Monthly Archives: January 2018

Have you set your rejection goal for 2018?

Experiments

Here is a great idea that I want to suggest you experiment with in 2018.  I want you to collect 100 rejections!  It’s counter-intuitive but brilliant!  The thing is that if you work that hard to get so many rejections, you’re sure to get a few acceptances, too!  It’s almost that aiming for rejection is a far more attainable goal.  You are essentially re-framing rejection as an achievement for putting yourself out there, rather than a penalty and therefore you may have an easier time mustering the courage to aim for highly competitive targets. You may even find a weird sense of satisfaction in adding another rejection to your tally for the year!  Successful people put themselves out there a lot (outside their comfort zone) which generally means their ideas also get shot down constantly.

My own job hunting experience tallies with this.  I remember having a list of Xs on a chart for each job rejection and strangely felt proud of my rejections!  To me it was evidence that I was working hard.  The rejections eventually led to a yes and a new direction in my life.

This year I will be seeking 100 rejections and will be applying and asking for support and funding etc.  Things I would never have had the courage to ask for without this challenge of seeking out rejection.  How about you – are you going to join me and take up the 100 rejection challenge for 2018?

 

“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate”.

Thomas J. Watson

Not Making Progress on Your Goals? Don’t Worry There is Plenty of Time…..

Goal Achievement, Planning, Procrastination

We are now three weeks into the new year.  How is 2018 going for you?  Making progress on your new year’s resolutions?  Are you making progress towards your 2018 goals?  If not then don’t worry – there is always next week, next month or next year…….

Or so we tend to think!

However out of the blue people get sick.  People get cancer,  people have accidents and get killed, even celebrities get sick and die suddenly.  We have seen many celebrities die over the past few years.  Just recently Irish musician and singer-songwriter Dolores O’Riordan of the group Cranberries passed away unexpectedly (R.I.P).  She was only 46 years old and in London to record a cover of her hit song ‘Zombie’ with hard rock band Bad Wolves.   She had left a message with one of the band the night before saying how much she was looking forward to seeing them in the studio the next day to record vocals.  Within hours she was dead – we wait for the inquest to know why but foul play is not suspected.  Sadly in an instant all her dreams, goals and plans are gone.  Sadly we will never get to hear that cover version of ‘Zombie’.

But of course death or serious injury or disability always happens to somebody else.  It will never happen to us and in our reasoning it will always happen to somebody else.   In terms of all our goals and our dreams we estimate that we are going to live the average life and therefore we can say well I’ve got another x number of years to live.   Plenty of time to do all the things that I want to do.  Someday I’m going to be rich.  Someday I’m going to buy that house.  Someday I’m going to go on that holiday.  It’s all gonna happen someday.   But the reality is that we don’t know just how long we have got.

Therefore we should never put our goals and dreams off until tomorrow, next week or next year.  We should never postpone our dreams because we may just unexpectedly run out of time.   Make sure you are spending your time on things that really matter to you.  Yes you and I have to pay bills.   But we need to make sure also to spend at least some part of our day working on our dreams and goals because we just never know how long we actually have and that somebody else might just become me.  Life is like a clock and we just never know when those hands will stop and if we are not careful we will die with all our goals and dreams still inside us.

Place no faith in “Tomorrow,”
For the Clock may then be still.”

The Clock of Life

“The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour………..
…..So live, love, toil with a will,
Place no faith in “Tomorrow,”
For the Clock may then be still.”
― Robert H. Smith