It’s hard to live your life on your own terms when you’re feeling down, but it’s only natural for us humans to have down days.

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One cause of this is what we call If – Only Syndrome.

If only I had finished college.
If only I got a different degree.
If only I had taken that job.
If only I hadn’t quit that job.
If I had only done this instead of that, my life would be so different.
If only. If only. If only.

It’s easy to do. We start to beat ourselves up. We may even feel sorry for ourselves and mope a little.

As with many things, the right thing to do isn’t the easy thing to do.

Fighting these urges is hard.
Getting past the past is hard.
Lifting ourselves up is hard.
Fighting our natural urges is hard.

Focus matters

We get trapped on what might have been. What might have been doesn’t matter at all.

What does matter is what is and what can be.

You can be a bigg success. You can live your life on your own terms starting today.

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I struggled with this when I was younger. I dropped out of college. I went on to start three businesses. But every time things got a little rough, I would beat myself up for not getting a degree. I thought that if I just had that degree, I wouldn’t have these problems. But I was wrong!

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The prescription for If – Only Syndrome comes in two parts. The first part of the cure is a healthy dose of …

So what?

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To continue with George’s example, say you didn’t get a college degree. So what? How many people have succeeded bigg without a college degree?

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We don’t mean to diminish the importance of a good education. It does open up opportunities that may not be open otherwise. But it’s just one factor.

What about your experiences? They are irreplaceable.

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Now along with a healthy dose of “So what”, drink a little …

What can be?

Sticking with the college degree example, why don’t you get one now if it’s that important to you?

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That’s what I did; I went back to school. It’s not a path I would recommend. It was hard! I still had my three businesses, but I did go back and get a degree. It’s interesting … I then went on to get an advanced degree because I didn’t think I would ever go back to school again. Had I gone the traditional path, I doubt I would have ever gotten that advanced degree.

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What can be for you?

How can you make it happen? How will you find the time? How will you pay for it?

When you begin to focus on the actions necessary to move to where you want to be, you’ll feel energized. You’ll feel hope instead of discouragement.

What do you do when you feel discouraged?

You can 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.

Thanks for checking in on us today. It means so much to us!

Please join us next time as we discuss one of the largest mistakes many people make when it comes to building their brand.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00363-040109.mp3

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(Image in today's post by anitasweb)

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As we conducted our research, we discovered five core elements that propel people to bigg success or that keep us from living our lives on our own terms.

The 5 elements are money, time, growth, work, and play.

They operate independently and interdependently all the time.

Money

As we surveyed people, some of the issues regarding money were:

• not making enough
• spending too much
• not saving enough
• not knowing how to invest it

Time

We can get more money, but we can’t get more time. So time is our most precious resource.

Some of the issues we’ve heard in regards to time include:

• not knowing how to prioritize
• being too stretched between work and home
• wishing there was more time for a certain activity
• a to-do list that just keeps growing

Growth

Growth is vital to becoming the entrepreneur of our own lives. As we talked about this with people, we found that fear often holds us back because bigg success often forces us out of our comfort zones.

We also heard about challenges with certain essential skills – not the type of skills we learn in school – but the soft skills that are crucial in the 21st century economy.

Work

This is one of the most important decisions we make. Yet it’s definitely not a once-in-a-lifetime decision any longer. To be a bigg success, we must constantly evaluate our situation to see if a career change makes sense.

One of the most critical choices we make is whether we choose to work for ourselves or for someone else. We are the entrepreneurs of our own lives. But do you want to be an entrepreneur in the traditional sense of the term as well?

We obviously face a lot of challenges here as we learned from our research. Some examples:

• How do I know if I need to change jobs or think about a career change?
• Am I ready to start my own business?
• What do I do if I’m really unhappy where I’m at?
• How do I make money doing what I love?

Play

Play helps us build vital relationships. It also provides the experiences that make our lives whole.

Many people don’t achieve bigg success quite simply because they don’t play enough! All work and no play, you know! It not only makes us dull, it dulls us.

Another challenge with play is finding time for just ourselves as individuals as well as the people that we care about.  

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You can’t have one without the other (four)

What we love about these five elements is how they work interdependently.

Money and time – the two resources we all have.

Work and play – the expressions of who we are.

