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Great Things Take Time

July 4, 2017 by Camilla

“Great things take time” ~Unknown

I saw this great card in a bookstore and thought – what a great topic for a blog post!

We live in what I call “a microwave society” where we want everything now, not tomorrow, but right now. We want instant success. Instant wealth. Instant perfect body. Instant this and that. And of course we preferably want it without putting too much work in.

I believe this is much thanks to the internet and social media where it looks as if everyone’s life is perfect and where none of the reality is shared. We only see the end-result or what appears on the outside.

Sadly, too many, especially in the online world, is trying to sell us only the end-result and that you too can succeed overnight if you just buy their course, their book or their material. I don’t know about you but it drives me crazy!

Are there those that succeed building a 6-figure business in 6 months? Yes. But quite often it’s because they either worked a 100 hours a week and hit it so hard they didn’t know what was up and what was down, or because they had prior knowledge that took years to accumulate.

Let’s take a look at the game Angry Bird. Instant success. Well, the backstory to that is over 60 failed games over 8 years. It was an 8 year in the making ‘overnight’ success.

Let’s take a look at one of the most popular podcasts out there, Entrepreneur on Fire, that today makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. That was not the case from the get-go. It took time to build that up, with no to little revenue for well over a year. Plus John Lee Dumas hired a $1,000 per hour business coach to help him get to where he wanted to go faster.

Zappos? If you haven’t read the story behind that please do. Zappos was on the brink of shutting down so many times for years due to lack of funds, even after Tony Hsieh sold pretty much everything he owned to fund the company and secure other funding.

Tesla? At one point Elon Musk sold everything he owned to save the company and had to borrow money to pay rent.

We all know the story behind Harry Potter, Amazon and other now big names and how long they had to deal with rejection and not being profitable, taking years and even a decade to become the success we saw.

Pretty much anyone you see having succeeded doing what you want to do have a not so pretty story behind that. A story of hard work, frustrations, defeat, wins, failure, another win, more hard work, crap how will I pay the bills this month to let’s have real sushi tonight.

Can you speed up your path to success? Absolutely. Hire awesome coaches, mentor, join masterminds and surround yourself with people smarter than you. Ask others how they did it. Read books, take a course in marketing, influence, and sales.

That said, don’t let anyone ever tell you it’s easy or that what they have can make you a millionaire overnight or that their program is the only program that works. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Success takes time, hard work, knowledge, grit and determination to make it happen. It’s not a straight arrow. It’s a roller-coaster of so many ups and downs.

Plus remember, your situation may be completely different that someone else’s. It’s easier for a single person with few responsibilities to hustle pretty much non-stop than someone with a family and kids. It’s easier for someone who has the cash flow to hire the kind of help they need to go places faster than for someone who doesn’t. It’s easier for someone who has years of prior knowledge to package their knowledge into an online course to succeed faster than someone who is just starting out trying to figure out what they want to teach.

Put one foot in front of the other, seek out and hire the best to your ability, surround yourself with people smarter than you and that have done what you want to do, and believe in yourself.

Most of all, remember as you’re working on your dreams and goals that all great things take time.

 

If you felt this post was of value to you please share with others so they too can learn how to stop spinning and start living. I create these free trainings and blog posts for you. I appreciate you!

 

Filed Under: Lessons I'm Learning, Life, Personal Growth

5 Daily Habits That Gets You Ahead

June 20, 2017 by Camilla

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” ~Jim Rohn

Have you ever felt a bit overwhelmed by all the different habits you could incorporate in your life in order to get ahead? I mean, if you google ‘success habits’ then you get a list as long as LA to NY, which isn’t very helpful.

I prefer to incorporate things that has neuroscience or other research supporting them, if possible. Then I test and track to see what positive impact they have on my life and performance. Which you should do too. Always test, tweak and modify so that things work for your specific situation.

Here are five habits that have been game changers for me. I hope they will serve you as well as they have me.

5 Daily Habits That Gets You Ahead

ONE: No digital input for the first hour in the morning. That means no email, no social media, no TV, no news. When you first wake up your brain is still in a subconscious state of mind. Which means, whatever you put in there first thing fuels your mood and energy for the day. I take this even further. I don’t check email or social media until noon usually.

