Benefits of a Mentor

Behind every successful entrepreneur is a successful mentor.  Having a mentor is important to advancing your career.  Why not follow in the footsteps of someone who has already experienced the success that you are working so hard to achieve?  It really makes perfect sense, if you think about it.

The experience and wisdom that a mentor can offer to a protégé is often invaluable.  You’ve heard the expression, “there’s no need to re-invent the wheel,” so why would you want to re-create strategies and protocols that successful people have already developed?

Now, there are a few important things to consider when deciding on a mentor for your career or business needs.  It’s not just a job for anyone, you need the right person.  The person that you choose as a mentor needs to be someone who’s goals and values are similar to yours.  You also need to find someone who has the time and energy to offer to you.  Just because you admire their business savvy and their success doesn’t mean that they are going to be willing to share it with you!  It also doesn’t mean that they automatically have the leadership skills that a great mentor should possess.

Many times a mentor can open the door for you to join networks, invite you to attend functions that will boost your career or business, or simply share their infinite wisdom.  Make sure that you are willing to devote the time necessary to fostering this mentor-protégé relationship, no mentor would want to waste their time on someone that’s not committed to the cause.  Although showing appropriate enthusiasm without mercilessly clinging to your mentor is an important thing to consider.  Be a good mentee:  listen, learn, and grow!

How to Choose a Mentor

If you want to experience success in your career or business, or even perhaps in your personal life, then it might be helpful for you to find a good mentor.  Successful people know that it’s important to find efficient ways to finding success, and often a mentor can help steer you in the right direction.  Learning from someone else’s successes (as well as their mistakes!) can save you loads of time, energy, and frustration.

Choosing a mentor is an important step.  Choosing the right mentor is an even more important step.  Not just anyone can be a mentor.  You should really look for certain qualities when selecting a mentor, and even after you identify those particular qualities, you need to have a mentor that you can work well with and be comfortable learning from.

The mentor that you select should be well ahead of you on the journey to success.  Your mentor should have similar goals and values to yours.  Very importantly, your mentor needs to want to share their ideas and strategies for success with you, without being threatened by your imminent and astronomical success (well, that’s the plan, right?).

Merely finding someone that you admire that you feel would make a good mentor is not quite enough.  This is a reciprocal relationship, and the mentor has an investment in your success, too.  That means that the mentor needs to believe in you just as much as you believe in yourself.

Frank and honest discussions between mentors and protégés can ensure excellent results for both parties involved.  The protégé gets the benefit of the experience and wisdom offered by the mentor, and the mentor will often learn some new ways and perhaps work through the next steps for their own success by breaking down the process for the protégé.

Your goals and dreams can be realized, and you can achieve success and find the abundant life you’re hoping for.  Finding the right mentor can make this happen even faster!

“You are not a failure until you start blaming other people.” by Unknown

To prevent Failure take Action towards your goal

Once you decide what it takes for you to feel successful—you’ve identified your goals, outlined the steps it will take for you to achieve success, and visualized yourself being successful—it’s time to take action.  All of these steps are critical if you want abundance in your life, but the real success will come after you actually put your plan into action.  You must begin to perform and do the things necessary to accomplish your goals.

There is a great deal of effort, patience, and commitment involved for every successful person.  Self-discipline is a critical part of any entrepreneur’s makeup.  Depending on your goals, you can apply your efforts in several ways.

If you have your measurable goals outlined for assessment on a weekly or monthly basis, then you need to decide what kind of weekly or monthly commitment you are making.  Many entrepreneurs still keep their “day job” to pay the bills, until the money from the dream job comes pouring in.  This requires some excellent time management skills, as well as a great deal of energy.

Decide how many hours per week, or how many days, you will devote to accomplishing your goals and achieving success.  Breaking down the big goals into small tasks will help you fit them in, especially if you are starting out and trying to fit things in around another job.  Also, to truly experience an abundant life, one must remember to include time to pursue other joys—family, recreation, worship, or whatever provides fullness and enrichment in life.

Don’t stop after you’ve outlined a plan for action—take action.  Make every effort to realize your dreams—you can see it happening!  Continue to learn ways to expand your horizons and accomplish your goals, every step along the way counts toward achieving success.

Prioritize Your Daily Activities

Having a “to-do” list that’s as long as your arm will be likely to make you feel overwhelmed and lessen your overall productivity on a daily basis.  This will definitely not help you gain any ground as you try to achieve success and get closer to accomplishing your goals.  Some studies have shown that the average person can only have about seven tasks “in the hopper” at once.  However, this comes with a word of caution—this does not refer to multitasking!  In fact, some recent studies have indicated that multitasking may not be the most efficient way for many people to work.

Keeping a “to-do” list of about seven tasks at a time will ensure that list gets smaller (and hopefully disappears) every day.  Each day, take a few minutes to outline the tasks you need to accomplish that day.  Prioritize those tasks, beginning with the tasks that will get you closer to your goals.  Anything that can wait should appear closer to the bottom of the list, and be done when there is some extra time.  Most of your energies should be focused on completing those tasks that will get you closer to getting what you want out of life.

Put some thought into how you work best.  A morning person may set out to accomplish the most “meaty” of the mental or physical tasks early in the day, when energy is best.  Those afternoon bloomers may choose to start off with smaller bites out of the list.

