Have you ever gone through a period where you just don’t feel like you are accomplishing anything?

Have you ever had a time where you suddenly are not doing the things that you know you need to do to reach your goals?

Have you ever gone from a period of high achievement to suddenly doing nothing at all?

Have you ever had a time when you seem to have lost your motivation?

Have you ever just felt drained and have been not sure how to get back into life?

It is easy to get into a slump in life. All of these situations are symptoms of a slump. In a slump you are not making progress towards your goals.  In a slump you get out of the habits that help you accomplish important things.  In a slump you feel like you are just treading water, not moving through the water.

There are several things that might move you into a slump.  You may get into a slump because:

• you overwork yourself
• you have gone through a major change in life and you have not adjusted your habits around this life change
• you failed to reach an important goal
• you are exhausted
• you had something interrupt your regular life pattern for a period of time
• you got distracted and started pursing things that are not important
• you set goals that were too high and unreasonable and you don’t move towards them because you believe you can’t achieve them anyways

The good news is that once you recognize that you are in a slump there are some concrete steps you can take to move on and back into progressing towards your goals.

1. Understand how you got into a slump

Moving out of a slump starts with an understanding of how you got into the slump in the first place.  Take some time to reflect on what got you into the state you are in.  Perhaps it was one of the things listed above, or perhaps it is something else.  You need to grasp the cause of your slump if you want to move out of it. Recognizing the cause will help you put in safe guards to protect it from happening again.

2. Pick a start date

Look a couple of days ahead on your schedule and pick a day where you don’t have anything major planned.  You don’t necessarily need an open schedule, just some free time.  Perhaps it is a day with fewer meetings and obligations, or a free evening.  Choose this as your REstart date. Don’t give yourself too much time ahead of your start date, two to three days is ideal.

3. Revisit your goals

Spend some time rereading your goals.  Look over your long term goals as well as the goals for the current quarter of the year.  If you don’t have goals now is a great time to write them down. If your goals are no longer appropriate, use this time to set new goals. Make sure that you have goals that you want to achieve, believe you can achieve and are committed to achieving.

4. Spend some time dreaming

After revisiting your goals spend some time dreaming about achieving those goals. Imagine you are living your perfect day, what would be like? What would life be like if you achieve the major goals you are working towards?  How would life be better?  To dream like this you need to get away from distractions. You may want to go for a walk, or go and lie down in a park.  You may want to talk a hot bath.  Find some way of doing nothing except dreaming.  Allow your imagination to take over. Get a clear picture in your mind about what achieving your goal will be like.

5. Get rid of life clutter

Before your REstart day you need to make sure you get rid of the clutter in your life. This involves getting your work environment and home environment to a place where you can function.  This might mean cleaning your house, doing those errands that you have been procrastinating on or cleaning your desk. You need to get rid of anything that is going to stop you or distract you from restarting towards your goals. Remember this must happen BEFORE your start date.  This is one of the reasons you should choose a start date a day or two out is that you need to make sure you get your life free of clutter.  Once your start date comes you don’t want to be worrying about the little things.

6. Set some basic starter goals

These should be small goals that will help you get moving, things that you can complete quickly and that do not rely on outsiders for your success or failure; in other words things that you can do yourself.  These are important because they help you start getting some successes under your belt, to get feeling good about yourself and start gathering momentum. These can be easy goals.  The point is not to make them too challenging, but to get you started on something.

7. Get started

Next you need to get started. You might not feel like doing anything, but you need to just start doing them.  Often action causes feeling – the more you do something the more you feel like doing something. The first step is often the hardest, the one that takes the most energy.  Take that first step and get started.

8. Build back into your daily habits

Once you start moving again you need to work on bringing back your daily habits that help you be successful. Start getting up at your optimal wake up time.  Develop your morning routine.  Set your daily to do list, and your weekly goals.  Get back into your work out habit.  Do whatever it takes to reestablish the key habits that help you move towards your goals.

By following these eight steps you will be able to break out of your slump.  You can get back on track towards your goals, and you can achieve success.

