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There is a huge problem that is present in the mindsets of most people today. The problem we’re talking about is the thought that constantly seems to be in people’s heads, which is telling them that they shouldn’t have to work hard since life will soon get easier. Most people seem to think that they’ll easily get rich, become more confident, or lose a ton of weight without changing their diet or exercising.
People get blinded with what they see on TV and on the Internet. Following Instagram accounts of the rich and famous makes us want to live how they’re living. However, most don’t even stop to think about the work these people had to put in just to get to where they are now. It takes a person with a lot of mental strength and confidence to make their dreams become a reality.
As rational adults, we’re expected to act normal and never take risks. But, playing it safe won’t really help you get anywhere in life. Sure, it could help you find a somewhat stable, but boring job with an okay salary that would provide you with enough money to pay your bills, buy food, and maybe rent an apartment and buy a car. However, this will cause you to hate your job and spend your free time wondering when your fifteen minutes of fame will come. Unfortunately, the harsh truth is that those fifteen minutes won’t ever come if you don’t start actually working towards achieving your dreams.
We constantly get told that a job is better than no job, even though we know how much we actually hate everything about our job. Doing something you hate almost every day will make you feel miserable and hopeless. It will make you lose all motivation and forget about the dreams you once had. But, if you want to make your dreams become a reality, you will need to forget about your boring daily routine and playing it safe. In order to make something out of nothing, you will need to become fearless and start facing every challenge that comes your way.
If you want to have an easy life, then you can have it. Living an easy life means taking no risks, right? So, stay at your same old, unfulfilling job, don’t ever try anything new, and repeat the same routine after coming home from work each day. Does that really sound fun to you? Because that’s exactly what an easy life looks like. It’s the same life that will make you an incredibly shallow person, who is terrified of change.
On the other hand, if you’re ready to start making it happen, then the first thing you’ll need to do is start preparing yourself for failure, rejection, struggle, and embarrassment. Get ready for your first business idea to fail miserably. But remember, how you react to failure is what will set you apart from everyone else. If you take the time to learn from your mistakes, you will become a stronger individual. You’ll learn not to let failure, rejection, or embarrassment get in the way of your goals.
Wishing that life will become easier is the wrong way of thinking. Instead, you should start wishing about becoming the person that is able to take on life. Stop playing the lottery – instead, focus on learning a skill that will increase your salary. Quit taking those diet pills – instead, start eating healthier and head down to the gym! In order to make it happen, you’ll have to work hard. But, when all is said and done, you’ll learn why life really is precious. Only after you’ve suffered failure, rejection, struggle, and loss to achieve success will you find out how incredible of a journey life can be.

– Scott Blessing

Life seems to be a rush to get things done. We are motivated to accomplish tasks and achieve great things in our careers and educations. However, what does that mean for the bigger picture? What do these things do for helping you find your purpose in life? Is there a benefit to finding that one true purpose?
Let’s try to answer some of these age-old questions.

You Live Longer
Finding your purpose makes you live longer. That’s right. According to an article published by the Huffington Post, researchers found that those who find their purpose in life live longer. The benefit is seen no matter at which age you find your particular purpose. The research did discover that those who found the thing that drives them early on in life had much higher longevity benefits than those who found it later in life.

Why does this happen?
One of the reasons that researchers proposed there was an increase in longevity for those who had discovered their purpose was that they had a sense of direction after they had left the workplace. Many adults find that when they retire and have no sense of purpose, they don’t do much. Those who are not driven by their personal mission face higher mortality rates than those who have a strong sense of purpose.

It Makes You Happier
How does having a strong purpose make you happier than those who have not found their purpose in life? Well, Psychology Today has an excellent explanation of why this works. If you believe in something with your whole heart, a setback will have much less of an effect on you than if it is something you are not driven to achieve. While a person with no purpose would get angry and stew over the trouble, you with your strong sense of purpose just keep truckin’.
Also noted in the same article was how people will begin to draw on their sense of purpose when they are facing tough times. The ability to call upon something you believe to be greater than yourself when you are facing a difficult moment can help sustain you. This sense of fulfillment will keep you going and keep you feeling happier through even the most difficult times.

