Self-discipline and self-motivation are joined at the hip.
Why is that?
When you practice self-discipline you feel like you are in control of your life.
You feel content and motivated because you’re moving toward your goals.

If I had to pick the #1 key to success, it would be…self-discipline. It is the difference in winning or losing; between greatness and mediocrity. Pure and Simple: Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness.

On the weekend I met with a dozen of “my” 40 open water / marathon swimmer enthusiasts after a two hour - 7km workout and gave them the opportunity to “Pick Shelley’s Brain” as I am currently coaching them for the upcoming Rottnest Channel 20km Marathon Swim set for 20 February 2010.

I shared how I got the nickname from my male competitors: “Dangerous When Wet” and shared ways to stay motivated and prepare with a Champion Mindset. I kept coming back to the most important 6 inches of the body (the distance between the ears) required to create the mental toughness to not give up at training nor during the upcoming Christmas holiday period!

After we had chatted for awhile, I got asked the question that many people in this situation would ask, “Of all the one thousand success principles that you have discovered, which do you think is the most important?”

I smiled at each and every one of them with a twinkle in my eye, just like I have been asked this question many times, and replied, without hesitating, “The most important success principle of all is: “Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

Now ain’t that the truth!

Kop Kopmeyer, a legend in the field of success and achievement said: “There are 999 other success principles that I have found in my reading and experience, but without self-discipline, none of them work.”

Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you, and makes everything else possible. With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.

Your Champion Action Today:

1. What self-discipline habit do you need to start or stick at to achieve your goal today?

2. Check what have you given up on or was gonna’ do but never got around to. Is there a pattern of similar behaviour? Is there a lack of self-discipline?

3. List what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not …which will create self-discipline and ensure success for YOU.

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

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

PS: If you’re struggling with self-discpline, you’re not alone! Why not “Pick Shelley’s Brain” for 10mins and see if Shelley is the ideal self development coach for you to discover your Motivation, Mindset and Mental Toughness. For the next 24hrs the first 10 people who email enquiries@championmindset.com.au and put in the subject header: “Shelley I want to pick your brain and get help with my lack of self discipline!” will get that opportunity for free for 10mins. Offer expires midnight Monday 30th November Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Attitude of Gratitude: How’s your Work-Attitude Motivation?

When people feel that the work they put in doesn’t make a difference to anyone - they stop trying to give their best and do just enough to get through.

“There is a little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.”
W. Clement Stone

You probably know people who clock in and simply ‘do their job’ and then clock out.

When a person feels that no-one really cares about what they do or who they are, they begin to not care either. Perceived indifference is not just a reason why customers change where they shop, but also why people don’t try as hard or change jobs.

The reality is that the energy you feel is the energy you give out. If your energy is flat, then that’s the energy you work with and what people perceive you to be. Ultimately, you decide what your energy will be - not anyone else.

However, when people are acknowledged for their significance and contribution to success, they fully apply themselves, take initiative, and build a positive attitude into their work culture.

Think about it, if you were regularly acknowledged for the efforts you put in and acknowledged for the impact that you create, do you think that would accelerate how driven and committed you become to your work goals, projects and deadlines?

Absolutely! Although the practice of gratitude is used in many personal development circles, its impact is seen in business, client relationships and professional alliances. People like to do business with people who genuinely care about us and who make us feel good.

You cannot feel unhappy at the same time of being grateful, right?

There are endless studies that point out the self confidence one receives from positive reinforcement and genuine display of gratitude.

Here are 3 ways to spread the attitude of gratitude in your workplace with colleagues:
PS: they work fabulously at home too!

a. Direct Gratitude
Communicate directly with the person. Don’t use email, text or voice-mail for this one. Pick up the phone and call them. Let them hear the genuine tone in your voice. Better still, go and see them face to face to acknowledge their contribution. Make eye contact. Don’t write what you can say. Take clients out for lunch for no other reason (and for no other agenda) except to say thank you for your business.

b. Regular Gratitude
Each week (or day) find something positive to tell your team, colleagues, clients, partner and kids. Make a habit of seeing the good in people reinforces that they have been noticed and their efforts are adding to the success of the company goals.

c. Random Gratitude
Don’t wait for a reason, the right moment or the right person. Practice random acts of acknowledging people just for doing what they do. The energy you give out is the energy you work with - so infect as many people as you can. Send random thank you cards to your clients, colleagues and staff.

Today’s Champion Action:

• What are you grateful for in your life?

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• What are you most happy and proud of completing or achieving?

