BIGG goal-getters know that it’s wise to be happy, but not content. It means thinking about four realities.

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We almost didn’t include this one. The past is the past. Who cares, right?

But it is important to think about your past REALITY.

Our experiences are clouded. They’re clouded by our perceptions. They’re clouded by our emotions at the time. They are clouded by a number of things.

Make sure you’re seeing things as they truly were. Only then will you extract the right lessons.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to move past the past.

In an ideal world, we could talk about the next two simultaneously. Since we can’t, we’ll keep it chronological.

Your current reality

It begins with an honest assessment of where you’re at. Are you happy now?

You can be.

You just have to know where you want to go. Then do all you can do today to move a little bit closer to it.

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? And it is.

But life gets in the way. Obligations. Things-to-do. The unexpected.

Next thing you know, you haven’t taken a single step to the life of your dreams.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Form a realistic opinion of where you’re at right now. What are you happy about? What don’t you like about your current reality?

Your future reality

We didn’t come up with this term. But we sure do like it. We like the certainty of it.

It’s not a wish. It’s not just a hope. It’s more than dream. It is what will be. And you will make it happen.

What does your future look like? Visualize it. Get a clear picture in your mind.

But don’t stop there. Use all your senses to experience it right now. Live it as if it were real.

Because it will be. It’s only a matter of time!

As you think about your future, be careful. You may make one of two mistakes:

• Projecting the present into the future
  

This will keep you from reaching your full potential.

• Escaping into the future
  

  You may project the unattainable. You have to believe it can be done if you stretch yourself quite a bit. That’s a good vision.
  

Now we’re ready for the fourth reality – and we may have you stumped. We’ve talked about the past, present, and future. What’s left?

Only the most important reality of all…

Your NEXT reality

What’s the next thing you need to do to move from your current reality to your future reality? That’s your next reality.

You’re a BIGG goal-getter. So you’ll focus all your time, energy, effort, and attention toward achieving your next reality.

Stick your next out! It leads to BIGG success!

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Spring … I love it! Flowers are blooming, trees are budding. Warmer temperatures are coming!

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When I think of spring, I think spring green, which got us thinking about the old saying, “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”

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You look across the fence at your neighbor’s yard – at that nice green grass – and you wonder how in the world your neighbor does it. You feel like you work just as hard at tending to your yard, but somehow your neighbor’s yard still looks better.

So today we want to talk about four fences between you and that greener grass. The first two involve our perceptions.

You and other people

One fence sits between you and other people. Some may be more successful than you. Just like a lush neighbor’s yard, success just seems to come easy for them.

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Bigg success is life on your own terms. One of the many things I love about that definition of bigg success is that it is so liberating. I don’t have to worry about what other people are doing. I focus on what I’m doing.

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I think we have a tendency to view our success in light of others. But that’s counterproductive. We need to discover and live up to our potential and stop thinking about what other people are (or are not for that matter) doing.

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The reason it’s not good to compare ourselves to others is that we’re not truly walking a mile in their shoes. We don’t really know how hard they’ve worked. We don’t know about all the obstacles they’ve overcome.

We make assumptions because we see the output – the green grass – but we don’t think about all the sunshine, the rain, the fertilizer, and the manual labor that made it that green.

What you did and what you could have done

Another fence is between what you’ve actually done and what you think you could have done. We look over that fence and beat ourselves up. The grass would be greener if we had only taken a different path.

We romanticize the outcome that could have been. We assume that life would be better.

In fact, it may be worse. We’ll never know. All we see is greener grass. We need to realize that the decisions we made got us to this point and the experiences we’ve had make us a unique human being.

That’s an asset that we can use for our bigg success.

Now we want to look at the final two fences. These fences help us make the grass greener.

Yesterday and today

Another fence is between yesterday and today. It’s up to us to make the grass greener today than it was yesterday.

It’s about doing all that you can … day-by-day, step-by-step … to move closer to bigg success, to life on your own terms. If you’ve done everything you possibly can today to get closer, your grass is greener!

Where you are and where you want to be

The final fence is between where you are and where you want to be. You see the green grass that you want to have. You see a person or persons who were where you are and now are where you want to be.

This could be a role model, a mentor or a coach. Instead of looking over the fence and being jealous, you know that you can learn from them. They can teach you how to make your grass greener.

What are some of your secrets for getting your grass greener?

Share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com. Maybe your comment will help make the grass greener for others.

Thanks so much for reading our post today.

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Please join us next time when we ask, “What’s your one thing?”

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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(Image in today's post by tinyfroglet, CC 2.0)

One way to do that is to look back so you can look forward. Reflecting upon the past and pulling lessons away so your future is bigger and brighter. With the New Year upon us, now is a great time to review last year so next year lives up to its promise for you.

There's a simple three-stage framework for performing this exercise. It involves asking yourself three questions:

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What?

Start with the actual events of this year. What happened? Describe major events in your life. As you record your answers, test your perceptions to make sure they reflect the reality of the situation. If it helps, pretend that you are a reporter objectively recording the facts of the event.

So what?

At this stage, you move from reporting to understanding, from logic to emotion. That's why it was so important to get the facts right in the first step. What did this experience mean to you? How did it make you feel? Why did you feel that way? What have you learned?

Now what?

The previous two questions lead to this one. How will you apply the lessons you learned? What specific actions will you take as a result of the events you've outlined?

These three simple questions serve as a great outline to review major events in your life and develop forward-thinking plans to be a bigg success.

Let’s look at a couple of examples, using events from 2008.

Example: Volatile stocks

What?
The stock market can be very volatile.