It Keeps You Present
In modern society, we tend to spend a lot of time either in the past or thinking about the future. We borrow time and forget to use the time we are currently to the best of our ability. One thing about finding your purpose is it makes you stay in the present moment by allowing you to focus on how you can achieve the most for your purpose today.
People who have truly found their drive do not want to put it off until tomorrow. The Huffington Post notes that individuals with a purpose will make time to be present and focused on their driven mission every day. Even if it is only for a few moments each day, they still make that commitment.

How Do You Find Your Purpose?
Many people have asked this one question throughout the years. What do I need to do to find my purpose?
While there is no set answer for everyone, one way is to visualize what you would do if all of your needs were taken care of. If you had all the food, shelter, money, and safety, you needed; what would you do with your time? Would you save the rainforests? Would you bake? Would you care for your family members? Whatever your answer is, this is likely going to be related to your purpose.
Moreover, yes, while we would all like to sit on a beach with a Pina colada, eventually that gets boring, as it is human nature to lead a constructive life. So what would you do once the feeling of freedom wore off and the boredom set in? If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?
That is your purpose.

– Scott Blessing

Have you ever heard the term “Stinkin’ Thinkin’?” Well, traditionally stinking thinking was thought of as a way for others to influence you, positively or negatively. Stinking thinking has been used by mass media organizational management and advertising to create biases and influence your decision-making ability for a long time.
Psychology Today has a great definition of Stinking Thinking “Language fosters a bad way of thinking that makes you believe you will fail, that bad thing will happen to you, or that you are not a very good person.”
Guess what?
Big businesses are not the only ones who employ these tactics. We often use these same tactics on ourselves.
How many times a day do you look in a mirror and critique your physical appearance?

How often do you call yourself stupid?

Have you told yourself repeatedly you aren’t cut out for your job?

When was the last time you berated yourself for the way you handled a situation with your children?

All of these are examples of our inner dialogue using stinking thinking to manipulate our actions and outcomes. You may be thinking that the negative self-talk isn’t a big deal. However, there are plenty of people who will disagree with you.

Your Beliefs Shape Behavior
Guess what? The more you tell yourself something, the more it becomes a reality. A true belief you hold about yourself. If you believe, you are capable and worthy of your job, your actions are going to reflect those beliefs. You are going to look or ways that show how capable and worthy you are.
You will even perform better at tasks than those with more experience than those who have more experience. Psychology Today notes that overconfident people are evaluated with higher abilities even by objective parties.

Research also shows that when you have negative self-thoughts, like those associated with shame. You tend to have behaviors that will reinforce those thoughts. You become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Undermining your efforts to change and even participating in self-sabotaging behavior are all characteristics of how your beliefs shape your behavior.
This starts the nasty, or positive, (depending on your thought train) cycle.
Because…

Your Behavior Reinforces Your Beliefs!

As crazy, as this sounds follow me on two thought trains. First, we are going to follow the thought train from a person who believes they are competent at work and a good person at heart.

The positive thoughts cause the person to seek out opportunities to work.

The opportunities turn into positive experiences and give them an edge in their performance.

Their higher performance reinforces the idea that they are competent, praise from others at work (performance reviews) shows them they are a good person.

Now let’s look at someone who doesn’t think they are smart enough for their job and they feel shame about their intelligence.

The negative thoughts cause the person to avoid difficult or challenging tasks on the job.

Avoiding tasks at work leaves them more behind and unable to get caught up.

Negative performance reviews about the amount of work done reinforce the idea that they are too dumb to have the job in the first place.

