With the Victorian Bushfire tragedy in Australia this past week, like many Australians I have been focused on how I can assist in any way to support my fellow Aussie mates who have suffered in a way that I cannot even begin to imagine or comprehend.

So if you are feeling a bit drained, emotionally or physically, from this week’s events and have lost your laser focus on achieving your goals… you are OK….this is normal behaviour.

Let’s help support you to get you back on track and ‘in the zone’ right now….back into action focused on the scheduled plans you have set in place to achieve your goals.

Focus - Some of the most difficult kind of setbacks to achieving your goals is accepting the ones where you miss your goal by the tiniest of measures… losing on the final shot, losing the promotion because of a single botched assignment, failing a test by one point. There are a million other examples. And they are all painful.

The one common thread in all “close but no cigar” failures is that with just a little more focus, just one hour more of practice, the tiniest bit of attention to just one detail and a crushing defeat would have been a glorious, possibly life changing victory.

For that reason the Think Like A Champion Club blog is now available to everyone who visits the Think Like A Champion Club. ….

And another reason why I created the Thinking Like A Champion Club that is filled with attitude altering new beliefs, from the world’s most successful people that will help you gain laser-like focus on the details related to your most important objectives in life. When the pressure is on, you want to instinctively perform at your best no matter what distractions may be present.

So sit back and listen to the day I turned a potential negative experience into a positive, saw a risk as an opportunity, overcame the major obstacles, and embraced one of my greatest fears whilst I created new friends “the jellyfish”!

……creating history along the way too; winning gold and achieving the inaugural FINA Women’s World Champion 25km long distance event in my hometown of Perth, Western Australia.

Get focused right now….click here

and remember:…. if you don’t quit, you will make it!

If you are a Think Like A Champion Club member and need a power call - your get out of jail - pick Shelley’s brains…call me on 1300 78 41 70 or email your 3 time slots this coming week and we’ll confirm your 10min power call complimentary coaching as a member of the club …and I will coach you to get focused and in the zone.

Go For Gold in 2009!
Shelley Taylor-Smith

PS: Not a Think Like A Champion Club member? Take a 21-day $1 trial and get access to all the benefits plus access CDs, book summaries and presentations on focus, procrastination…. click here to register now and start enjoying the benefits

Imagine being able to manipulate the future:

“Everyone knows HINDSight is 20/20, but imagine having 20/20 FOREsight in 2009!”

That is what this first blog for 2009 is all about – wanting to see if you’re getting the same ‘ol same ‘ol or have you got the Champion edge?

Let me set you up, so you can benefit as you use your 20/20 foresight like a telescope that make distant stars feel so close that you could reach out and touch them.

20/20 foresight is one of many concepts that we will explore in 2009, as we turn the page after the the most important 21 days of the year….

…remembering it takes 21 days for a new habit to become 2nd nature…. unconscious and part of who you are without having to think about it once and for all.

So is the New You bursting forth….achieving what you set out to achieve with your New Year Resolutions?

If you’re like most people, you itemised the things you want or wish to improve:

• Make more money.
• Lose weight.
• Get into a passionate relationship.
• Spend more quality time with family.
• Become fit and healthy.
• Learn a new language.
• Travel to exotic destinations.
• Cook new recipes.
• Get Better Grades.
• Quit my job and start a company.
• Follow my Passion.

But most people don’t stick to their resolutions. Why? (I will explain all the reasons why on the upcoming special live teleseminar on Wednesday 4th February at 8pm Sydney EST Australia time….reserve your seat now as it is over half full!)

It is a real shame because usually they are the list of what they want most, dream about and wish for with all their heart and soul.

If they achieved even a fraction of their New Year’s Resolutions, their lives would change and create a radically new, different destiny for them and for their family/kids.

I see it all the time.

Wishing for something to change, but not taking any action.

I want you to take action – go back through your New Year’s Resolutions. And if you have not as yet…for whatever reason…. go ahead now if you have not even started a list.

Do them in a place that inspires, motivates and empowers you to think expansively.

As you start the process, just make a list of everything you would like to have or ‘be’ … Don’t sensor yourself – that will come later.