Written by:

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Ok, so now Danny must really be going crazy you think. Isn’t gravity what holds us to the earth? Isn’t that a good thing? Well yes, and no.  Yes it is good that we have gravity to keep us from floating off into outer space, but don’t you ever have times that you wish you could just defy the law of gravity and fly. I mean really fly! Fly above the beautiful earth we live on; fly through the valleys and over the amazing mountains. You would marvel at the beauty of creation and you would be away from all the struggles of life!

The same applies to you as you pursue your goals. If you want to FLY you need to break the law of gravity. The law of gravity I’m talking about here is the gravity that comes from negative people and things that are trying to hold you where you are at. They are trying to keep your feet on the ground and keep you were you are now– they are your gravity! There are several types of gravity to avoid: the negative family member or friend; the gravity of negative self image; and the gravity of life’s distractions.

The first type of gravity often comes from a negative friend or family member. This person is likely very well meaning, in fact the likely want the best for you. The problem is they usually want their best for you – not what you might know as best.  They are likely trained in the 40/40/40 mindset. That is the 40 hours a week, 40 weeks a year for 40 years – and boom you get to retire! They don’t mind the idea of spending 60000 hours of your life working for someone else! They don’t really mind having to leave the kids at home while you go to work!

Often the best way to handle this type of gravity is to prove them wrong – as Nike says, “Just Do It!” When they see you start to have the success you’ve dreamed about often this person will come around. If it is your spouse sometimes you will have to be a little more patient. It might be worth asking him or her for permission to give the your goal one-year, or at least six solid months of effort. There will be sacrifices in working towards your dream, and getting permission to make those sacrifices for a one-year period can often give you the time you will need to prove that the goal is worthwhile.

The next form of gravity that can prevent you from seeing success in life is a negative self-image. Not believing in yourself can actually be the biggest form of gravity you will face. I believe the first important step here is to realize that your negative beliefs in yourself are irrational and are going to hinder you from success. Choose NOT to believe those negative thoughts. Make a DECISION to move past it.

There are a few practical steps that can help you: First off, listen to positive motivation and self-improvement tapes and read similar books (see my top books choice here and my top podcasts choice here). These can really make a difference. Secondly, don’t compare yourself with the top performers. A golfer who is used to shooting in the 80’s does not compare himself with Tiger Woods – that would only be more discouraging. Instead he or she tries to beat their personal best. They can still make it all the way around the course (which is a success in itself), and they can still try to do better and better. If that same golfer shoots a 78, they have an even bigger success. A lot of times when I am coaching people towards a goal they get disappointed if they don’t immediately see success.  You should look for continuous improvement towards your goal, not necessarily getting there day one.

A third form of gravity that can hold you down and keep you from really soaring are the distractions of life. Everyone has them. The number of things we have to keep us busy naturally expand to the amount of time we have. There is no such thing as spare time – in my experiences it doesn’t exist. So the key is as Stephen Covey says, put “First Things First”. First things naturally need to include your faith, your family and perhaps you job. Immediately following those things, I suggest that you give your primary goal a high priority. Finally the idea of ‘First Things First’, can also be applied WITHIN the goal you are focused on. Know what activities are critical in moving you forward, and then focus on those activities. Do not focus on things that will not provide you with results.

What is the gravity that is holding you down? What is keeping you from soaring to new heights and reaching your goals? Is it one of the examples listed here? Is it something else? Whatever it is, the key is to realize what is holding you down and break past it. Make a decision today that nothing will hold you down from reaching your goals and do whatever it takes to move past the Gravity, and soar!

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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Here on Success Professor, every second Sunday I share some of the best recent articles that I have come across on other blogs.  My hope is that you too can benefit from these articles.

Here are this week’s choices:

1. Ken Kurosawa of WasabiBurger shares about the value of getting up early in “5 Reasons that Kept me from Becoming an Early Riser.”

