Your life might be at the top of a mountain peak right now but are you looking forward to scaling further heights or are you threatening to throw yourself off the highest peak? You might be sat comfortably in your canoe but unbeknown to you, you may be careering towards a perilous waterfall. Unless you sit up, look around and acknowledge what’s going on in your life right now you can’t doing anything about it.

Most people do nothing about their lives until it’s too late. They carry on under-performing in their jobs until they are made redundant because of “poor market conditions”. They eat unhealthily until they get taken ill and then they blame “their genes”. They spend little or no quality time with their children until their children disown them and then they blame the “bad crowd” that they got in with.

Taking stock means taking stock of what is. Be honest. Look around. Take it all in. Imagine that you’re a visitor to your life. What would you see, think and feel about this life? Would you see this person as successful or not? Would you want their life for your own or could they keep it? What advice would you give to them?

Honesty is critical for the success of this exercise. If you’re not honest with yourself, what chance do you have? Let’s face it if you aren’t honest with yourself, can you really expect anyone else to be?

You’ve probably seen The X Factor on television. It’s one of those programmes that I sometimes like to like and that I sometimes like to hate. I dig the competitive element of it and the fact that you only get through to the later stages if you really are good. Life is like that; watch it and realize the truth.

If you don’t step up and take action, if you don’t step up and perform, you will be wiped out!

But then there are the people who cannot sing. Some of them are clearly disturbed and need psychological help. I don’t think that’s funny. We shouldn’t laugh at people less fortunate than ourselves.

But there is a third group; people, who in other areas of their lives are probably perfectly well grounded but who have a delusion that they can sing. For many people, their own voice is the sweetest thing that they will ever hear so it is not surprising that they think that they sound like the next rock star!

What is more worrying perhaps is that their friends, family and peers never told them that they sounded like an asthmatic tom cat on the prowl before they entered the competition. As I said before, few people in life will be honest with you. Few people will tell you that you suck. Few people will tell you that you are not motivated and that you need to give yourself a resounding kick up the ass.

You have to be honest with yourself or you have no chance. Go on, take a visit with yourself right now. Take stock of your motivation levels. If they’re not up to scratch join me in looking at what you can do to motivate yourself more consistently right now…

They want to know how to motivate themselves to do things that they struggle to motivate themselves to do…

“How do I motivate myself to go to work earlier?”
“How do I motivate myself to study harder?”
“How do I motivate myself to go to the gym?”
“How do I motivate myself to lose weight?”
“How do I motivate myself to earn more money?”
“How do I…?”

The subject matter changes but the question itself always stays the same. Motivation is key to success however you define success but to most people motivation is something intransient, something that they cannot put their hands on, something intangible and most definitely something outside of their control.

“I’m just not motivated” people say. They return home from work or from their football practice and they repeat the mantra, “I just wasn’t motivated today”. They might as well say, “Lightening didn’t strike today, it just didn’t happen.”

For most people, motivation is a lottery. It happens or it doesn’t, you are or you aren’t, you can or you can’t.
Unfortunate! Motivation of this kind is hard to control, hard to harness and hard to leverage. With this kind of motivation, the results that you get in your life are going to be patchy at best. Probably worse.

The second issue with motivation is that many people say that they are motivated when they aren’t. They say that they do not need motivation. They say that motivation is not a problem for them. They say that they are up for it. They tell their boss, their family, their friends and their peer group that they are motivated…

How many people do you know or manage who say that they are motivated  to do their jobs well or to earn big money yet they go home early, they don’t focus and they get distracted easily? They’re so clearly not passionate about what they do. They’re so clearly not motivated in their lives, their pursuits and their activities.

Let’s face the truth; most people aren’t that honest about motivation. Few people admit that they’re not motivated yet most are exactly that; not motivated enough to do the things in their lives that will bring them the successes that they desire.

Knowing how to get and stay motivated is essential if you want to achieve more in your life. Motivation is essential if you want to live an extraordinary life. Motivation is essential if you want more for yourself, your family and your loved ones.

In my next post we're going to look at the first of many strategies for getting more motivated… the importance of taking stock…

Step 6: Focus on how you will benefit.

So you’ve probably read The Secret no doubt or at the very least, you’ve heard of it. In personal development circles there has been a huge buzz about The Secret. In a nutshell it is all about focus and positive intention. You get what you think about most, in other words. A simple but effective approach and one worth taking on board.

In step 6 I want you to take some time to think about how you will benefit when you manifest the money that you want in your life. Few people are motivated by money alone. Few people find money a motivator in its own right.

People are motivated by what that money can do for them and how they benefit from it, not by the money itself.

What will you be able to enjoy in your life when you are rich that you can’t now? What car will you drive? Where will you live? Where will you holiday? What social events will you attend? What hobbies will you partake in? Where will you eat out? What charities will your give to and why?

You get the idea! It’s not the money that motivates, it’s these outcomes and benefits that fire us up and keep us going!

When visualising, take time to think about and focus on how you will benefit when you have more money. Without real benefits, you may struggle to stay motivated in the long term.

What’s more, as you start to see results, it is often wise to allow yourself to have and to experience some of those benefits…

Because of my good, old-fashioned “waste not, want not”, “money doesn’t grow on trees” upbringing, even when I started to earn more money I did not spend any more. I continued to eat at the same restaurants even though I would have liked to have gone to more expensive ones, I still stayed in cheap hotels even though I could “afford” nicer ones and I still travelled in standard class even though I wanted to sit more comfortably in first class and to get out my laptop and do some work!

I thought that I was doing the right thing, watching my expenditure, and to some extent I was but at some point you need to reward yourself, you need to allow your mind and body to experience the fruits of your labours, the reasons that you did it in the first place! If your motivator really is watching the dollars build up in your bank account then perhaps you don’t need to but for most people that’s not enough.

I’ve read a lot of books about being frugal, about what you can save if you stop lunching from Starbucks and start taking your own lunch to work. This is, of course, sound advice, but you need to balance this with treating yourself and with enjoying the fruits of your labours. I have certain standards that I reward myself with irrespective of the fact that I could save money and do things more cheaply. These “luxuries” serve to remind me and reinforce the positive mental image I have about money, what I deserve and what I need to focus on.