Are these overly simplistic? Yes. However, don’t discount the theory. Forbes Magazine notes that you draw conclusions about yourself by looking at evidence that reinforces your beliefs. This phenomenon is called confirmation bias, and we all have it. If we believe something, we look for ways to prove it. For a successful person, each good deed is proof of their worth. For the individual who is telling himself or herself they don’t deserve their position, each mistake they make is another nail in the proverbial coffin.
Your thoughts will determine your behavior and shape the way you view yourself. The amazing thing about this is you can set intentions daily to think great and positive things about yourself. If you suffer from stinkin’ thinkin’, then it may take practice. But you too, can become a master of confidence and eventually your performance will follow.

– Scott Blessing

The Times They Are A’ Changin’
What a crazy time we are living in. The sixth global mass extinction, Species are dying and disappearing at an unprecedented rate in the short history that is humanity. Global warming is happening. Whether humanity is the cause of it or not is debatable, but scientists show us that over millennia, the earth has warmed and cooled periodically. We are in fact still in the tail end of an ice age: there have been times in earth’s history when there was no ice at all upon the globe. The fact that there are still polar ice caps is the testament to the ice age we are still in.
Whatever the cause, the planet is going through massive change and upheaval.
Weather patterns and tectonic plates are shifting. Earthquakes are in fact the norm over the span of the globe. Sea levels are rising as the ice caps are melting. Habitats are destroyed and not just for the animal kingdom. Whole islands and nations are going under; people are being displaced. Moreover, even though, according to some historians, we are living in the most peaceful times ever, the horrors and atrocities of war are thrown at us daily on our television screens.
On top of all this, or maybe instead of you may be going through a rough patch in your personal life. Possibly, you have lost your job, going through a divorce or break up and finding that your life is suddenly filled with uncertainties and upheaval. Without positive coping skills this situation can quickly spiral out of control causing harm to your mind (depression and anxiety), body (stress and overwhelm) and spirit (loos of hope, comfort, and quality of life).

It is easy to get overwhelmed and freaked out during such times. How do we cope, and what can we do in the face of all this sorrow?

How Can We Find Hope?
One of the most powerful practices we can implement to counterbalance all of this is to practice the art of gratitude. Sure, you’ve probably heard this before but how often do you truly feel grateful for all the blessings in your life? To really experience, the feeling of gratitude is to bring a mindset of abundance and wealth into manifestation.

The Art Of Gratitude
Start by writing a “gratitude journal”: at the end of each day, write down 10 things that you are grateful for. Do this every evening, and within one month you will have written evidence of 300 things you are grateful for!
When you start to feel grateful for every little thing in your life, from the miracle of running water to electricity, to your fridge, to gasoline for your car, a warm house, clothes to wear, food to eat and a bed to sleep with blankets to keep you warm, you will find hope. When you consider your friends, family, and community, to the beauty of nature in a leaf or a twig, to the smile of a stranger and the embrace of a loved one, you can find comfort in the feelings of gratitude and your outlook can and will change for the better. Miracles of wealth, abundance, and healing occur when we make gratitude the cornerstone of our existence. Try it for one month, and document the results, noticing any changes in how you feel about yourself and your journey through this world.

Mindfulness
Another powerful tool to help you keep your attention on each moment as you live it is mindfulness. Paying full and close attention to what you are doing, at the moment, as you are doing it, will keep you in a state of connectedness, both to yourself and simultaneously to all of life. The master of mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, speaks eloquently about how all things are interconnected. Thus, our practice can and does affect the whole. We can change the world, by changing ourselves, one mindful step at a time.

To Sum Up
By making simple changes to our mindset, by practicing gratitude and mindfulness on a moment-by-moment basis, we will increase our own happiness levels, build inner resilience, and develop a greater sense of well-being, helping us to navigate through these transitional times with hope, grace, and a stronger sense of possibility.