2. Learn about “One of the Greatest Factors of Your Success” on RSSDS.com.

3. Duct Tape Marketing shares “5 Tips For Getting More From Twitter.“  (Bonus, from the archives: 10 Easy Steps to get Started With Twitter)

4. Leo Babauta’s new blog Mnmlist has a post on “How to be Less Busy in a Busy Busy World“.

5. Finally, learn “17 Ways Search Engines Judge the Value of a Link” on SEOmoz.

Danny Gamache – The Success Professor

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The tag line of “The Think Big Manifesto” is “Think you can’t change your life (and the world)? Think again.” That is a pretty good summary about what the book is all about, although the focus is more about changing the world than your life. The book focuses on challenging you to think big about life and what you can achieve. It challenges you to think about ways you can make a difference in the world.

What I Didn’t Like

I picked up this book expecting to read a book focused on, well, thinking big. While the book talks about that, it seems to be more focused on the idea of changing the world, rather than the act of thinking big. In other words the advice on thinking big is very focused on changing the world, not on how to think big. For example, Port writes,

“Small thoughts are not reality…. You are more than you think. You can do more with your own life and you can have an impact on the larger world outside you – your family, your community, your country, our global village.”

Great advice, and very true, but not what I was expecting from the title. Instead it seems to focus more on the fact that you should think big (which I knew), rather than on HOW to think big (which I want to get better at).

Another thing I do not like is the constant “I” focus. Perhaps the purpose of a manifesto is to share more from an “I” focus, however I found it difficult at times because the “I” focus seems to take away from helping the reader.

One more thing that I don’t like is that the book seems to be a little fluffy. For example, Port writes,

“Failure is nothing. It will happen. We will transcend it.”

While I think it is great to say that failure will happen, the idea of simply “transcending it” is a little whimsical. I would have preferred a more detailed look at how we can learn from failure, how to THINK BIG in spite of failure, and HOW to move beyond failure.

What I Did Like

There are, however, many things that I liked about the book. First of all, I really like the fact that Port focuses on making a difference in the world. The book focuses on changing the world, and the fact that every person can make a difference in the world. I like that he addresses how the thing that holds most people back from changing the world is how they think. We think small and therefore we act small.
Secondly, I like that the book moves beyond the common definitions of success: a better job, more money, and more things. Instead it looks at contribution and making the difference as being the true measure of success. Port writes,

“If you’re not happy now, you’re not going to be happy when you have more money, purchase your dream home, or whatever goal you may have.”

Another thing I like is that Port shares many examples of other people who are thinking big. While some of the examples are surprising and may seem out of place, they serve to demonstrate the power to make a difference even in what others might consider the “mundane” things of life.

The second part of the book really makes up for some of the short comings in the first half. One of my favorite sections of the book is his section on collaboration. I tend to be the type of person who just gets things done myself. I have not collaborated very often. Learning from this section means I need to be open to more forms of collaboration. Port writes,

“True collaboration is a give-and-take. True partnerships are founded in equality. Equality does not equal sameness. We don’t all bring the same skills or resources to the table, but we all bring something and we all need something….. . This kind of collaboration is possible only when we are very secure, win-win, without measuring who won more. Can we allow ourselves to be happy if we get what we want, even though others get more of what they want? It’s not at our expense.”

Conclusions

So is “The Think Big Manifesto” worth reading? Yes it is. Certainly there are many things that could be improved, and I don’t think it lives up to its title; however, there is a lot of good that you can get from reading the book. I learned things and was inspired – both things that I really appreciate in a book. If you pick up this book realize you are getting a book about changing the world more than you are about thinking big. Thinking big is just the method that allows for the world to be changed.

To give you a deeper flavor for the book I’ll leave with some of the quotes that I found inspiring:

“Inspiring others to think big is perhaps the single most important act of any one individual thinking big.”

“Know that we reach only what we aim for, so there is no choice but to aim high if we are to succeed.”

“Think: ‘Why not me?’ instead of ‘Why me?’”

“The truth is that big thinking is always, always [always, always, always] worth the expenditure of energy.”

