to do under the circumstances.

How do you maximize the use of your time?

Consider the 5 following time management strategies:

1. Check your schedule at the start of the day. Review it in its entirety. You may notice that portions of your day may be hectic, while some may not be too frenzied. Distribute your activities evenly throughout the day.

Keep note pads handy so you can keep track of your schedule. It also helps to remind you of your tasks and commitments. Note pads and schedule notebooks help you avoid overlapping of activities. In case of overlaps, determine which one is priority.

After spreading your schedule for the day and you still feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks to be accomplished, you may have to reschedule or eliminate some of them. You may need to look at your activities and learn what you need to put on your, “to don’t list.”

What you are actually doing when you are using this as one of your time management strategies is very much like cleaning a closet. When your closet is in order, you avoid being accidentally hit on the head by falling objects upon opening its door. Also, if it is in order, you will likely find spare spaces available.

2. Request for a re-schedule in advance. This is especially true when another person will be affected. Show courtesy by doing this is advance. This leaves time for the person to adjust to the new schedule. Who knows? You may be doing the other parties a favor. They may be in the same predicament as you are, and they will not be aware unless you make it known to them.

3. Be creative with your time management strategies. Time is an element where simple creativity can be put to practice. For example, you need to do the laundry but at the same time, you also have to rush and buy some groceries. Perhaps, what you can do is to set your washing machine to do the laundry while you step out to the grocers. Manage your time in the grocery and back home, just in time when the laundry is done. All it takes is scheduling and a little creativity.

4. When you have to do a certain task for the first time, it is natural for mistakes to happen. However, a first time task doesn’t have to be a blunder. If there is no clear direction on how things should be done, take time to plan it out before you take action. This saves time, energy, and money.

5. Visualize the possible outcome of your objective. Seek out alternatives. Choose the better of two or more alternatives. If there is only one option, do it just the same. Some tasks may appear difficult when you think about it, but not necessarily when put into action. The same thing is true the other way around.

Time is something you could never have enough of so be sure to be conscious of your time management strategies. You become wise when you choose to maximize your time.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Personal Development, Time Management Tagged With: Time Management, Time Management Strategies

How to Do Better Than Your Best and Create Success

10/07/2011 By Angela 2 Comments

Learning to Become Better Than Your Personal Best to Create Success

This is an exciting topic because you achieve great success when you learn to become better than your best. I was recently listening to Jim Rohn’s, “The Art to Exceptional Living,” and in it he shares a great way to improve beyond your best. I wanted to share this to push you a little because I think sometimes we work on ourselves to a point and then hit a plateau and stop. If you continue pushing the limits and work past your personal best imagine where you could go.

In Jim’s Rohn’s book he uses push-ups as an example for learning to do better than your best. He says for instance if right now the best you can do when you do push-ups is to do 5, you do 5. But then you rest and you can do 5 more, rest and do 5 more. Eventually you might be able to do 10 push-ups before you have to rest, then eventually 20 and so on. The best that you can do right now does not have to mean it will always be the best that you can do. You can get better and improve with time and continued effort.

If you think that you are at your best right now don’t stop. Try to keep growing, learning and getting better and your can far exceed what you best is at the moment. We can always be challenging ourselves to push our boundaries and growing to new levels. When you think you have done your best get into the habit of asking yourself, “how can I do even better next time.”

So I challenge you if you think you are at your best to keep working and pushing. Even if you have reached your personal best there is still room for improvement. I love how St. Jerome put it, “Good, better, best never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.”

p.s. If you own a business hop on to a free webinar every Wednesday with great training on a variety of topics to build your business and become better than your best!

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: creating success, doing your best, improving

Time to Figure Out Your To Don't List

08/17/2011 By Angela 5 Comments

It is the norm today to live busy, fast paced lives and that may lead us to feel overwhelmed and drain our energy. To find success and put some balance in your life it might be time to figure out your to don’t list. While it is so important to have a to do list and know what needs to get done, it is equally important to start taking unproductive tasks, busy work and things of no value sucking your time and putting them on your to don’t list.

While we all lead busy lives it is easy to fill our lives with loads of things that are unproductive and keep us from reaching our true potential rather than being able to spend time doing the things that are really important. I know how easy it is to get sucked into all the things on our to do list but many of those things offer no real value. So how can you change that? Easy, make a to don’t list.