Step 7: Work out how you are going to get more money and take consistent action.

You’ve probably heard of a book which stormed the personal development world called The Secret. For a personal development book, this one has whipped a veritable double scoop choc chip of a stir! People have talked about it, blogged about it and lauded it with praise. I read it and liked it but it’s very basic. Far more basic than many other far superior books out there but where The Secret scored was in packaging, branding and viral marketing. The whole concept positioned basic personal development techniques as exciting, new and fresh. Just the video short that preceeded it was unprecedented in its Hollywoodesque trailer qualities and became a viral explosion.

The Secret in my opinion has one major flaw however… it implies that all that you have to do is focus on something and it will manifest itself in your life. If you trawl the outer regions of the “hug a tree” personal development world you will find that this concept and philosophy has been around for a while in various different guises… “the universe will provide for you”. I know plenty of life coaches who say this kind of stuff and most of them are not very well provided for I can tell you! They don’t travel first class, they don’t go on exotic holidays, they don’t drive nice sports cars and they don’t charge top dollar. Most of them are struggling for clients!

Nice as this concept is and important as positive intention and focus are there is another critical piece… Action!

I’m sure, like me, there are plenty of things that you have positive intention about but until you put your money where your mouth is and take action nothing is likely to happen. If you want to make more money you need to take action. If you want to have more money you need to take action. If you want to earn money you need to take action. If you want to bring more business in you need to take action. If you want to manifest good things in your life then you need to get focused and… take action.

Take some time now to work out what actions you need to take to start to create the wealth and finances that you desire and deserve. Plan your first actions, put timescales on them and get going!

Which leads us to…

Step 7.5: Keep getting up when everyone else stays down.

Here’s a harsh truth. Most people give up before they ever have a chance of succeeding. In today’s society it’s way too easy to give up. There will always be plenty of friends to commiserate with you in The I Failed Saloon. Plenty of people who will dust you down and buy you a point of despondency rather that kicking you up the ass and telling you te get up and have another try.

In today’s society of instant gratification most people want it all now. They expect instant success. They want to lose weight but they give up within days when they see no positive signs of weight loss. They want to save money but they splurge on something they don’t need before they ever invest. They want to make money but they fall at the first rejection and never spring back up again.

When I started blogging a year ago on my personal site www.gaviningham.com I really had little idea what to expect. Many people who had not researched the world of blogging thought that this was a waste of my time and energy and would produce negligible results. I had done my research and for reasons that I will discuss another time believed that was the right action to take. I was not however 100% sure. With something as new as blogging how could I be! But… and it’s a big but… once I committed to do it I knew that I had to do it for long enough to give it a fair chance. Results were slow to start with but gradually they arrived…

I know plenty of employed and self-employed people who know that they need to demonstrate certain behaviours to be worthy of promotion and more money. For a while they try this out but when they don’t get the promotion that they wanted relatively soon they quickly fall back into their normal behaviours. If you want to earn more money you need to step up to the plate and keep on swinging until you get the results that you desire. For sure, tweak and tune your swing, try a different angle, a different back swing or a different follow through but keep on swinging you must!

Sitting in the Well I Tried Saloon might be warm and cosy but it is not the path to more wealth. As Yoda in Star Wars famously said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Small and green he may have been but right he was.

Get up, take action, keep going.

Step 4: Visualise yourself with that money.

I talk about visualisation a lot and that’s for one reason and one reason only. Visualisation works. I’m going to repeat that for you because it’s a really important point…

Visualisation works. It really, really works.

I have been using visualisation techniques for 15 years+ now and I use them nearly daily. Most of the time these are rapid, quick fix visualisations of less than 5 minutes but some are much longer. I have used visualisation techniques successfully to…

• win more sales
• close bigger deals
• negotiate more confidently
• make powerful and persuasive presentations
• plan my business
• see the big picture
• rapidly walk through details and problems
• find solutions
• see other’s points of view
• increase motivation
• build rapport with difficult people
• sharpen my focus
• target my actions
• find the right path…

Visualisation works.

In this case, we’re going to use visualisation for two main reasons…

1. To get us juiced up, psyched up and motivated and
2. To check for problems or self-imposed barriers..

Using visualisation is a great motivator. Visualising yourself earning the money you want and living the life you want in techni-colour detail is a real driver. Do it right and it will get you passionate about your mission. (BTW – if it doesn’t you need to be asking yourself whether you have set the right goals or not :-)).

I talk about visualisation extensively elsewhere but for those who are new to this here are some basic tips to help you visualise successfully…

1. Think consciously first about what you want so that you know what you need to visualise.
2. Take some time to relax through sitting still and breathing easily. Most people find this easier in a quiet and secluded place.
3. Form a picture of yourself earning and having this money.
4. Flesh out the picture and make it as detailed as you can. Think about everything. The more detailed that it is, the better.
5. Check for barriers and incongruencies. I have noticed that goals or visualisations that you still have limiting beliefs or barriers attached to are difficult to visualise in your head. Realising this now can save you a lot of grief and heartache. Also, notice if this “new you” fits with your values system. There is little point visualising something which is “not you” and which conflicts with your deeply held values about life as you will find ways of sabotaging this!
6. Step into the visualisation and really experience it as if it is now. This part of the visualisation is the really enjoyable bit. Rather than just seeing yourself doing it, actually step into the new you and experience it as if it is now. See things through your own eyes, hear what you will hear, feel what you will feel, experience what you will experience. You can walk through different scenes of your life and see how these changes have affected everything from what you drive to where you live and from how you live to what you wear.
7. Check the route map and take your own advice. From this new state look back to now and see how you got to where you’re going. Notice the key steps on the way, how you dealt with challenges and what you learned on your journey.

And then let yourself come back into now feeling positive and energised by the experience.

The more regularly you visualise what you want, the more powerful this technique will become for you. If at first your visualisation seems difficult to do, maybe because it is so stretching, then keep working on it until you have perfected it.