“People will be excited about what you do only if you are excited about it. People will believe in you and what you do only if you believe.”

“The more uncomfortable you are, the more challenged you are.”

“Small thinking has the power to suck in everything around it. To influence and sway small thoughts, big thinking must first exert twice the strength to achieve a fraction of the same force.”

Review by:
Danny Gamache

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WIN NOW; these are two words that can completely change the way you build your business or pursue your life goals. The result of applying the WIN NOW principles are that you indeed will “win now”! But aside from being a nice sounding phrase, WIN NOW can teach an attitude that will empower you to achieve your goals, remind you of what you should be focusing on, and help you take advantage of every opportunity you are given. WIN NOW is the combination of two important acronyms. WIN stands for What’s Important Now? NOW stands for No Opportunity Wasted.

WIN is taught by Lou Holtz, one of the best football coaches of all times and an amazing leadership speaker. “What’s Important Now?” is a phrase that will help you keep on track in your business and your life. To apply the WIN principle, simply ask yourself the question, “What’s Important Now?” over and over again throughout your day. It is a simple question which can help refocus you and take action.

Throughout the day it is really easy to get off track and move away from important action to doing things that are only a waste of time. By asking yourself “What’s Important Now” you can remind yourself that there are things that are important and you can move back to activities that will help you accomplish what is important.

The answer to the WIN question will change throughout your day. At times, WIN will mean giving complete attention to your spouse or children; at times WIN will mean taking steps towards growing your business, and at times it will mean being the best employee you can be. The key is that you SHOULD be doing the important thing at any one moment.

In order to apply WIN you need to have an understanding of what exactly is important. Knowing what’s important comes from an understanding of your mission and your goals. Your personal mission should help you always have a clear understanding of what sort of things are going to be important to you. The main part of my mission is “teaching others how to be successful in all areas of life”. Therefore, the things that are important will in some way help me to do this. In my case this can be through my job as a professor, through my role at my church, through my blog, or through my home business. In all of those situations, and in others, I am teaching others how to be successful.

After you have clarity around your mission you can set goals. For goals to be effective within the WIN principle you need to have long-term goals that are broken down into short-term goals set on a weekly basis. Each week you should set your priorities in each of the different areas (or roles) in your life. (You may want to use my weekly planning system to help you do this). If you understand clearly your weekly goals that will allow you to focus on WIN throughout each day. The things that will be important are those things that help you achieve your weekly goals.

The second part of the phrase is NOW, or No Opportunity Wasted. This is a phrase originated by Phil Keagan, the host of The Amazing Race, and his television show “No Opportunity Wasted”. NOW refers to never letting a chance for growth go past you. Opportunities are all around us. There are opportunities in all realms of life – your physical life, your personal life and your spiritual life. NOW means that you will be watching for these opportunities, you will recognize them when they present themselves and take advantage of them.

NOW will connect directly with WIN. The opportunities you will look for when applying NOW will be the things that help you achieve the important things from WIN. NOW will mean making the contact with someone you want to partner with in your business. NOW will mean getting out of your comfort zone on a daily basis; NOW will mean taking advantage of the ten minutes you have between meetings to do something useful. In other words, thinking “No Opportunity Wasted” will help you to look for any opportunity to do the important things that will help you achieve your goals.

By combining NOW and WIN you get the phrase WIN NOW; which is exactly what will happen for you if you continually apply these principles. With WIN you will be always asking yourself “What’s Important Now?” This understanding will allow you to take action towards these goals. NOW will help you to remember to be watching for opportunities throughout your day, and then spur you to take action towards those activities, even if it means moving through your comfort zone and doing things that may cause fear. These actions towards the important things in life will indeed help you WIN NOW.

Written by:

Danny Gamache
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One of the achievements from last year that my wife and I are most proud of was the fact that we paid off an extra 15% of our total mortgage amount. We are about to make another extra payment as we continue towards our goal of being completely debt free.

This is certainly something you can achieve as well. Here are seven ways to pay off your mortgage more quickly.

