Category Archives: OTM Plan For Personal Success

Career Success, Life Balance, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Development, Personal Vision, Professional Development, yes for success

Key Steps When Planning Personal Success

Last week I surpassed 5,800 participants of the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program. The program enables participants to identify exactly what they want out of life and how they are going to create that life.

plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Yes For Success

The program covers:

  • One Core Concept
  • Background Research – on yourself
  • Five Principles for Personal Success and Life Balance
  • Six Vital Strategic Areas for Success

The planning process always follows these four steps:

  1. Identify what you want to do
  2. Clarify your starting point
  3. Brainstorm the strategies/actions that will move you from where you are to where you want to be
  4. Prioritise those strategies/actions so that you identify their order and/or key strategies/actions that have the highest leverage for achieving your desired outcomes

You might wonder why you don’t start with Step 2 first?

No matter what planning you are doing whether it be for your organisation, your team or yourself, you should always start with what you want to achieve. If you start with where you are then you are at significant risk of being ‘blinded’ by your current circumstances. For example if you are in a job that you don’t like because it isn’t fulfilling, you aren’t challenged and not recognised for the value that you are providing, then this will make it hard for you to create a plan to achieve what you do want from a career if your starting point for your plan is your current situation. Quite simply your current situation will have very clear examples of why you can’t have what you want out of a career.

Your current situation often provides motivation for you to move away from it, but when you create your plan you must focus on getting as clear as you possibly can about what success really looks and feels like. You must focus on the outcome you want first.

What would a fulfilling career look like? What would your relationships with your colleagues look like? Would you be working more on your own, as part of a team or a mixture of both? What would ‘respect’ look and feel like up, down and across the hierarchy of your ideal organisation? Would you be travelling a lot or not all? What would your income be?

For each of your answers to these types of questions you must ask yourself why you want what you want and picture it as clearly as possible. “But what if I don’t know exactly what I want?”, I hear you ask.

If you don’t ‘know‘ exactly what you want then I urge you to find the questions that you would like answered. If you think about it, what you actually want is to have discovered the answers to your own questions. So discovering and exploring the answers to your own questions become the focus of your strategies and actions in Steps 3 & 4 of this process.

Fortunately we humans are amazing explorers. I’d argue that the world we have created has resulted largely from our ability to explore and discover the answer to our own questions, such as a famous question asked by Isaac Newton, ‘How can electricity give light?’.

When planning follow the four steps above, they are powerful and they work.

The OTM Plan for Personal Success® has just been launched on an online platform called Yes For Success so that anyone can now access this powerful process for creating the success and life balance that you want.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
energy for success, Life Balance, Life Plan, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Development, personal energy, Personal Success, Personal Vision, yes for success

Addressing The Challenges Of Going Back To University

The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement identified that 27% – 34% of university students intend to drop out of university prior to completing their degrees.

Reasons for dropping out include:

  • Stress
  • Workload difficulties
  • Preference for current employment over study
  • Boredom

I know what it is like to have the strong desire to drop out. I took 7.5 years to complete my first degree which was supposed to take 4 years. The last 3 years of my program seemed to drag on forever. Every semester I would seriously consider quitting. My partner (now wife) kept urging me to stay course. “You won’t regret it!” she urged.

Truth be known I wasn’t the greatest student back in those days!  ‘P for pass’ was my mantra. Hardly a mantra for success!

When I finally graduated I did two things:

  1. I swore I would never go back to university; and
  2. Got a job in a field related to my studies because there weren’t any jobs available and unemployment had reached 11%.

The fact that I had completed my degree definitely mattered when it came to getting my first job because I was competing with other folk who also had degrees. My part-time work experience in the fitness industry also mattered.

It was this experience that taught me that my partner was right. Completing my degree did matter even if I didn’t get a job as a teacher. I learned that, to a large degree, my qualification was like a bus ticket. There are certain buses that you just can’t get on if you don’t have the ticket.

For a number of years I continued to swear that I would never go back to university. However as they say, you should never say, “Never!”.

Toward the late 1990s my career had taken off and I had reached the senior levels of the organisation for whom I worked. But I had hit the glass ceiling. Unless I continued my education and gathered some more tickets then my career options would be limited. At the end of 1999 I decided to enrol into my first post-graduate program and commenced that program in July 2000. As a Distant Education student who was working full time it was a real challenge. Balancing work, play and study was difficult. To add to my challenges I had become a first time father in January 2000. I had bitten off a lot! Maybe this story resonates with you?