The experience that you can earn and have a lot of money is perhaps more important than actually having it. If you have a lot of money but you have no idea how to make more or where the next crate of money (!) is coming from then you are likely to be very cautious around money.

Self-made rich people do not like losing money but they don't live in fear. Their “experience” of actually making their money is an empowering one and allows them to make bold and positive decisions in their relationship with money.

Most people who don’t have money, not surprisingly, have the attitudes and actions of someone with little or no money. It is these actions that got them where they are in the first place and it is these actions that will hold them there. Likewise, rich people have the attitudes and actions of people with money. It is these actions that got and keep them where they are.

As someone once said, “Money breeds money.” This is a great belief if you have money but not such a good one if you don’t!

Our visualisation exercises help us to reshape our negative feelings about money and to act and feel like someone who deserves and has more money.

Step 5: Believe you can achieve your goals.

We talked earlier on about limiting beliefs and how they will hold you back. If limiting beliefs are like the braking system that holds you back, empowering beliefs are like the jet fuel that propels you forward.

I mentioned earlier on that I work with a lot of business people. Many of them do not have very empowering beliefs about what they can charge and how much money they can earn. Without the necessary beliefs they lack the jet fuel to propel their business and their personal finances forwards…

One business man I worked with was in a consultancy. He was adamant that $1000 (£500) per day was the going rate for consultancy and that was what he consistently charged. The more he asked for and received $1000 per day, the more he believed that was the going rate. The more he believed that was so, the less he could do about it.

After working with him to get him thinking about how much value he could add for his clients, how much they could make as a result of working with him, how much they all benefited, and underpinning this with evidence (real value in real monetary terms that he had added for clients); he totally overhauled and pimped up his belief system!

He went back out into the marketplace with a totally supportive and empowering belief system and his very next order was for $2000 per day.

Having the right belief system is the jet fuel behind helping you to make more money so get yourself down to the personal development gas station and fill up!

Take my personal situation as an 18 year old lad. If I had not listened to others and I had truly believed that I could earn $100k+ from selling vacuums then I would have gone for it. I wouldn’t have listened to others.

There are many beliefs that you need to work on cultivating if you want to make more money including…

• Being rich is my right.
• Being rich will allow me to live the life that I deserve.
• Being rich will bring me happiness and joy.
• Being rich will allow me to pursue my dreams and help others.
• There is unlimited opportunity out there for those who seek it.
• Anyone who applies themselves consistently to the right activities can be rich.
• I can earn X.
• I can bank X.
• I am worth at least X.
• I could go on…

Here’s the question to ask yourself…

“What do I need to believe to be rich?”

Many of the people that I work with who achieve quantum leaps in their business and personal success attribute this change in fortunes to the skills and techniques that I taught them. This is partly right as we clearly need the right skills and techniques for making money. I have however worked with people who I have taught little or nothing to in the way of skills or techniques and their personal fortunes have dramatically changed. I put this down to a change in their belief systems…

In a nutshell they move from, “I can’t” to “I can”. What do you need to believe to move yourself from doing the “can’t-can’t” to doing the “can-can”?

Continue to Part IV of How to make more money in 7.5 simple steps.

Step 2: Let go of limiting beliefs about money.

Having got a brief look into your own psyche it’s time to dig deeper still. We need to ferret out what’s holding you back. We need to take the brakes off your money earning motor and let it run more freely!

I’m not going to beat around the bush with you here as I won’t on any of this site because this site is about results and sometimes to get big results you need tough love…

You will have some limiting beliefs about money! Pretty much everyone does. I have never, to my knowledge, met anyone who doesn’t (although there will be a handful of people on the planet who don’t…).

If it makes you feel any better I’m going to put my hands up… despite the fact that I live and breathe this stuff I have limiting beliefs about money! They might not be as limiting as yours but they’re limiting none the less. Whether you think you can’t earn more than 50k, 100k, 250k or a cool million this year it’s still a limiting belief.

For several of the days I work each month, I charge for my time. I charge for a day more than most people earn in a month. When I tell people this figure most people think that it is outrageous. This is because they filter it through their own “limiting beliefs” about what they think is and is not an acceptable salary or charge out rate!

Conversely, if you asked Bill Gates to work for what I earn in a day he would laugh at you. His money probably earns more in interest in a few minutes that I earn in a day. He will no doubt earn in a day more than 99.9% of the population earn in a year…

Gosh!

So let’s look at some of the areas of limiting beliefs that will stop you earning more money…

• How much it is possible to earn e.g. “You cannot earn more than 50k doing this job.”
• How hard / long you have to work to earn however much you want to earn e.g. “If you want to earn 100k a year then you need to work every hour that there is.”
• What is and what is not an acceptable salary / wage e.g. “No-one is worth more than 100k a year.”
• How much you’re worth e.g. “I am not worth more than 100k a year.”
• How much you can charge e.g. “You cannot charge more than X.”
• What being rich means about you e.g. “Rich people are not nice people.”
• Etc. etc.

Only by becoming more aware of your beliefs can you break through the self-imposed barriers that you have placed on your earnings.

Over the years as a motivational speaker I have seen many salesmen and women earn 20k in their first year, 35k in their second and then be pushing 50k in their third. They look to be flying but then they take their foot off the pedal, stamp on the brakes and cruise at 50k for the next 10 years…

This is probably the limiting belief that 50k is all they are worth kicking in and holding them back..

What you believe about money will play a large part in determining how much of it you get. Gaining more self-awareness about your limiting beliefs is critical in how to make more money.

Step 3: Decide how much money that you want.

No seriously… you need to decide and only you can decide. This is a big moment! Choose wrongly and all you do is set another self-imposed barrier to your performance!

There’s no point in saying, “I want to be rich.” It doesn’t give your brain anything to work with. Nothing! Also, your concept of “rich” might not be enough!