Growth – the element that links it all together to drive us to bigg success.

We spend time at work to make money so we can afford to play. But if we spend too much time at work, we don’t have time to play! We may spend money to get more time, or we may have to spend more time doing something we’d rather not do because we don’t have the money. With a little growth, we could make that money so could spend more time doing what we want.

Back to the future

The idea behind these five elements and how they work together is the well from which we’ll be drawing for upcoming posts. We’ll focus on the challenges we all face and the opportunities we have to live life on our own terms.

So what does life on your own terms mean to you? What challenges are you facing right now in your quest for bigg success?

You can 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.

We’ll take the most common challenges and do a show about them. We’ll also highlight how people are living life on their own terms.

So this is your opportunity to get in on the fun!

Thank you so much for checking in on us today.

Join us next time as we wrap up this series. We’ll discuss the bigg idea behind our definition for bigg success.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success! 

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00359-032609.mp3

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Networking vs. Networlding

We asked Melissa for her best networking tip. She says not to think of it as networking, but think of it as networlding, which is the title of one of her books. Networlding expands opportunities rather than limiting them.

As a networker, you might set a goal of meeting two people. If you’re a networlder, you would set a goal of meeting two people who you can form a long-term relationship with and build opportunities for you, for them, and for the greater good.

The “overstuffed Rolodex syndrome”

Many people confuse activity with accomplishment. You leverage your network by thinking about who would be good connections for you. Start with people who have complementary values. With the online world, you can have quality and quantity by being specific about what you ask for to create a vibrant exchange.

7 levels of support

Networking isn’t about taking. It’s also not about just giving. You can support people:  

• Emotionally

• By providing information

• By providing knowledge (information plus experiences)

• By promoting them

• Through wisdom sharing (the 20 percent that will yield 80 percent)

• By creating transformational opportunities

• Community (creating the greatest good for the greatest number)

Links to Melissa’s sites

networlding2.org
This is Melissa’s most interactive community. The goal is for members to support each other in achieving their respective goals. You can create your own profile and build your own private circle around your special interest.

Networlding E-Learning
Here you’ll get six FREE lessons on networking for business and sales or networking for jobs.

Melissa will also help you with writing a book. If you’re really serious about it, contact her.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

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The Other Pause that Refreshes 

With all due respect to Irving Berlin, the great writer of this song, we’re putting our own twist on it … anything I can do, you can do better!

A blooming mistake
Jim McCann was a social worker. He got a part-time job in a flower shop to make ends meet. A few years later, he started his own flower business. He made some money, but not that much. So he opened another shop. And then another.

Over ten years, he ended up with fourteen flower shops. One morning, he was listening to the radio as he got ready for work. He had a fresh idea – a nationwide flower service.

He found a bankrupt company which had stopped doing business several years earlier. Its only asset was a toll-free phone number – 1-800-FLOWERS. Now this was before the internet when ordering via telephone was huge.

He really wanted this phone number. So he agreed to buy the company and assume the debt. He figured their liabilities had to be pretty insignificant, since they hadn’t done any business for years.

After buying the company, he found out how wrong he was. It turned out they were $7 million in debt. His friends advised him to declare bankruptcy, but he pressed on. It took about five years to pay off the debt, but he did. And last year his little business sold over $750 million of flowers!

Learn from Your (and Our) Mistakes
So Jim McCann learned a valuable lesson about due diligence. But anyone who wants to buy a business can learn this lesson without having to go through a similar experience.

You can do anything better than me by learning from my mistakes so you don’t have to make them yourself. Learning from your mistakes is good; learning from mine is better. You’ll succeed faster!

Shared Success
With information so prevalent today, there’s another way our title applies. In many cases, it doesn’t make sense to hoard information, you’re better off sharing it.

The final step of mastering any craft is the desire and ability to mentor others. And an interesting thing happens as you do that … the people you’re mentoring may, at some point, start doing better than you.

Then the teacher begins to learn from the student. So the teacher performs better. And the student learns and performs better.

Anything we can do, we can do better! You both help each other grow.  

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Our bigg quote today is by the great Will Rogers, who said,

It’s the smart thing to do!

Next time, we’ll discuss how to have the discipline to invest even if you don’t have the discipline to invest. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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(Image by andresfib,CC 2.0)