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" No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking." - Voltaire

Keys to Success and Happiness

How's that for a catchy title?  Well, we have some ideas to share from the king of catchy titles, Jack Canfield, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul (www.jackcanfield.com).  In Bottom Line Personal (March 1, 2005, www.BottomLineSecrets.com), Canfield offers these tips for achieving success and happiness:

"Develop four new good habits each year.  Most everything we do is based on ritual.  We eat at certain restaurants...wear certain clothes...brush our teeth in a certain way...and watch certain TV shows simply because that is what we have always done.  These are our habits, and we perform them without really thinking.  The trouble with habits is that they preserve the status quo, making dramatic improvements unlikely.  If we want more out of life, we must be willing to evaluate and replace some of our rituals with more productive ones....

"Instead of spending the hour after dinner watching TV, go for a brisk walk...study a second language...read a book.... It takes a minimum of 25 days for the brain to build the neural links required to make a new behavior a habit.  I suggest practicing a new habit for three months to ensure that it sinks in.  Once it becomes second nature, add another new habit.  At three months per habit, there's time to add four each year.  In five years you will have 20 new habits that will help fuel your success....

"Solicit and respect feedback.   Rather than guess how you're doing, ask.  Periodically ask employees, employers, customers and loved ones to rate your performance on a scale of one to 10.  If the answer is anything less than 10, ask 'What would it take to make it a 10?'  If you follow this strategy, you're encouraging people to help you become great.  The main reason that people don't solicit feedback is because they're afraid of what they might hear -- but the information we can obtain is worth facing such fears....

"Keep all your agreements.  When you break an agreement, the person you let down loses faith in you and is less likely to want to work with you in the future. Even more important, you lose some faith in yourself.  It's all but impossible to become a success if you don't have faith in yourself.    To avoid breaking agreements, teach yourself to say no to things that you would rather not do.  Then you won't have to back out later.  Write down everything you agree to do on your calendar as soon as a commitment is made...."

For more ideas on improving your performance on the job, check out the Exchange Articles on CD collection, "Avoiding Burnout."  This week all collections are on sale at a 20% discount at: http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0549

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