Terina Allen

Have you been knocked down, thrown around and made to feel irrelevant? Have you tried hard, failed and can’t get up? Have you struggled everyday and things don’t seem to be changing? Is your career at a standstill? Are you feeling down in the dumps? Is no one ‘giving’ you an opportunity to shine?

Well This is Your Opportunity!

It is up to you to change your circumstances, expand your thinking, create new opportunities, and show us how wonderful you really are! You have to make us see it; you have to do the hard and committed work to BE the difference in your life.

High achievers apply motivation and discipline techniques that help us get out of our own way, continually advance our careers, find [create] opportunities to help others and stay relevant. To stay focused and achieve our goals, we get up day in and day out and make something happen.

We do this in spite of our obstacles, challenges and hardships; not because we don’t have any. We do this even when we know we can fail, even when we are told it is impossible or can’t happen, even when we have unyielding personal and professional struggles, even when there is a huge personal or professional sacrifice required, and even when we are not in the mood and just don’t feel like it.

Change How You Think; Change How Your Speak

High achievers are motivated internally and do things differently!

Here’s my top ten (10) list of what works –

  1. Show up in your life and accomplish something, anything. Accomplishment leads to more accomplishment and success leads to more success.
  2. Put one foot in front of the other. The hardest part many times is just starting and ignoring that thought in your head that says “this is too hard” or “I can’t do it.”
  3. Reflect on what outcomes you want to achieve, and set some corresponding intermediate goals. Change your behavior to achieve your goals, and celebrate after each accomplishment.
  4. Create a personal and professional mission statement and direct all your energies to realizing that mission. When choices/decisions are not in alignment, course correct immediately.
  5. Be aware of language and word choice and work to remove/eliminate negative and victim language/words from your vocabulary.
  6. Surround yourself with positive, uplifting people who regularly overcome obstacles and accomplish goals.
  7. Challenge yourself to move outside your comfort zone. Growth lies in challenge. You should rest in your comfort zone but strive to live outside of it.
  8. Luck is about preparation meeting opportunity so be ever diligent in your preparation efforts. Commit to life-long learning and professional development, and seize the opportunities when they come.
  9. Be disciplined, be consistent, be focused. Goal achievement is what the most disciplined, consistent, and focused people experience. High achievers are not led around by their ‘feelings.’ Instead, they are led by their decisions and apply a discipline that leads to holding to those decisions –even when they are not in the “mood” and just don’t ‘feel’ like doing it.
  10. Read, sing, and dance – when you feel like it and especially when you don’t. You can only pull it out if you have already put it in (spend time putting in inspiring, uplifting, and validating information).

Instead of trying to move mountains, just move yourself. The path forward starts with getting out of your own way.

You tell me –

  • Which technique on the list works best for you?
  • What do you do to motivate yourself and advance your personal and professional goals?
  • When have you overcome yourself to show others how great you really are?

Go ahead on this day – Get out of your own way and create the life you want!

 
by Terina Allen
President & CEO, ARVis Institute
Chair, ARVoices Strategic Leadership Network