Tag Archives: Principles of Success

Planning, again…

Today was a bit a chaotic day and I had the feeling I didn’t do so much, especially as I was still distracted with my disk problem, even though I kind of planned what to do with that. But unlike before, before I started writing about these things and before I made my daily to-do list and before I started making the bed every day, I realize more and more what is going on and how I could improve my inefficient behavior on a day like today.

As during the day I realized that I was going back again and again to reorganizing the files on my hard disks, something not really needed right now, even though I don’t feel comfortable if I don’t have my backup systems in place and running, if my system is not running smoothly. But somehow today was the first time I realized what is really going on, which also is starting to make it possible to change my behavior, should I want to.

And yes, my main tool right now is my daily to-do list, that is slowly extending to some kind of a life planning with goals and activities and such on a daily or monthly or yearly basis. And I never liked such a thing as it didn’t feel good, it didn’t suit me before. But somehow I have found a way that is starting to suit me, a way to plan my life, plan how I want to live my life, which probably will also give ways to achieve goals, small and big goals, unimaginable goals.

And what I am doing right now might not suit you, as I guess everybody needs to find a way to do things in a way that suit him or her, but I can tell you where I stand now and how I got there.

So where I stand now is that I have a folder with a pile of scratch papers (blank side up) where each of those papers has a date on the top. And the papers now extend to a few weeks ahead plus the ‘end of month’ dates up to the end of 2014. Next to that I have one or a few pages with dates far in the future, where the farthest date is somewhere in 2024 or so.

And how I go there is very simple:

I started making the bed every day, as a daily routine, as something I wanted to finish every day. Next to this I first wrote a daily post in my Dutch blog, something I extended with writing a daily post in this site and with sending a daily quote and keeping a daily gratitude list in the Dutch site.
And I forgot when I started it, but then I started to make a daily to-do list for the current or the next day, just a scratch paper upside down with a date on the top of the blank side, together with one or more items I wanted to finish that day. And the main thing with that daily list, that one paper for one day was that I finished the item on it, no matter what. And it was hard at the time, as at the time I started I was emotionally virtually completely paralyzed, so mostly there was only one or a few very, very simple items.
The somehow I started adding pages a few days ahead, pages I kept together with a paperclip. First just a few days ahead, later one or two weeks ahead. And the hardest part was that I was catching up with the planning sometimes, like I only had one or two days left with to-do items.
So I started planning the item ‘add days to the planning’, where I kind of forced myself to extend my planning. But it was an easy thing to do, as I just fetched some additional scratch papers, added dates on the top of the empty side of the paper and added them together.
Then quite recently I started adding items far in the future, mostly on things other people agreed to do, not my own things. That’s also where my planning page of 2014 comes from. But I’m quite sure I will add the stuff from my desire document, as it has also an item in 2022.
And from this adding items in the future somehow I decided to add pages for one or two months ahead. This also came kind of naturally as I had some pages one or two months ahead and I wanted to have the sequence complete in order not to be confused and mix the whole thing up with duplicate pages.
Then also I started to realize that I could put goals in the pages, goals that I didn’t achieve at first, but as per instruction of Napoleon Hill it gave me opportunity to analyze what was going on and what I could do different if I wanted to.
Then finally I realized my paper clip was not enough to hold the whole bunch of papers together, so I found myself an old hard cover folder where I put my planning a few weeks ago.
So right now I am starting to learn and see what a real planning is, something I never knew how to deal with before, as it felt kind of useless. But that again, that feeling of a planning being useless, probably goes back that I didn’t have a real goal in life, a real definite purpose.

So yes, everything seems to come together. And indeed, the Principles of Success as described in the book Think and Grow Rich seem to make more and more sense to me know and are really helping me living my life, achieving my goals, and maybe more important, making me feel more relaxed with everything, where the last may amaze you.

So what would be my main recommendation if you want to take charge of your life or take better charge of your life?

I think the main keyword is patience as it took me a while to get it all together. And second and third keywords would probably be do and analyze.

