Category Archives: Personal Vision

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 Your old theories that once created success are no longer valid and new theories must be adopted.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
Career Success, Life Plan, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Personal-Plan, Secrets of Success, Vision

Carry Your Happiness Forward

“Gary, there are a lot of elements in my life that I am very happy with right now, so I don’t know that creating a plan for the future requires me to do anything. After all, I already have a lot of what I want in my life now.”, a program participant said to me.

“Do you want to continue to have what you are happy with now in the future?” I asked.

“Yes”, came the response.

“Did you have to do things to create the current level of satisfaction that you have in your life.” I inquired.

“Absolutely!”

“Okay. So wouldn’t it make sense that if you wanted to create a future that included many elements of your current life then you more likely to create that future by consciously putting strategies into action? This would ensure that you maintained those elements, rather than leaving them to chance.” I followed.

“Yes, there is no doubt that I would be more likely to carry forward the elements of my life that I am happy with by consciously putting strategies into action to create that future. I can see that even though much of the future I desire is that same as I have now, I still need to be conscious in my efforts to continue to create that future.

“Spot on!” I responded.

This brief conversation highlights a misconception that many people have about creating the future they desire. Irrespective of whether you have current elements of your life with which you are happy, if you want to continue to have those elements in your life having conscious strategies that you can put into action will significantly increase the probability that those elements will continue to stay in your life. This is how you can carry your happiness forward.

Otherwise you are leaving it to chance. If you have elements in your life that you are happy with, why would you want to leave them to chance. Take relationships, for example. Lots of people are happy with their relationships but don’t consciously put strategies into action to maintain and build on the strength of those relationships. Eventually, something goes wrong and the relationship breaks down even though the people involved never imagined that could happen. In many cases people will blame the other person for having ‘changed’. Yet they could have planned to change together and/or plan to be able to sustain individual changes.

What are the elements in your life that you are currently happy with?

How are you planning to keep those elements in your life?

Gary Ryan facilitates the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program which has now had over 5,500 people complete variations of the program.

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

The Power of Questions for Creating Success

Less than 2% of the people I work with have a written plan for personal success.

A main cause for this number being so low is that people often say, “Gary, how can I write down what I don’t know? I don’t know exactly what I want for my future. And that scares me because it seems that I am supposed to know what I want!”.

I have now worked with over 5,500 people and helped them to create one version or another of their OTM Plan for Personal Success®. I have never had a single person who was not able to write down something that related to the future they wanted.

The evidence is overwhelming. Even when people say that they don’t know what they want for their future, they are able to write down future focused descriptions of at least some aspects of their life. You don’t need to know everything. In fact, knowing the direction that you want your future to go in is just as powerful, if not more powerful than having a single clear objective.

Identifying the questions that we would like to have answered in our future provides direction for our personal success. When we know the questions that we would like answered, we then have the power to create a plan to explore those questions so that we can discover our own answers.

A common statement that people say to me is, “I’m not sure if this is the career that I want to have.”

When creating a personal plan for success this statement can easily be turned into the desire to have answered a powerful question. In simple terms, when a person is saying this type of statement, they are really saying something like; “In three years time I want to have discovered the career that I want to invest the majority of my working life in.” or something to that affect. What a wonderful vision!

Obviously this person’s starting point would be that they aren’t sure about their career. In addition they may have a job and qualifications and even some experience. They can then establish a plan that will enable them to explore career options over the next three year period.

Are they likely to experience dead ends?

Yes of course they will.

In the context of exploration, are dead ends bad?

No they aren’t.

Humans are amazing explorers. In fact we have created this amazing world through our ability to explore.

So I encourage you to explore the questions that, if you could have them answered, would provide amazing foci for the future that you are trying to create. The process of answering our own questions is a powerful secret to personal success.

What questions are you exploring?

Gary Ryan helps people clarify what success means to them and then how to create it. If you’re concerned that because you don’t know what your future should be that you will therefore end up a failure, then contact Gary at info@orgsthatmatter.com now.

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

You don’t ‘have’ to do anything. Period.

“I have to submit this project tomorrow.
I have an assignment I have to complete tonight.
I have to go to a dinner with my partner.
I have to attend my child’s performance.
I have to prepare for a meeting tomorrow.
I have to. I have to. I have to.”

Guess what. You don’t.

You don’t “have” to do anything.

Sure there are consequences for not doing these things. There are also consequences for doing them too.

Which brings me to my point. Think about how differently you would apply yourself to the above activities if you actively chose to do them or decided that you are doing them because you want to do them rather than you “have” to do them.

Think about all the things that you are doing because you believe that you “have” to do them. What would happen if you didn’t do them?

Maybe the consequence would be that you would miss out on something that you really want, such as your partner feeling that you really do love him/her. Or maybe you would miss out on a promotion that you really want.

What if you were to switch from the perspective of “have to or else…”, to “want to because…”?

When you understand why you are doing what you are doing in the moment and how it will help you to achieve what you really want, it is amazing how much happier you are right now when you fully apply yourself to the activity whatever it may be. This also increases the chances that you’ll also be happier in the future.

This is one of the key success strategies when you plan and action personal success.

Try it out and let me know how you go. I’m confident that you will be positively surprised.

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

Create your New Year Resolution

If you are in to announcing New Year resolutions, as many people are then I encourage you to create the outcome of your resolution throughout 2012.

I use the word ‘create’ deliberately. You see we have the ability to create the future we desire. Making an announcement on New Year’s Day is only a very small part of creating your desired future.
It is critical that you you are as clear as possible about the benefits that you will receive from bringing your New Year resolution into reality.

For example, if you have made a resolution top ‘get fit in 2012’ then clarify the benefits that getting fit will provide you. Your list may include:

  • looking better
  • more energy
  • better sleep
  • a happier partner (if you have one!)
  • increased chances of finding a partner (if you don’t have one!)
  • higher self confidence
  • less anxiety
  • improved concentration

Clearly this list could go on.

The point is, once you are clear about the benefits that the creation of your New Year resoluion will provide, the more clear you become about the ‘cost‘ of not creating such a future.

As Swedish neurologist David Ingvar discovered, writing down these benefits also increases the clarity with which your brain pictures the future you desire. Such clarity, coupled with developing and writing down your plan, significantly increase your ability to take the required actions to create your desired future.

If you keep your picture of the future (possibily represented by images or the list of benefits that you have established above) somewhere where you will see it regularly, your capacity to continue to take the required actions to create the future you desire will continue to be enhanced.

As the year progresses you wil bring your New Year resolution into reality. After all, isn’t that what we really hope for when we make a New Year resolution in the first place!

What are your New Year resolutions and how are you going to bring them into reality throughout 2012?

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

Webinar Recording OTM Plan For Personal Success

This is a recording of the OTM Plan for Personal Success™ Introductory Webinar.
In this webinar you will learn about:
* One concept;
* Five principles; and
* Six vital strategies.

That are all required to achieve personal success.

More information on all the options available for creating an OTM Plan for Personal Success™ is available here.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
career, ebook, Leadership Development, Personal Development, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Professional Development, What Really Matters

What Really Matters! Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 ebook released

Hi folks!

Please access your free copy of the most recent addition to the What Really Matters! ebook series. Selected articles from January 1st 2011 through to March 31st 2011 have been included in this ebook.

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Please download your copy of What Really Matters! Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 here.

Please send your feedback and suggestions for the next ebook in this series to feedback@orgsthatmatter.com .

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