Sadly over 80% of people grab their cell phone first thing and lose precious time being down the rabbit hole. Now the brain is processing all the “gotta do this” “oh, no this happened” which can be dealt with later. If someone has to wait an hour to get a response on an email or text the world will not end. Spend your morning in a way that sets you up for a great day instead. Nurture you, not your cellphone. Your phone will survive.

TWO: Productivity is very much energy management. Want to get more done? Take a 10-20 minute break every 90-120 minutes. Your brain needs you to take a break or it taps out when you are constantly forcing it to focus.

And NO cell phone during your break. That isn’t a real break as your brain still has to process all that input. Meditate, go for a walk, eat lunch, close your eyes, have a fun conversation with someone. Real breaks = productivity boosters. Also, make sure to fuel your brain good nutrition.

THREE: Drink more water. Hydration is essential for health, energy and helping rid your body of toxins. Most people don’t drink nearly as much water as they need. Consult a physician on your recommended amount but most of you need to drink a gallon (3.78 liters) a day or more. Think of it. Your body is about 60% water. It’s that ratio for a reason.

FOUR: Daily and weekly reflection. Highly successful people analyze their day and week to see what works and what doesn’t. They are constantly reviewing and adjusting so that they can improve themselves, processes and systems. That way you can see if you’re on track or off target. Block out time when you sit down and ask yourself what worked and what didn’t and what to do better.

FIVE: Sleep 7-8 hours every night. Over 60 years of sleep research shows that your brain, body, organs and cells need 7-8 hours of sleep in order for you to function properly. Anything less than that not only puts you in a lowered cognitive state, but it heavily impacts your mood, health, hormone balance, productivity, energy, decision making, memory, lifespan and more. Most people say they would never drink and drive, yet they get in the car after only 5-6 hours of sleep, which means they are in a similar cognitive state as if impaired by alcohol!

If you were to incorporate these five habits you’re well ahead of most people. Try them out and let me know what positive impact they have on you and your life. You’re not here to do average things so stop doing the habits of average people.

 

If you felt this post was of value to you please share with others so they too can learn how to stop spinning and start living. I create these free trainings and blog posts for you. I appreciate you!

 

Quotes to inspire you…feel free to share! You can find more quote on my Instagram:

Filed Under: Personal Growth, Success

Got Renewal Time Planned In?

June 6, 2017 by Camilla

Guilty of thinking you can do it all? Join the club. We’re supposed to always be going, going, doing, doing, right? If we’re not we have this strange idea we’re being lazy.

The other day I crashed. I was so tired I didn’t care if the to-do list doubled while I took the evening off.

The next day my brain still felt fuzzy. I was just about to force myself to attack the to-do list when I said: No, it can wait. I turned off phone, computer and plopped on the couch to read and take a nap. Obviously I felt a lot better afterwards and somehow the world didn’t end! I know!

It’s so easy to think the world will end if we take a break. I mean, we’re that important right? We actually are. Just ask your family. But we are no good exhausted. Our creativity goes down. It affects our health. Our mood. When we are tired and exhausted it affects everything in a negative way.

Still, we have these expectations of ourselves that we can just push through that fatigue, cram everything in and keep going. It’s always…do more, be more, get more done. In addition to that we are always supposed to be available, even on vacations!

It’s expected to answer emails, texts and notifications right away. We’ve been fooled into thinking multi-tasking is the way to do it all. It’s insane!

As I was laying on the couch I realized the only one to blame for my busy time was me (don’t you hate when that happens?)

After all, who is creating your schedule?
Who decides what to put on your schedule?
Who is forcing us to add extra curricular things to our already busy work-life schedule?
Who is forcing us to say yes to everything?
Who is forcing us to believe we can build Rome in one day?
Who is forcing us to be available 24/7/365?

We are. Which also means we can fix it by eliminating things from our schedule, decide not to be available 24/7 by turning the phone off, learning how to say no, tune out and incorporate quiet times.

Leave the office, go for a walk and let your brain reset. Delete things that are not urgent off your to-do list. Ask yourself what the essentials are. Put yourself first and practice self-care. Plan in daily, weekly and monthly renewal time when you give your brain a real break away from the busyness.