1. Make a bigger down payment

Naturally, the larger your down payment the quicker you can pay off your home and the less interest you will pay. Take for example a $200,000 home with a mortgage at 5% interest over a 25 year period. There is a significant difference between making a 10% down payment and a 20% down payment. The 10% down payment results in $135,000 in interest. The 20% down payment will result in $120,000 in interest charges. That is a total of $15,000 extra you save pay making the larger down payment.

2. Get a shorter amortization period

The shorter the amortization period, the less you will pay in interest, and naturally the shorter amount of time you will have to pay off the debt. Take the example above, of the 25 year mortgage with a 10% deposit. As mentioned you would pay a total of $135,000 in interest. If instead, you reduced it to a 20 year mortgage you would only pay $105,000. If you went even further and had only a 15 year mortgage the interest charges would go all the way down to $76,000. That means nearly $60,000 is saved by having a 15 year mortgage instead of a 25 year mortgage. Certainly that means your monthly payments are higher – but not by as much as you might suspect. The difference is only about $400 each month.

3. Pay every two weeks

By breaking up your payments and making a payment every two weeks you will in effect be making two extra payments each year. In order to do this you need to make the payments half of what you would have paid monthly. This means that your extra two payments go directly onto the principle lowering your total interest and speeding up your repayment process.

4. Increase the size of your payments

One of the most important ways of paying off your mortgage is by arranging to pay more than the minimum payment. Anything you pay extra will go instantly to the principle. For example, with the mortgage described above (a 25 year mortgage at 5% for a $200,000 home with 10% down) if you simply paid an extra $100 per month you would pay off your mortgage three and a half years early and save over $20,000 in interest. If you increased the extra payment to $250 per month you would pay off your mortgage more than seven years sooner and save nearly $50,000 in interest. If you went full out and paid an extra $500 per month you would pay off your mortgage eleven years sooner (in nearly half the original time), and save nearly $75,000 in interest.

5. Don’t refinance too often

The idea of refinancing for lower interest rates, or to free up some cash for other purposes, can be a serious temptation. Unfortunately, many people get in the trap of frequent refinances and end up getting stuck in a cycle of increasing mortgage debt. It is easy to think of using increased equity in your home to do renovations or repairs. In reality these sorts of things just add to your debt without creating any real personal wealth. Refinancing for lower interest rates may seem simple enough but there are often many fees involved. If interest rates have fallen significantly it might be worth refinancing once in a while, but don’t get in the habit. If you do refinance, make sure you understand all of the fees and make sure you are going to be living in the house long enough to truly take advantage of the lower interest rate.

6. Pay extra bulk payments

Extra bulk payments can be another powerful way of reducing the time remaining on your mortgage. In our example of a $200,000 home, an extra payment of $10,000 at the end of the first year shortens the length of the mortgage by about 2 ½ years and save you over $20,000 in interest.

7. Know your policy

The important thing to do when planning to pay off your mortgage quickly is to know your mortgage policy. Your policy may have certain provisions as to how you can pay off your mortgage and what sort of payments will have a penalty attached. In our case, our mortgage allows a maximum of 15% of the mortgage to be paid in a bulk amount each year. On top of that I can double any payment that I chose, and increase my payment amount by 10% once a year. These numbers serve as goals. By knowing that I can pay a maximum of 15% of the mortgage extra each year, I have a goal to pursue. I use their standards to drive me towards success and knowing the policy well protects me from paying any extra fees.

8. Set your debt free date

Like any goal, getting out of debt requires you to have a deadline. In paying off your mortgage your deadline is the date you set as your debt free date. This is the point in time when you plan on having your mortgage burning party and being able to say that you own your house outright. Do you have a debt free date? Take some time to set one and do what you need to do to make it happen.