Back to the origins

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For a few days now I have in mind going back to the origins or Inspiration for Success, back to the beginning. And in my mind are things like that I wanted to share my journey to success using the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill. And something like improving the world. And related to the principles of success something like that I was not good in Master Mind and that that was the thing to ‘work on’ as I made some kind of score table related to the Principles of Success. And then I wanted to add value, ‘give’ something, yes in order to be rich, become rich through this site, through this project. Ah, and yes, somehow the promise to myself to write every day, except Sunday, as I found that seven days a week is just too much, I found that a human being needs some rest, some point to let go of ‘work’, of obligations.

And I am afraid this is going to be quite a long post, as I did and wrote an awful lot of things since starting this site, since registering the domain inspiration-for-success.com on April 3, 2013. And am I successful? Well, not really, as I still don’t earn enough even to support my current life and I did not reach my main goal, my definite purpose yet as I wrote it down in my desire document around one and a half years ago. Ah, and yes, there is no team anymore, I am still doing everything myself, even though on some projects related to what I want it seems some kind of team is starting to form. And yes, my promise to the team to get one million dollar each still stands, as I found that indeed sticking with decisions is very important. Sticking with dates is more difficult though, as I passed quite some dates without achieving the goal I had set for those dates. Ah, yes, planning, that was also a weakness of mine and somehow still is. Although I do have a plan now, a way of planning things, and the method is improving and growing.

Ah, and yes, I am still jealous of all those people who seem to have ‘made it’ much more easy than me, especially if they did so at a very young age. Samples are Richard Branson and Donald Trump and Leonardo DiCaprio and more of those. But the more I look around I also see many people who indeed are (only?) successful at a later age, older than forty, sometimes older than fifty. Like I was amazed that the actors playing James Bond were often in their late forties and fifties. And yes, Richard Branson and Donald Trump are older, quite a bit, than me, so maybe not such good people to compare with as they also grew up in a different time. And also Bill Gates is a bit older than me, a bit younger though than Richard Branson and Donald Trump.

So where do I stand? Well, I’m not fully sure. The most amazing thing is that some of the things in my desire document changed from completely insane and impossible to at least possible or plausible. I also noticed that after a while, I think like six to nine months after I wrote the initial version, I started to ‘live’ my desire document, like everything that happened and happens to me somehow gets a place in the things I wrote in the desire document. And this happened quite naturally. And maybe the most important change that I noticed is that my self confidence grew from practically zero to ‘pretty self confident’ right now. And yes, any idea I get now I take quite seriously. I don’t consider any idea ‘crazy’ anymore.

So yes, no matter where I stand right now, the Principles of Success of Napoleon Hill, somehow make sense, somehow have put me on a road to, well, I guess success.

Being appreciated

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I am still struggling with being appreciated, with having the feeling, or maybe the confirmation, that I am doing something useful. And I was thinking about that as I was just working on the tool I am developing to help you achieve more success by scoring yourself on each of the Principles of Success. And I was a bit frustrated, as I did not get any real feedback on it, except from one of the team members, who suggested that I should develop a more common tool about achieving goals, like a goal planning tool. But there are many goal planning tools available, probably better than I could ever imagine or build, so I don’t see any added value on that. And I also think I would not do justice to the ideas of Napoleon Hill by ‘just’ developing a goal achieving tool. As his ideas go much further than just achieving a goal, even though I think the Principles of Success could certainly help you achieve goals, any goal.

And yes, I am still confronted with my inability to create a team, to connect to people in a way that I would like, to inspire people to do, to create what I want, what I have in mind. As I believe that is what real leaders do. But no, on the contrary, I still find myself doing things myself instead of having people around me doing at least part of the work. But yes, I am starting to see now that there is indeed some kind of energy you can tap into as a human, an energy that can indeed create universes, so why not a simple website, a simple web application like I have in mind for Inspiration for Success. But until now I was still not able to really tap into that, even though the last few weeks a few times I felt some of the flow that I know belongs to that. So maybe indeed the keywords here are still patience and persistence.

But still, when looking at people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson they must have something I don’t have, as they seem to be able to create really big things. And they started doing that at a very young age.

