My first words of 2010

When I go to the gym, and am working out on either the Life Cycle or the Cross Trainer, I am also playing SUDOKU. When I first started playing SUDOKU I played Easy games, but quickly worked my way up to medium. Now I am primarily playing Evil, unless I can't complete it, then I go back to Hard, until I complete a Hard, then I go back to Evil until I can't complete it, and back to Hard.
I go to a site online and print them out in LARGE print so I can play them on the machines at the gym without my glasses on. Sometimes when I'm in the car, or waiting someplace for something, like an appointment to show up, I take out my clip board where I keep them, and start to play. It keeps me busy and makes the time fly. SUDOKU requires some concentration and repetition to complete it successfully. Sometimes you need to write notes. Sometimes when I'm in the car, I really can't give it the time that it requires, and so I'll just give up.
But the bottom line is that some days I can do SUDOKU, and some days, I can't.
Today while at the gym, working on a Hard SODOKU, and being stumped, I stopped and said to myself, "Self - HOLD ON- you can do it, it's only a hard," and sure enough I completed it. So then, while still on the machine, I had a thought - we decide what we can do and what we can not do, and maybe this can be an interesting email. Henry Ford once said "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."
When I tell myself I can't complete an Evil, I can't. When I tell myself that I can, I may or may not be able to, but at least I have a chance. (Some of them are real tough). Aha- an excuse.
Ever find yourself in a situation where someone asks you to do something and you come up with all of the reasons why you can't do it. You come up with reasons why it won't work or just say it can't happen? This in effect is making up excuses why you are going to fail.
Can you imagine if you would only put the energy into thinking of ways to do it, thinking of ways to be successful, coming up with ideas to make it happen- instead of making up excuses why you can't- can you imagine how successful (spelled HAPPY or RICH?) you would be?
By the way, that is what is called a self fulfilling prophesy. When someone tells you that I'll do it, but I know it's not going to work, then it's not going to work. The outcome has been determined in advance.
I am well organized, and I make and maintain lists of things to do on my computer, that I print out each day and carry with me on my clip board. I have calendars and tasks, and reminders, and notes, and all that other stuff you find in Microsoft Outlook.
Some days, I tackle the list, and make the calls, make the visits. Other days, I can't do a thing. I can't pick up the phone to make a call, because I've decided that I won't be able to hear. On these days, very often, the best that I can do is play solitaire. I know that this happens to you too. We all have our moments of brilliance and our down days.
Meanwhile, my hearing is pretty good, especially using my own amplified phone either at the office or my house, in the morning. It is also true that by the end of the day, regardless of my mood, my hearing goes. My one ear that is doing the job of two gets tired. Also since I've been eating right, and exercising regularly, the ringing (tinnitus) has lessened greatly (until the end of the day). But is this something that I've created in my head? Is this physiological or psychological? (And how about the changes in barometric pressure resulting from the change of seasons, when it is hot one day, cold the next and then back and forth- forget it- my hearing goes kaput.)
I went to a shrink many years ago who told me that every thing wrong with us is at least partly physiological. That's comforting, isn't it?
Stress finds your weakest point, whatever or wherever that point may be. Some people get headaches, back aches, stiff necks, ringing in their ears, break out in hives and lots of other weird and not so weird symptoms. Everyone has their mishegas, medical problems or issues, whatever or wherever they may be, and stress makes it worse.
Stress, affects us all, regardless of the cause, whether it's real or imaginary (I stole that from "Cranial Command" @ Disney World, the show where the 12 year old boy is commandeering a human brain in the GE Pavilion). Always loved that ride (It's not really a ride - it doesn't go anywhere, I guess it's an exhibit?).
Another thing the shrink told me was that a person who is depressed finds something wrong with everything, even winning the lottery (Oh no, people are going to try to rip me off, faux friends will show up out of the woodwork, and I'm going to have to pay taxes on it- oh no).
Bet you think this is an email about positive thinking, versus defeatist attitudes. Nope. It's not.
Well maybe it is. Sorta.
We are in a bad time right now. Every one of us and all of us collectively. Well maybe not every one of us. I heard that tailors are doing very well because people are trying to squeeze an extra year out of their suits and clothing, and wall street people of course, (Did you see the article on Sunday about how Goldman Sachs is being blamed for the collapse of AIG by demanding and getting billions from AIG on their bets that the mortgage industry would crash, while AIG was in their cash poor predicament, just before they were about to crash and we had to bail them out to the tune of $180 billion?