– Scott Blessing

The biggest question here, perhaps, is when you are faced with a challenge, how do you respond? Do you immediately start thinking of ways that you can tackle it, or do you find yourself saying that nothing is going to work? If you are the latter, why do you focus on finding reasons that something will fail?
The difference between those who are successful and those who are not (whether it’s in life, business, or health) is simple: successful people have a determination to make any situation work. Some people suggest that it’s a matter of background, resources, connections, or luck that creates success. While all of those may be contributing factors, self-belief is even more important.
Okay, so not every idea will pan out for every person, however, if you believe in something (and yourself) then you’ll find that changes how you think can improve your self-confidence. If you want to ride the path of success, it’s important that you understand how your brain will play tricks on you. Your brain, of course, is more interested in keeping you alive than it is in your life plans and goals. We are suffocated by procrastination, anxiety, self-doubt, and negative thoughts. There are plenty of ways to overcome those, and it’s by believing in yourself.
Think about this, how can anyone else believe in you, if you don’t have faith in yourself? If you aren’t convinced by your ability to succeed, no one else will be. Imagine you want to build a successful business. You need investors to help you make that happen, and you have to convince them you’re a good choice. You have to believe in your concept, otherwise, no one else will.
If you find yourself struggling with self-confidence then you’ll know that everything feels like an obstacle, no matter what you want to achieve. Self-confidence comes from within you, so start believing in your abilities.
It’s all about picturing the finish line and visualizing the steps required to get you there. When you break it down into steps (or laps), suddenly you start believing in your abilities, because your goal seems more achievable.
Part of succeeding is a positive attitude. Your attitude makes a massive difference and negativity is the easiest way to ensure you never achieve a goal. With self-belief, however, you will possess a positive attitude. You cannot convince a negative person that they can do something, just like you will not be able to convince a positive person that they will fail.
If you believe in yourself, failure will be like water off a duck’s back, because you understand that it’s temporary. Failure is simply part of life’s process. It’s just like that well-worn phrase, “if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try, tries again.” Failure should not stop you, it should simply propel you to try harder, or try a different way.
If you believe in yourself, you will start to feel negative thoughts fading away. When you let go of the negative thoughts that fill your mind, you can replace them with positive thoughts. Just think about how often you have told yourself that you cannot do something. Unfortunately, for most of us, it is far more common than we would like to admit. It is almost an instinct, simply because the brain loves to find ways to rationalize things. An excuse may seem a reasonable response, but it is filling you with self-doubt and slowing you down.
Feed your brain with affirmations of self-belief and build positive thoughts. If you do this, there will be no room in your mind for thoughts of negativity and pessimism. If they pop into your mind from time to time, you will find that your self-belief will quickly erase and replace them.

– Scott Blessing

According to popular belief on average, we are only using 10% of our potential. That means that you can be 10 times more productive, thus successful than you are now. There are claims that the number is much lower, at just 2%, regardless, it is clear we are living far below our potential. We are selling ourselves short, constantly creating reasons that will justify and rationalize a lack of success of the poor performance.
There are three big lies that we often tell ourselves which feed our inability to live to our fullest potential.
Lie 1. Beating yourself up is productive. We spend a lot of energy telling ourselves they were just not good enough, which leaves little energy left for everything else. You find yourself reading and taking quizzes to uncover your hidden talents, and what job is right for you. You focus on what others are doing, and pretty much everywhere else but on you. We limit our potential by failing to focus on what we truly want, and what we are passionate about.

Lie 2. Failure, fear, and sorrow don’t feature in life fulfilling potential. This is downright wrong. Part of living to your full potential is embracing fear and failure, and acting anyway. We view things, as they are, not how they should be.