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• What is the biggest risk you ever took and what did you gain?

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Enjoy your day giving thanks with a smile! It really is impossible to feel worry or experience any negative emotion in the presence of genuine GRATITUDE!

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

Create Highly Productive Systems to DO the Work FOR You…

How Often Do You Get Up To Bat?

Discover the single leverage point, the critical activity that is the most important to your success. Then create the easiest and most enjoyable system possible to help you complete the steps that lead up to this power point.

You will automatically increase the frequency of your most productive activities when you make the preliminary steps easier to perform and more fun to complete.

“Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.”~ James Ling

Today’s Champion Action:

1. What is the most crucial task that makes the biggest contribution to your success in this role?

2. What are the essential steps that must be taken before you can even get the chance to perform your most crucial task?

3. How could you make the preliminary steps that lead to your most crucial tasks more enjoyable?

Achieve Greater Success Today. Choose Success over Failure. Eliminate the NEGATIVES driving your performance… accentuate your POSITIVES and you will achieve the SUCCESS you desire… a great deal sooner.

Remember it is Mind-Over-Matter
and if you don’t quit…you will make it!

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

Does it serve any purpose to complain about things you cannot change? So why would you want to waste your time doing it?

Does it serve any purpose to fill your thoughts with regret and resentment over what happened long ago? So why would you waste even a single moment on such a negative, unpleasant pursuit?

You’re far better off doing something that does serve a purpose. You’re far better off using your time and energy to learn, to create, to love, to understand and experience life.

Your thoughts and actions are immensely powerful. Rather than using them to hold yourself down, put them to work on a valuable and positive purpose.

Use your energy to serve a positive purpose, and as a result you will have even more energy. Fill your time in the service of a positive purpose, and your life will be filled with truly meaningful treasures.

Choose the thoughts and actions that serve a purpose. And life will serve you its real rewards.

Your Champion Action Today:
If you are not used you are useless….what purpose are you useful for?

List all the purposes you are useful for in the following areas:
1. Health
2. Fitness
3. Family
4. Relationship with partner
5. Career
6. Colleagues and co-workers
7. Friends
8. Community
9. Charitable orgnaisations
10. Finances
11. YOU!!!

Remember it is MIND OVER MATTER…
and if you don’t quit…you will make it!

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

I Create My Day

How do you create yours? If you’re not GETTING what you want out of life, maybe you’re not GIVING enough to it.

The most often referenced interview in the film, What The Bleep Do You Know!, is Dr. Joe Dispenza’s comments on creating his day. In response to the numerous requests, the following is the transcript of that part of the interview.

“I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down and get to the point of where I’m actually intentionally creating my day.

But here’s the thing: When I create my day and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain that I accept that that’s possible. (This) gives me the power and the incentive to do it the next day.

“So if we’re consciously designing our destiny, and if we’re consciously from a spiritual standpoint throwing in with the idea that our thoughts can affect our reality or affect our life — because reality equals life — then I have this little pact that I have when I create my day. I say, ‘I’m taking this time to create my day and I’m infecting the quantum field.

Now if (it) is in fact the observer’s watching me the whole time that I’m doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won’t expect, so I’m as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it’s come from you,’ and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love.

“I’ll use living as a genius, for example. And as I do that during parts of the day, I’ll have thoughts that are so amazing, that cause a chill in my physical body, that have come from nowhere. But then I remember that that thought has an associated energy that’s produced an effect in my physical body. Now that’s a subjective experience, but the truth is, is that I don’t think that unless I was creating my day to have unlimited thought, that that thought would come.” (Dr. Joe Dispenza in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?TM)

So, How Do You Think All This Got Started Anyway? By showing thanks and appreciation, in everyday terms, enhances your ability to live what you value most.

Today’s Champion Action for YOU:

1. When would be a good time at the start of the day to start thinking about creating your day?

2. What could you say to yourself to create a day that you would say “I had a successful day” or ‘I achieved today”?

3. Ask your world to reveal to you what you need to learn today? What do you need to embrace today? Who do you need to recognise today? At the end of the day before you go to sleep ask yourself “Thank you world for revealing/teaching/showing me today…..”

Remember: It is mind over matter
And if you don’t quit…you will make it!

Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

Are You Up For It?

Do you bound out of bed raring to go? Or do you hear yourself say: “I got out of bed on the wrong side”

Immediately Stop Worry from Dragging Your Performance Down…

Get your body in an energised state before you worry further about a demanding decision. When you get your heart pumping and your blood flowing, you become more optimistic, confident and creative.

