1. Know your purpose.

Are you wandering through life with little direction — hoping that you’ll find happiness, health and prosperity? Identify your life purpose or mission statement and you will have your own unique compass that will lead you to your true north every time.

2. Know your values.

What do you value most? Make a list of your top 5 values. Some examples are security, freedom, family, spiritual development, learning. As you set your goals for 2007 — check your goals against your values. If the goal doesn’t align with any of your top five values — you may want to reconsider it or revise it.

3. Know your needs.

Unmet needs can keep you from living authentically. Take care of yourself. Do you have a need to be acknowledged, to be right, to be in control, to be loved? List your top four needs and get them met!

4. Know your passions.

Honor those things that make your heart sing. Whatever it is, do more of it!

5. Live from the inside out.

Tap into your inner wisdom by regularly reflecting in silence. Commune with nature. Breathe deeply to quiet your mind.

6. Honor your strengths.

What are your positive traits? What special talents do you have? List three — if you get stuck, ask those closest to you to help identify these. Are you imaginative, witty, good with your hands? Find ways to express your authentic self through your strengths.

7. Take time to play.

Give yourself time to recharge doing things you love to do or by just doing nothing.

8. Be aware of your self-talk.

Are you blocking your potential? Check out your first thoughts when you wake tomorrow. Are they supportive, encouraging or positive? Choose the kind of chatter that goes on in your mind. Become aware of the negative messages you give yourself. Gently catch them and turn them into positive affirmations.

9. Surround yourself with inspiration.

Keep a success journal. Write down your four or five greatest strengths and post them where you can see them. On the last Friday of each month, write down all your accomplishments both big and small.

10. Serve others.

When you live authentically, you may find that you develop an interconnected sense of being. When you are true to who you are, living your purpose and giving of your talents to the world around you, you give back in service what you came to share with others — your spirit — your essence.

About the Author: Ann Ronan, Ph.D., Certified Career Coach and author, works with professionals in career transition or career pain. She offers a free e-course on the Top Ten Ways To Live Authentically. To learn more about this step-by-step program and to sign up for free how-to articles and teleclasses, visit Authentic Life Institute.

Yes, firing a client. An alien idea ? I bet you have clients that drive you crazy, who make you cringe, who make you feel used and abused… so its Springtime – do some spring cleaning.

So many people when they start in business make the mistake of accepting people as clients, and often when their gut feel tells them not to. You get wise eventually. Trust me !!

Clients to possibly fire include:

1. those for whom you have delivered the work but they keep asking this question and that question and suddenly you find you’ve done many hours of pro bono consulting. Remember you are running a business not a charity.

2. getting paid – especially a problem when you accept young entrepreneurs as clients who are being funded by organisations that help them start out in business. You are not there to provide a free line of credit. Not to mention all the time and energy you spend on trying to get the payment.

3. you dread seeing their name appear in your email inbox – you know that they are going to bug you about something – usually something they hope to get for free except they are starting to do this too often and rarely email back to say ‘thank you’. They are making you feel used and abused.

4. when you started out you gave some clients a really preferential rate because you liked them and their business idea, you wanted to get the experience, you thought they would be successful and for later work would be able to pay you what you were really worth… but this has not happened and you are now attracting clients who are able to pay what you are worth. Unless you have a really good reason its time to move on.

So, work with clients who respect you, who value you, who appreciate your knowledge and expertise and who are willing to pay you what you are worth and promptly. It’s your right !

1. “Dig the well before you’re thirsty” – Confucius

Marketing, whether your business or yourself, is the one task that wise people do daily – YES…DAILY. You should do at least one thing each day to keep your marketing funnel full.

2. “The moment you begin to think of time as precious and that it has a price, the richer you will become.” – Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing

Do you spend your time wisely or do you squander it procrastinating ? Successful entrepreneurs understand that how they spend their time determines their future. It’s critical to do the things that will move you/your business forward each day.

3. Have a wealth mindset

Successful entrepreneurs are focused, first and foremost, on being secure. Then on being comfortable and finally, on being rich. It is this focus on security that forces them to build systems and look at the big picture as opposed to doing what is best only for the short-term.