However between graduating from my teaching degree and commencing my first postgraduate studies I had become a student of leadership. I had been doing a lot of reading about leadership and success and had discovered that I had far more control over my success than I had realised. And I put what I had learned into practice throughout my postgraduate studies. After graduating from my Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management I immediately enrolled into a Master of Management program. My grades averaged a High Distinction and I loved the learning experience. All the while I was working full time and by the time I completed my Masters program we were about to have our third child (I now have five children!).

I understand what it takes to complete a degree when working full time and having significant family commitments. I also understand how managing your energy contributes to your ability to ‘manage’ when you have competing demands on your time. Which is why I want to share my ebook “Energy For Success – Seven Steps For Generating The Energy You Need For Success.” with you.

My complimentary ebook walks you through a simple seven step process where you will be able to quickly identify the key elements that generate energy for you, and which elements in your life drain your energy. You will then be able to create a re-enforcing cycle for energy that will enable you to have the energy to be a success throughout your postgraduate program.

One of those steps involves identifying the times in your life when you have felt full of energy and been able to perform at your best. What factors were present when you felt like that? What was it about those factors that seemed to really matter?

For me, I know that feeling fit and healthy gives me the sense of being able to tackle any task, no matter how big or small it is. When I don’t feel fit and healthy it is amazing how challenging even the smallest task can seem. So, it would seem that being fit and healthy is a key factor for my energy. And it is. What are your examples?

Once identified these factor often relate to each and provide you with amazing insights about what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure that you have the energy to complete your program.

If you’d like to learn more and be able to create your own cycle for generating your Energy For Success simply click this link and follow the prompts.

Gary Ryan helps individuals, teams and organisations move Beyond Being Good.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Career Success, Mental Models, mindset, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision

Break-Through Mindsets and Creating What You Want – Part 2

If you haven’t read it yet, please read Part 1 of this story here.

After two short stints in two small office environments she found herself out of work. The classic, ‘Last on, first off‘ syndrome. Her employers had tried. But they were small operations and in reality needed someone who wasn’t as raw with office work as she was at the time.

Imagine the challenge that being out of work posed to her new found mindset and self-belief.

Her old factory job loomed like a giant magnet trying to drag her back into her old life and everything that came with it.

Imagine her strength of character to ‘stay the course.’

“I really, really don’t want to go back to a factory job. But I just don’t know if I’m cut out for a an office job.” she exclaimed.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You know the answer to that question Gary! But I don’t know what to do.“

“Well, you’ve proven twice now that you can study. One of the side benefits of studying is that you have to use office skills to do your homework. So, in a way it’s like practice for your future job.” I suggested.

“You know, I have a friend who works in real estate and she suggested that I give that a go.”

So off she went for a third course and obtained a qualification for Property Management. It took a while but she finally got a job. It wasn’t a full time job, just four days per week. They understood that it was her first experience in the industry. They promised training by one of the Directors of the company. It has been over six months since she started and she has seen that Director twice in that entire time. So much for training. Yes, it is sink or swim at that company!

Recently she informed me that she had been required to use her own car to visit the houses she was ‘managing’ and that she had been given an ‘office phone’ that she was to use to answer landlord calls on her three days off per week. She told me that she didn’t think it was fair that she was expected to work on her days off  and that she had to use her own car to travel around on business duties.

“Are you receiving an allowance for these activities?” I asked.

“No.” was her response.

“I’m pretty sure your job would be tied to a Government Award and if it is then I’m pretty sure the conditions of the Award are being breached by your employer.” I said.

“But I don’t want to lose my job.” Fear, a powerful mindset kicked in. The type that says the ‘little person‘ should just be happy with what they have and don’t rock the boat because you could lose your job.

I had to tread carefully and respectfully. This is her life and she has the right to be in control of it. Which includes sticking with mindsets that I might not agree with.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To work for someone who treats me fairly. I’m happy to work hard and I believe that I do. I’ve learned a lot. I’m glad I have been given this opportunity and I appreciate it. But that doesn’t mean I should work on my days off and not be paid for it. When I go shopping, the phone rings. When I’m out with my friends, the phone rings. Once I left the phone at work and they called me up on my personal phone and asked me why I hadn’t taken the phone with me. To top it all off my boss keeps telling everyone in the office about how much she hates Property Management. How’s that supposed to make me feel?“.