Now tell me. Do you feel guilty when you take some time off doing nothing? Share in the comment section below.

 

This is a repost of a post I wrote in 2014 before I learned the proper way of energy management and how to avoid such things as crashing, exhaustion and burnout. For more information on how to learn how to work smarter instead of harder so you can avoid feeling as if you’re spinning in circles check out my Accountability Get Stuff Done program.

 

Quotes to inspire you…feel free to share! You can find more quotes on my Instagram and Facebook page.

Filed Under: Life, Productivity, Time Management

Are You Proactive or Reactive?

May 23, 2017 by Camilla

Have you ever said: “If I only had more money I could x, y and z” or “If I only had more time I could x, y, and z.” And of course the “I hate my job. I wish I could work on things I love to do.”

No worries, I’ve said those things too. We all blur that out at times even if we know it won’t do us any good. But if you are saying those things on a regular basis you are wasting your time wishing for a future that won’t happen unless you do something about it!

No one, no matter how much you may feel you deserve it, will come and roll out the red carpet for you. Only way for you to have the kind of life you want is to roll it out yourself.

Proactive People Are Doers

The difference between those that are proactive and those that are not is how they approach their situation. Proactive people want a different future so instead of wishing it will happen they start working towards making it happen. They make a plan, take that first step, which leads to the next step and so on. Step by step they work their way towards achieving what they want. They stay focused on what they want to achieve and prioritize working on the essentials instead of the small stuff that doesn’t help them. They understand the importance of single tasking and creating a schedule.

The “wishers” want to change things but they don’t take planned action towards it. Instead of having a plan and prioritizing what’s important in order to get them to the next step, they react to every little thing coming their way and they work on the non-essentials, the things not moving them forward. Their days disappear to non-essentials. They can often be characterized by their frantic look and bouncing from thing to thing. Also called multi-tasking. They also blame circumstances a lot for not being where they want to be.

You can either happen to life or allow life to happen to you.

 

Definition for proactive:
prōˈaktiv/
adjective
(of a person, policy, or action) creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened.
“be proactive in identifying and preventing potential problems”
synonyms: enterprising, take-charge, energetic, driven, bold, dynamic, motivated, go-ahead “you need to be more proactive about the causes you care about”

Definition for reactive:
rēˈaktiv/
adjective
showing a response to a stimulus.
“pupils are reactive to light”
acting in response to a situation rather than creating or controlling it.
“a proactive rather than a reactive approach”

 

What Can You Do If You’re A Wisher?

1. Change your mindset. As soon as you default to the “If only…” say STOP and change that to: “I am in charge of my own destiny. What steps can I take right now to get closer to where I want to be?” Create a plan. Make a schedule. Hire a coach and mentor. Find support. Write down goals you want accomplish and then make subgoals on how to get there. Take some time figuring out what is important to you.

2. Realize you have enough time. American’s on average watch 4 hours of TV a day. That’s adds up to about 13 years of 24/7 TV-watching over a lifespan. Yikes! Imagine what you could do with 13 years of 24/7 time?! Even if you’re not a TV-watcher pay attention to how much time you lose being down the rabbit hole of email, social media, internet and reacting without intention to other things that eat up your time 10-20 minutes here and there. That all adds up to time you could be working on you and your life and the important stuff. It’s all about how you prioritize. Say NO more often. Use a schedule.

3. Find a role model. Surround yourself with people you wish to be. No, this is not about becoming a copycat. It’s about learning from those that are doing what you want to do. Find a couple of role models that are where you would like to be and learn from them. Ask them how they did it if you can. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in one day. Those people didn’t just go from nothing to where they are today. They got there by making a decision to be a doer and work their way to where they are.

 

I’m challenging you today. It’s time to stop spinning and start living. Ask yourself: Are you proactive in your approach or falling to living a life of reaction?

 

If you felt this post was of value to you please share with others so they too can learn how to stop spinning and start living. I create these free trainings and blog posts for you. I appreciate you! Also, if you haven’t already join my free Excel Your Life Facebook group. It’s awesome! Plus make sure you have liked my Facebook page.