So how to get my really big project of the ground? Patience? As that is where I feel the energy flow when presenting that or parts of it to people.

And yes, would you be willing to check my tools and use them or give feedback on them? Then at least I wouldn’t feel so alone and it may even help you on your way to success.

Stopping?

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Somehow I am thinking about stopping writing every day, but somehow I also decided to continue to write every day. So I think the main issue is to make my posts, the things I write, interesting again, more interesting or just inspirational. As often I find myself, like now, late at night ‘having to’ write my daily posts, send the daily inspirational e-mail and update my gratitude diary. And this ‘have to’ often has nothing to do with writing for you, with the history and the purpose of this site, this blog.

So yes, while writing I know I am going to continue. As that’s just something I decided. But I have to find a way to make it more inspiring, for you as well as for me. As this is not really working, although I still believe that if I write every day for two years Google will start seeing this site as more serious. And that is also kind of the way I started to write, like ‘anything will do’ as long as it is original content and related to the site, to the subject. And in a way I still believe that is true, but I just want to do more and also enjoy it more.

But not easy with no real feedback (yet). And there may be various reasons for that, but I think still one of the reasons is that the site just doesn’t show up in Google enough yet. And another reason is that the content is just not interesting enough. And still another reason is that the tools are not good enough yet.

But yes, the longer I work on this project, the more I admire all those people, all those bloggers who write all these serious blogs. And write every day, or every week, or at least regularly. Because it is not easy to do that, even though right now I know I have developed the habit of writing every day, here and in my more personal Dutch blog. And the more I am working on the tools, or not working that much on them, the more I realize that also that is not as easy as I thought As today I had planned some small extensions, but it was late and I was only able to work very shortly on it. And I made hardly any progress, even though I worked in my normal working speed. So I also admire all those people making tools in other sites. As that often takes much, much more time and effort than one would think. As it seems it is with most things in life.

So yes, maybe I have been too hard on myself, maybe you have been too hard on yourself. As most things that appear so easy if we see other people do it, apparently effortless, come with a lot of effort and time spent. And come with developing habits. And come with persistence. And yes, I also believe things come easy, or relatively easy if you do it inspired, as Abraham Hicks teaches it. So yes, easy, kind of effortless. But not without effort and a lot of time and a lot of persistence.

A lot happened

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Wow, the last few days a lot of things happened. And I’m not sure how to share all that, as especially I’m late and I need some rest and I still want to do some item from my daily to-do list.

So maybe just a small list of what happened.

Yesterday, Sunday, I realized that I had missed my planning on Saturday. And the reason was that in my mind I had nothing planned for the days around the funeral, but in fact I had. A lot even, including for today. And I was kind of shocked finding that out.

A second thing I found out was that I had planned some goals for June 15 and that I also had not made all those goals, including me not realizing what was the day I planned them as it felt still far away.

So what is good about this. Well, it goes back to what Napoleon Hill says about writing things down, as then you can analyze. And indeed, by having written those things down I can indeed see what is happening, what has happened and as I am so serious now with all those things it makes it clearer how it all works and being more systematic makes it easier for me to learn better how to plan, how to set goals, and indeed how to reach them. Something like what to do and what not to do and knowing more what works and what doesn’t work.

So yes, what i read somewhere quite some time ago about self help sites and self help books and why they don’t work for most people, may be true. That indeed if you don’t actually DO the things that are written, that are advised, you also don’t get the benefits or the success.

So maybe two things I would advise you to do NOW:

Start with your desire document.
Start with making the bed every day.

And that was another experience today, as sometimes I am scared of my desire document as it all seems too much, too impossible and at those times I don’t read it, don’t even dare to look at it. As I did the last few days.

But today somehow I read it again, and whenever I read it, yes, aloud, I realize it is more and more me, or more and more the me I want to become, or more and more the things I want, the things I want to achieve. It is just me and the current version seems to be stated virtually perfect. And no, I didn’t change the basics, but yes, I made some changes to improve it, to make it more me.

So just start.