Just take 5 to 10 minutes. Aren’t you worth 5 to 10 minutes?

Once you have your complete dream list, you now need to chunk it down to your ‘Top 10″ list – the top 10 things that you are committed to working on ALL YEAR LONG.

I select a list of 10 because that works for me. More is too much and less is not enough.

Once you have this list, try to determine “What has to happen for this to be achieved?” for each item on your ‘Top 10 list’.

For example, if one of your resolutions is “I want to be fit and healthy”, what has to happen might be: “I need to get to 80 Kilograms with 8% body fat, fit into my ’skinny jeans’. I need to do some form of exercise or sport 3 times per week as a MINIMUM. I can’t eat junk food and coke more than once a week. I no longer eat after 7 or 8 PM at night.”

The more detailed and specific you are the better.

I know this is simplistic – I get a lot of that.

People WANT success to be complex, complicated and hard. It’s because that way they can feel self-justified when they are not as successful as they would like and lie to themselves that’s it’s all too hard…

Success is actually not hard – it’s easier than failure, but few see it that way.

I mean think about it.

When you ARE successful, rich and healthy – you have options. You can buy what you need, want desire. You can travel when you want to avoid the panic rush of the masses who are all forced into a funnel during ’school holidays’…

People WANT success to be complex, complicated and hard. It’s because that way they can feel self-justified when they are not as successful as they would like and lie to themselves that’s it’s all too hard…

Success is actually not hard – it’s easier than failure, but few see it that way.

I mean think about it.

When you ARE successful, rich and healthy – you have options. You can buy what you need, want desire. You can travel when you want to avoid the panic rush of the masses who are all forced into a funnel during ’school holidays’…

When you’re successful, you can hire resources to get stuff done for you so you WORK LESS and EARN MORE. Isn’t that easier than doing the actual work?

When you’re successful, you know how to get the RESULTS that evade most people. You get paid A LOT MORE for those results, but they don’t take more effort to produce, but BECAUSE the RESULTS are better, you get PAID multiple times more than someone else who breaks his/her back producing LESSER outcomes.

When you’re successful, you are healthier, fitter and therefore have more stamina and perseverance to go the distance, the extra mile so-to-speak where all the rewards are. The rewards that pay you for your efforts instead of coming up short and although having expended ‘almost’ as much time, cost and effort pay no nothing, nada, zilch.

Trust me, success is a LOT easier. It’s the best-kept secret out there – one that I have been ‘preaching’ for years.

This is my gift to you today- since you are a Think Like A Champion Club Member, I want you extend to you a 15min coaching call to help set you up for a meaningful 2009. On the call you ask me any question related to why you are not succeeding and achieving your goals.
Email me at info@thinklikeachampionclub.com with your name and contact number to arrange your coaching time. (NB: this gift expires at midnight 31st January 2009).

And if you are serious about Making 2009 Your Year to Achieve Your Goals…. then order the Create Your Champion Mindset 7CD set at $197 (RRP $595) and be coached step-by-step through the Goal Planning System guaranteed to see you achieve your desires and what you deserve.

The 7 Cd set will also include the 90 page Ultimate step-by-step manual and bonus resource Cd is only available until 1st February at this ridiculous offer, but since you are a Think Like A Champion Club Member I wanted to make sure I did give you the impetus, the catalyst to do this NOW, to get you started on your success pathway. Order now as only 27 sets in this offer!

Yes, timing is important.

Do it NOW in the first 21 days of the YEAR, because this is what sets you up for the rest of this NEW YEAR.

You want to set the goals in the distance - the Power of the Creating Your Very Own Champion Mindset to leverage the immense potentiality of your brain’s magnificence to your benefit.

Using tips and tricks like this to catapult you forward effortlessly, like a magic carpet ride into the future.

I know, I know how simple this sounds.

I know.

I also know it works.

When I first did this at Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within Firewalk Seminar in 1997, I wrote down a list of 10 TEN-YEAR GOALS.

These were goals that I would be astonished, excited, amazed and ‘beside myself’ IF and WHEN I achieved them in the NEXT 10 YEARS …

Most of those goals were too personal to share with you, but what’s important is that within 1 year, I had achieved 8 out of 10.

