Usually when I ask people what they want out of life, their answer involves something they don’t have. I then ask, why don’t you have it yet? They typically respond with a lame and over-rationalized excuse that may sound good to them, but they’re not fooling me!
The fact is, if you are not living the life you always desired to have, you are subconsciously rebelling against yourself. By that I mean you have no faith in, or refuse to exercise, your personal power. Personal power encompasses strength, confidence, and competence, and the lack of personal power makes it almost impossible to achieve your goals.
Fortunately, personal power can be cultivated. Here are some easy ways to claim your personal power and get on the path to enjoying the life you were meant to live.
1. Set worthy goals and construct your life around them. Remember, your goals and the effort you put into them determine the outcome of your life.
2. Once you begin a project, make sure you follow it through to completion. You may reach a satisfying completion, meaning you’ve achieved what you set out to do, or sometimes you reach an impasse that allows you to go no further. Either way, a project is considered completed once you’ve gone as far as you can go with it. It’s better to abandon a project than have it hang over your head.
3. Make sure your actions match your words. If they don’t, you diminish your credibility and, therefore, your power.
4. Learn to embrace problems; they stimulate your analytic mind. Remember, if there were no problems, most of us would not have a job or own a business. (Tip: If you want a bigger salary, change the size of the problems you solve.)
5. Always under promise and over deliver. When you deliver more than what’s expected, it’s almost impossible to fail. This applies to both your professional and personal lives. Employees who practice this become a hot commodity; employers will do whatever it takes to keep them, including raising their salaries. Business owners who over deliver will enjoy loyal customers who will tell others about the exceptional value they received.
6. Practice excellence in all that you do. Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well. Besides, this helps attract all the right people and circumstances into your life.
7. Stay clear of stressful people and avoid stressful situations. The only ones who benefit from stress are the media, politicians, doctors and drug companies. Why add to their profits when you should be adding to your own?
8. Speak well and considerately. Never finish another person’s sentence or speak over them. Use proper grammar, develop your vocabulary, and choose your words wisely. Every time you speak you are either moving closer to or further away from your goals. This applies not only to your external dialogue, but to your internal dialogue as well, meaning the thing you say to yourself.
9. Be a people person. Value your connections with others and increase your networking activities. Networking is more than just simply handing out your business card; think of it as relationship building. I can’t begin to tell you how many business cards I’ve collected over the years that ended up in the trash because there was no relationship behind them.
10. Do a mental inventory or keep a list of all the people you know well and their specific skills. That way you’ll know who to call on for advice or help.
11. Understand where your weaknesses lie, and make an effort to strengthen them. Give them the attention they need in order to conquer them.
12. If you make a mistake, own it and move forward fast. Learn from what went wrong, but don’t dwell on your misstep or beat yourself up. Instead, focus your energy on new solutions.
13. Protect your reputation. If anyone tries to tarnish it, fight back. This world is full of people who would like nothing more than to see you fail… as they sit on the sidelines.
The bottom line is, if you are not doing all you are capable of doing to become all that you are capable of becoming, it’s your own fault. By claiming your personal power, you’re on the way to claiming all the good things in life you deserve!
Be sure to check out my new best seller, Discovering Your Personal Power: 27 Articles of Inspiration, based on the columns I write here for Mesquite Local News. Available in both softcover and download through Amazon at: http://amzn.to/KApKsm or Barnes & Noble at http://bit.ly/Izv6Zd
Nikk Zorbas is a performance coach, author, recording artist, and creator of "The Reveal, Dream Big, Never Quit" program. He splits his time between Las Vegas and Mesquite. His monthly column appears the first Monday of every month on www.MesquiteLocalNews.com. For more information, visit his website at www.DiscoveringThePowerOfYou.com.