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Andrew Cox's Articles in Personal Development

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  • Victors Do The Work, and Forget The Silver Bullets
    Victors know success comes from doing the work. And that belief is even more important in tough times. At a time when resources have to be carefully committed, and when the need to focus on getting the really important things done is crucial, the temptation to look for silver bullets is greater than ever.
  • Use Goals To Stay In Play
    Never has there been a more critical time to remind ourselves to "Stay In Play." "Stay In Play" tells us just how important it is to press on, to take the next step, to develop the best possible solution, to make the next sales call, to play the next down, to serve the next serve, to stay in the game.
  • Victor Or Victim - Your Choice
    Right now it's tough to not feel like a victim. So many events seem to be beyond our control, and so many consequences of the decisions of others appear to have cost so many so much. Others choose to be victors. Faced with the same events and circumstances and consequences and outcomes as victims, they will continue to swim upstream - possibly more slowly and with more effort, but still working their way toward their goals.
  • Use SMART Goals To Get Through Tough Times
    The most effective thing any of us can do right now is to focus on our goals - define them, refine them to reflect changing realities, test them to see if they remain realistic and relevant, and act to achieve them. It's hard. The steady drumbeat of bad news - about the economy, about the elections, about man's inhumanity to man can really divert attention from the really important things. That's where SMART goals come in.
  • Make Sure Dreams Are Your Servant, and Not Your Master
    In effective goal setting, using dreams to establish ideal outcomes is a critical step in creating the vision and purpose that become the building block for goals. When used that way, dreams are your servant. But when the word dreams is mentioned, many people are turned off - to them dreams are a waste of time - a trip into fantasy. They feel dreams are not for the real world. They see dreams as taking away from action and accomplishment.
  • How to Ensure Dissatisfaction Is A Key To Success
    In the important areas of our lives, dissatisfaction is a positive - a way to constantly improve. At the same time, dissatisfaction has its limitations. Applying dissatisfaction to many areas of life just leads to frustration and regret.
  • How To Set SMART Goals - Start With The End In Mind
    Setting worthy SMART goals can be a real challenge. SMART is the acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and Time framed. For a lot of people, getting to goal statements that meet those criteria is tough. So where to start in this process of establishing SMART goals?
  • Your Attitude Is Showing - Now What?
    Your attitude is showing - and it's not good. What to do about it? A story about an attitude needing adjustment - and about critical personal decisions.
  • The Biggest Barrier To Building Relationships- One Way Conversations
    One - way conversations make it easy to come to the conclusion that the person doing the talking thinks they have more to say than the listener does. It may be a bad conclusion to draw, but it's a very human one. And in arriving at that conclusion, potential relationships slips away. Read on to see what to do about it.
  • Overcome The Wall Through Worthy Goals
    The Wall and worthy goals go together. Notice how the Wall only appears on the truly important, demanding, stretch goals? The goals that spell real progress, real success and real accomplishment? The Wall saves itself for the really important things.
  • Turn Negative Expectations Into Positive Outcomes
    How often do we let negative expectations create negative results? If you're like me, it's more often than I like to admit. And yet, when I work to overcome negative expectations and project positive behavior, I am pleasantly surprised. Things end up better than I expected. What I've learned is to spend more time on positive behaviors, and less time trying to dwell on the reasons for negative expectations.
  • How To Increase Your Personal Energy
    Successful people have an energy about them. It's one of their most valuable resources. We asked many of the most successful people we know where they would put energy on the scale of requirements for success. All placed it in their top three. How do they get and maintain their high level of personal energy?
  • Eleven Ways Leaders Create Focus
    Focus is a key Personal Skill of leaders. The ability to bore into the most important things and stay attentive and focused on them, and continue that behavior as a means of solving problems, contacting prospects, writing a report, preparing a presentation, doing an analysis, maximizing the value of a meeting, is key to success. Focus maximizes time - it results in more being done in less time.
  • Ten Ways To Ensure Your Goals Are Leading You To Success
    Success,energy, passion and commitment are created by success - success at accomplishing the goals we have set for ourselves, and the goals that others have set for or with us. Nothing is more powerful than accomplishment. At the same time, our goals can work against us. Read on about ten ways to make sure your goals work for your success.
  • How To Create Survival Tools For Tough Times
    Tough times are a big part of what makes us successful, as survivors and leaders. Getting through them effectively and positively depends on how we treat that space. Our personal survival tools go a long way to getting us through tough times. Some may call them coping tools - they're much more than that. We're talking about tools to help us stay positive and focused and optimistic.