 

Quotes to inspire you…feel free to share! You can find more quotes on my Instagram:

Filed Under: Accountability, Life, Personal Growth

What You Do Today Matters

May 9, 2017 by Camilla

Have you ever felt as if you don’t have the time to do something? Or mindlessly grabbed that not so healthy snack in the afternoon? Or plopped down in front of the TV finding yourself there hours later? Or ever wondered how yet another year flew by and you still haven’t started that project you really wanted to get going on?

We’ve all been there! I know I have.

We tend to live in the now, which is a good thing! But too much living in the now and not thinking of how that affects us long-term can have some not so great consequences.

In this short training video I’m talking about how what we do today matters a lot more than we think.

Summary:

  • What we do today accumulates either in a good way or in a not so good way.
  • On average Americans spend 5 hours a day actively watching TV, yet they say they don’t have time to read, exercise or work on things they say they want to work on like writing a book.
  • Two hours a day adds up to over 700 hours in a year. How would your life change if you used that for something that moved your life forward?
  • The Power of 15 accumulates to over 91 hours in a year. If you do something for 15 minutes a day, like reading a personal development book that could be a game changer.
  • Books mentioned: Mindset by Carol Dweck and The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. Must reads! (Link goes to Amazon which if you purchase these books through that link may result in me making a few cents. As always I only recommend books I have personally read and think are awesome! I appreciate your support.) 

 

If you felt this post was of value to you please share with others so they too can learn how to stop spinning and start living. I create these free trainings and blog posts for you. I appreciate you! 

 

You may also like these posts:

Where Are You Going?

What Are Success Habits?

How To Stop Notifications From Stealing Your Day

 

Quotes to inspire you…feel free to share! You can find more quote on my Instagram:

Full transcript of video:

Hi everyone it’s Camilla. It’s Friday and it’s beautiful outside and I quickly wanted to to jump on live and talk about something that I’m super passionate about and that is called accumulative effect.

So what is accumulative effect? Well, what you do today matters in the long run. I always use this example about accumulative effect. If you eat a candy bar today, yeah not a big deal right? It’s about 200 calories and takes about an hour to walk off. We all need to have some fun. We all need to have a candy bar once in awhile but what happens if you eat that candy bar every single day for a year?

Well, if you eat a candy bar every single day for an entire year that accumulative effect becomes about 73,000 not so good calories for you and it becomes about an extra 21 pounds of weight. Plus it takes about an hour to walk off that a candy bar.

Quickly going to say hi to some of you on here. Nice to see you! Hi Anders. I think I saw April join too so thank you for joining. We’re talking about accumulative effect and what you do today matters. How that can accumulate either in a good way or in a bad way so my example is about what a candy bar can do.

Over the long run that becomes a disaster right? So if you do that negative thing every single day for an entire year then not so good results.

How could you use accumulative effect to work for you? Well, let’s say that you turn off your TV for an hour a day. On average Americans spend about, and I don’t know what it is another countries, have to check that, I hope they don’t get on the American bandwagon. On average Americans spend almost five hours a day actively watching TV!!! And usually it’s not such good stuff. It’s kind of the crap and all that negative stuff, soap operas and different things like that.

What if you cut one hour out and spent that hour reading a personal development book? What could you do with that extra hour? How will that accumulate in a good way? Well, if you read a personal development book for an hour a day for an entire year you will have read on average about 91 personal development books. Whoa right? That’s like insane!

Most people say “I don’t have time to read a book” and I go “I don’t have time to read a book that can change my life?” I’m like that’s total BS! I usually say it a little stronger than that, but it’s like if you want to change and improve your life and do something better with it you can find time.

What would that hour mean to you if you invested that hour in a hyper-focus way to your business? How would that change your life if you exercised an hour a day? How would that change your life if you used that hour to spend time with friends and family? If you studied something?

So many people, I think it’s over ninety percent of people want to write a book and they never write their book as they don’t have the time. Well, take that hour, what would happen if you wrote for an hour a day or even if you use what I call the Power of 15. The Power of 15 means that if you do something for 15 minutes a day that accumulates to over 91 hours in a year.

Hi Paula, who says that’s awesome advice, accumulate good micro movements. Yes, those little pivot can really make it a big difference. I mean if you spend 15 minutes a day doing something that accumulates over 91 hours in a year pretty significant. And most people go I don’t have time to exercise. If you exercise 15 minutes a day that accumulates over an hour and a half in a week.