While the desire to jump on my horse and go riding in to ‘save‘ my young relative seemed to beckon me with every word she said, I knew that this could prove to be another major mindset shift opportunity for her. Support was what she need, not a knight in shining armour.

“What if we were to do some homework and find out exactly what your rights are. Then we can see if you can have a conversation with your boss, armed with the facts.”

“I can’t talk to my boss about this, I’ll get the sack!“.

“Maybe, let’s worry about that later. Let’s get some facts and then you can decide what you want to do. You’re in control. You decide if you take action or not.”

We discovered a Modern Award that covered her role. It identified allowances and normal hours of work. We also had a look at her ‘contract’. No mention of the Award there and no mention of allowances and use of her vehicle, nor answering the phone on an ‘on-call‘ basis. It seemed to me that she had a legitimate case to take to her boss.

She decided that she didn’t want to raise the issue with her boss. “Maybe I’ll just start looking for another job.“

Fair enough. She had come a long way and it was understandable that such a conversation would be too big a leap.

But life can have a funny way of contriving events to force an issue. Just last week, on one of her days off her phone rang. She took the call and referred the caller on to her boss. Her boss took the call and then rang her back.

She was informed that she was ‘unprofessional‘ for not completing the call herself and her boss felt that she wasn’t meeting the standards of the role. Please recall that this conversation is happening on one of her day’s off and she had been told, yet again earlier that week that she wasn’t going to be put on full time.

My young female relative was calm. But she wasn’t silent. She informed her boss that she knew her rights and that she should be receiving an allowance for answering the phone on her days off, or they should simply employ her full time. She was again told that the quality of her work was not up to standard and that if she didn’t like answering the phones outside of her scheduled four days then maybe someone who really wanted to work would be happy to have her job.

Aaah, when challenged, turn to bullying. That’s the spirit Ms Employer (yes friends, her boss is a woman)!

My relative called me. “I think I’m going to lose my job. How can I go into the office tomorrow and see my boss. I don’t like this conflict, maybe I should just quit right now.“

“If you quit, that would certainly be understandable. But if you do have a conversation and you stay calm, focus on the facts and be open to a range of solutions, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could yell at me and I don’t like be yelled at.”

Fair enough.

“Plus, I’m not a very strong person so I can’t have that sort of conversation.” Yes, another powerful mindset that can easily emerge and hold people back from creating what they want.

“I’m sorry but that’s not what I see standing in front of me. I see a brave, courageous young woman who has been on a two year journey of self-improvement. I see a young woman who has been knocked down and continues to get back up. I see a young woman who has challenged and overcome her mindset that she can’t improve. I see a young woman who has choice and who has the power to act on that choice. I see a young woman who is taking on the challenges of creating the life she wants. I also see a young woman who I respect no matter what you choose to do going forward.”

Earlier tonight she contacted me. She had spoken with her boss. The result. She is now working an extra half day in the office to take calls.

While not a perfect result it was a win-win. She has the opportunity to earn more money in a fairer (but certainly not completely fair nor in compliance with the Award, but that’s another issue) and her boss has her for an extra half day doing a job that is obviously required.

The best outcome is the evidence that this experience provides for my young relative. She has proven that she can challenge her own mindset and have conversations that she didn’t think were possible for her to have. And, from the perspective of her starting point she has proven that she can achieve a win-win.

That said, if you or anyone you know has a Real Estate business in the south eastern region of Melbourne and you are interested in meeting my young relative and exploring the possibility of engaging her to join a vibrant and supportive team, please email me at info@orgsthatmatter.com and mention this article.

I’m of the view that her current employer doesn’t deserve someone of her qualities and quite frankly, she deserves a ‘break’ and if I can help facilitate that, then I would really like to contribute to creating one for her.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
challenge, Employee Engagement, Focus, Mental Models, mindset, OTM Plan For Personal Success, personal success team, Success, support, yes for success

Break-Through Mindsets and Creating What You Want – Part 1

A young female relative of mine is amazing. In her early 20s she has been challenging her mindset and creating more of the life she desires. At 22 she had been a factory worker for 6 years. So much for Gen Y not staying with an employer!

But she hated her work. Everyday the same thing. Pull this lever, push that lever. Time moved so slowly she could hear the ‘tick tock’ of the clock above the noise of the machinery!

She wanted to quick. But what to do?

We had a chat. She mentioned that she had wanted to try some office work.