Successful entrepreneurs also understand that they need to invest in themselves and their business in order to reach their long-term goals. Doing things “quick and dirty” or for the fast buck doesn’t create the long-lasting success that you are looking for.

4. Have a sense of urgency

Successful entrepreneurs are not procrastinators – they get things done and done today! Their sense of urgency is borne not only of their appreciation for the value of time, but also as a way of insuring their clients are always satisfied. Why make them wait? Happy clients purchase from you and they do so repeatedly.

5. “Don’t feel overwhelmed…just do one thing at a time.” —

The above quote may sound familiar and is a trademark of all successful entrepreneurs. Have 100 things to do? Don’t know where to start?

Just pick one and do it. It doesn’t matter which one, just do something. Sitting and staring at the pile or fretting about how much you need to do won’t get you anywhere. But doing one thing, and then another, and then another will.

6. Be a “big picture optimist and detail pessimist”.
Direct marketing guru Dan Kennedy tells the story of how he travels a lot and never worries about the plane going to the wrong city or exploding in midair or experiencing some other trouble that would result in his never reaching to his destination (big picture optimist). At the same time, he plans for the plane to leave late and arrive late, for his luggage to be lost and for the food (when you get it) to be inedible (detail pessimist).

Using this approach in project (and travel) planning insures that you’ve anticipated the potential problems which Murphy’s Law usually provides and have solutions already in hand. The worst that can happen is that you never need your “Plan B”.

7. You can’t (and shouldn’t) do it all

Successful entrepreneurs know and understand that trying to do everything themselves is a prescription for overwhelm and burnout.

The truly successful create teams and delegate effectively. Having one (or several) good virtual assistants, a bookkeeper, a pre-paid legal plan, etc. takes the day-to-day minutiae off you so that you can focus on the big picture.

No matter where you are today, do one thing today that will move you forward in your goals. Remember Confucius : “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Take that step today and feel the momentum carry you forward.

This post is based on an article by Sandra Martini who requires that I add the following: © Sandra P. Martini, The Automatic Business Coach 2007. Get Sandra Martini’s FREE “5 Simple Steps to Putting Your Marketing on Autopilot” e-course/audio mini-workshop and her FREE small business success how-to tips at www.SandraMartini.com

Its not what you say to people that counts – it’s what they understand.

There can be a whole bunch of reasons why you are procrastinating but before you force yourself to do something try to figure out why you are procrastinating.

Maybe you don’t enjoy the task you have to do (tax returns, chasing a client for paymnet for example) perhaps you should find someone else to do it for you, then you can spend time growing your business or networking rather than stressing over something you hate doing. (I’m an accountant but I get someone else to do my tax returns – and then drive them nuts with all my questions !!)

Maybe the thing have to do is something you don’t know how to do – so see if there is a suitable course or workshop running in your town or do some research on the internet – its amazing what you can learn via the internet. If you can afford to – outsource it !

Maybe you’re procrastinating because you can’t find the time, so draw up a list of things you have to do – assign priorities to them and then work your way down through the list. A little Excel spreadsheet is great for this – then whenever priorities change you can reassign, sort the list by priority and start working your way through the new list !

Start to watch yourself and see what tasks you are always deferring and then spend some time (maybe over a glass of wine) and figure out how you are going to either motivate yourself to get them done or delegate them. Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and pay someone to do them.

I read somewhere once that if you don’t like to do something “delete it, delegate it, or automate it.” So play to your strengths, stick to the things you enjoy doing and are good at.

Feeling nervous about starting a business ? I thought this list entitled: “The Key to Changing Course is to Start” was very apt. Aimed at people wanting to start their own business, it’s just as applicable to anyone who wants to follow their dream, find their bliss.

1. Start where you are

2. Start hanging out with the right crowd

3. Start tuning into your gifts

4. Start listening more to yourself and less to others

5. Start letting go of the idea that everything has to be perfect

6. Start taking action

If we can help you get your business started visit our website and read more about our services.

Here are a few suggestions for those of you who work from home on what to do when you are having a bad day:

Know when to stop. One bad thing seems to attract another and when you are feeling this way, it is far better to move away from what you are doing. Stop forcing yourself to follow up those phone calls, for example, when you are beginning to believe that you are only going to get “no’s”. Because that is exactly what you will get at that time.