So what?
I can lose money if I don’t understand the risk and how to manage it.

Now what?
I will learn more about investing and asset allocation. I won’t invest money in stocks that I will need in the next ten years. I will pay closer attention to my quarterly reports to make sure I maintain the proper asset allocation given my age and goals.

Example: Layoffs

What?
Times are tough at work; layoffs are possible.

So what?
It makes me nervous. I think I could lose my job.

Now what?
I will look for ways to help my company save money. I will make sure my boss is aware of the projects I complete successfully. I will look for opportunities to add additional skills so I’m more competitive.

Solid goals

In our examples, the “Now what’s” are a little bit fuzzy. You really want to refine them to turn them into solid goals. For instance, looking at the second example, instead of saying “I will look for ways to help my company save money,” turn that into “I will find one way to save my company $X (you pick a relevant amount) in the next 30 days.”

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We really appreciate you taking the time to read our post today. Join us next time when we look at the most important people of 2008. We think you’ll be surprised at our choices! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Chances are it boils down to this – you’ve come to trust that brand because you know what to expect.

Here’s a little understood point:

Consistency is critical because people like to know what to expect. That’s the reason brands have thrived.

Some of you may remember traveling in the days before chain restaurants and hotels. You never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes it would be great; at other times, it was a disaster.

So the chains grew because people knew what they could expect, no matter where they were. Travelers didn’t want to roll the dice so they settled for the consistency that the chains provided.

So how does all this apply to you and your personal brand?

It comes down to two things – performance and personality.

Performance
Performance means delivering on promises. Quality, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness all play into the value you create. Day-to-day, people form perceptions of what you can do. You have to consistently meet those expectations in order to continue building trust in your brand.

Personality
How pleasant you are to deal with? How do you handle tough situations? How do you treat people? All these, and more, form expectations of how easy is it to work with you.

One of the biggest destroyers of your personal brand is moodiness. When we’re moody, people don’t know what to expect. They start to avoid us. It’s hard to work with moody people.

You may not be able to prevent moodiness, but you can keep it check. You don’t need to share it with the world!

More on personal branding

For What Will You Be Famous?

3 Tips To Thrive In Your Career

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Our bigg quote today comes from George Ross, the man who used to sit at Donald Trump’s right hand on The Apprentice:

And mutual trust is something you can bank on!

In fact, we used to bank there, but then a bigger bank bought them out!

Next time, we’ll look to man’s best friend for some lessons about friendship. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Today we’ll share a timeless principle for solving all of your problems that’s amazingly simple. But first, let’s discuss three ways that DON’T solve problems.

• Ignore it and hope it will go away.
  Some people get overwhelmed by an abundance of problems. They don’t know where to begin solving them so they just don’t begin solving them. 

  Result: The problems usually just get bigger and bigger.

• Use a knee-jerk reaction.
  Other people just jump to a solution. They don’t aim; they just fire. It may or may not be the right solution, but it doesn’t matter – they’ve got it off their plate.

  Result: They may end up with a bigger, more complex problem down-the-road.

• Approach it willy-nilly.
  Still other people have no problem-solving process. They try a little of this and little of that. They don’t have any order so they don’t approach their most pressing problems in an orderly way.

  Result: The problems just keep piling up.

Noble endeavors
James Clavell wrote a great novel called Noble House. It inspired a mini-series in which Pierce Brosnan played the CEO of Struan’s. Struan’s was the Noble House, the most prestigious trading firm in Hong Kong.

He inherited a number of problems from his predecessor. Now, he has a severe shortage of cash. He’s overextended with his bank. His stock price is falling rapidly. He faces a raid on his company by an American businessman, who has inside information. His Hong Kong rival is trying to bury him. The founder of Struan’s had made a promise to the locals that he must fulfill.

His world is crashing in around him! It seems that everybody wants something from him. Yet few are willing to give him any help.

In the end, he managed to overcome all the odds and Struan’s remained the Noble House. How did he do it?

By looking at his problems the Chinese way. It’s a simple, two-step process to solve all of your problems:

• Put all of your problems into their individual compartments.

  Picture yourself at your bank. You’re in the safe deposit area. You see box after box after box.

  Take each problem and put it in its own box. You may group similar problems together, but each one should have its very own box. That will be very important for the second step.

  Put them away to de-clutter your mind. Because if you try to solve all of them, you end up solving none of them. So this first step is very important!

  Not to mention, there are new problems surfacing all the time. Just keep putting them away so you’re ready for the second step.

• Pull one problem out at a time when, and only when, you’re ready and able to deal with it.

  Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But how do you determine what problem to pull out? It’s a matter of timing – do you have the resources available? Do you have the time, the money, and any other required resources? If not, keep it tucked away.

  So when you open up the compartment, do you keep it open until it’s completely solved? Not necessarily! You may pull it out, do as much as you can and then put it back and pull out another one. Keep repeating until all your problems are solved!

  A lot of people never look at their problems this way. There’s a real calming effect when you do, because you don’t have all of your problems staring at you all at once!

Just click the “Share This” button below to pass this ancient problem-solving secret on to a friend. You’ll be a hit if you do! But Shhhh … it’s still a secret!

Next week, we’ll expand on this subject by sharing a problem-solving process we call SOLVE IT.

For our bigg quote today, we thought it only appropriate to consult with Confucius, who said,

Even when complications arise, keep it simple and SOLVE IT!

Next time, we’ll offer some advice that’s not for the faint-of-heart. Consider yourself warned! We’ll discuss a common perception that keeps many people from succeeding bigg! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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