So anyway, this email is addressed to every one of us, except for the wall street types and the tailors.
This is an email about what to do.
I can't give you specifics, although if you want me to sit down with you, I probably can come up with some ideas, but that really is not my forte. The bottom line is that you have to figure out things to do, and then you have to do them. You have to keep trying. You have to try something new. And if that doesn't work, then try something else, or try it again sideways or upside down, you just got to keep on plugging away. (not keep on truckin, like the Grateful dead) keep on plugging. What do you suppose plugging means? I say it all the time and I just realized that I haven't got a clue as to what it means. Think maybe it has to do with the little Dutch Boy who stuck his finger in the dike to stop the flood? Am I all over the place today? Nah. Someone hopefully will tell me what plugging away means. Last time Ed Heavey told me what Honkey Dorey was all about. I betcha he will come through again and tell me what it means and/or where it came from.
And yes, it is about attitude.
But in order to know what to try, you need to know where you are trying to end up. Which brings us back to GOALS- which is the real subject of this email. (Not to beat a dead horse, as my father used to say, BUT you can't say enough about them).
What do goals have to do with it?
Plenty
One of my goals is to sell a property per week. I try to come up with lots of different plans, or strategy's, or ideas, to help me reach this goal. One of the things that I do is send out emails. Since my email list was just cut so dramatically because so many didn't give me permission, I want to increase the number of people that read my emails. Previously I created a flyer. That worked, many of you got on this list by responding to the flyer. I tried mailing the flyer to various groups of people. It worked with modest success (i.e.- It failed miserably, only got a few responses from the mailings). Today I started to think about working on the mailings again. What can we do this time that will improve the mailings to get a better response? I came up with a couple of ideas, which we will now put into play. Maybe this time more people will respond. And if they do, that's great, and if they don't, and even if they do, we'll continue to try something else. We'll keep on "plugging away". (I hope that plugging away isn't really something terrible that I am wishing on myself).
Which brings us back to setting goals again.
As you all know, every book written by successful people, habits of successful people, all of the motivational speakers Tony Roberts, Zig Ziglar, Tom Venuto, the weight lifting guru, say that you have to set goals. It is not open for discussion, it is a fact.
Do you want to be (more) successful?
Of course you do. You want to be successful in everything that you do.
So right now, take out a piece of paper and a pen and on the top write the date of one year from today and the word my goals.
Now write down 10 goals that you have for this year. Write them in the present tense of a year from now, as if it is a year from now, and you've already accomplished them. For instance, "I do 100 push ups every other day". How about, "My novel was published to raves and international acclaim." "I just sold my first house through LANDMAX that we built entirely as a partnership between me the land owners and the money guys. This one is my favorite, "I look so good now that I've lost the 100 pounds that heads turn when I enter the room, whether I'm wearing a custom fitted suit, or jeans and a tee shirt." No one says that you can't have a good time making your list. The goals can be financial, social, health, family, travel, whatever you want. Just do it. Write them down. (How about, "I finished the NYC marathon, with the fastest time of any 60 year old first time marathon runner")
Go ahead. DO IT! You won't be sorry. You'll thank me.
I can go on and on about everything else there is about GOALS, like creating deadlines, making lists of who and what you need to help you reach your goals, and all the other stuff you can do, BUT that doesn't matter right now. Right now, just take out a piece of paper, and write. Writing down 10 goals puts you in the top 3% of the people in the WORLD.
The rest is simple. Take your list and look at it. Read it. Say it out loud. Refine it. Update it. Re-write it. Picture yourself the way you will be, look, or feel when the goal has been reached. Picture yourself enjoying the results, whatever your goals may be (driving your brand new Rolls Royce, swimming in your private beach in Maui, admiring yourself in your new fur coat or in a bathing suit).
Finally, on a regular basis, or periodically, or when you find yourself losing control, feeling down or depressed, &/OR when you find yourself feeling great and needing to take a step forward, simply take out the list, read it, and figure out something that you can do to help you reach one or more of your goals, and then just do it.
And remember, failure is not an option. You may not reach your goal by your deadline, so you set a new deadline, you don't drop the goal. Quitting is not acceptable, and I will repeat it again, FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!

..............to be continued