Take a break. Go out for a walk, do some household chores, go out and buy a newspaper – it doesn’t really matter what it is a long as you are able to distance yourself from the stuff that doesn’t seem to be going your way.

Have a business buddy. A friend may not understand what you are going through if you phone up for a moan (and can quite often encourage you to moan even more if they are being sympathetic to your needs!) Having one or two business buddies – people you feel you can be honest with and yet can encourage each other to move forward with projects and ideas – can be a lifesaver on a bad day. Having someone who understands but keeps you on track with a little kick up the butt!

Play your favourite tune – playing your favourite upbeat music can lift your mood and make you feel motivated.

Make a daily list of achievements. Write down the 3 things you have been most proud of each day in a journal, diary or on your PC (or maybe even your blog). It could be as amazing as winning a huge contract or as small as making a call to someone you have been putting off for weeks. Whenever you feel like the business is against you, read through your lists and realise how much you have achieved already.

Remember that some days will always be bad days. Not every day is going to be a great day. There will be days that clients cancel, work goes wrong. You can’t control other people’s (and technology!) actions. The one thing you can control is the way you deal with those actions when they happen.

These suggestions came from the Karen Skidmore Kick-Ass blog (I edited them a bit but I don’t think she’ll mind !).

I would also add – connect to someone else who works from home using Skype. You don’t have to talk to each other, but its kind of like being in an office environment in that you hear papers being moved, the phone rings and so on. You can always hit mute when you don’t want the other person to hear your phone conversation. My friend Florence and I passed many a compainable hour working on the lectures we were going to be giving to our students with Skype open and every now and then exchanging a few words – we reckoned we were a lot more productive.

When I was a very young child I collected autographs (sad eh ?). My headmistress wrote in my autograph book “Aim High – Be the Best you Know”. This was rather different than the stuff my little friends had written and many years were to go by before I understood the significance of it.Recently I checked the internet for other people’s words on a similar theme. Here are some of them:

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. (W. Clement Stone)

A soul without a high aim is like a ship without a rudder. (Eileen Caddy)

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. (Karl Von Clausewitz)

Having an aim is the key to achieving your best. (Henry J. Kaiser)

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

To follow, without halt, one aim: that’s the secret of success. (Anna Pavlova)

Whatever YOUR aim is – dare to aim for it.

Don’t you hate it when a prospect calls with a (supposedly) urgent need for your services. You drop everything to do an estimate, you begin to clear your schedule to make room for this new project, you submit the quote, and then you wait. And you wait. When you don’t hear back, you call to follow up and they say they haven’t had time to look at your proposal yet. You wait some more and, though you dread it, you call again. Or maybe you don’t. In any case, you never hear from them again.

This happens all the time — not just to you — and there’s little you can do about it. Here’s what it may look like from your prospect’s perspective: on the day they called, this project was at the top of their list; the next day, something else came along which took priority and kept pushing the project further and further away, until it was on a permanent back burner. They never bothered to let you know, probably because they didn’t have time. Or, more likely, they got caught up in their own world.

What might help is to know the difference between what you think is going on and what is really go on.

What they say: I have a project. Could you send your information.
What you hear:They want me.
What they mean: They’re gathering information on potential candidates.
What to do: Send or email your info. Follow up in a week.

What they say: Your info is here somewhere but I haven’t looked at it yet.
What you hear:They chose someone else.
What they mean: Other things have come up and the project isn’t as urgent.
What to do: Ask when to call back and keep in touch.

What they say: I’ve looked over your materials and they look interesting, but we haven’t decided what direction to take. We’ll be in touch.
What you hear: They chose someone else.
What they mean: Things have changed and the project isn’t as important anymore.
What to do: Keep in touch quarterly for other possible projects.

What they say: Nothing. No call back.
What you hear: They chose someone else.
What they mean: They’re busy with other things or maybe they did choose someone else. It’s not the end of the world.
What to do: Keep in touch every few months by email and phone.

Article courtesy of Ilise Benun from The Art of Self Promotion #16