Accountability Challenge Week 19: Reality Check Your Strengths and Weaknesses:

by admin | May 13, 2015 | 52 Week Accountability Challenge

“Focus on your strengths but recognize your weaknesses”. 

Have you ever heard the expression that we need to improve our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses? Well I believe that statement is half true. Improving our strengths will help us to achieve our goals faster. However, trying to eliminate or overcome our weaknesses will only lead to frustration, exhaustion and slightly stronger weaknesses.

I do believe it is important and a valuable exercise to take a Reality Check of our own individual strengths and weaknesses. I’m an advocate of the school of thought that says we should focus on the things we are best at (our strengths, our talents, our skills) and that we should strive to “staff” or delegate our weaknesses wherever possible.

An excellent example that I once heard was of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. They are best at performing their music, and they are handsomely paid to do it. On the other hand they neither are best at nor paid to lug around or set up their instruments. They have learned to focus on their strengths and to staff their weaknesses.

Week 19 Accountability Challenge: Reality Check Your Strengths and Weaknesses:  

• Take out a piece of paper (as you may have noticed I’m a big fan of writing things down); draw a line down the middle of the page. On one side write ‘My Strengths”, on the other side write “My Weaknesses”.
• Be completely honest with yourself and write out as many qualities from each category as you can think of.
• For example. One of your strengths may be that you are a naturally organized person who thrives off creating and sticking to lists.
• One of your weaknesses may be that you just can’t seem to keep your home free from clutter.
• Take 10 minutes to write out as many things as you can think of-do your best to leave no stone unturned.

• When you are done-Identify your top three strengths and weaknesses.

• Find every way possible to focus more of your time and energy on your strengths.
• Figure out every way possible to “staff” or delegate your weaknesses. Can you pay a naturally organized high school student to organize your clutter filled home? Or can you find a quality but cost effective house cleaner to keep everything neat and tidy?
• How about a virtual assistant to help you with your business, or your taxes, or even your health?
• Be creative and have fun with this exercise.

Expect Success,

Coach Mark, Thought for the week: P.S. “Focus on your strengths but recognize your weaknesses”.

Mark Hudon, CFP™,  CCS™

Financial Fitness Coach, Certified Cash Flow Specialist™

Creator of The Core Conditioning Program™

Check out our exciting new Website, Radio Show, & Cash Flow Planning tools:

https://financiallyfitforlife.ca/

http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/financially-fit-for-life/

http://cashflow-specialist.com/

Accountability Challenge Week 18: Identify & Calendar your HPA’s.

by admin | May 4, 2015 | 52 Week Accountability Challenge

“Focus on your highest payoff activities and the results will come”. 

We spent the past two week’s focusing on the critical area of strengthening our self-image.

Now it’s time for us to take the next step forward by identifying the actions that we need to take to maximize the results we wish to achieve.

Action is a critical step in the process of creating what we desire in our lives.

Are you focusing on your highest payoff activities?

Do you know what your highest payoff activities (HPA’s) are?

Recently I found myself listening, probably for the 5^th or 6^th time to a wonderful audio recording from one of my mentors, Anne Bachrach, also known as The Accountability Coach™. (… I really wish I had beaten her to the punch on that trademark thing…)

The focus of the call was to take time to specifically identify in order of importance, the highest payoff activities that when acted upon will give us the greatest probability for success in the achievement of our definite purpose or goal?

I found this exercise very useful because it forced me to stop and think. It is very easy for us to mentally affirm that “we know” all there is to know about the information that we are digesting. However, it’s critical to emphasis that knowing what to do, and actually doing what you know are poles apart.

Accountability Challenge Week 18: Identify & Calendar your HPA’s.

This week’s exercise is so simple yet so powerful. Take 10 minutes today (NOW would be a great time to get started) to:

1. Identify your highest payoff activities in order of importance as they relate to your specific goal.

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2.  When you have identified your own HPA’s, I want you to take the next critical step of putting them into your calendar, day time timer, blackberry, IPhone or whatever time management tool you prefer so they are set up as vital appointments in your day.

