Kerry Daigle
Keep Punching

Personal Development, Promotional, and Sales Training

I RESOLVE TO …

It’s time for us to think about New Year’s resolutions. New Years is the time of the year when we reflect on the past and make plans for the future. Now, lets look at what New Year’s resolutions really are. They are nothing more than dreams and goals for a new beginning to making positive changes in your lives. Am I not right?

Sadly, lets face the facts: The truth is that approximately 95 percent of all traditional New Year’s resolutions aren’t kept. Why is that? It really is a simple answer. Most resolutions that are made are really short-term goals with no real desire to reach them. There is no commitment on the part of the person making them. Is that usually their fault? No, its not … because most people do not know how to essentially make goals work for themselves. Everyone has good intentions, but rarely do these intentions result in successfully reaching goals. Isn’t it a terrible feeling when you ultimately realize that you didn’t succeed in reaching your goals, especially when you tell all your family and friends about your new desires in life?

Where do you usually miss out and falter towards your New Year’s resolutions? Why do you quit? Why is it the other 5 percent succeed? What is their secret?

It really is simple. You see, some people go through life and “make” things happen. Others go through life “watching things happen,” and then there are the large numbers who “wonder what happened?” The ones that are making things happen are working hard on developing themselves personally, not through a formal education or working extra hours at their job, but through personal development and positive thinking programs. I strongly believe every person seeking success in life and wanting to make changes in their lives for the best – be it with their families, relationships, friends, business, or financial gains – must work on themselves first.
So here is tip number one: Spend 2 percent minimum to 5 percent of your monthly income on personal development material. In other words, if you earn $2,000 monthly, 2 percent would be $40. I would hope that you would consider yourself worth that! The only way you can tell if you are ready for these changes is by looking at yourself seriously and your accomplishments thus far and see if you are happy with what has happened in your life so far. If not, then you know what to do! Changes must be made! The on personal development material I am refer to are items such as books and tapes on motivation, positive-thinking, inspirational topics, goal seeking material, public relations, sales material, and how-to books and tapes. These might cover how to speak in public, how to write, how to meet people, how to start conversations, etc. In other words, these are any kinds of material that will teach you how to be a better, more productive person.

When I think of these books, many authors come to mind, such as Les Brown, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, David McNally, Ken Kragen, Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Ridgely Goldsborough and Tony Robbins. I could go on for hours there are so many in this category. These authors have personal development books and tapes that are really easy to find at any bookstore and on the Internet.

Why is this so important? Think about this for a minute … you are enthusiastic and anxious to start your new life and make changes. Your first obstacle is making changes, which is the most difficult thing a person can do. We are so caught up in our daily habits that change is difficult. We get up at a specific time every morning, drink that special morning drink, eat that special breakfast and nutritional or non-nutritional snack, go to lunch usually at the same time, and go home every day at the same time. We watch the same shows on television we watched last week … we live our lives in the rat race with no personal development improvements. This keeps us living as a creature of habit, doing the same thing day-in and day-out. Sounds pretty boring to me and as soon as something new comes along to upset these daily habits of non-productivity, we are confronted with the question “Why am I making these changes?”

Change is difficult. To conquer change in our lives we must prepare ourselves mentally every day by listening to positive and uplifting messages. That way we can conquer the non-productive, habitual things we do that keep us from achieving our goals in life.

Another thing that is really important is, if we do not train ourselves to think positive and to get rid of all the “stinking thinking” in our lives, moving away from all the negative people that bring us down. If we do not, then the challenge of succeeding in our quest for new and better things becomes null and void. Sure, we start off with enthusiasm and excitement, but we need to be more prepared on how to deliver our new found enthusiasm. Jim Rohn, the motivational speaker, says it best, “It is good to be excited and enthusiastic … but, unless you are educating yourself with positive personal development material, then you’ll just be an excited and enthusiastic idiot hanging around your negative friends, not knowing where to go next with no plans! You want to have that burning desire, however, you want to prepare yourself mentally with positive affirmations to handle your roadblocks ahead ... if you last that long”

Here is tip number two: Your new plans and dreams in making your changes are exactly that … only plans and dreams. They become “goals” only when you have made a decision to write them down so you can review them morning and night and actually see yourself taking these steps toward a better life. Post these goals on your sun visor in your car, your refrigerator and your bathroom mirror.

Goals will give you a new purpose in life and can be very fulfilling mentally and emotionally once you have achieved them. It gives you an opportunity to challenge life every day. You were one of the lucky few that woke up this morning to and can read this book. Many people didn’t have that opportunity. Many people didn’t wake up this morning. That is a cold hard fact.