Create a list of a few things you are doing right now that you can stop doing and put them on a to don’t list. What kinds of things are you doing that are unproductive or keep you from higher value things like spending time with your family or creating the kind of business you desire? Take those things and put them on the to don’t list.

Creating a to don’t list allows you to put more energy into the things that are important and lets you free up some time for you. Take the time to do your to don’t list so you can rock your to do list.

What are you going to put on your to don’t list?

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: Personal Development, Success, to don't list

The Power of 250

05/15/2011 By Angela 3 Comments

The Power of 250

Why is 250 such a powerful number? Because when you understand it, it can rock your world. The power of 250 can change your life, get you a job, transform your business and more.

In the book, ‘Go-Givers Sell More’ the authors describe what was coined by Joe Girard the “Law of 250″. I think if you put the power of 250 to work for you it can completely transform your life.

So what is the “law of 250″? They describe it in the book as the 250 people on average that every person has in their life who would come to their wedding or funeral. The 250 people that are in your circle of friends, family and within your influence. This gets really powerful when you realize that everyone in your circle has their own circle of 250 or so. This is how you build your network and can build momentum in your life or business.

Joe Girard who came up with the law said that if he treated one customer bad not only would he lose 1 sale but had the potential to lose 250 potential sales. So while this law can work against you if you have poor customer service this law can unlock huge potential for you and drastically change your life.

If you are in a business think about giving great value and building relationships with your customers and your inner circle. People love to share their experiences and if you provide great value and they like, know and trust you, you never know who will share your name with their circle.

When you understand how incredible you sphere of influence is and how to create value and build relationships you have immense power in your hands. I highly recommend reading ‘Go-Givers Sell More‘, I found their ideas to be completely transformational not only for business but life.

I would love to hear any stories you have about your life changing by understanding the power of your circle of influence. Leave a comment below and share it with me.

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: building relationships, business, circle of influence, Personal Development

Living Life Fueled By Your Passion

05/14/2011 By Angela 6 Comments

Living Life Fueled By Your Passion

We all begin thinking about what we’re going to be when we grow up at a very early age. As we grow and learn more about ourselves and life, those career ideas change and grow.

As we experience new relationships, hobbies and events in our lives, we develop interests and ultimately we become passionate about some of them. It’s these passions that make the stressors of life dissipate.

What may have been a passion in our twenties may very well change as we age. We may find that the career we chose in college no longer satisfies our needs, once our basic needs have been met.

While once our passion was making enough money to pay the bills, our passion may have shifted to become a desire to do something else such as help others. As we’ve developed personal skills, we may find that we are gifted in different areas than we once were. What could be better than making a living doing what you are now passionate about and making money at the same time?

Unfortunately, many people fail to live a life filled with passion. Fear of rejection or of success keeps many people from pursuing their dreams; many people simply don’t have enough faith in themselves to reach for the stars.

What makes you happy? Do you have a hobby that you just can’t get enough of? Take the step of writing down any way that you could make money at doing your favorite thing and try it in your spare time. You might find a new career doing exactly what you are passionate about!

Filed Under: Designing Your Life, Personal Development Tagged With: design your life, life with passion, passion

Fasten Your Seat Belts, It is Time to Get in the Drivers Seat of Your Life

04/12/2011 By Angela 2 Comments

Fasten Your Seat Belts, It is Time to Get in the Drivers Seat of Your Life

Ever feel like you are going through life on cruise control while being stuck in the passenger seat? Kind of like you are just along for the ride but have not taken the wheel. It might be time for you to shift gears, get in the drivers seat and get on the road to your destination.

I want to share with you a few of my tips to get in the driver seat and take charge of your life:

Know your destination-When you take the wheel and put yourself in charge of reaching your destination you have to know where it is you want to end up. If you don’t know where your destination is you might end up driving aimlessly. While a nice Sunday drive is fun once in a while you don’t want to always be spinning your wheels. Figure out where it is you want to end up in life and then put the plans in place to get you there.

Have a road map-To get where you want to be in life you are going to need to have it mapped out. You wouldn’t go on a long road trip without being prepared so why would you want to do life without a plan? Set long term and short term goals and do daily to do lists so you have a detailed plan to get you to where you want to be.