3.  Make an irrevocable commitment to yourself or to someone else in writing that you will in fact honour your calendar by taking action on your HPA’s. I guarantee that when you follow through on this simple three step exercise and commit to doing it consistently every day you will begin to make Quantum Leaps in your progress towards your goal.Now that is something to get super-excited about.

Expect Success,

Mark Hudon, CFP™,  CCS™Creator of The Core Conditioning Program™

Check out our exciting new Website, Radio Show, & Cash Flow Planning tools:

https://financiallyfitforlife.ca/

http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/financially-fit-for-life/

http://cashflow-specialist.com/

Financial Fitness Coach, Certified Cash Flow Specialist™

Mark,

Thought for the week: “Focus on your highest payoff activities and the results will come”.

Accountability Challenge Week 17: The Power of the Self-Image Part Two

by admin | Apr 27, 2015 | 52 Week Accountability Challenge

Accountability Challenge Week 17: The Power of the Self-Image Part Two.

“Change your Self Image and you change your life”.

In last week’s Accountability challenge we discussed the importance that a healthy self-image has in impacting the quality of our life, and specifically in the achievement of our goals.

We had several terrific comments in response to the lesson. As I was contemplating the lesson I knew that we had touched upon a critical topic, one that demanded an even deeper review. I personally believe that the Self-Image we hold of ourselves is the dominant factor in the level of fulfillment and success that we experience in every area of our lives.

A lot of what is written and taught in the area of goal achievement focuses on the “no pain no gain” mentality. We see it when we go to the gym, we hear it in clichéd interviews with the celebrated sports and entertainment stars of the day. We are fed a steady diet of “if you have the will you will find the way” slogans, mantras and diatribes.

Now, I definitely believe that will power, discipline, persistence and focus are important to achieving our goals. However, what I know in my heart to be true is that how we feel about ourselves in any particular area of our life plays a much more important role in the success we achieve. I would like you to revisit the phrase that started last week’s lesson. Take a few moments to let the depth and significance of Dr. Maltz’s words resonate with you.

“Self-image is the premise, a base or foundation upon which your entire personality, your behavior, and even your circumstances are built. We act, behave and feel according to what we consider this self-image to be and we do not deviate from this pattern,” Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

Here’s what these words mean to me: let’s say I have a goal to earn $250,000 per year in my business. Further let’s say that the most I have ever earned in one year is $100,000. I can write the goal out in vivid detail, repeat to myself every day, attend sales and product training sessions. I can even attend motivational workshops designed to inspire me and motivate me toward my goal.

However all of my previous conditioning: my experiences, thoughts, actions & beliefs tell me that I have only ever earned $100,000. In other words my current Self-Image is at odds with my desired results. What ultimately happens is that my old conditioning-my old self-image wins out and I fall short of the goal, again and again and again. This reinforces the limits that have been programmed into my Self-Image in this area of my life, and the vicious circle continues.

Until we re-condition our old self-image no amount of self-discipline, will power or positive thinking will work in leading us towards our desired results.

Now that’s the bad news. The good news is that we are fully capable of re-conditioning or re-programming the faulty old self-image right here and right now.

Last week we gave you a wonderfully powerful exercise to help you to begin to re-condition your current Self-Image. Perhaps you completed the exercise, perhaps you didn’t. Either way your homework exercise for this week is to repeat the challenge from last week with one small change.

I want you to take 5-10 minutes every day this week to rewrite your Ideal Self Image. If you are truly serious about making significant changes in the results you desire in your life, I challenge you to complete this exercise every day for the next 90 days. I guarantee you that if you do (and I know by experience that very few people will do this-except for you) then the results you experience will appear to be miraculous. You will be re-conditioning your new self-image and the old faulty Self-Image will be a thing of the past…

Yes it will take some level of persistence, commitment, and focus, (don’t worry we will talk more about your specific actions next week) however you will be pleasantly surprised at “how little pain and how much gain” you will enjoy.

Accountability Challenge Week 17: The Power of the Self-Image.