Effective time management strategies are critical if you expect to get anything done.  Try working one task at a time, until you complete it.  If you do this, you will see your “to-do” list get shorter and shorter—this means you are closer to achieving success, and this is one way to actually measure your progress on a daily basis.  Watching that abundant life get closer and closer each day can reinforce your energy and your positive attitude—and that’s a real recipe for achieving success.

In order to be successful, you have to define for yourself what you want to achieve.  How you do personally measure success?  What does that mean to you?  At what point do you feel successful?  The answers to these questions will be different for everyone.  For some entrepreneurs, cashing in on a hobby to make enough for a car payment each month is considered success.  Some won’t feel that pride until they have stashed away their first million.  Neither is unsuccessful.

“Goal Setting 101” basically involves identifying what you personally consider “success” to be, and then deciding how you are going to achieve success.  You must be true to yourself, and understand your own personal values.

Defining your goals also involves figuring out how you are going to measure your progress toward those goals.  Breaking your main goal down into steps will allow you to check off steps along the way and truly feel like you are making progress.  One of the secrets of highly successful people is that they continuously visualize themselves as successful.  Seeing those baby steps along the way get accomplished is a way to stay positive and stay focused on achieving goals and dreams.  Goals that are too big or take too long to see progress often end up being cast aside without ever being realized.

Don’t let your dreams die just because you can’t define your goals.  Take some time to really think about and reflect on what your personal definition of success really is.  Remember that this definition can change over time as you experience success and the abundant life that comes with it.  Don’t let any uncertainty stand in your way—see yourself achieving those goals and it will happen!  Your goals only need to be important to you, and your success measured by your own yardstick.

Achieve What You Want

Achieving what you want and finding business success, as well as life success, is easier than you think.  It’s basically a three-step process, one that anyone can handle—if you put your mind to it.

First, you must identify exactly what it is that you want out of business or life.  What’s the main goal?  Are you looking to start your own business?  Make a certain amount of money?  Whatever it is, write it down.  Having it on a piece of paper that you can see and touch will make it more real.

Second, picture yourself being successful.  Achieving abundance in your life and finding business success begins with preparing your mind for success.  Never, ever underestimate the power of positive thinking.  Often this is the one factor that separates those who are grossly successful with those who fail miserably.

Third, be passionate about what it is you hope to achieve.  Deciding to have a successful business or life, picturing yourself with that goal accomplished, and then making that goal a priority in your life will almost certainly lead you there.  While this doesn’t mean that you won’t make mistakes along the way, make sure you stick to your plan (making appropriate adjustments along the way) and you will get closer to your goal every day.

There’s not a whole lot standing between you and your dreams.  Making your goals a priority, and believing in your abundant life, can make it happen.  For some, this is an overhaul of negative thinking, and a purging of thoughts.  For all, this is a healthy process—no matter what your ultimate goal in life is.  Start to see the big picture—your success—and you will start to experience it!  Make your dreams a reality.

Make a Plan With Achievable Steps

Choosing goals for your business is an important part of being successful.  Making a business action plan that is comprised of achievable steps ensures that you will achieve success.

Be as explicit as possible when you are identifying and defining your main goals.  Instead of “sell more products,” or “make more money,” it should be obvious that “expand client base by 3 clients per month” makes a better, more achievable and measurable goal.  At the end of each month it’s very easy to tell if you have met that particular goal or not.  Meeting each small goal will make you more productive, too.  You will be motivated to slightly raise the bar each time you revisit your goals—which should be on a regular basis.  Taking frequent “inventory” of your success will make it more real, by reminding you that you are accomplishing something each week or month.

Make your goals realistic.  Challenging goals are great, but, you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment.  The greatest entrepreneurs of all time had a clear business action plan, with measurable and achievable goals.  These are the ones that are now sitting back enjoying their cool millions.

Defining a goal, making an action plan, reviewing and revising as necessary, and actually following through with the steps you outline to achieve each goal is all you have to do to make your dreams a reality and achieve success.  It’s easier than you think, and seeing the results will make you believe even more in the process.

Once you set your mind for success, the rest will fall into place.  An abundant life can be yours if you believe in yourself and make a business action plan made up of several mini-goals and steps that works!

Thinking differently might mean thinking successfully.  Get yourself headed in the right direction toward accomplishing your goals and experiencing business success.

Being successful is a process, it is not an endpoint.  In order to be successful on the path to business success, you have to begin by preparing your mind for success.  This part of the process is essential, and it sets the proper ground work for having not only business success, but an abundant life in every area.

No successful entrepreneur in recent history has begun without preparing their mind.  So, now you’re sitting there wondering what this means, and just how you can be the next Steve Case or Jenny Craig?  You’re looking for just exactly what the formula is to get some abundance in your life?  It’s not a big secret, really.

First, you must embrace the idea that you can be successful.  You must completely clear your mind of any doubt or any negativity, and then fill it up entirely with thoughts of HOW you will be successful, not IF you will be successful.  You can read all you like about every famous entrepreneur that found incredible success—it’s a guarantee that you’ll discover the biggest commonality among them is that they just “knew” they could do it.  They started with a great idea, and made a solid plan, and then stuck to it.  A great idea is just an idea if you don’t believe in it.  Having any negative thoughts or doubt in yourself will lead you to only partial success, if any at all.

Get yourself on the path to success, starting with preparing your mind for your success.   It’s your life, and preparing your mind for success will help you achieve abundance and success that you are dreaming of now.