Be prepared for road blocks, u-turns, traffic jams and going the wrong way- On the road of life there will be obstacles, that is just a fact. You simply have to be prepared to run into obstacles and not let them deter you from reaching your destination. Challenges like road blocks or traffic jams while frustrating should do nothing more than slow you down. When you make u-turns and go the wrong way it might get you off course temporarily but when you have a plan and know where you are going you can easily get back on track.

Like the saying goes, on the road of life there are passengers and there are drivers, which one are you?

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: Goals, Personal Development, to do list

Creating a Highly Effective Personal Brand

03/15/2011 By Angela 5 Comments

Creating a Highly Effective Personal Brand

Creating a personal brand for yourself and your business is extremely important and of course you want that brand to be highly effective. So how do you do about creating a personal brand that is effective? Well I have a few suggestions on how to go about creating an effective personal brand, check it out.

Make sure everything you do is on brand- It is going to be hard to find yourself with an effective personal brand if you are not consistent and you are all over the place. The more you can keep everything you do consistent the better off you will be. If you have a certain brand color, design, theme carry it through on all your online and offline marketing.

Your personal brand should be unique. You want you brand to be unique so you stand out in a crowd. There are millions of businesses out there so what makes you unique and how can you make yourself stand out? I see so many people out there copying what other people are doing and that is not effective. I suggest seeing what other people are doing , learning from them but make sure to add your own flair and uniqueness to everything you do.

Brand yourself as someone who makes important contributions- If you can make important contributions and provide value through your brand you will find it easy to make big strides in your business. When you are out there giving great value people will be drawn to you.

Work to Be What You Want People To See- How do you want people to see you? Work to be the brand that you want to be seen for.

Make sure to nurture your network- Building a network of friends, customers and colleagues and working on those relationships is imperative. Those people in your network will have things to say about you and what they say will effect how others view your brand. So when you build and nurture great relationships people are going to share your brand and have positive things to say about you. I think this is one of the most important keys here because if you build good relationships with your customers you will get a lot of repeat business.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment and let me know what are some things I might have missed that you think are imperative for creating and effective brand?

Filed Under: Personal Branding Tagged With: personal brand, Personal Development

Amazingly Simple Ways to Transform Your Life

03/10/2011 By Angela 27 Comments

Amazingly Simple Ways to Transform Your Life

1. Work on figuring out your unproductive and destructive habits and replace them with good, healthy habits. One of my favorite quotes is by Charles Noble and he says, “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” So if you allow a bad habit to continue it will start to define you in a negative way. But if you start choosing good habits it will define you in a positive way. For example if you start choosing healthy habits by eating right and exercising it will make you healthy. I will tell you that working on bad habits and replacing them with good habits had made a big difference in my life.

2. Learn to set goals. Goals will make a big difference because they will help you start moving towards the things you want in life. Brain Tracy in his book Eat That Frog said this, “Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.” You want to be sure you set long term and short term goals to help you achieve what you want in life. I think of short term goals as the building blocks to get you to your bigger goals. So for instance if you goal is to lose 100 pounds that would be a long term goal and maybe smaller goals would be to start exercising 4 days a week.

3. Make your health and fitness a priority. Fitting in time for exercise can be a challenge sometimes and eating right is not always easy. These are things you do need to work on if you want to make a difference in your life. If fitness is a priority you will find time for it and it should be a priority because without health you really don’t have anything else. When you feel good and are healthy you sleep better, your mind functions better and you can give a lot more to whatever you do. As one of my favorite quotes says, “Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness.”
- Earl of Derby

4. Make written to do lists daily. I can’t great this has been to transform my life and my productivity. I fought this one for a while because I thought I knew what I need to accomplish in my mind. Then I would have days that I would simply waste time because I could not think of what I needed to do next. Having a to do list that I check often has changed that and made me so much more productive and made a huge difference in my life. The way I learned to make awesome to do lists and to make them work for me was through Chalene Johnson’s Free 30 day push challenge. This will make such a huge difference for you if you apply what she teaches. Check out the challenge here-www.30daypush.com

5. Learn to embrace change. Change is something that is not always easy. We all get comfortable with the way things are and don’t want to step out of our comfort zone. That being said change is something that is inevitable and we can either embrace it or fight it. When you can learn to embrace change you can make a big difference in your life. Change is what helps us to push ourselves and improve our lives. When I learned to embrace change is when I noticed a big difference in my life. As Anthony Robbins says, “If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.”