Isn’t it sad to see someone without goals in life? They are easy to pick out of the crowd. It is so obvious that they have no purpose. You can see it in their eyes and body language. They walk around in neutral all day, slouching in their chairs, yawning through most of the day, and there is no bright light in their eyes. Their eyes look dull. Their conversations bounce around with no purpose. They call you on the phone and say, “What are you doing? I just wanted to see what you were doing. I wasn’t doing anything. I’m bored.” I’m certain you’ve received those calls before!

You see, these people don’t have a life. Heck, why are they calling you? You’ve got things to do, goals to reach and a family to spend time with don’t you? So, if you are working on a New Year’s resolution ask yourself these questions:

What are your personal goals this year? Career, financial, business, family, spiritual, relationships, etc. Have you written them down? Have you prepared yourself mentally so you can reach your goals or resolutions by educating yourself with personal development material?

Tip number three: I believe there are three types of people in this world … those that make things happen, those that watch things happen and lastly, those that wonder “what happened?”

People that constantly are working on improving themselves personally write their goals down and pursue them, and are persistent and challenge what life has to offer them every day. We all know that things are going to be tough for us as we change our lives, so you must prepare yourself for those challenging days and be persistent, so you can handle these obstacles and find solutions for them.

Life is like a boxing match, you have to prepare yourself for the fight. Get into the ring, put on your boxing gloves, listen to the introductions and then the bell rings. No matter how hard you trained and despite your fight plans (or goals), you are eventually going to get hit, you might even get knocked down or even knocked out. How persistent are you going to be? Getting up and starting over immediately is important, so you can reach your final goal and level of accomplishment to move your life forward.

Remember the story of George Foreman, the man everyone called too old, overweight, and slow, who made a comeback in his mid 40’s to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World? Everyone discouraged him, all the sports publications, electronic media, sports and boxing experts, and yes, even his friends and former colleagues. He was too old, too slow, too fat, according to the boxing observers. The difference was George was preparing himself mentally to get rid of all that “stinking thinking” and was surrounding himself with people who had the same belief system he had. And at the age of 45, against a young Michael Moorer who had just defeated Evander Holyfield for the undisputed Heavyweight Championship of the World, he entered the ring a long shot and huge underdog to all the press and experts but not to himself! Sure, George had lost to Evander Holyfield earlier in his career, and Michael Moorer defeated Holyfield and the odds were against him.
What was George thinking? As Michael Moorer pounded George around the ring every round, George would return to his corner and would not sit down, he would stand up in between rounds and keep himself motivated by thinking positive. Then as Michael Moorer was soundly thrashing George, George threw a right hand that was heard throughout the world! Michael Moorer went down and didn’t get up! George knew what would happen … he envisioned it! He convinced himself first, and then he prepared un-relentlessly against all odds. He became the oldest man in the history of boxing to become the heavyweight champion of the world. A great story of positive thinking. Even when the boxing experts spoke negatively about George, he ignored them and continued thinking positive thoughts, picturing his accomplishment of becoming heavyweight champion again. Big George prepared himself mentally and then physically. No one was going to be more persistent or more prepared mentally. By setting his goals down on paper “I am going to be Heavyweight Champion of the World again” George had the last laugh.

The moral of this story is, it may be a while before you reach that level of accomplishment again where you are at a comfortable level. It all happens with persistence. It is during these rocky times that you need to reach out within yourself and tell yourself, “I can make these changes,” and find those deep sources of motivation of why you made those particular goals in the first place such as:

• You want to own your own life, instead of life owning you
• You want to do more for your family and your children
• You want to be healthier and live life to the fullest
• You want to have some freedom time and retire with a smile on your face ... not in poverty, wondering what you did wrong

Life has many unexpected challenges, and yet it is so precious. Have you the intestinal fortitude to say that you don’t want to continue in the rat race, but instead step out of your comfort zone and do what is necessary to reach your fullest potential?
Let me end this message with something I picked up at the Learning Skills Center at the University of Texas in Austin:

• Respect and value the opinion of others but realize that ultimately you must respect and satisfy your self.
• Don’t worry about or dwell on things that go wrong. Concentrate on your successes. Remember that little successes build up just as quickly as little failures.
• Give yourself time to change. Forgive yourself for backsliding and making mistakes.
• Be willing to risk failure for something you really care about.
• Completed goals keep interest and motivation at a high level. Try to complete a goal, even a very small one, before quitting for the day.

And last but not least, always, always,
Keep Punching!

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