“What if you went and did some formal education, maybe starting with a Certificate II in Business Administration or something like that. Maybe you could then make the move off the factory floor.”

“I’m a terrible student. I can’t study!“, was her reply.

Aaaah mindsets, they kick in very quickly when the unfamiliar is mentioned.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To get off the factory floor and to never have to look at a machine again! But I don’t know anything else!“

“Which is why going back to some form of school will help. How else will you get away from factory work and get another type of job?” I queried.

“Maybe I should give it a go. But my employer won’t help me. They have never given me any proper training.“

“What if you were to ask them? What’s the worst they can say?”

“No!“.

She went ahead and asked about support for some training. She even shared her desire to move off the factory floor. “No!” was the response she received and she was also told that she was, “Needed on the factory floor.” Yes, after 6 years she knew a thing or two about the machines.

Can you imagine her reaction to her employer’s negativity? “I’ll never get out of here. I need the money so I can’t quit. I’m stuck.” Mindsets are hard to shift and having an employer like hers made it even harder.

“What do you want?” I prodded.

“To get off the factory floor.” was her response.

“What can you do to make that happen?” I probed.

“Go back to school outside work.” she responded.

We discovered that she could do her course online and that due to government support it was far cheaper than expected. She completed her Certificate II in Business Administration. It might not sound like much but it was a monumental effort and moment.

She asked for a trial in the office.

“No” was the response. “We need you on the factory floor.” Apparently it was an honour to be employed by this employer and she should be grateful for the job she had. No need for self improvement around here!

“See, what was the point!” she exclaimed to me. “I’ll never leave here!“

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To get off the factory floor.” she responded.

“What are you going to do now?” I probed, yet again.

“Maybe I should do another course?” she suggested.

“Maybe you should. You have now proved that you can finish a course. Why not go to the next level and see what happens?”

“Okay. I’ll give it a go.” Her mindset had shifted. The power of evidence and movement was working.

She completed her Certificate III in Business Administration. She approached her employer about doing a trial in the office. “No! We need you on the factory floor.”

She signed up with an employee agency. She got offered a job as a clerk in a small company on less money than she was earning on the factory floor.

What do you think she did?

She quit her factory job. Aaah, to have been a fly on the wall and seen the look on her employer’s face…”but, but we need you on the factory floor!”. Well, yes you probably do. But an employer – employee relationship is a two way street. If they had given her a go in the office and supported her development, she’d probably be there today. But she’s not.

Moving away from what you don’t want can be a major motivator for getting you to take action, even if it may appear to be a backward step in order to create what you do want.It also takes bravery and courage. I’m proud of my young relative (can you tell?)!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this mindset shifting saga where I will share more of the ups and downs of this major mindset shift that has, and is occurring in my relative.

Oh, and if you think the lack of her employer’s support in the story so far is mind-boggling, wait until you read Part 2… and the even greater challenges she has had with shifting her mindset from one of being out of control of her life to being in control of her life.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Andrew Noone, OTM Plan For Personal Success, personal leadership, Relationships, Success, Values

A Little Perspective – Act On What Really Matters

Yesterday a good friend and colleague of mine passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was in his mid 40s and leaves behind his wife and four young children, the eldest of whom is just 13 years old. Andy had successfully created several multi million dollar businesses. At the start of 2010 he quit all the work he was doing and drove his family around Australia for six months. This was before he knew he was sick. 

Andy would often tell me that he believed that life should be lived to the fullest because you never knew what could happen. He also believed that everyone should do their best to develop the talents that they have and that success always included your close relationships.

This July I have already paid for a trip for my entire family of seven to visit with my twin brother and his family who live in the USA. Irrespective of the state of the economy these trips are never cheap. But I want to spend time with my brother and his family; time that honestly can’t have a dollar value placed on it. Just like Andy’s trip around Australia with his family can’t have a dollar value placed on what that was worth to him.

What are you potentially postponing when it comes to creating shared experiences with the people dearest to you in your life. If you would do things differently if you found out that you only had a certain time to live well, guess what, you do only have a certain time to live, you just don’t know how long it is. So don’t postpone those things that really matter because life might not wait for the ‘right time’ to come along.

Rest in Peace Andy.
 

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Life Plan, Mental Models, mindset, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Success, Vision

Mindsets Matter

plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Beyond Being Good

Over the years of helping my clients create more success, one cause that stands out more than any other is your mindset.

