Where did I fail and what can I learn from it?

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (Mass Market Paperback, 1990) This classic article will change your life. A comprehensive site offering great career guidance and opportunities. This website provides a business-to-business, e-commerce platform that enables buyers of project-based resources to connect with freelancers and consultants in various fields of expertise. Alexander Everett is a wise and loving teacher whose articles and tapes will help you to center yourself in order to make wise choices for your life. Create a Larger Vision for Your Life LEADING A LIFE OF MEANING AND PURPOSE ultimately creates the desire and ability to make a larger contribution. If there's one thing I've learned over the last ten years, it's that nothing can top the deeply satisfying experience of using your unique gifts to improve the world in some meaningful way. However, Cesario and colleagues argued that being exposed to the prime didn't just make the elderly schema accessible but also activated participants' feelings about and motivation to interact with elderly individuals. Some people have positive attitudes about old people, and others have more negative attitudes. For those who have positive attitudes toward the elderly, when the elderly schema is activated, so too is the motivation to interact positively with such people. These participants might unconsciously adjust their behavior to have a smoother interaction with an elderly person; But when the same schema is primed for those who have negative attitudes toward the elderly, so too is the motivation to avoid them. Therefore, the researchers hypothesized, these participants should walk faster to avoid the elderly and leave them in the dust. This was exactly what they found. When participants had positive attitudes about elderly people, they responded to the elderly prime by walking more slowly. However, when participants had negative attitudes about elderly people, they responded to the prime by walking faster! These results support the point that primes do not influence behavior in a simple manner but rather interact with the person's motivation to determine what she or he thinks and does in a given context (Cesario et al. Does this person understand how important the challenge is for you? How will you communicate with this person?

Consider the following points: How often will you communicate your progress? How will you communicate with them? Over the phone? Face to face? Will that person support you when needed? If so, how? Being held accountable means that there are consequences for not following through. Whether it's helping to end world hunger, raising a child to be an adult with a strong sense of integrity and character, or treating everyone you meet with dignity and grace, the role you play in making the world a better place is significant. Now, more than ever, most of us realize that we are each a part of a global community. Each one of us has a responsibility to stay conscious of this global connection so that we may honor the dignity of all human beings. As you've already learned by taking part in this program, the most powerful way to make a difference in the world is to first make a difference in your own life. By doing the work outlined in this article, you've developed the courage, confidence, and character you'll need to not only lead a life that honors your values, but one that makes a positive difference in the world. You have set in motion the unfolding of your Divine assignment. Now you're ready for the most important step. Ten years ago my first coach asked me a question that motivated me to think beyond my individual goals toward how I might create a larger vision for my life. He said, Cheryl, as you consider your values and the work you'd like to do in the world, what do you want for people? My response was immediate, I want people to know that they have a choice about how they live their lives. Motivated Social Cognition Clearly, people are not simply automatons, blindly controlled by whatever schemas happen to be accessible in their minds.

Indeed, the tools that we use to think serve our needs and goals. As a result, we do not think about the world out there as though we were video cameras; What are those motives and needs? Some stem from our bodies, of course. A hungry person is more likely to think about food than sex and will likely look for, and notice, a restaurant faster than an attractive person who happens to be walking by. Other motives have to do with the kinds of thoughts we want to have about the people, ideas, and events that we encounter in our social environment. Specifically, what we think about and how we think about it are continually influenced by three psychological motives that we introduced earlier in this article: the need to be accurate, to reach closure quickly, and to validate what we prefer to believe (Kruglanski, 1980, 2004). These motives are constantly at work, sometimes below our conscious radar, filtering which bits of information get into our minds, how we interpret and remember them, and which we bring to mind to justify what we want to believe. Such consequences may be: Feeling bad for letting other people down, Being angry at yourself for not following through, or Having to give money to a cause you hate, et cetera. Previously, we've seen how important it is to reward yourself on a regular basis. Don't wait until the end of the challenge to reward yourself. Make sure you acknowledge your progress every single day. What one thing will you do every day to acknowledge your success? What one thing will you do every week to celebrate? How will you reward yourself at the end of the thirty days? Upon hearing this answer, he challenged me to be more specific. What do people need in order to know that they have choices?

Well, I replied, They need to feel empowered. I want people to feel empowered to make choices that will allow them to live the lives they most want to live. Once I knew what I wanted for others, and what others needed in order to make choices in their lives, I was ready to look at how I might be of service. What could I provide that would help people to feel empowered enough to make changes that would improve the quality of their lives? This part was easy. I had always been a big believer in providing simple, practical tools that helped people to make manageable changes with joy and ease. With this in mind, I created a vision statement that continues to guide my work today: I want people to have the practical tools and resources they need to lead high quality, authentic lives. Let's consider specifics. The Need for Accuracy The motive for accuracy can lead people to set aside their schemas and focus on objective facts. For example, when a person is motivated to understand who another person really is, perhaps because he is going to work with her on a task, he may be motivated to look past the convenient stereotypes he has for her group and put more thought into her individual personality (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). The Need to Reach Closure Quickly What about the need to reach closure quickly? When people are motivated to gain a clear, simple understanding of their surroundings, they tend to see events in a way that wraps up the world in a neat little package. We mentioned at the beginning of the article that this need can become active when the situation makes thinking unpleasant. In a study demonstrating this motivation for quick closure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983), participants told that they had to form an impression of someone in a limited amount of time tended to reach a conclusion based on the first bits of information they received, failing to take into account relevant information that they encountered later (known as the primacy effect). In contrast, participants not under time pressure felt more comfortable considering all the relevant information before reaching a conclusion about what the person was like. There really is no need for any fancy rewards. Decide on small, specific rewards that you're genuinely looking forward to receiving instead.

Exercise: commit to a 30-day Challenge Create your own 30-day challenge using your action guide. Change your self-talk Your biggest enemy is yourself. You are the one getting in your own way. You do so by self-sabotaging and by criticizing yourself more often than necessary. The truth is, we are usually much harder on ourselves than we are on others. Imagine if you talked to your best friend the way you talk to yourself. When you create a larger vision for your life you consciously make a decision to think beyond yourself. You become less concerned with individual gain and more concerned with how others will benefit from your actions. This does not mean that you become selfless or that your needs no longer matter. On the contrary, it's imperative that you take good care of yourself so that your giving comes from a pure place--a healthy place without attachment to what you'll get in return. This is when service becomes a sacred experience. When you make a choice to be of service to others, you gain the courage and sense of determination that will fuel your efforts. With a solid vision in place, you also become less concerned with your individual fear or self-doubt and more committed to taking the actions that will support your larger vision. For example, when my client Rich lost his brother to a drug overdose, he was faced with overcoming one of his greatest fears. A shy and introverted young man, Rich was devastated. Several months after his brother's death, he was asked to give a speech to the student body of his local high school about the experience of losing his brother and on the dangers of using drugs. Mental laziness is not the only reason people seek closure on simple, consistent interpretations of the world. Sure, sometimes thinking takes effort and so we stick to familiar, simple conclusions.