6. Take time for rejuvenation. Taking time for yourself to relax and rejuvenate will make a big difference in your life. We all lead busy lives and sometimes we end up as the lowest priorities on our lists. When you can make time to rejuvenate by doing something simple as giving yourself a quite half an hour to read, taking a bath or getting out and talking a nice long walk you will feel refreshed and it will make a big difference.

7. Keep learning. Learning should be an unending process, it is easy to give up on learning after we are done with school. One of my favorite motivational speakers and authors Jim Rohn says that the best money you can spend is on your self-education. He says that if you see the homes of the most successful people they have libraries in them. I know for me to work on continual learning has really made a huge difference.

8. Stop sweating the small stuff. “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today or its job.” This quote by Leo Buscaglia is one to be very mindful of. It is very easy to let worry creep in to our lives and if you can stop worrying and especially over little things you can make a big difference in your life. I know, I grew up with a Mom who worried all the time and thus turned me into a worry wart. Spending your life worrying is not a fun way to live and gets you in one bad cycle. I have found that the less I worry the more I am actually able to enjoy life. It is not easy to completely eliminate worry but the more worry you eliminate the more you will make a difference in your life.

9. Learn to be grateful. Being grateful is such a simple way to transform your life. When you make a shift from always wanting something to being grateful for everything you have you will be amazed at what happens in your life. This can be a major shift in thinking if you are someone who has a hard time being satisfied with what you have. You can start by being appreciative of just the smallest things in your life and slowly shift your mindset.

10. Take time to listen to others. When you listen to others you find that you can learn a lot. I know that most of us just want to talk and be heard but we really need to learn to listen. When you listen you need to make sure you are really concentrating on active listening rather than doing a million things at once and only kind of listening. One of my favorite Proverbs in the bible says, “Don’t talk so much. You keep putting your foot in your mouth. Be sensible and turn off the flow.” I also have heard some people use this great phrase, “God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.”

Now it is your turn. What are some amazingly simple ways you have transformed your life? Leave a comment for me below.

Filed Under: Inspiration & Motivation, Personal Development Tagged With: life transformation, Transform, transform your life

Live a Successful Life By Doing These 4 Things

02/21/2011 By Angela 14 Comments

4 Things You need to Live a Successful Life

While there are many components to living a successful life, there are few major things that can make all the difference between living a life of success and a life filled with mediocrity or failure.

I wanted to share with you the 4 things that stand out as the biggest keys to a successful life.

Be disciplined- I think is by far and away the most important of the 4 I have listed. If you want success with anything you do in life you have to be disciplined. If you want to lose weight you need to be disciplined in exercise and eating right. If you want to do well in a business you need to have discipline to put in the work. As one of my favorite authors, Jim Rohn puts it, “We all must suffer 2 pains. The pain of regret or the pain of discipline. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

Learn gratitude and how to be happy- I believe you live a far more successful life when you learn how to live in gratitude and learn how to be happy. When you live a life filled with gratitude and happiness you learn to celebrate even the smallest blessings in life. Another one of my favorite authors, Brian Tracy puts it this way, “Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”
-Brian Tracy

Live life to the fullest- I believe successful people live life to the fullest by learning to live well. Living well means you need to make the most of what you have. To live life to the fullest means not getting wrapped up in the past, worrying about what will happen in the future and learning how to overcome failure.

Learn how to navigate change- Change can be a tough thing for some people to deal with but it is something you need to embrace. In order to find success you need to be adaptable in a variety of situations. It seems in today’s world this is especially true as technology has so rapidly changed us and the way we live our lives. We need to be on our toes and willing to adapt to change.

These are the 4 things that I see a large portion of successful people focused on to live a successful life. I would love to hear what other small things you do that contribute to your success. Leave a comment below and share those things with me.

If you enjoyed this post please feel free to share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social media site.

Filed Under: Inspiration & Motivation, Personal Development Tagged With: live successfully, Success