Your mindset matters. A lot.

Think about it. Right now, are you as successful, across all aspects of your life as you desire?

If you are, terrific! Keep doing whatever it is that you are doing that has created your success.

Most people are not as successful as they would like to be.

So what’s stopping them from being as successful as they desire? Better still, what is stopping you from being as successful as you wish to be?

Logically if you are not as successful as you desire, then your theories, or mindset for creating success is not working, at least not completely. It might be working in some areas of your life, but not all areas of your life. In fact, if you really think about, you have multiple theories about success. You will have theories about how to create successful relationships, how to create a successful business, how to create a successful career, how to be healthy etcetera. Some of these theories will be working. Some won’t be, but you’ll still be using them. And then you wonder why you aren’t as successful as you desire.

Here’s the kicker. Some of your theories for success used to work. So you keep using them. However the world changes. You change. Yet you keep using these old theories that used to work.

These theories are embedded into your mindset and stop you from creating future success. Yes, that is right. Your old theories that once created success are no longer valid and new theories must be adopted. The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face, especially if you’re not as successful as you desire to be.

When did you last consider your mindset? Are you even aware of your theories for success? How do you know they still work?

One mindset that many employees have is that it is their organisation’s responsibility to develop them. This mindset is akin to abdicating your responsibility for your continued development. Why would anyone consciously make that choice? The issue is that people don’t consciously make this choice, they subconsciously make this choice. The outcome of such a mindset is that the person loses. Big time. If your organisation doesn’t invest in your development then, with this mindset you are screwed.

To be brutally honest an organisation that doesn’t prioritise or invest in your development isn’t a high performing organisation and probably isn’t worthy of your full talents. But if you don’t develop yourself under such circumstances then your full talents won’t be worth much either. Not to prospective employers anyhow. And then you’re stuck. You’re stuck with an employer who isn’t developing you and because your mindset is that it is their responsibility to do that, you don’t improve yourself. And then you can’t get a job anywhere else. Not a very secure strategy if you ask me!

When did you last consider your mindset? Are you even aware of your theories for success? How do you know they still work?

At the same time, your mindset is the most important factor for creating the future success you desire. If you don’t change your mindset or keep up a strong and proactive one, you’ll keep doing what you’ve done and you’ll continue to be dissatisfied with your level of success.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Improve yourself and take control of your development. Use whatever development your organisation offers as a bonus and take charge of creating the success you desire.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
Commence a complimentary trial of the Yes For Success Platform here.

business success, Career Success, Dalai Lama, Dr Robert Emmons, Happiness, Life Balance, Life Plan, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Thanksgiving, University of California, Vision

Be Grateful – A Strategy For Creating Success

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and while it is not something we formally celebrate in Australia, my twin brother and his family live in the USA so I have become more and more familiar with the concept over time.

If you are concerned about having a career that is unfulfilled or that the skills that you have will never be fully leveraged for success (amongst a whole list of concerns and worries about your future), then according to research from the University of California by Dr Robert Emmons, practicing being grateful for what you already have can both increase your happiness and increase your success.

Yes, that is correct. Being thankful for what you have increases your happiness and increases your success, which means that you increase your capacity to have more of what you want in your life.
Too often we focus only on what we want. This can increase our dissatisfaction with our present that reduces our happiness in the present.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that too many people spend too much of their time wanting what they don’t have which causes unimaginable suffering. Think about it. You buy a new car. For a short period of time you are feeling satisfied and grateful for your new car. Then you see someone else with the same model car as yourself, but it has some extra options that you don’t have on your car. “I wish I had those options.” you think to yourself. Suddenly your new car isn’t quite as good as your thought. So you start to suffer again.

Suffering obviously reduces happiness.

In this context is wanting what you don’t have bad for you? I don’t believe so. After all I facilitate the OTM Plan for Personal Success® Program which is all about identifying what you want and what you are going to do to create that future. But the program isn’t just about that.

It is also about recognising what you currently have in your life for which you are grateful and identifying what you need to do to keep what you are grateful for present in your life.
As an example I am now in my 17th year of marriage with my beautiful wife Michelle. I really do love her more than the day we married. I am extremely grateful to have her as my life partner and the mother of our five children. I practice making sure that I never forgot that I am grateful for who she is and what she does. I do this because I want Michelle to be in my life both now and in the future.
Many people forget this fact. There are many elements of our lives that have contributed to our current success that will also need to be present in our future if we want to continue our success and happiness.