I remember when I went for my first sales job. I was actually 18 and I was still living at home. There were a few “sensible” jobs lined up with “sensible” salaries but I still went for this interview selling (Dyson I think) vacuum cleaners. The job was self-employed, commission only and I was told that I could earn £50k+. That’s about $100k and this was 1984.

I was excited but several of the “grown up” people that I knew told me “not to be stupid” and “no-one earns that really” so, being a good boy, I didn’t take the job. Maybe I would have succeeded, maybe I would have failed but I allowed other peoples’ limitations and beliefs about money to stop me having the chance of earning what I wanted to earn. What’s worse I carried those limiting beliefs around for several years.

When you set yourself figures for how much money you want to earn and have, stretch yourself and shoot for the stars. Don’t let yourself be held back by past experiences, limiting beliefs, fear of failure or others.

Go for it!

Hey look, if you’re on 30k and you shoot for 100k and you “fail” and end up with 75k would that be such a bad thing?

Probably not!

Once you get going you’ll probably wish you set yourself a bigger target anyway so you might as well do it now! When I “upped” my daily rate a few years ago by a significant amount I fully expected that I was going to struggle to get the new rate (limiting belief). I didn’t and within weeks I was thinking that I should have set it higher!

Many people underestimate what they can really achieve if they truly go for it. Don’t be one of them! Look out for part III of How to make more money in 7.5 simple steps coming soon!

Or have you ever said to yourself, “I want to be rich!”, “I need more money” or “If only I could afford…”

Do any of these sum up your feelings and thoughts towards money?

If they do, then you need to keep on reading! In my “other life” as a motivational speaker I have the joy and pleasure of working with thousands of individuals and teams every year on a variety of subjects but despite this most have one thing in common – they would like to earn more money!

Some of them will. Some of them won’t. It’s that simple.

In “How to make more money in 7.5 simple steps” I am going to outline seven and a half simple yet profound strategies that you can use to improve your financial well being, your prosperity and your cash-flow. Whether you achieve that success or not however is down to you…

In my experience, most people seem to have an, at best, uneasy relationship with money. This is not surprising as many of our attitudes and feelings about money are determined unconsciously as we learned them from our parents, our teachers, our friends and our peers.

If they’re all loaded and have fabulous attitudes towards money then great but if they’re not then… oh dear!

But don’t worry because it’s never too late to start to reprogramme your mind, your feelings and your actions to set yourself off on the path to earning the money that you truly deserve.

Step 1: Assess your current beliefs about money.

As I already said, many people have an uneasy relationship with money. Much of this stems from our inherent beliefs about money and what it means to you.

Let’s have a look at a few common beliefs about money…

“Money doesn’t grow on trees you know?”

I was certainly told that as a child! If you accepted that as the truth, how do you think that would affect your attitude towards money? Would it be fair to say that it might make you cautious about how and what you spend money on? Would it also be fair to say that it might stop you spending money unneccessarily? On the other hand, might it not also make you cautious when investing in new ventures?

“Easy come, easy go.”

What would this tell you about money and about how to behave when you’re in its company! I have friends who say this every time that they get their cheque book out to buy something else that they don’t really want and they don’t really need. Most of them don’t have a bean to their name and if they lost their jobs they would be out on the streets within a couple of months… not good.

“Money is the route of all evil.”

Oh dear. Might this belief subconsciously sabotage you and your ability to earn more money? You betcha it might.

I could go on but I think you get the picture.

The first key to a financial makeover, or indeed for any major change in your life, is to assess and become more aware of where you are today. I want you to have a good old look at yourself and your relationship with and beliefs about money. Don’t cut corners on this exercise, it’s well worth the effort…

Continue on now to read part II of How to make more money in 7.5 simple steps.

Have you ever wanted to write a book? Take up a hobby? Learn a new language?

Do you know someone who wants to study for a new career? Spend more quality time with their children? Get fit and exercise more regularly?

Have you yearned to spend more time on the golf course? More time with your friends? More time pampering yourself?

Would you do more with your life if only you had more time?

It’s a common problem.

All of my life I have been interested in what motivates people, what makes people tick and why some people seem to get all of the breaks and all of the success whilst others seemingly achieve nothing.

Probably like me you've occasionally met someone who seems to have fitted into their life so much more than the average human being… we usually dismiss them as freaks, non-sleepers or super achievers.

I was listening to a conversation in an office the other day and it went a little like this…

“John ran a marathon last week. He trains for 2 hours every night you know.”
“Yes, I did and he just finished his Open University degree too. I’d like to do something like that but I just don’t have the time!”
“Me neither.”

How common is this kind of conversation?

“I would if only I had more time!”

Most of us hear it every day. Probably many of us say it too. We say things like, “I’m rushed off my feet” or “I can’t cope with everything I have to do” or “If only I had more time”.

So here’s my simple answer…

Stop watching television!

That’s it. Stop watching television!

Seriously, how much TV do you watch? When I walk into most houses the TV is on in the background… all of the time. When I get into offices in the morning all that people are talking about is what was on TV last night.

It’s laughable really. People who want more from their lives but spend their time living it vicariously through fictitious or reality TV stars.

How much more time would you have if you stopped watching TV? How much this evening? This week? This month? Over the next year? Over the next 10 years?

What could you do with that kind of time?

Could you learn a new language? Help out at the local hospice? Get out and take up that new sport? Learn to ride a horse? Learn how to invest well for your retirement? Set up a part-time business to get you out of debt or start you on your way to your fortune?

I’ve done a bit of research on TV watching for you just so that you know how much time really does get wasted on TV…

1 United Kingdom: 28 hours per person per week
2 United States: 28 hours per person per week
3 Italy: 27 hours per person per week
4 Ireland: 23 hours per person per week
5 Germany: 23 hours per person per week
6 France: 23 hours per person per week
7 Australia: 22 hours per person per week
8 Denmark: 20 hours per person per week
9 Netherlands: 20 hours per person per week
10 Belgium: 19 hours per person per week
11 Sweden: 18 hours per person per week
12 Norway: 18 hours per person per week
13 Finland: 18 hours per person per week

And what’s more TV is addictive!