• Lie 3. Telling yourself, you are not good enough. That is what you’re doing when you kick yourself for not achieving your full potential. It’s a lie and it is disempowering. Let go of the lie and choose empowerment, because the choice is always yours.
  Just as there are three lies, there are three ways to ensure that you are living to your full attention.
  Clarify. It’s time to develop your long-term vision. Now, skip ahead five (or ten) years, and what type of life do you see for yourself? What job will you have, what life will you lead? What type of success do you wish to have achieved? How do you imagine yourself feeling about yourself?
• Set Goals. You have your vision, now you need to shape it into goals that are specific and actionable. Come up with at least 10 goals that you would like to achieve professionally and personally. Review your list and choose the goal that will make the biggest difference in your life. Create a timeline and milestones on how you will achieve it.
• Win. Creating winning habits is crucial to success. The habits that you have now are responsible for your performance, skill set, and the success that you have today. If you aren’t happy with your success, then it’s vital to adopt new, winning habits. The most important of which is self-discipline. This is the ability to motivate yourself to do what you need to be doing, even when you don’t feel like it.
  Living up to your potential doesn’t mean avoiding failure or mistakes. It means embracing those things and plowing ahead. It means choosing you, and doing things one-step a time, doing it your way. Remember that life is not about pleasing everyone around you, rather about pleasing yourself.
  Don’t get caught up in the belief that others are better or more capable than you are. You can achieve those same things. Nor should you hold yourself back from achieving everything you want, just because you’re worried about upsetting the apple cart.
  It’s your life, live it however you want to, and by choosing to live up to your full potential, you are giving yourself permission to be you. You will feel empowered, excited, determine, proud, and even scared. That does not happen by accident, it is because you choose it.

  – Scott Blessing

Success. It’s a big word, and its meaning can be different for every person you ask. How do you achieve success? What are the best strategies to help you get to that top tier of performance in your life?
Let’s take a look at 15 hands-on strategies to achieve success.

Define Success
This is probably the hardest thing that you will ever do. People always say they want to be successful, but they have never defined what success looks like for them personally. If success for you means career advancement and monetary goals, how far do you want to go for work? How much money will mean you have been successful? If your idea of success has enough time for your family every night, without worrying about bills, how do you achieve this? Now you may not know how you are going to achieve your success right away. However, you cannot go any further without knowing what success looks like for yourself. If success is living debt free, then you can begin to build a plan to find your success.

• Don’t Be Someone Else
  Many people will tell you that you should emulate those who are successful. While trying to find success and imitating the type of success you want that you see in others, do not forget that you are not someone else. You are your own person, not your boss, your dad, or your neighbor. Life Hacker says that if you forget to do things that work for you because you are seeking your personal success you may find that you lose yourself and sight of your success on the way.
• Embrace your limitations
  Embracing your limitations is not about giving up because there are things you cannot do. Forbes magazine recommends that you identify what your limits are so that you can understand when you are facing an obstacle that can be overcome or an actual limit. An example of a limit would be a person with night blindness couldn’t drive at night. Once you know when you are facing an obstacle, you know it can be overcome, no matter how hard it may seem. Anything outside your limitations is only an obstacle.
• Dream It
  This may sound a lot like knowing what success looks like to you, but it is a little different. When you dream about your success, you need to touch and taste how it feels to be successful. Forbes recommends that you dream about your success by visualizing it daily so that you are already successful in your mind. Once you believe you are successful, your actions will reflect the success that you know you have.
• Set Goals Daily
  Setting daily goals is going to get you into a mind frame of achievement. Entrepreneur magazine notes that successful people are always goal driven people. They plan their days with to-do lists that make sure their energy is spent on goal-oriented work. If you don’t have goals on your way to success come up with five goals, you can do daily that will allow you to achieve your vision of success.

When wording these goals, it is always better to write them as if they have already happened. This doesn’t give your brain any room to back out! An example would be “I will not watch more than ½ hour of TV a day.” Should be written as “I only watch a ½ hour of TV a day.”