This means that you must plan to take conscious actions to keep the very things that make you happy now continually present in your life.

One way to do that is to create a Grateful List. Simply create a list of the things for which you are truly grateful, place that list where you can see it everyday and then look at it every day. Once every 90 days update your list.

This simple, yet effective strategy can raise your consciousness of what makes you happy in the present, while also contributing to your future success and happiness.

For all of you around the world celebrating Thanksgiving, stay safe and have a wonderful time celebrating the things in your lives for which you are grateful.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Career Success, Life Plan, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Passion, personal brand, Personal Development, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Planning, Secrets of Success, strategies for success, Success

Passion Matters If You Want Success

If you want to achieve anything worthwhile in life then there is a simple secret that successful people know.

The first principle for achieving success is passion and I absolutely believe that you have to have it in your life if you want to have access to the energy that is required to create success. 

Passion provides our energy, our drive for taking action, especially when those actions are hard and/or challenging. In simple terms we derive energy from our passions.
Try this quick exercise.

Stop and close your eyes for a moment think about your passion. It could be one or more of many things such as:
  • Playing a musical instrument
  • Singing
  • Physical exercise
  • Playing sport
  • Water based activities
  • Drama
  • Art
  • Reading
  • Gaming
  • Studying
  • Learning
  • Cooking
 This list doesn’t have an end! It could go on and on and on.

Once you have identified your passions focus on one of them and think about it, remember yourself doing, see yourself doing it. Notice what happens to your body when you start imagining yourself doing your passion.

When I ask participants in my programs to do this exercise you should see what I see! While their eyes are closed as they are imagining themselves doing their passion, whatever it is, people smile! It is as if they can’t help it. Smiles simply appear on their faces!

It just happened to you too, didn’t it.

If you require evidence that passions drive your energy then here it is! Just notice the smile on your face. 

However a sad fact is that as many of us get older, we stop experiencing our passions. Just when our lives get busier and more serious, just when we need more energy to create the success we desire, we stop living and experiencing our passions. If you think about it, isn’t that just plain crazy?

Our passions ‘leave’ our lives or they simply fade away from being present in our lives. Yet we need our passions in our lives in order to give us the energy to get through some of the less passionate things that we have to do. No matter how successful we become there will always be things that we have to do to create our success that aren’t the most fun in the world to do.

As you consider your passion or passions, are they present in your life now? When did you last experience your passion? When is the next time you plan to experience your passion?

Interestingly your passion doesn’t have to be ‘present’ all the time for you to benefit from the energy it provides. As an example many people have travelling as one of their passions. For many of us such a passion is ‘serviced’ when we have annual leave holidays from our work. So what people with this passion will do is book in and pay for their travelling experiences a long time in advance. As a result they have the positive energy benefits of looking forward to experiencing their passion.

If you don’t have a passion and can’t remember ever having one, you have a wonderful opportunity to include this in your Vision. For example. as part of your personal vision you could write, “In 12 months’ time I will be living and regularly experiencing at least one passion in my life.”

Remember, when planning for success it’s okay to write things down into the Vision section of your plan even when you have no idea about how they are going to be brought into reality. In fact, this is usually true for most things that you write down in the vision section of your plan and why writing them down is so powerful.

In wrapping up, what’s your passion or passions? How are you leveraging the energy that they generate?

Gary Ryan facilitates the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program. Click here to find out more about how you can create a plan for your personal success.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Success, Vision

Knowing What You Really Want Takes The Stress Out of Your Future

Imagine living your life where your concerns, fears and worries about your career, wealth, health and relationships were 80% less than they are today. Does this sound like a fantasy? It’s not.

Over 5,500 people have discovered the power of creating a written plan for personal success. A consistent challenge that people face when creating their first plan for personal success is defining the future that they desire. many people describe ‘strategies’ instead of describing what they really want.

A common example relates to fitness and health. People will often say things like, “I want to lose 10 kilograms, this is the fitness and health future that I desire.”

Losing 10 kilograms is a strategic goal and while losing 10 kilograms is an outcome, it isn’t the ‘end game’. What the person really wants is the lifestyle that comes with being 10 kilograms lighter. That person wants to be more attractive, more able to move and have fun. That person wants more energy. That’s what they really want. 

Defining what people really want is something that a lot of people find difficult to do. Understanding why you want to be 10 kilograms lighter and why that is important to you are the keys to understanding what it is you really desire.