Now don’t forget that you can combine all of these steps. Let’s look at one final example. We’ll stick to our $200,000 home and an interest rate of 5%. Remember that the original plan has you spending $135,000 in interest and paying off your home in 25 years. To start our plan you will make a bigger down payment. You’ll make a 25% down payment instead of 10%. You’ll take a 20 year amortization instead of 25 and you will increase the size of your payments by $200 a month. With this plan you will pay off our mortgage in 15 years and spend only $63,000 in interest; a savings of over $70,000. Do you think you might be able to put that $70,000 to good use? Of course you could. Not only that, but after 15 years you are done. You can take your monthly payments and redirect them to other things such as your retirement, travel etc. It is worth it. Make the small sacrifices now to live an unbelievable future.

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Last week BusinessWeek released its list of the top 20 people for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. While the included some great people in their list, I think they missed some.  So here are the top 12 people to follow that Businessweek missed.  Feel free to extend the list by nominating people you think that both BusinessWeek and I missed!

1. Michael Hyatt, CEO Thomas Nelson Publishers  (@michaelhyatt)

Michael shares excellent success tips, important blog posts, and even gives away a free book from time to time.

Sample Tweet:
“I am reading, “15 Unconventional Uses of #WordPress in Action”: http://bit.ly/2YtVXk (via @wpbeginner, one of my favorite sites)”

2. J. Sewell Perkins (@TheSCIcoach)

J.S. Perkins is a life and business development coach. She shares great quotes, encouragement and advice

Sample Tweet:
“ “The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.” – Henry Ward Beecher”

3. Alex Shalman (@alexshalman)

Alex is a personal development blogger and podcaster.  He has recently entered dental school as he works towards his dreams.  He shares personal updates and professional development advice.

Sample Tweet:
“You’re only lonely when you don’t like who you’re alone with…and Im having a ball ”

4. Leo Babauta (@Zen_Habits)

Leo is the author of “The Power of Less”, and the blog Zen Habits.  He is currently one of the leaders in the A List Blogger Bootcamp. He shares links, advice, and blog posts through Twitter.

Sample Tweet:
“’Prevail. Prevail. Prevail.’ ~David Hieatt”

5. Darren Rowse (@ProBlogger)

Darren Rowse is the well known author of the blogs ProBlogger and Twitip.  He will keep you up to date on the latest happening and advice for bloggers and twitter users.

Sample Tweet:
“I would strongly advise holding off on upgrading to Snow Leopard – or at least make sure you’re completely backed up before upgrading”

6. Tom Ziglar (@TomZiglar)

Tom is the son of Zig Ziglar. On Twitter, he shares great quotes from his dad, and other gems from around the internet.

Sample Tweet
“The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work –if you won’t.Zig Ziglar”

7. Rick Cooper (@RickCooper)

Rick Cooper is an attraction marketing specialist who shares business advice and tips.

Sample Tweet:
“Question of the Day: Do you have a backup plan when your technology fails?”

8. Tony Robbins (@tonyrobbins)

The real Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker and expert. He shares tips, quotes and links to help you stay focused and motivated.

Sample Tweet:
“ “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill”

9. Alejandro Reyes (@Successfool)

Reyes is the author and blogger better known as Successfool. He tweets social media tips and is very interactive.

Sample Tweet:
“Would it be negative to Tweet examples of Cheesy Marketing? Example: “Cheesy: Don’t tag people on FB to get them to see your spam””

10. Christine Hill (@Chillami)

Christine is a social media expert and web designer from Utah.  She shares great tips, quotes and links to important articles.

Sample Tweet:
“”Time & money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.” Henry Ford”

11. John C. Maxwell (@johncmaxwell)

Leadership expert and author of books such as “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” shares leadership lessons and quotes.

Sample Tweet
““What legacy r u building? “I hope people will remember me as one who was kind & considerate of others” -John Wooden””

12. Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong)

As an athlete rather than an entrepreneur or blogger, Armstrong may appear out of place on this list.  However, following Lance through Twitter gives you an inside look into the life of this inspirational man.

Sample Tweet:
“Done riding. Took 2 decently nasty ‘diggers’. If someone finds my technical skills, please return them, reward offered.”

Who did I miss?  Be sure to share your recommendations below!  Until then, happy Tweeting!

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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