  • Five Ways To Gain Self - Knowledge - Key To Success
    Accurate self knowledge is the key to successful relationships. Notice the use of accurate? Who you think you are and who others think you are is often very different. The closer our understanding of our own behaviors, attitudes and personal skills is to how others perceive us, the better our chances for success - in anything.
  • Ten Key Questions - Renew Commitment Or Seek New Opportunities?
    So much is written about finding the right job, the right relationship, the right career. Little is written about how to know when to stay committed to the present course or seek new opportunities. Knowing when to move on - look for new opportunities, relationships, and challenges - is critical to success.Use the ten key question sets to make the best possible decision for you.
  • Procrastination - The Tomorrow Effect On Your Success
    Nothing, nothing at all, will screw you up more than putting off until tomorrow the important things you know must be done today. Read on - now - to learn about the Tomorrow Effect on your success.
  • Goal Setting - Six Steps To Keeping Focus
    We ask every leader we work with what they would do more of, better, or more often when they look back on their career, and the top answer is "Focus." When asked how they would do that, they answer that they would be even more goal oriented than they had been. In their opinion, goals create focus that creates accomplishment.
  • Ten Ways To Make Time For The Important Things
    Making time for the important things in life is a real challenge. Have you ever ended the day with the feeling that you were as busy as you could possibly be, but didn't make any progress on the really important things? Have you been resentful of the time and energy you have to spend on meeting the demands of others? Here are ten ways you can make time for the really important things in your life.
  • Eight Times When Good Enough Beats Perfect
    When does Good Enough beat Perfect? When Good Enough clears space for action and accomplishment - for moving forward. Perfect, on the other hand, almost always gets in the way of action and accomplishment - it keeps real progress from being made. Waiting for perfect is a sure recipe for failure. Here are eight times when "Good Enough" will beat perfect:
  • How To Increase Your Personal Value
    Your personal value is the most important value you can create. Unfortunately, 7 out of 10 people in the US underestimate their personal value. It's easy to do - without even knowing it. It shows up in invisible ways - in risks not taken, jobs not applied for, opportunities not identified, relationships that never occur.
  • How To Gain Optimism Through Accomplishment
    Nothing creates a greater sense of optimism than accomplishment. And optimism is one of the core beliefs and attitudes of successful people. It's estimated that only 30 percent of our population are optimists, but that the majority of successful people are optimists. That estimate says that the better chance of accomplishment and success lies with the optimists.
  • How Leaders Increase Their Personal Energy
    I recently posted an article titled " How Leaders Create The Energy Essential To Success." It dealt with ways leaders create energy in their organizations through their beliefs and behaviors. This article deals with how leaders sustain and increase their personal energy.
  • Keeping It Simple Isn't Simple
    KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid - it sounds so --- simple. It's not. Read on to see how to make it happen, from an author who really knows how to"get tangled up in his underwear."
  • Create Focus - Eliminate Self Inflicted Distractions
    I was trying to focus on my 2008 goals; it's been tough going and my mind kept moving to all the other things I could/should be doing right now. And the idea for this blog came to me. A self inflicted distraction. I have a lot of them.
  • Think Outside The Box - Cultivate Your Inner Voice
    Thinking outside the box comes in lots of different sizes - from the smallest to the really big, sweeping, high leverage things. And while the really big, important changes that occur get the most attention, and are the most sought after, the sum total of all the little changes and habits of thought that happen every day are what lead to the really big stuff. And that's where our inner voices play such a big role
  • Think Outside The Box - Take The Time To Look Up
    Think outside the box. How do I do that? I suggest you take the time to look up A personal story to illustrate my point:
  • Perseverance and Commitment - Never Give Up
    Never give up. I just finished a terrific book - The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In it was a quote that struck me - it has to do with perseverance and commitment and dreams, and how you will know if you are pressing forward, or giving up.
  • Creating Goals - Dealing With Reality - The Power of Keeping Track
    Keeping track – creating goals - dealing with reality – creates clarity and keeps me honest to myself. It keeps me accountable for my behavior - for my own choices. I find when I keep track, good things happen - probably because I am dealing with reality, and not with that enemy of clarity - selective memory.
  • Act In Today - Nine Steps To Make It Happen
    Act in today - take these nine steps to achieve that worthy goal - that day when accomplishment and achievement are reached - when the overhang of things waiting to be done is manageable, and guilt and remorse are replaced with optimism and confidence. That sure sounds good - and it can happen - starting today.