Focusing on the types of activities that you want to be able to do and visualising yourself doing them is far more powerful than focusing on a number, such as losing 10 kilograms. Dewitt Jones, acclaimed National Geographic photographer and an expert on the power of vision explains that the big visions in life shouldn’t be too focused, too tight. Rather, they should be both clear enough, yet loose enough to leave open a thousand possibilities to bring them into reality.

In terms of a whole of life perspective focusing on losing 10 kilograms is too tight a vision.

Focusing on being able to play with your children or grandchildren, being able to participate in a hiking holiday, or dancing with your friends are loose visions that have a multitude of opportunities to bring them into reality.

Losing weight may be a strategy that is required to enable you to keep the possibilities alive for you to bring your vision into reality. It is at this point that focusing not only on losing weight but on creating a new lifestyle where you can maintain the weight loss becomes critical. At this level of personal planning you become more focused on your goals and you take specific actions to achieve them. Actions may include engaging a personal trainer and training four times per week. These are what Dewitt calls ‘tactical visions’ and are more detailed and specific. They identify exactly what you need to do to bring your vision into reality

How do you know if the future you are focusing on is what you want or is a strategy to achieve what you want?

The easiest way to approach this question is to reflect on the content of your vision once it has been created. You will discover that you have a mixture of statements that reflect both what you want and the strategies regarding your approach to achieve them.

For each statement in your vision statement ask yourself, “Why do I want this? What will this really look like once I have it? What will I be doing when I have this?” and keep asking this question for each answer that you arrive at, possibly up to five times in a row (this is known as the Five Whys Technique).

In a financial context people often suggest they they want to be rich or to have ‘x’ amount of dollars as part of their vision. Once again having money is a strategy that enables you to do want you want to be able to do. Asking yourself, “Why do I want this money? What will I be doing with it?” can help to uncover what you really want and makes it so clear that taking the necessary steps to create the wealth you desire (legally, of course!) becomes more and more doable.

Why is it that people initially struggle with this challenge?
Having assisted more than 5,500 people establish their initial OTM Plan for Personal Success®
the facts are that less than 0.1% (that is less than ten) of those people had previously created a detailed or strategic plan plan for themselves. The reality for the vast majority of people is that creating a personal plan is something that they haven’t done before.

Like most things we do for the first time we are usually not very good at it the first time. This can be frustrating for adults because we like to think that we can quickly achieve an expert standard when we perform a new task, even though our experience has taught us that this isn’t really how we learn.

Learning to use iterative cycles when creating your plan for personal success enables you to more quickly establish a personal plan that both clearly articulates what you want and what you are going to do to achieve your vision. This means that you develop the skill to continually ask yourself, “Why do I want what I have just written? Why is that important to me?”

That said, having an initial plan is more powerful than not having one. David Ingvar’s ‘Memories of the Future’ research highlights the power of having a written plan. In this context having a plan is far more beneficial than not having one at all. If you create you plan and then become disciplined on reviewing it, say once every six to 12 months and also become disciplined at constantly challenging yourself to reflect on why you want what you want, you will, over time create plans that are even more powerful than your first plan. This is normal and part of the learning process that is associated with creating and living your plan for personal success.

Please visit here for more information on the options available for establishing an OTM Plan for Personal Success® and sign up for my regular newsletter here.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Happiness, mindfulness, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Success, TED, TEDx, TEDx Talks

Research Shows That Staying Focused Is A Key To Happiness

Trying to understand what makes us happy is a very interesting field of modern research. In the TedX video below, Matt Killingsworth explains the link between mind-wandering and happiness that his research has uncovered.

Using a mobile app he was able to generate 650,000 sets of data responses from people reporting on their level of happiness.

His findings indicated a direct relationship between a wandering-mind and its negative impact upon happiness. He also discovered that our minds wander a lot, so this relationship is difficult to prevent.

The reason is that when people let their minds wander, they tend to think more about negative things than positive or neutral things. As an example, people might start thinking about an argument they had the previous day with their spouse and then start to stress about that conversation, therefore making themself unhappy.

It seems that Matt’s research highlights the importance of staying in the moment and being focused on whatever we are doing (which statistically keeps you happier than if you let your mind wander) and/or to be far more mindful about our mind-wandering. In other words, consciously choose to let your mind wander about pleasant things.

The video goes for just over 10 minutes and is worth a viewing.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com