1. Take out a 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper and write out in full detail a description of the image of the person you are about to become:
• Pay particular attention to the areas of Health, Wealth and Happiness.
• Clearly describe how you desire to see yourself in each area- The idea behind this exercise is to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

MY NEW SELF-IMAGE:

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Expect Success,
Mark,

Thought for the week: “Change your Self Image and you change your life”.

Mark Hudon, CFP™, CCS™
Financial Fitness Coach, Certified Cash Flow Specialist™
Creator of The Core Conditioning Program™

Check out our exciting new Website, Radio Show, & Cash Flow Planning tools:

Home

Financially Fit for Life

http://cashflow-specialist.com/

Accountability Challenge Week 16: The Power of the Self-Image

by admin | Apr 19, 2015 | 52 Week Accountability Challenge

Accountability Challenge Week 16: The Power of the Self-Image. 

“We act, behave and feel according to what we consider our self-image to be and we do not deviate from this pattern,” Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

If you haven’t heard of or read the book Psycho-Cybernetics, by Dr Maxwell Maltz, I highly recommend you go out and get it. This book first came out on print in 1960, yes wellover 50 years ago.

Yet it remains to this day one of the most influential and ground breaking resources in the field of personal development, particularly as it relates to the concept of the self-image and its role in closing the gap between our potential and our performance in all areas of our lives.

Maltz boldly states the “self-image” is the key to human personality and human behaviour. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behaviour.

When you change your behaviour that is when your results change. Truth be told, the whole purpose of this Accountability Challenge that we have committed to complete is to change our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviour so that we will enjoy the results that we desire. I agree with Dr Maltz that the “Self-Image” that we hold in each area of our own lives is the key.

I realize this is a strong statement but fortunately we can easily prove it to be true or false by looking at our own experiences. Look at your own life; are there areas where you feel extremely confident, capable, and skilled? Take a moment to write them out. I’ll wait for you….

For me I’ve always felt confident in my abilities as an athlete-As far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed playing sports. I enjoy participating in baseball, football, hockey, basketball, golf, and later in life endurance sports like triathlon-swimming, biking and running. I’m by no means a world class athlete in any of these fields, but I’ve always held a strong “self-image” of myself when it comes to sports and being fit and active.  Because my self-image is healthy to this day Icontinue to participate in, enjoy and occasionally excel in these fields.

Now, ask me to fix anything mechanical, or do any kind of home-renovations that require anything more complicated than the use of a screw driver, or a hammer ( and even that is a big stretch) and my abilities, and my self-image shrinks to the size of a pea.

We all have areas in our lives where our Self-Image is positive and other areas where are self-image is negative. If you are struggling to achieve better results in any area of your life, then you need to take a close look at your self-image, because just like a thermometer controls the temperature in your living room, your current self-image is governing the results that you are allowing yourself to receive.

“Whether we realize it or not each one of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. The self-image is our own concept of the “sort of person I am”. It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood”. (Page 2 Psycho-Cybernetics)

So the core message that I want to convey this week is first one of self-awareness of where you currently see your own self-image. Yet it is also one of tremendous hope and possibility. If the results you are striving for in any area of your life are currently less than what you desire, than the main reason is that you are holding a faulty self-image. To change the results you desire, change your self-image.

Accountability Challenge Week 16: The Power of the Self-Image.

• Take out a 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper and write out in full detail a description of the image of the person you are about to become.

• Pay particular attention to the areas of Health, Wealth and Happiness.

• Clearly describe how you desire to see yourself in each area- The idea behind this exercise is to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. 

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE, DO OR BE: 

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Expect Success,

Mark,

Thought for the week :“We act, behave and feel according to what we consider our self-image to be and we do not deviate from this pattern,”           Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

Mark Hudon, CFP™,  CCS™

Financial Fitness Coach, Certified Cash Flow Specialist™

Creator of The Core Conditioning Program™

Check out our exciting new Website, Radio Show, & Cash Flow Planning tools:

 https://financiallyfitforlife.ca/

 http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/financially-fit-for-life/

 http://cashflow-specialist.com/