Your sales are flat, or down on last years results, so maybe it is an opportune time to look at your business.

It is well documented that if you always do what you have always done, you will only get the same result or less, usually less.

Albert Einstein said ‘To keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, is the first sign of insanity’.

This has happened to me and it is not a pleasant feeling, particularly when we had enjoyed healthy increases in sales.

Many successful organizations, say that the key to their success is that they keep reinventing themselves and their products.

So, let’s go back to basics and look at our vision and purpose.

What is the purpose of our organization?

Yes, I know to make money. Let us look deeper than that, and ask another question what goods or services do we want to provide?

If we identify that, look deeper, what will that give you? You should get something emotional like ‘satisfaction’ ‘contribution to others’.

Then ask, what is my vision, aspiration, dream, for this business that I want achieve in three years time?

This should be the big picture of possibilities for you and your business. Now you have a destination, a target, so now you know where you are going. This is important, because if you don’t know where you are going, all roads lead to nowhere!

Now starting with the end in mind, come back to today, and develop some objectives and strategies and then develop some action steps to move you forward. You now have a new business plan, with some new thinking and a fresh start and off you go on your new journey to a new destination.

What is the point of difference between you and the person who gets the better job, gets the partner they want, and makes more money than you? I do not think it is luck. List the points of difference between you and the people in your life who are beating you across the finish line.

What do you need to do in your life to pass the winning post first? Let me give you a clue. It will start with you doing something: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

To create the life you want, you have to start participating and getting involved 100 percent. Taking a risk is not dangerous. It just requires you to break through the limitations which keep you locked inside your comfort zone.

Decide clearly, specifically, what you want to do to be what you want to be.

Visualise the outcome you want to create and achieve. Develop vision boards where you put cuttings of how you want your life to be. I used to draw mine from the various aspects that made-up my life:

Family – married/single, number of children

Career – job, goals

House I want to live in, car I want to drive

Relationships

Sports

Hobbies

Holidays

Relaxation

Another trick is to cut out a picture of your dream house and stick it on the fridge.

Some people do it with getting their ideal weight or body shape and put a picture of the type of physique they want on their bedroom mirror.

This is not new, it is not rocket science and it works for many people. Remember, where focus goes, energy flows.

We have built into us a “success mechanism” and a “failure mechanism”.

A failure mechanism is your natural tendency to take the easy road, our impulse to immediate self -- gratification without thinking too much about the long-term results of our actions. This mechanism operates automatically, and it's with us for every minute of the day. Many people follow this path of having the  fun, the easy way, also the convenience of what they do.

The good news is however, you have a success mechanism built into your mind, and your success mechanism has the power and ability to over ride your failure mechanism.

Success in life is triggered by having a goal. The bigger and brighter that you can make this goal, and the more you feel about it, the more you can exert the willpower, the more disciplined you will become in making yourself do what needs to be done, to get where you want to go, and create the outcome that you see for yourself,

I leave you with this thought

“ If it is to be, it's up to me”

Fear doesn’t have to matter anymore, if we have a purpose a reason for our life, a reason for doing something.  

Over the years in organizations, I have seen again and again people not understanding what the purpose is of the task they are involved in.  People go to endless meetings and don’t even know why they are there.  

I encourage you to develop the practice of having a purpose, a reason for what it is you are doing.  This will considerably increase your confidence and directly it’s a stepping stone towards you achieving the outcomes for your success.  Remember each step you take, will move you closer to your dream, aspiration, vision.

We all want to be the best that we can, we all want to do a good job, we all want to please our boss, and we all want recognition.  If we know what we are doing, and why we are doing it, it gives our work and our life meaning and substance and propels us towards our outcomes.

Purpose and Outcomes:

When we define our purpose, our reason for whatever it is we are doing, we build our self confidence.  

We also need to be clear about the outcome, the results that we want to create.  This is linked into intention, because our intentions are a powerful force that comes from within.  

Just by declaring ‘my intention is …’ helps you to get clear about what it is you want and increases your self confidence.  

If you know your outcome, what your intention is to achieve, with each step your vision, aspiration, dream becomes clearer.  With each step you take towards success, you can feel it, you can smell it, and you get hungry to have it.  This is where loving what you do and doing what you love, starts to kick in and give you power that drives you forward.

To Know Success, You Have To Know Failure

Along your path to success, remember that every failure, adversity and unpleasant experiences are often a blessing in disguise.

One of the most powerful sayings that I have heard and one that has helped me so many times, when I have slipped and fallen is ‘God’s way of giving you a gift, is wrapped inside a problem’ I have come to believe this and it makes me more resolute in recognizing that, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’!

I am sure you have heard the story of Thomas Edison and his 10,000 attempts to make the light bulb.  There is a similar story about Henry Ford, he would not give in and sent his engineers repeatedly back to the workshop again and again and again.  Through his commitment, to the making of the motor car and his recognizing that to fail, was an opportunity in disguise, we owe the first motor car to his ‘never give up’ attitude.  Both of these men had much in common, as do today’s entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in spite of his immense wealth, as one of the richest people in the world, still lives moderately and chooses to give billions of dollars of his fortune, away to those less fortunate.

I was delighted to see him interviewed on CNN, where he said he dances to work.