1- Always dress for the life you wish to lead
This is effective in helping your mindset in envisioning and living out your goal lifestyle, on top of this, dressing for the job or lifestyle you wish to lead means that you're ready to achieve it, for example if you went for a job interview for a law firm dressed super casual, jeans, a t shirt, or leggings and a t shirt, the employer is likely going to look at you and have a pre determined perception of you, just based off of your dress code, however, if you dressed smart, office wear, showing you have made an effort, and looking like everyone else in the firm, you are much more likely to make a good impression and thereby improve your chances of getting the job. On top of all that, sometimes it just feels good to dress up or dress smart.
2- Plan your day; don’t let your day control you
Planning your day can help give you improved focus, and achieve your goals for the day, additionally having the feeling of accomplishment after a busy day, knowing you have achieved everything you planned is really rewarding, and encourages you to keep planning and meeting targets. Studies show that writing down your daily goals means you are much more likely to achieve them. The full study is here: http://elitedaily.com/money/writing-down-your-goals/1068863/
3- Visualise your goals
If you don’t believe in visualisation or you don’t know how powerful it can be you should definitely give it a go! People like Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Operah Winfrey, and many others use and have used the power of visulisation. So what is it? Visulisation is the formation of a mental image of something (Dictionary.com), although its only been spoken about more recently, for use in personal development, it has been a tool used for many years. When it is used properly, it can aid in self-development, maintaining health, obtaining goals, and much more. To use this technique, you must imagine in your mind yourself physically achieving a goal for example, imagine yourself in that moment as though you have already achieved it, picture yourself, feel the emotion, visualise the rewards, everything to do with that future moment. To be effective, visulisation needs to be worked on, practiced regularly in order to stimulate your mind to start applying this technique effectively. There are 4 key elements to visulisation: relaxation, realism, regularity and reinforcement. For more information read here: http://www.essentiallifeskills.net/visualization.html
4- Practice positivity
A little into my trading journey, I heard the word ‘gratitude’ a lot, be grateful, have gratitude, etc. etc. So I decided to get myself a gratitude journal **(I did a post on this at the time of having it, click here to read)**, it basically was a mostly blank notebook that asked you to record 10 things a day that you are grateful for, this was super eye opening, it helped me to become so much more aware of what I actually appreciated, what I really valued and made me feel gratitude for little elements of life I may never have even thought much about, such as my eyesight since having laser eye surgery. Overall it made me so much more positive in life, it made me consider the positive to every negative, when others spoke of negativity I was starting to automatically consider the positive of those situations just from working on daily gratitude.
5- Read or listen to audiobooks
Books are a great way to boost motivation, get new ideas, and provide education on any topic. It’s such a powerful feeling of learning something new especially if you can apply it to your business or passions. Audiobooks are a great alternative to traditional paper books as you can have them on in the background when doing all sorts of tasks, which makes them really good for people who are busy, aren’t great at reading, or just to be more efficient in ticking off your goals.
6- Get out of your comfort zone once in a while
This is proven to help in so many ways, taking a risk encourages growth, it allows different emotions to be explored and new things learned as well as helping to be more creative. It makes the normal everyday tasks much more do-able without the stress you might’ve felt before. Your confidence can be increased because of the sense of accomplishment and it encourages you to stop wishing and start doing, constantly being more motivated which encourages you to perform at your peak. Ultimately every risk taken or comfort zone stepped out of, is a means to creating a new horizon, a new outlook, new goals because your last ones are so average now that you have achieved bigger things. For more tips look here http://www.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/self/13-reasons-stepping-out-of-your-comfort-zone-is-the-best-thing-you-can-do-for-yourself-258972.html
7- Admit your mistakes
Holding yourself accountable makes you very aware of what you have going on, and knowing you’ve made a mistake is the first step towards correcting it. Knowing you’ve made a mistake means you don’t need to defend it, it is known to increase leadership credibility, and reduces personal stress, taking responsibility for mistakes also makes you stand out and it builds loyalty. Admitting mistakes is only good if you are willing to work on them, the point is admitting in order to move forwards and not make the same mistake over and over. Read more: https://www.skipprichard.com/the-power-of-admitting-a-mistake/
8- Have self-belief and self-confidence
this might seem minor, but is actually so important for success. A lack of confidence often leads to people holding back or inaction. Confidence however, means the person is often not afraid to take action, to lead or take control, it encourages a drive and motivation to start tasks, and defend your reasoning, or feel strong enough to say no or deter from the crowd. Having confidence is thought to overcome fear and allows you to believe in yourself and stretch your limits and goals.
9- Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Asking for help or asking questions can often be a scary process, for many reasons, sometimes you don’t want to sound or look stupid, or admit to not knowing something, when actually not asking a question is the worse option as if you don’t ask you don’t progress. If you don’t know ask, research, talk to others, talk to your mentor, the person who inspires you, the person above you that you aspire to be, just ask it will only do good.
10- Know your worth
Don’t let others take advantage; this is something specific to my journey I have had to come to terms with. I have bought and invested in a forex course, in education, in books and invested personal time to learn and further myself, so when others ask for me to teach them (I am by no means at a teaching stage in my journey) I feel flattered but then they say they don't want to pay for a course, suggesting I teach them for free, which makes me feel used. I feel as though the fact I have put my time and money into my education, then others expect me to pass on that information so that they don't have to pay or work hard, usually because they are chasing a quick money making process, of which forex is not, they often don’t want to invest money to get the get rich quick scheme, this to me indicates that they have no true interest other than money. These people do not value the time I have spent or what it has cost me for the education, and even presume I would give this plus my teaching time away for free. Luckily I know my worth, I understand the journey, and I know I will be successful if I follow this path, with patience and motivation and targets, and I know that whilst forex trading is a great way to earn, I know it is not a get rich quick scheme, and I don’t have time to waste on people that think it is, as they likely wont want to hear it.
To put it differently, as my dad pointed out, if you owned a Lamborghini and someone said can I have a set of keys, without respect for you earning that car, or the value of that possession, and without offering anything in return, would you say yes, or do you value yourself and your hard work enough to say no I earned this, its not to give to you as a free ride without any respect or gratitude for your hard work in return, especially when you are liable or have to 'pay' if something goes wrong.
11- Try meditation
Whilst many people may not believe in the power of meditation, there are many suggested benefits of meditation. Meditation causes the pituitary gland in the brain to secrete endorphins that result in an elevation in mood and therefore has a positive effect on the whole body. On top of this it can help reduce stress, improve focus, improve sleep, as well as health benefits including lowering blood pressure, and relieving pain. Read more: http://www.healthandfitnesstravel.com/blog/8-reasons-why-meditation-is-good-for-your-health
12- Have the confidence to know you can try something new if something isn’t working
This is such a key factor in always progressing forwards, as Albert Einstein said ‘You can’t keep doing the same thing everyday and expect different results’, so if something isn’t working for you or is holding you back then change things up, even just changing a small element of the process could give you big results, or indicate the problem area.
Personally I have tried or currently use many of these techniques as I believe they only help in moving up in life and gaining more success, give some of these a try and hopefully they can help at least one person in moving forwards.
~Journal of a Trader