If you read for 15 minutes a day every single day for an entire year you will have read between, depending on how fast you read and the thickness of the book about 12 to 15 personal development books. Life-changing! I remember reading If you haven’t read Mindset by Carol Dweck it’s a must read. It changed my life. It was a total game changer.

One book can totally change your life so if you want to improve your life. If you want excel your life, if you want to have a better life, you want to learn something, not only do you need to get into the mindset of a child and say ah, I want to learn again. Because here’s the thing none of us knew how to walk, none of us knew how to bike, or you know do anything. We had to learn those things and that’s the same thing with us as adults.

If we want to improve our lives, we want to become better at something, we need to study. But often we go don’t have the time right? So we got to find the time. But that’s the accumulative effect. It can either go negative so if you spend five hours a day watching TV or even two hours a day watching TV what does that accumulate into? Okay so now you going to have to do the math on that. Okay so 365 days help me out here. Seven hundred and some freaking hours.

Okay little over 700 hours in a year if you spend two hours a day watching TV or being down the rabbit hole of social media! What could you do with those over 700 hours in a year if you invested that into something different? Because that accumulates so if you’re watching TV two hours a day what do you get out of that long term?

I just had a fantastic sushi lunch with someone remarkable. Big thinker and he was talking about the book Multiplier and how you can either multiply it or not. That’s again the accumulative. You accumulate something good or you can detract. So what in your life are you going to accumulate into something good?

Like I said if you eat a candy bar every single day for a year that adds about 21 pounds of weight to you. Not so good. It’s pretty much a disaster. So if you think about those kind of things, that what you do today, and you say I don’t feel like exercising today, I’m so tired, I don’t feel like doing that, if you think okay if I don’t exercise today not a big deal. If I don’t exercise every single day for the remainder of the year what kind of effect will that have? So now you’re like oh yeah that wouldn’t have such good effect so now you get a little bit motivated to actually get your ass out the door and go exercise.

And also those kind of things if you’re watching TV for two hours a day and you say well if I watch TV today for two hours not a big deal but if I do that for every single day for an entire year how does that affect my life? And that you definitely go it’s not going to have a good effect right?

I want to see what Danielle says: 2 hours a day of TV maybe alone can get you away. Seriously! Yeah I mean it’s just that. Thank you Danielle so good to see you. And she said you know you choose what you do with your life.

And you can change your life by thinking accumulative effect. You can also think about it compounded interest. I like to call it accumulative effect. But how does that accumulate? What you do today builds on itself.

Hi John, nice to see you. It builds on itself and it makes you want to do more. Exactly so you can either go in an upward trajectory or you can go in a downward trajectory.

Jeff Olson has a fantastic book called the Slight Edge. Fantastic book so if you haven’t read it read it. Mindset by Carol Dweck is a must read. Read the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. He talks about how you can create an upward slope of your life where things are going upward or you can mess it up by going downward. So that’s how people kind of fail because they do things that negatively impacts they do things that negatively impacts wanted to put that into your mind.

Think about what you do today and how that affects you going forward. And you say how would my activity or my not doing this activity affect me going forward if I did this every single day? And that’s a great way to motivate yourself because you like, I don’t feel like exercising and don’t feel like doing this, I don’t feel like doing my taxes, I don’t feel like doing this at all.

How would that affect me if I continue doing that every single day and is that the results you want?

Anyhow I just wanted to pop in for a very quick live video today. I am going to head over to my entrepreneur group that starting in about 10 minutes. But it’s so good to see you all! Hi Danielle. Hi John. I saw Stu on there. I saw some other people in there too. Thank you for jumping on and as always if you have any questions post them below and I can answer them. And hop on my blog No More Hamster Wheel for more info. I’ll be linking a post I actually wrote about this a couple years ago, so I’ll post in the comments below so you can read it too.

But think about what you do today and how that affects you going forward long term. I hope that helps. Bye everyone!

Filed Under: Personal Growth

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Hello! My name is Camilla. I'm the founder of the Live Your Legacy framework and the Paycheck to Paycheck Method. Around here we love teaching high achievers like you how to achieve your goals so you can excel and live your legacy!

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