1. Positive thinkers have taught me to make the most out of every situation. I am able to take limited resources and make them into something great.  Developing a positive mindset helps me believe in myself. I know that a little extra effort can allow me to find strengths I thought were beyond my capability.
2. With a positive mindset, I have become more creative. Difficult situations require creative thinking if resolution is the ultimate goal.  First, I must raise my consciousness beyond the level where the problem started.
3. Very few things get me down when I maintain a positive frame of mind. When something unfortunate happens, I am able to pick myself up and move on. It is much easier to get over disappointment when I focus on the positive.
   

Make a commitment today to making your situations happier by maintaining a positive outlook. Keep your social environment positive by surrounding yourself with positive people. Know that this is a key component to ensuring that more good things come your way.

LACE for Life questions:

1.    What is the difference between being positive and being over-zealous?

2.    How do you deal with loved ones who constantly display a negative outlook on life?

3.    What strategies can you use to remain positive when someone you love is going through a painful            experience?

1.      Embrace your limitations. You’ll likely encounter someone smarter, stronger, or better looking during your life. Realize that even if you’re not the best at something, you can still be very successful, as long as you make an effort.

·         Avoid letting a fear of inadequacy stop you from trying.  It’s okay if you try and fail. Failing to try is the only true failure. Each failure brings you closer to success.

2.      Work a little harder. If you're less than stellar at something, you can compensate by working even harder.

·         Coming up with a great idea for a new invention is more about hard work than about being brilliant. Lots of people have unique ideas, but it takes someone who's willing to put in the extra effort to make it successful.

·         Avoid letting fear hold you back. Just get to work and hope for the best.

3.      Set goals. Before you get in your car and turn on the ignition, you have a destination in mind. Accomplishing things in life can be the same way. Have a clear understanding of where you want to go and then you can figure out how to get there.

·         Set realistic goals, but be willing to step out of your comfort zone. It can be very discouraging if your goals are impossible to achieve. Make your goals challenging, yet attainable.

·         If your goals are too easy, you won't feel a sense of accomplishment or any motivation to push yourself towards them.

4.      Understand the limitations of your mindset. Sometimes things seem impossible for us, only because that’s what we believe them to be.

5.     Find a coach. Every athlete who succeeds in sports owes a lot of credit to their coaches. Coaches help take players to places they would be unable to get to by themselves. It isn't only athletes that can benefit from coaching. Let me help you get where you want to go in life and help you achieve success. 

·         As an example, let's take the story of Roger Bannister. Roger Bannister is the first person to ever run a mile in less than 4 minutes. He did it on May 6, 1954, and before that day, many believed that his accomplishment wasn't humanly possible.

·         Many gifted athletes had come incredibly close, but nobody did it before Roger Bannister. However, once that barrier was broken it became possible in people's minds.

·         The year after Roger Bannister ran his 4 minute mile, 37 other runners were also able to accomplish the same feat. The year after that, 300 runners were able to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

·         It's not that these runners weren't physically capable of doing this before. It's just that all of them now believed it was possible.

Do you have things in your life that are holding you back? If so, it could be because you have set limitations in your mind. Isn't it time to open your mind and overcome those limitations? Unlock your potential, starting today!

Your career path is largely up to you.  Like it or not, the days of joining a company with a clearly drawn map of “steps” related to your planned evolution within the organization are long gone.  This SHOULD be perceived as a good thing – you can create a path specific to your needs and interests, and directly impacted by your growth capacity and level of exertion.  No matter what your career path is, there are some things all professionals will have to do.  Despite doing many of the same things, the effort and consistency with which we do these things in relation to one another will undoubtedly prove to be the major differentiator in our personal and professional destinations.

Here are some basic skills and activities that every individual must invest some level of time in, not just for excellence – but merely for survival:

Read
Books, magazines, and even those annoying “whitepaper” emails we receive have some nuggets of information that help shape our thinking and at least increase our awareness, if not our understanding as well.


Listen
The world around us is ever-changing and that alone requires us to pay attention to it.  Listen to local, national, and world news coverage.  Listen to conversations, by engaging or even eaves-dropping, in order to gain perspective on varying (differing) opinions.


Think
Practice using your mind.  Start with raw imagination, envision something/anything and carve out ideas.  Then create goals from those ideas and develop a plan for making them happen.  Ultimately, build a sequential list of actions that you feel will bring your imagination (potential/visual) to culmination (reality/physical).  Rinse and repeat.  Whether you execute your action list or not isn’t really important.  Why is this important?  The ability to communicate so effectively as to transform that which is potential into that which is actual can be summarized as “leadership”.

Data (communication), examined and vetted, rises to the level of Information (fact/opinion).   Information, as a part of its interaction with other data or information, is synergistically transformed into Knowledge (actionable intelligence).  Knowledge, when applied along with judgment/discernment is revealed as Wisdom.  One’s ability to harness and actuate these details determines not their level of success, which is subjective and very personal, but their level of personal development and professional capacity.