Never, Never GIVE UP!

Don't let life pass you by. This is your life. Live your dreams and goals, and charge towards your goals everyday.

Post this poem on persistence on your office wall, your dorm room, or your refrigerator. It will keep you charging!

 

Don't Quit!
 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
 

When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
For life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
 

And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he'd stuck it out.
Success is just failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
 

And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that YOU MUST NOT QUIT!

 

Quite means failure.

Othman Ali

Creating Change: Are You an Unmotivated Donkey?

I recently pulled out a book called "Coaching for Performance" written by John Whitmore that I had read back in 2003 to look at the chapter on Motivation. I had been involved in a conversation with a client about how the people she supervises are completely unmotivated to do anything. Mr. Whitmore states that "If you treat people like donkeys, they will perform like donkeys," meaning that donkeys (people) will do as little as they can possibly get away with at work.

I admit it- I have been a donkey in the past. I once had a job that I really liked- until management changed that is. With that change, much of the duties of my job that I really enjoyed and succeeded at were taken away from me in efforts to realign the organization that I worked for. I was left with a job that involved shuffling papers, and cleaning up insignificant problems that were created by others. My job no longer had any real meaning. I had asked for more meaningful work, had volunteered to participate in various workgroups and projects but felt that support by management was extremely lacking. I started doing as little as I could get away with. I felt very apathetic. I was entirely unmotivated.

As I was thinking about my own previous experience as a donkey, I found myself wondering what was really going on at my client's place of work. Were the donkey's truly not motivated or was their motivation completely sucked away by the leadership of the corporation?

I personally knew that I could not be a donkey for the rest of my life. Sitting back and doing nothing just didn't feel right to me. I came from a blue-collar family where hard work was the norm. Even though I had job security, I interviewed for several positions and eventually left that company. At the same time, I also started working on a business plan to become self-employed. My motivation was that if I sat there being a donkey for the next 20 years, that it would slowly kill me or at least deplete every ounce of self-respect that I had. I could not live with myself under those circumstances.

If you find yourself feeling like a donkey, ask yourself a few questions:

• Why am I here?
• Do I like this job?
• Is there something else I could do?
• What are my strengths, and weaknesses?
• What are my skill sets?

If you are boss and you are supervising a bunch of donkeys think about how you can empower them. Oftentimes people in the work environment lose motivation because they are told what to do and feel like they have no say. Support your staff and their decisions to the extent that you can. When you use the word empower be sure that it is not a hollow concept.

Guest Writer

By Lori Bell

Confidence and The Enemy Within You

"It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head"

The more self-confidence you have, the more likely you are to succeed in life. So, if you lack self-confidence, does that mean that failure is inevitable? Only you can answer that question. The bottom line is that if you believe that your lack of self-confidence makes your failure inevitable, you will inevitably fail.

Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." Think about that for a moment. Only you can decide the outcome of your life. The way you think affects every single aspect of your life. If you think you're a failure, guess what? You are a failure - even when everyone around you tells you you're a success. For example, a beautiful young woman can look in the mirror and see an ugly face looking back at her. Everyone tells her she's beautiful but she tells herself she's ugly - therefore she believes she is ugly. 

A talented athlete can be preparing for a major event. His coach tells him he's ready, his results in training are telling him he's ready but he tells himself he's not ready - therefore he believes he's not ready. In both cases, their beliefs are based on nothing real, in fact their thoughts are totally irrational, but because it's what they believe to be real, it becomes their reality.

The negative voice inside the young woman's head is the enemy within - she is effectively her own worst enemy. For as long as she chooses to listen to and believe what that negative voice is telling her, she is choosing to let negativity cloud her vision and her world. The same applies to the athlete. He is choosing to let the negative voice of self-doubt railroad his confidence into oblivion. What you think you are, you are. What you think you can or can't do, you're right!

However, going around shouting your mouth off about how great you think you are, doesn't mean that you are great. You only need to watch an episode of 'The Apprentice' on TV to see 'confidence' personified but having the self-confidence to talk the talk does not in itself guarantee you success. Real confidence comes from within; it comes from knowing that you can also walk the walk. If you never doubt yourself, you're not self-confident, you're simply arrogant! Of course, being 'quietly confident' wouldn't make great TV.

Genuine self-confidence comes from knowing who you are and knowing what you're capable of achieving. That knowledge comes from challenging yourself and successfully meeting those challenges. If you lack self-confidence, your biggest challenge is to silence the negative voice of the enemy within. So, how do you fight an enemy with outposts in your head? The first step is to recognise that self-doubt is not something you have to accept. The negative voice in your head does not have all the answers - put it to the test.

Sometimes The Day Comes

Sometimes the day comes
when you try your level best
to achieve something
but you fail

Sometimes the day comes
when nobody understands you
and you feel that you are isolated
from the world

Sometimes the day comes
when you want to help the needy
but find yourself unable to
because of some reasons

Sometimes the day comes
when you are hungry and have a few bucks
but you see the child laborers and buy food for them

Sometimes the day comes
when Mom comes up with one answer
and Father with another
and you have to make your own decision

Sometimes the day comes
when you see that some people ditch others
because of their selfishness

Sometimes the day comes
when you want to tell something to your parents
but find yourself unable to because
you think that they might get hurt or misunderstand you

Sometimes the day comes
when your friends drift apart
not because you were not able to understand them
but because they were not able to understand you

Sometimes the day comes
when you want to smile
but can't find a place to even weep

Sometimes the day comes
when your beloved can't understand your feelings
and leaves you alone
and you look down and feel ashamed or embarrassed

But sometimes the day comes
when you learn from all your failure and think
"Those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly."

Don't look down, look up.