“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where there should be. Now, put foundations under them.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“When you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
– Jim Rohn

A question people often ask me in my seminars is, “Why are there so many people who succeed, have everything a person can ever wish for, yet still feel unhappy, unsatisfied, or unfulfilled?” Why, in other words, do so many people successfully fail? You might wonder what this question has to do with self-esteem. To explain, let me draw on an analogy.

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“The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what’s important and what’s not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. As the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what’s going on outside.”
– Robert Stuberg

“First, all relationships are with yourself — and sometimes they involve other people. Second, the most important relationship in your life — the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die — is with yourself.”
– Peter McWilliams

Remember that your inner self is your greatest source of all that feeds you along the road of life. It’s what builds you as a person. It’s your values, your priorities, your mind, and especially your peace of mind. Most important, it’s your self-image. Since your image is a mere reflection of your self-image, then what goes on outside of you is an indication of what goes on inside.

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“Are you green and growing, or ripe and rotting?”
– Ray Kroc (Founder of McDonald’s)

What is a problem? There’s a saying, which says that obstacles are what happens when you take your eyes off your goals. I don’t agree because problems can occur even when you are focusing on your goals. However, I would certainly agree that obstacles are what happens when you take your eyes off your priorities. In fact, to the congruent person, problems are not problems but considered as growing pains.

You are always growing no matter what. Change is, in essence, the result of growing. A “Help Wanted” ad caught my eye when it said: “We embrace change by hiring people who create it.” We do create our own changes. We are always growing, always evolving, always changing. Therefore, since we can not stop that growth, the key to living a fulfilling life is to choose how to grow and to grow in the right direction.

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“There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.”
– Ralph Waldo Trine

“Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.”
– Miguel de Cervantes

In everything you do or want to do in life, you are always governed by law and not by chance. Natural laws are principles or explanations of why things are the way they are. Principles defined by Webster are “fundamental laws or facts of nature.” Out of the many you have read or will read about in this book, there is one, however, that is the foundational principle to all success.

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“In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment, independent will, that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.”
– Stephen Covey

“Motivation,” the author of The Psychology Of Winning Dr. Dennis Waitley wrote, “comes from within and not from without; all motivation is self-motivation.” You can not find motivation outside of you but can develop motivation inside of you. Oftentimes, it is sleeping within you. People can get pepped up, enthused, encouraged, or even inspired by others, but they can never get motivated by them.

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“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.”
– Earl Wilson

Goals properly aligned will give you an impelling momentum that, like a snowball rolling down a snow covered hill, increases in size and speed along the way. The more you work on your priorities, the more motivated you will become and the more timely the results you will produce. They will increase and keep on increasing.

Pam Lontos once wrote, “Momentum creates more momentum as motivation actually feeds on itself.” Each little success achieved will increase your self-esteem, your effectiveness, and of course, your efficiency.

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“Try not to become a man of success, but to become a man of value.”
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.”
– Roy Disney

People say “change your attitudes” or “have a positive attitude,” but I don’t agree since attitudes can not be changed. They are results and not causes. They are byproducts of your innermost convictions. They are reflections of your deepest values. You can’t just change them on a whim because your outside is but a mirror reflection of your inside.

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