The more you watch the more you want to watch. How many people do you know who rush home to watch certain TV shows abandoning other activities? How many people do you know who tape TV shows whilst they are out to watch them later on? How many people do you know who would get annoyed if they missed an episode of a favourite soap or series?

These are all signs of addiction. TV is an addiction and it’s one that takes over many people’s lives, disempowering them, seducing them and making them think that they don’t have enough time to do the things that they really want to do.

Several pieces of psychological research have suggested that TV can certainly become addictive and that heavy TV watchers display all the symptoms of a non-substance behavioral addiction. I know so many people who “want” to get fit but spend their time instead watching TV and opining that they “don’t have time” to go to the gym because they’re too busy.

I remember being introduced by a well-meaning friend to 24 – the fantastic series with Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. My friend lent me the box set and I watched the first couple and before I knew it I was hooked. I needed to know what happened to Jack. It really mattered to me.

I worked my way rapidly through the series and upon reaching the series cliffhanger got in my car and drove to the local video store to get series 2! I watched all 6 series’.

I don't know about 24 - more like Nightmare!

I was addicted… and for what? What did I get out of it? I wasted perhaps 120 hours or 15 full working days and how did I benefit exactly? Once I’d watched it what could I tell you about it? And even if I could, who cares?

Here’s some more stats…

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.

And some more stats…

• Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
• Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
• Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66
• Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
• Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
• Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
• Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion
• Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
• Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
• Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
• Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49

Pretty depressing reading huh?! What could you do with an extra 9 years of life? People spend fortunes on medical health care to get an extra few months at the end of their lives but piss up against the wall 9 years of quality life!

Wow!

But breaking habits is not easy… not easy at all. If you’re wasting your life away watching TV you need to do several things…

1. Think about how much of your life you’re throwing away.

Seriously! Work it out! And work it out now! Work out how much time you spend watching TV last week. Now multiply that by 52 weeks and then by 10 years to see how much time you waste watching TV every decade.

And be honest with yourself. Don’t underestimate like most people do, be realistic. TV sucks you in and we don’t realize just how much time it eats up.

Be realistic. Most people underestimate how much TV they actually watch. I used to say, “Oh I don’t really watch TV” but actually I still watched quite a bit whilst I was waiting for things to happen such as the food to cook.

2. Think about what this has cost you already.

Work out how much time you have spend watching TV to date in your life. How many years (?), months, weeks and hours have you spent watching TV?

Think what you could have done with that time. Think about how you’ve missed out. Think about all of the opportunities that you’ve already missed because of your love affair with the TV!

3. Decide what you’d like to achieve with that time.

Think about what you’re going to spend your newly found time on. What are you going to do? Why are you going to do it? How will you benefit by doing it? What will it mean for your finances, your social life, your hobbies, your prospects, your career and your personal wellbeing and fitness?

As a teenager and into my early twenties I was quite into fitness. I used to run 4-6 miles every day and exercise in the gym for another 45 minutes to an hour every day. Once a week I would run further, covering 8-10 miles. In the summer I used to go to a local track and do sprint work.

As I got older I decided consciously not to do so much exercise and gradually I let it slip still further. I got into the habit of saying “I don’t have time” but often I would find myself watching the TV rather than utilizing that time well.

I’ve gone back to exercising and this extra time has allowed me to take on new projects that I am passionate about such as The Big Fat Guru!

4. Visualize your new self.

Now take some time to visualize yourself in 5 years time. Just imagine - 5 years without the TV. What will you have achieved and done in that time? Where will you be? What will you have that you don’t have now? What will you do that you don’t do now? Who will you become?

Picture yourself in your new life and let yourself “experience” it in panoramic detail. The more you do and have fun with this exercise the more powerful it will become for you.

I’ll share with you my top tips for visualization for success another day… but for now, close your eyes, relax and picture your new you!

5. Create an action plan for getting started.

I’m bored of the hug a tree, rent a personal development coach, crowd banging on about how if you just focus on something it will happen.

Maybe it will just happen to happen for the lucky few but for 99% of people success requires action!

Here’s an important lesson for you… 99% of people who tell you success just happens when you imagine it happening are either not successful or are lying about how they actually achieved that success.

For sure, you want to eradicate negative and disempowering beliefs and you want to focus on what you want not what you don’t want but when you’ve done that you need to TAKE ACTION!

Once you know firmly what it is that you want to achieve with your time then you need to plan an action plan and take the first step…

6. Turn off the TV and go do something else less boring instead!

And for most people, turning off the TV and going to do something less boring instead would be a good first step!

Pick something interesting and exciting that you can do one evening this week rather than watching the TV. Decide to go swimming rather than go home and watch the soaps, take action and got out for a meal with friends rather than staying home and watching the box, read a good book rather than vegging in front of the depressing news.

You get the idea…

7. Share your experiences with us at The Big Fat Guru!

Life is a team game. It’s not something that you want to try and play all of the time by yourself. Most people around you are not going to be much use in supporting you in your goal to watch less TV because they watch too much themselves. They probably won’t understand where you’re coming from or what you’re trying to achieve. They’ll probably think that it’s some kind of fad that won’t last and that you’ll have forgotten about by next week!

9 years!

9 years! That’s what we’re talking about here. How hard would you fight now if someone set you a task to save 9 years of your life? Very hard I’d hazard a guess and that is exactly the task that you have just been set.

Share your experiences and tell us what you’ve done instead of watching the TV and most of all….

Have fun!

So here it is for the record, think big and set big goals!

If you’ve ever read a book on goal setting or personal development you will have read this somewhere or other. If you’ve ever had a boss who told you to set goals he will have said this to you at some point. If you’ve ever listened to a motivational speaker you will have heard this woven into the fabric of their talk…

As Les Brown says, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”

Or David Joseph Schwartz, "Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success."

Or Earl Nightingale, "To achieve happiness we should make sure that we are never without an important goal."

And Mark Victor Hansen, "Big goals get big results. No goals get no results or somebody else's results."