• Check Lists
  If you have ever heard of Motivational Guru Chalene Johnson, you know that the best way to achieve success is through checklists. She has an entire 30-day program that teaches you how to organize your goals and your time in a way that keeps you motivated. Checklists will let you see your productivity and keep you honest about how you are hitting your goals.
• Engage in Self Improvement
  By now, you know what you want, you have a good idea of what you are achieving every day, and you probably know where you are coming up short. This is why you must engage in self-improvement daily. Whether you lack time management skills or you notice you’re unorganized; engaging in self-improvement daily is going to help you get to your end-state success faster than if you ignore the areas that you have weakness in.
• Do The Worst Task
  Brian Tracy wrote a wonderful book called Eat That Frog. It outlines 21 ways to stop procrastinating and get more done. The number one thing he says to do every day is to eat that frog. What does that mean? Eating the frog is to complete your most hated task first. Get it over and done with. Doing this will free you up to get many more tasks done, without having to spend energy dreading the task you don’t want to do.
• Utilize The Compound Effect
  Darren Hardy wrote The Compound Effect, where he describes phenomena where people’s good habits build upon themselves and form success. If you make small changes, daily, those changes make big impacts over time. Use this to your advantage and make 2-3 small changes in your attitude or work habits that will end up being big success down the road. Whether you are making five more sales calls at the end of the day (ends up being 1,225 calls over a year) or you pledge to skip your cream in your coffee, which is only 100 calories a day, but could equal a 10 lb. the difference over a year. The compound effect can work in any area of your life.
• Recognize Habits
  Habits are good and bad. Charles Duhigg explains in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business; why many people fall into the trap of unsuccessful careers because they become stuck in habit loops. Becoming aware of your actions and forming productive habits will set you up for success.
• Love Failure
  You will fail, and it will happen repeatedly. It is ok. Learn to love it so that you can get up and keep going. The only path to success is knowing that you can get over the feeling of failure so that you can rise to the next opportunity.
• Don’t Doubt Yourself
  Self-doubt can be a huge killer of motivation and production. In the book, “You Are A Bad Ass,” author Jen Sincero discusses how self-doubt can stop even the strongest person from achieving their goals. Thinking you don’t deserve something ultimately leads to actions that will sabotage your success, always believe you are worth your success.
• Take Care Of Your Health
  Whether you are taking care of chronic illness or making sure you eat right and exercise often, your health is an asset in your success. Entrepreneur recommends that you recognize your health as a skill that you cannot afford to lose. Keeping healthy will set you up for success in your later years as well as give you the stamina to keep going when others are quitting.
• It Won’t Fall In Your Lap
  What many people make the mistake of thinking is that success will just find them. That is not going to happen. You are going to have to go out and find it yourself. Pick The Brain notes that if you have a lazy streak, you are going to have to get rid of it fast. People who aren’t willing to chase success probably won’t find it.
• Say No to Naysayers!
  People are going to doubt your dream. It will happen all the time. All you have to do is ignore them. Say no to their negativity and ignore the people who say you can’t make it. You have your plan for success, you know you can do it!
  Now you have several plans for making success happen. All you have to do is chase it down!

  – Scott Blessing

Do you find yourself merely surviving or is your focus on thriving? People who thrive are focused on how they can reinvent themselves, and be a success, despite the negativity and adversity that surrounds them.
Everyone goes through rough times, and there are plenty of things that are entirely out of your control. You can’t control the state of the national debt or the economy, you can’t control the weather or what other people do and say. There is something that you do control, though, and that is how you think, how you act, and how you respond to those things that are out of your control.
You should be living to thrive, not living to survive! Positive thinking doesn’t mean that you’re being unrealistic, nor does it mean that you’re sitting on the fence, waiting for goodness to wash over you. Thinking is just the first step, what following thinking is action. It’s vital to understand that the world is full of challenges, and you can learn from that and create a plan to stop surviving, and start living.

Don’t give in to negativity. No matter what it is, don’t participate in negativity, whether it’s gossip, naysaying, or even the recession! Keep your focus on your vision, your goals, whether they are for your business or yourself. Start believing that success is within your grasp. Remain positive, work hard, and take actions to grow.