Before taking on any problem, make sure your body is energised first.

Norman Douglas said: “How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one’s senses….how reluctantly the mind consents to reality.” Thank you Norman!

Millions of people started today “hoping” for motivation to get them through the week. They woke up waiting for some external force to inspire and light a fire under them so they could make it through the day. Not an exciting way to begin the week, do you agree?

Here are 4 Taylor-Made Tips that I focus on achieving to energise me for the week ahead:

1. On Monday morning I always begin a little earlier and get in a quick workout, even if it’s just a 15 minute walk or short swim. I love to start the week with my early morning swim workout. It really blows the cobwebs out from the weekend. It wakes up your brain and gets those endorphins flowing. You will burn more fat, feel GREAT and it is good to get it out of the way so you’re free to move on to other things.

2. Eat a healthy breakfast. Regardless of what you have eaten or drunk over the weekend this will provide you with the fuel to tackle your top priorities. (Planning your week in advance means planning your meals in advance if you want to be super productive, energised and stay away from fast foods, which are a huge energy drain). What you put into your mouth has a direct effect on your productivity, efficiency and mental clarity.

9. Listen to one hour of an empowering audio program while you’re working out and eating breakfast. This will help you with the mental motivation and get you going with the right attitude. For Club members I highly recommend you download Shelley’s 69 favourite Taylor-Made Motivations or review one of any of the Go-for-Gold Blogs which are available to non-members at the Think Like A Champion Club.

10. At the end of each day and the end of each week, review what you did or didn’t do. Make adjustments where necessary and keep building on your strengths and celebrating your successes. Have fun and remember that small improvements add up over time. Imagine how much more clarity, motivation and achievement you will experience after growing and improving consistently for 52 weeks!

Momentum breeds momentum.

Unleashing these powerful strategies will condition you to seize the day every day. You will condition yourself to know where you are going, get moving and you will have all the energy to drive you through your week.

Today’s Champion Action:

1. It is Monday so what difficult task or decision do you have in front of you today?

2. Are you willing to get your body energised before taking on a difficult task, and then observe the difference?

3. What activities do you choose to get you energised right now?

Achieve Greater Success Today. Dead stop the FEAR of success… the FEAR of failure… the FEAR of the future. Take SMARTER actions more consistently and you will achieve Peak Peformance and Think Like A Champion to achieve the SUCCESS you desire… a great deal sooner.

Now get out there…and get on with enjoying your Monday!

Go for Gold…it’s your birthright to succeed.
Cheers Shelley Taylor-Smith

Maintain a Positive Expectation for Every Action You Take…
Don’t Worry — Be Happy?

Life is not determined by random events and circumstances, rather by the thoughts you think. By insisting on positive thoughts, you will continue on a course that will bring both success and happiness.

Negative emotions such as anger, frustration, resentment or disappointment are dams that restrict the flow of energy. Open the flood-gates. Let them go to make room for the positive.

I say confidently: I personally do not teach positive thinking. To me, by the time you think positive…. it is too late. It is important to understand that is not our thinking that creates our circumstances, but the emotion that is attached to our thoughts.

In pursing your dreams and achieving your goals you will discover there is a a scientific system to getting, obtaining, and creating precisely what you want… whether it be more money, better relationships, the job or career you have always dreamed of, or getting into shape…

My journey in becoming World Marathon Swimming Champion led to the discovery that “the secret” works with Swiss-clockwork precision, precisely because it is and always has been based upon the laws of physics as undeniable as the law of gravity…

Have you ever noticed…

* Whatever you hold in your mind with energy and focus becomes your reality … whether it be negative or positive, if you focus on it and give it emotional energy, it manifests itself in your life…

* If you have good thoughts or do good deeds towards others, it sets in motion a chain reaction delivering good back to you … maybe not from the same person or at the same time, but probably when you need it the most…

* If there is something you struggle against… it just seems to come back to you in droves (rather than leaving)… In fact, the more you resist, the more you attract that which you don’t want…

These are all based upon the Law of Attraction… an immutable law as impersonal and indifferent to your “wishes” as the Law of Gravity…

Here is something else you may not realise, which is a fact based on universal Law of Cause and Effect which applies to everything in the universe including your actions:

For every cause there is an effect... not only that, but the effect is always multiplied. So not only will you experience what you cause yourself, or others, to experience, but it will come back to you, multiplied and increased.

In other words, if you help others to experience riches and happiness, it will come back to you and you will experience a multiplying of what you cause others to experience…