Let’s face it, everyone knows that they ought to set big goals. This is not a new concept. What’s interesting however is how few people actually do set big goals. Think about it for a moment…

• When was the last time you were enjoying a drink in your local pub and your mate who runs in the local running club every Thursday night came up to you and told you that he was going to run in the 2012 Olympics?
• Or when was the last time that your friend who canvasses for the local political party said to you, “I’m going to be the next prime minister or president?”
• Or the last time one of your friends said that they were going to chuck in their job and work 4 hours a week and become a millionaire?

Get my drift?

I once worked for a well know training company. They really liked the work of Anthony Robbins and several of their courses and programmes were based on Robbinsesque type material. I remember once saying, quite seriously, that I would like to be the “next Anthony Robbins” and they all looked at me like I was either a) mad, b) arrogant or c) both (aside - I have very different plans and goals now!).

Interesting.

So here were a group of people who teach goal setting and personal development. They’re all about thinking big, dreaming big and going for it but I had made them feel uncomfortable with my goal. Was this because I have had just started as an employee with them and I should have been in “humble learner” mode? Or was it because it was ok for me to be good but not that good? Or was it because they didn’t believe that they could be that good so therefore they could not believe that I could be that good either? Who know? Frankly, who cares?

Small minds limit dreams.

Remember that. I said we’d be straight in this column and we need to be because some personal development learns require tough love. If you set big goals people will rain all over your parade. All over it. Not just light April showers either but full on torrential typhoon-like downpours. Big storms. People do not like big goals, they make them feel uncomfortable and that’s before we consider how they might make you feel yourself!

And these are not small-minded people either.

Often times the barriers to thinking big are rooted in common wisdoms or perceived truths.

Stuff that is just accepted as true. Big lies if you like. They probably weren’t designed to hold you back but hold you back they will and do.

Here’s one I accepted as a truth…

"You cannot make millions out of a (non-fiction) book, you have to use it as a back end for bigger products and that’s where you make your money."

Now in this “truth” is a wisdom. It sure makes sense to have something else to sell. If you can sell 10,000 books and make $2 per book profit that’s ok but if you can upsell a product what makes profit of $100 to 10% of those people that bought a book that’s 1,000 times 100 = $100k. So good advice for sure but that does not hide the truth that there is a "dont think big" lie in there too… You cannot make millions out of a book…

Really….?

Go tell that to Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Stephen Covey. For sure, they all made big money from upselling seminars, audios etc but they did make millions from their books alone.

The problem is that people aren’t happy with setting uncomfortably big goals. We weren’t taught this way. We were trained to be accepting, to make the most out of our life, to do the 9 to 5, to be a good little "soldier". Most of us were not encouraged to think big.

We bought the mediocrity lie.

When you said that you wanted to play football for a living what did your teachers say? Or maybe you said you wanted to be a famous actor? Or a racing driver?

Few parents or teachers support these kinds of dreams…

And they’re right in some ways because not everyone can be the president. Not everyone can win the golf open. Not everyone can break the world mile record.

But most people do have more potential than they are currently using. And that’s the rub.

When I run seminars I ask people to set goals for the coming year. Few set what I would call big goals. Let’s say I am working with a sales team and I ask what they would all like to sell this year. Few tell me a figure that is significantly at odds with the target given to them by their managers. So if their manager has targeted them at 250k of sales they will tell me their goal is 250k of sales or at the outside 300k.

Why not $1 million?

So I think it’s time to test your limits. I am going to suggest some goals for you to think about. I am not for a moment suggesting that you want or have to go for any of these but we need to start somewhere and I want to help you to really get this. As I list each goal I want you to honestly think about how you would feel about setting this as a real goal for you. Not whether you want it or not but how you would feel if you wrote it down, committed to it, told everyone that you were going to achieve this, took consistent action towards achieving this, made your life achieving this…

• Become the prime minister or president of your country
• Become a top 5 in the world film actor or actress
• Live in a $10m house
• Have a fleet of $100k+ sports cars
• Own your own private jet
• Be the CEO of a billion dollar company

How did you do? I’m guessing you struggled with some if not all of them. Don’t worry. That’s to be expected. It’s your anti-ambition conditioning (AAC). This is a war you have to fight and you must win. You need to defeat your AAC and the only way you can do this is to start to think about what you really do want in your life and then to set some really big goals.

I remember looking for my first sales job. I hadn’t intended to get into sales but several people had suggested to me that I might be good at it so I thought, “What the heck, I’ll give it a go”. I had resigned from my last job and had looked up a couple of recruitment agencies who specialized in placing salespeople. I still remember the conversation I had with one of them. He was trying to “sell” me on a job with a basic of 15k but with an OTE of 50 to 75k. I told him that I wanted something more realistic, something that wasn’t just wishful thinking. Probably more like 15k with an OTE of 25k.

My conditioning stopped me thinking big. I thought that 50k was a ridiculous figure. My brain at that time could not cope with the idea of setting a goal to earn 50k or more!

Guess what I got? A job on 16k with a first year OTE of 25-30k. Touche.

A couple of years ago I set mnyself a goal to charge a certain amount per day and to only deliver seminars or keynote speeches a certain number of days per year. At the time that goal made me feel very, very uncomfortable indeed but time has proven that not only was my BIG goal not that BIG but actually that it wasn’t BIG enough.

I have since achieved it and have had to set new goals.

I don’t want to get into a political debate but it is quite topical to “rubbish” the salaries of “fat cat” CEOs these days saying that they are not worth the money and that no-one shoulod be paid that much. The media usually equate their salaries to how many shop floor workers the company could employ for the same figure. This seems to fire up rage in a large proportion of society, probably because they don'tt have this money or do not have any belief that they will ever have this amount of money.

If you want to set big financial goals the last thing you want to do is join in with this conversation. You need to forge your own path. See, the way I see it you can either sit around moaning about it or you can use this information to challenge yourself to set yourself a bigger goal.

Several speakers allegedly charge 50 -100 thousands pounds (GBP) for a one hour speech. Are they worth it? Who knows! But what they really demonstrate is that it is possible so use the information around you to set yourself a bigger goal.