  • Act In Today - Nine Rationalizations That Stand In The Way
    Acting in today takes hard work. It's the only way to succeed. And yet,for many people, the attraction of tomorrow is so great. But tomorrow thinking is a trap. And self talk is one of the biggest traps to tomorrow thinking – and failure. What follows are some of the most popular rationalizations of tomorrow persons.
  • Leaders Know High Expectations Lead To High Performance
    Leaders know high expectations lead to high performance. Leaders know that the more people believe in themselves, and their leaders believe in them, the more they will accomplish - at all levels.
  • The Two Dimensions Of Thinking Outside The Box
    Thinking outside the box is a skill highly prized by all kinds of organizations. The phrase “think outside the box “ creates this vision of cutting edge thinking that leads to innovation. It's a skill that provides real opportunities in both the Internal and External Dimensions. It's a skill that can create enormous competitive advantage – personally and organizationally. It's not for everyone – in fact – it's a top ten percent skill.
  • Leaders Provide Advice Critical To Success - Part Four
    Certain beliefs, convictions and statements keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with both managers and leaders. Here is Part Four, dealing with advice critical to success in the areas of Leadership and Hiring and Selection.
  • Leaders Provide Advice Critical To Success - Part Three
    Certain advice, in the form of beliefs, statements and cinvictions, keep being brought up by leaders in our seminars and feedback sessions.What follows is Part Three of our series dealing with beliefs that are critical to personal and organizational success in the areas of Change, Choice, Behavior Self Responsibility and Accountability ·
  • Success Depends On Our Self Talk
    What we tell ourselves about ourselves – our self talk, will create success – or not. Our success depends so much on the messages we constantly send ourselves. We can be our best friends – or we can be our own worst enemies.
  • Leaders Manage Goals To Ensure More Is Not Less
    Leaders manage goals to know when more becomes less. Leaders know there is a place where further effort, energy, knowledge, people resources and money don't really add additional value. In fact, more of anything after a certain point may be stealing from other requirements. Leaders know time, money and effort, by themselves, are really inefficient measures - results are what count.
  • Observation - A Critical Leadership Skill
    Leaders know observation skills are critically important to success - in any dimension. They work hard to develop their own, and to identify and develop the skill in their people.
  • Leaders Provide Advice On How To Succeed - Part 2
    Leaders provide advice on how to succeed. Certain beliefs and advice keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with leaders What follows is Part Two in our series dealing with the issues that are critical to success. Share them with your own universe of people and be amazed at how effective they can be as a tool to begin discussions
  • Focus On Possibilities To Achieve Success
    Focus on creating possibilities - it's the way to achieve personal success and organizational success. That conclusion came to me the other day - a day I fooled myself into believing was highly productive. I had been busy - worked hard - got a lot done. But I didn't feel like I had really accomplished very much. I had organized, managed, read, prepared and drafted a whole lot of stuff - but something was missing.
  • Leaders Provide Advice On Achieving Success - Part 1
    After working with many leaders certain beliefs, statements and convictions keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions. This is the first in a series of articles providing advice from leaders we have known on achieving personal and organizational success.
  • Five Steps To Achieve Personal Success - Today
    Here are five actions can you take - today - at no cost other than changing your own behavior, that can lead to greater personal success.
  • Success Depends On Knowing There's Plenty For Everybody - Believe It
    Success depends on believing there is plenty for everybody. There really is “more” than we could possibly imagine – of everything – if we look for it. But it's almost impossible to look for “it” if we are busy envying or feeling jealous about someone else's good fortune – their getting some of that “plenty.”
  • Goals, Opportunities For Success and Paying Our Dues
    What are the paths that come together to provide opportunities for success? How will we know when they come together? Will we be ready to recognize opportunity and act to succeed? What can we do to prepare for those opportunities? What does paying our dues really mean?
  • The Biggest Challenge To Change - The Status Quo
    The Biggest Challenge To Change - The Status Quo Creating change, accepting change, making change work, being rewarded by change - all are resisted by that condition called the Status Quo. And most of the time we don't even realize it.
  • A Powerful Change Skill - Acceptance
    Acceptance is one of those things we rarely think about as a Personal Skill or a Change Skill, but it can make a huge difference in our success in change situations - in all parts of our life. Here's a story to illustrate my point:
  • Personal Importance - Your Success Depends On It
    Personal Importance is critical to your succes. How often have qualified, competent people missed out because of their own feelings of not being important - of not being worthy or able to perform? Read this article to see where you are in this critical belief, and what you can do to improve how you feel about yourself and what you do in life.
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