I had to pinch myself – literally when I re-visited my list. There it was, my 10-YEAR GOALS LIST with 8 out of 10 items ticked off.

I know how incredulous this all sounds.

I know.

I have never looked back and have been leveraging this incredible epiphany ever since.

I hope you do too.

There is NO BETTER TIME than right now to do this – other than in exactly 12 months from now…

By then YOU could have 8 out of 10 items ticked off your list!

Get Up, Get Tough and Get Going in 2009!

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

P.S. One of my 10 year goals was to return to my hometown of Perth, Western Australia and set up Oceania’s 1st ever FINA Marathon Swimming World Cup event … and just this week I met with the WA Sports Minister proposing the event for March 2010 and next week I have meetings with the Perth City Council, WA Department of Sport & Recreation and WA Tourism. That’s right – and it is only day 22 of 2009!

Another goal was Marathon Swimming inclusion into the Olympic Programme which the IOC announced on October 26, 2005 (less than 10yrs that I wrote it on my 10 year goal list). The 10km marathon swim debuted in the Beijing Olympic Games on 21 August 2008. It was the most highly sought first-ever after event at the Beijing Olympic Games by the media and last week in Kuwait we met and started planning for London 2012. For many people that is a ‘lifetime goal’, one that is never realised.

The rest as they say is…

The future.

History is left behind as we set out into the future to realise our dreams, wishes, and awakenings to whatever it is we aspire to do and become.

Dream big and see what happens.

Little did I know that one of the two items in my 10 YEAR LIST that wasn’t ticked off in the first year would happen within less than 10 years…

The Think Like A Champion Club.

Yeah I know.

It’s always obvious after-the-fact.

Hindsight is 20/20, but in your case you can have…

20/20 foresight!

I’m not the most athletic person in the world.

I hear you….What you 7-time World Marathon Swimming World Champ…you’re kidding yourself aren’t you Shelley!

Now before you fall on the floor in shock and horror….hang in here with me…because there is a valuable lesson to achieving your goals and creating 100% self belief along the way so your self esteem soars too on your journey.

You see as a child, I grew up being told that I had no natural ability, was disabled and had nothing above average…yes me!

Growing up, you’d find me anywhere and everywhere participating on the sports field at lunch-times and after school and on Saturday mornings in the inter-school sports carnivals.

When it came to doing the mandatory athletics day, I’d somehow work my way into participating in the long distance events as I was simply hopeless at sprints events….I mean someone took them out of my Weeties box.

Now retired from competitive marathon swimming 10 years…(and people keep asking me, as early as only yesterday at the pool, “are you still competing Shelley?”)

and… I know I no longer have youth on my side – I am 47yrs young….so if I want to be able to keep living the Champion life that I love with all the passion and purpose like a 20yr old, then I need to do something new.

So if you come into the Manly Surf Club gym on most mornings, you’ll see me there. And you may even hear me complaining to my buddys during my twice-weekly workouts “I can’t lift another thing” or “It’s buuuuuuurning!!!!” This is all getting way too hard”.

If I had my way, I’d continue to swim every day ….and that would be really easy for me to do. I would even continue my lovely beach walks every other day. I’d do the things I was most comfortable with and leave the rest til another day – when I felt like it.

Yet every time I walk into the Manly Surf Club gym, I hear those men’s words ringing in my ears as I struggle and those days when it is all too much and I feel like giving up. ‘C’mon Shell …what are you always telling us….You saved the best one for last…..You’re the Best…Forget the Rest! When the going gets tough…the tough get going!”

Buggar they were listening to me all these years!

But it’s that – that makes all the difference.

And you know what? I would not have it any other way.

So often in life we want the reward but we don’t want to do the extra that will get us there. We want to stay in our comfort zone but we want more as well. When we decide to step out and do ‘just one more’, we begin our journey to the next level.

We each have our own cheering squad - listen to those who want what’s best for you and encourage you to move towards your goals. You may find you can do ‘just one more’ and it’s that which will make all the difference.

Decide today what ‘just one more’ you will commit to and what difference it will make.

“We often don’t know what we’re capable of - until we go beyond what we think we can do”.

Go for Gold!
Cheers Shelley