We’ll talk more about big goals int the future but for now I challenge you to share your big goals in public and on this blog. Batter through your AAC and do it, now!

The first are people who are new to goals, goal setting and personal development. If this is you and you are thinking, “What goals should I set?” don’t worry! This is a very common question and a good one to ask. This article will help you to answer it and to get started setting some goals that can you more of what you want in your life.

The second group of people approaching goal setting are those who already set goals. You set goals already because you know how effective they are. You set goals already because you understand how much focusing on your own personal development and personal success can improve so many aspects of your life. You know that if you get one new thing or “remind” yourself of one core truth in this article then that could bring massive benefit for you.

The third group are the, “I don’t see the point of setting any goals” group. I hear you. This is a very common stance particularly in today’s society when people see goals as something that’s done to them and not something that they do for themselves. If you are in this group it might make sense to read my article “Why people don’t set goals even though they know that they should” before you continue with this article. On returning to this article you will find it helps you to set goals that you will see the point in setting.

Effective goals setting is all about setting the right goals. Setting goals that mean something to us. Setting goals that are in alignment with our values. Most people set goals that they were told to set or that they feel that they ought to set…

• Salespeople chase targets set by their sales managers and directors.
• Teenagers chase careers that their parents have coerced, convinced, cajoled and indoctrinated them to pursue.
• Dieters set goals based on idealistic visions of beauty from magazines, models and their imagination.

You get the idea!

This kind of goal setting is no fun and is ultimately doomed to failure. Failure when you don’t achieve your goals and failure when you do!

When you set the right goals, goal setting is not like this. The right goals will motivate you. The right goals will empower you. The right goals will get you up early in the morning and keep you up late at night. The right goals will be in total alignment with your values and beliefs and every step you take towards achieving them will be an achievement in of itself.

Effective goal setting is also about setting goals that are all about what you want rather than what you don’t. When you think about these core areas that we are going to discuss make sure that you think about your goals in the positive (“I want to work with children and young people”) and not the negative (“I don’t want to be stuck in a stuffy office with a bunch of suits”). We’ll talk more about this and how to set goals another day but in the meantime, think in the positive…

Effective goal setting is about setting goals for all of your life. Many people only set goals for their career and theirfinances with the occasional weight loss goal at New Year! This is a fundamentally flawed plan as chasing one goal in one area of your life at the expense of all other areas of your life is likely to lead to imbalance and collapse. Even if you do want and do achieve your goal the end result could be catastrophic.

To help you with some ideas for what you should set goals about and to make sure you set goals across all areas of your life we are going to look at the core areas within which you should be setting general and specific goals.

1. Money and finance.

Despite my protestations to the contrary earlier on in this article you should set money and finance goals. Many people fail to set any goals around this area and consequently fail to ever achieve anything.

One delegate I worked with had no goals in this area and no guidelines. Every month he spent his salary before the end of the month and every month he went further into debt. In today’s society of buy now pay later many people are on the slippery slope to financial ruin. Their short term goal is to get everything that they want as fast as possible! Their long term goal has not been thought through at all.

When I first started out in my career I wanted to save money but I never seemed to get around to it. I had no goal and no plan and I most definitely had no money. Once I set a goal to save a certain amount of money every month leading to a bigger finiancial goals I had a plan. I needed to deduct money from my salary every month to save towards my goal.

Another goal I set was for my daily charge out rate as a consultant. At the time I set this rate I had no idea whatsoever how or if I would ever hit it. It seemed a pipe dream to many around me. Within 5 years however I had overachieved my goal and had “reset” it twice… but more about how to set your sights on the stars and the importance of thinking big in another article (That said, if you haven’t read The Magic of Thinking Big then you really should).

2. Career and work.

In my experience many people are going through the motions in their careers. They go to work at 9am and come home at 5pm day in, day out. It’s just like the Sheena Easton song, “My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine till five and then, he takes another home again”, over and over!

Now there is nothing wrong with this if you are doing what you want to do and you are on path… It’s when you’re not that the problems occur and most people aren’t.

By a certain age many people fail to set goals for their careers and their work believing instead that they have found their place in life. The can dream of other things, they can wish for other things but they cannot have them. That’s the sort of thing that only happens to others.

By setting goals for our career and our work we can start to reclaim our right to build the career and life that we want.

Most people set goals around work like… doing as little as possible, getting home early on Fridays, getting a small bonus at the end of the year. This is fine if this is what you really want but for many it isn’t, they’ve just long forgotten what they really do want.

Spend some time and think about what you want now and set some goals around this are.

3. Loving relationships.

How many people do you think have settled for relationships that are less than they want. I have no idea what the answers is but, as a citizen of this world, my firts thought would be… quite a lot.

Many people set a goal of just being in a relationship (“I want a partner”) but none around the actual quality of the relationship itself. This will often see the relationship bounce around on the turbulent waters of life before being smashed apart on the rocks. Ouch!

Think about what you really wantout of your relationship and set some goals around this area. Once you have some goals you can start to think about what you need to do to bring them to fruition.

One friend of mine set a goal that he wanted his relationship to always be as fresh and as exciting as it was when he and his partner first met. Colleagues and peers told him that this was impossible and that life just wasn’t like that! My friend, in partnership with his wife, worked out what they would need to do to head towards that goal and he and his wife set out in pursuit of their goal.

They’re 10 years into their marriage now and seem, if it’s possible, even happier than they were when they first met.

4. Family and friends.

How many people do you know who would like better relationships with their family and their friends? It shocks me how many people wish they had closer relationships with their mothers, fathers, siblings and extended familes.

It’s not surprising that in the close-knit bosom of many familes, relationships come under strain and resentment and ill-feeling grows. Spending time to set goals around your perfect relationships with your family and your friends will help and guide you in taking the actions that you need to take to bring that to reality.

5. Social activities and hobbies.

Want to learn a language? Leran to play the piano? Travel the world? Got to the pub more often? Got to the pub less? Play tennis? Do regular exercise?

Most people would like to spend more time doing something. Many people would like to do things that they have never done at all. In a world of infinite opportunities this is a shame.