• Don’t invite judgment. You don’t need to allow judgment from others to enter your life, because by allowing it you’re inviting negativity. You are capable of doing amazing things, so don’t make excuses, and don’t let outside judgments cloud yours.
• Be accountable. You own your thoughts and you own your actions, so step up and take responsibility. Don’t engage in finger-pointing, or pass the blame on to someone else if things go wrong. Look at you, and how you can alter the outcome. Do remember this, you can only be responsible for the things you have the power to change.
• Be a magnet for success. You want to start attracting money, opportunities, positivity, love, peace, business, or clients? Then focus on what it is that you want, and don’t give your personal power to negative circumstances. That type of behavior only gives power to your debt or your lack of success. By focusing on negative situations, you’re gifting it your power. Focus your thoughts and attention on how to achieve what you want. This motivates positivity and improves your creative flow.
• Know yours why. What makes you get up every morning? People who are living and thriving know their way and use it as their fuel. Once you finish reading this, take half an hour out and sit and consider your why. What’s important to you, and why do you do it? What is it that you want? Discover the why and stay on track. Behind every goal, there is a why, and it’s vital that you take time out to understand it. If you want to accomplish your goals, then you need to understand it to breathe purpose and meaning into it.
  Now, ask yourself this: who are you? Have you just been surviving, or have you been living and thriving? Survivors view the world as uncertain and unfavorable, they’re cautious and think narrowly. Livers and thrives, though, think positively, they find ways to solve their problems, and act with courage and strength. They think outside the box and believe that every goal is achievable. They take action and work hard to achieve those goals. They never give up.

  – Scott Blessing

While we wage a daily battle, attempting to influence others, we often forget we struggle to influence ourselves! A key element in influencing people is credibility. People judge you based on your actions, not by your intentions, and not by what you say or how you say it. Your behavior fuels your credibility; you are essentially your behavior!
Your credibility feeds your personal power, and just because you find yourself in a position of power at work or at home, you aren’t guaranteed respect, and it certainly doesn’t mean that people will listen to you. You have to earn it. You may be able to leverage your status, or expertise, to influence people, but this isn’t personal power, it’s power-crazed.
Everyone is born with personal power, it’s shaped by the influences of parents, social lives, and culture. These components condition us on how we can fit in. Unconsciously, we follow the accepted behaviors for someone in a particular role, as influenced by authority figures in our lives.
We push our personal power down when we play the role of a good employee. Often, we find ourselves over-awed by the power that we perceive in others. Over time, we are desensitized to our personal power, believing that other people have more value or worth. Your personal power is always there, beneath the surface, you just have to tap into it. If you want to enhance your personal power, there are five key steps to success. Here’s how to do it:

Self-awareness – the majority of people struggle with finding their voice at some point. Finding it, though, allows you to make a contribution, to lead and to make a difference. You won’t wake up one morning and find your voice and your self-awareness. You have to take time to study you to find you. Ask yourself this: what do you love doing? What is it that you are good at, and passionate about? When you know your value, share it.

• Clarity & Empathy – people with awesome personal power are focused on the important things in life. They know what they are capable of and can easily define it for others. They have goals that are clear and take action to achieve them. Another big part of your personal power is the ability to empathize. You can influence people more effectively when you can see things from their point of view. People will be more open and honest with you if they believe you can understand them. Remember, it isn’t all about you.
• Self-belief – You aren’t what you eat, it’s what you believe. Your thoughts are your personal reality. Those with strong levels of personal power completely believe in their vision, and they take actions to ensure that they happen. Change your thinking and reframe the limits you’ve placed on yourself. When you believe in yourself, people find you more credible.
• Energy & Enthusiasm – There is a link between enthusiasm and energy, simply because they feed off of each other. Energy and enthusiasm as vital components of personal power. Positive, successful people tend to be filled with energy; enthusiasm is seriously infectious. So, ask yourself this- what are you spreading to the people around you?
• Lead the Way – You don’t need to be in a positive power to be a leader. We are conditioning to believe that we need formal authority to do it, but why wait? You can step into your personal power and choose to be a proactive person, rather than always waiting and instead of reacting. No one needs to offer you permission to lead, true leadership comes from within. It’s easy, lead yourself and other people will start to follow.
  Don’t delay, it’s time to start enhancing your personal power today.

  – Scott Blessing