Many of these things may not attract you any more but some may. Taking the time to think about what you really want to do in your spare time and setting goals around it will help you to focus your attention onto activities that get you more of that you want in your life.

6. Personal develoment / spirituality.

By personal development or spirituality I am talking about bettering yourself. About learning things. About improving. About seeking out to be everything that you can be.

I am not just talking about religion… although, for some, this is exactly what I am talking about.

Failing to include personal development goals is a mistake. Growth is important for humans as a race and people are happier when they feel that they are growing.

Goals in this area could be things around religion, personal development, learning stuff, communicating getter etc.

7. Health and fitness.

Far too people set decent health and fitness goals. Many people set dieting goals or weight goals but these are not necessarily the same thing at all.

Health and fitness is something that many people do not take seriously when they have it but is something that everybody should set goals around if we want to keep it.

I used to run competitively and for years afterwards I ran 6 or 7 days a week and visited a gymn at least three times a week. I also ate incredibly healthily. About 5 years ago I realised that it was 15 years since I had run any kind of reace or competition and that I had no plans to ever do so again.

I was also very busy with work so removing my old goal was welcome. Unfortunately, I “forgot” to set another goal to replace this one and over the next few years found myself not do anything enough exercise and eating poor food when I was travelling and in transit! 5 years on I am paying the price of my lack of health and fitness goals as I am having to work hard to meet my newly set goals to get me back to where I want to be.

What to do now!

I hope that this article has got you thinking about the infinite number of goals that you can set and the wide variety of areas in which you can set them. Your next step is to start to think about what goals you would like to achieve in each of these areas. Get your personal development logbook or if you haven’t got one your diary or a large piece of paper and head it with one of the areas we have talked about. Underneath scribble down everything you would like to do or ever thought about doing in this area.

At this stage it matters not where you are in relation to that goal or how likely you think it is that you think you can achieve it. The important thing is that you let you mind be more open to possibility and you capture that creativuty and energy. To get your mind in gear think about what you wanted to do when you were a child, a teenager, between 20 and 30, between 30 and 40 and so on…

We’ll be talking more about goals, setting big goals and avoiding roadblocks in the near future. In the meantime, get thinking about what you want to achieve and look through my recommended resources below.

Have your say:

Why not share some of your ideas, goals and experiences by commenting below.

There has been a lot of hype about this book. Some of it good, some of it bad. Take two conflicting and contrasting review comments on Amazon…

* 5-Star highly recommended, "A must read"

* 1-Star Shameless Self-promotion, "Please - please - don't waste your time with this book. Catchy title - but that's about it."

One thing is for sure, this book has generated a lot of chatter and a lot of reviews and they're pretty diverse. Some of it is vary negative saying that Timothy is exploiting people in the 3rd world, being underhand and devious, lacking integrity… and far more besides. It made me want to know what all of the noise is about. I could go on but if you want to read the rest go and read them yourself here.

In my opinion the reason for this avalanche of conflicting feedback is the whole concept behind the book. Think about it… To even consider a 4-hour working week or anything near it you are going to have to throw away many assumptions and practises that you currently have. You are going to have to break the mould and act radically differently to those around you. You are going to have to forge a different path. Let's tweak a well-known NLP tenet for our own purposes here…

If you do what everyone else is doing, you'll get what everyone else is getting.

99.99% of people do what everyone else is doing. They go to work for around about 9. They leave around about 5. They take lunch breaks. They work for someone else. They start work after school or university and then they retire as early as they can. Sometimes they get adventurous and take a gap year or a career break. Some even retrain and do something else…

Timothy proposes something else. Something radically different. And it is different. This, as Tim says himself in his opening chapters, is going to push a lot of people outside of their comfort zones. People don't like it when someone challenges their "comfy" existence. They lash out. Surely, their world must be real. So they go on the attack to prove and pretend that "their" world is the only possible reality.

A couple of the reviews even claim that Timothy's material is stolen from Jack Canfield, Michael Gerber and others but this is not true. For sure, many of his principles have been tried and tested elsewhere but Tim takes them on to another level, he puts a personal and more radical twist on them. Certainly Jack and Michael obviously did not think he had plagiarised their material when they said,

"It's about time this book was written. It is a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and Tim Ferriss is the ideal ambassador. This will be huge."
Jack Canfield

"The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work?  A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it!"
Michael E. Gerber

The BFG's thoughts…

This is a good book and well worth the cover price. One reviewer said that it was "overpriced"… they must have approached it with the wrong head on.

This book does exactly what it sets out to do. It outlines a radically different and mind-stretchingly challenging approach to time management, work ethics, career and life. There are tactics and tips in here for everyone. I have worked incredibly long hours, been involved with SME set up businesses, played the corporate game, worked for myself and consulted with businesses from one man bands to major corporates. If you choose to look for it there is something in here for everyone. IF.

What's more, it is an enjoyable read. I read this book in one sitting without putting it down and I knew from the first few pages that this would be the case.

I do not want to work a 4-hour week. I do not want to spend huge amounts of time in Berlin, Thailand or Argentina. I do not want to do many of the things that Tim has done. But I can apply many of these things to get me more of what I want. The art and skill of personal development is in taking someone else's material and making it work for you. That is what you need to do with this book.

What will you get out of this book?

• An enjoyable read and an interesting story
• Your ideas and perceptions about what you "have to do" and how you "have to act" - seriously challenged
• Some sound concepts for you to adapt and play with particularly around time management and personal effectiveness
• Several resources to help you apply the techniques

My favourite concepts and ones I will be picking up, expanding upon, testing out and trying and discussing with you are on outsourcing, email and prioritising. So look out for those in the weeks and months to come.

I recommend that you read The 4-Hour Workweek. I think it is unlikely that you will follow all of the ideas inside of it nor do I think you should. Its unlikely you will choose to copy Timothy Ferriss' life but this is not the aim of this book. Read it. Challenge yourself. Find better ways to work and be more effective.

See look, it's 900am, I've finished this and I have not checked my email yet. That does feel better already!