My friend Jack Canfield is a best-selling author with hundreds of books, including The Success Principles and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He has also been my guest on The Official BNI Podcast. This blog is from my podcast conversation with Jack about how to get from where you currently are to where you want to be. We discuss his book, The Success Principles, and the companion book, The Success Principles Workbook, which helps people integrate the principles into their personal and professional success stories.
Many people read helpful books like The Success Principles and are excited about the ideas they get. However, many don’t do the things that they learned about – sometimes they need more support. Jack shares some ideas, exercises, and activities from The Success Principles Workbook which provide a way to integrate and apply the principles.
Recognizing OUR Part in Creating Our Experiences
It’s easy to talk about taking 100% responsibility and giving up blaming and complaining. But to actually do that requires some interaction with you and your thinking process. There is an exercise called ‘The Difficult and Troubling Experience Exercise’ where you answer a series of questions such as “What’s a difficult or troubling experience in your life – at work or at home?” And then “How are you creating it?” Because we’re always doing something to create the current situation.
Jack shares the story of a person he met who was getting robbed all the time, and Jack asked him, “Where do you live?” He said, “New York.” Jack said, “In an apartment?” He said, “Yeah.” Jack: “What floor is it?” He replied, “The first floor.” Jack asked him if he had bars on the apartment windows to which the man answered, “No.” “Do you have triple locks on the door?” “No.” “Do you have a alarm system to alert the police if someone breaks in?” “No.”
Jack then asked him, “What are you pretending not to know? You live on the first-floor apartment in New York City. So, one of the next questions is what are you pretending not to know? And then the question is – What’s the payoff for keeping it like it is?”
What’s the cost of keeping the situation like it is?
What would you rather be experiencing?
What actions would you need to take to create what you really want?
On a scale of one to 10, are you likely to do that?
And when will you do that?
These types of questions take you through a process of looking at what’s not working in your life and how you’re creating it. You’re not a victim but there’s something you’re doing to either create, promote, or allow it to happen.
Life Purpose
Jack recommends three exercises to help us get clarity about our life purpose.
- It’s important to have a vision. He suggests creating a vision for seven different areas of your life.
- Goal Setting. Turn your vision into goals and create an affirmation for each of your goals.
- Create a mastermind group. Determine the five or six people you would like in your group and decide the date by which you’re going to call them. Meet with your mastermind group virtually or in person every two weeks.
Accountability Partner Culture
For business success, find an accountability partner to talk to every morning. Tell them five things that you plan to do that day to achieve your breakthrough goal, and then they tell you five things they are going to do to achieve their breakthrough goal. The next day, you hold each other accountable for the five things you each said you would do.
Do this for five days each week.
I find that many people like this concept, however they say, “I don’t have time to do that.” What I think is crazy, is they’re stuck in their life and they’re having challenges. They’re not making things work, but they don’t have a few minutes a day to do one thing to help themselves.
Create an accountability partner culture. Take five minutes, once a day. The reality is you can’t afford NOT to do it. As humans, we avoid doing the things that are uncomfortable or difficult, even if they have the greatest long-term benefits.
Often, we never do the big goals or make the big breakthroughs that you do when you have an accountability partner and a mastermind group. Those five minutes every morning are so valuable. Jack told me, “It’s literally been one of the greatest secrets of my success and the people in my company.”
One Thing at a Time
Many people spend way too much time doing things that are ineffective and then they don’t have the time they want for their family, for self-care, for exercise, meditation, or even healthy eating. It can be overwhelming when you try to do everything at once. When we are overwhelmed, we usually don’t do anything.
Do one thing at a time, space it out, and then integrate it, so that it becomes part of your natural experience – it becomes a habit.
Jack recommends that people create FOUR new habits a year. Resist the urge to do more than that. If you create four new habits a year – for your health, business, home – AND you stick with them, in five years you’ll have 20 new habits! The habits that you have are what get you where you want to go. OR, if they are bad habits, they’re keeping you stuck. Implementing positive changes, over time and consistently, can change your life and help you get to where you want to be.
I love Jack and appreciate how much he shares to help others be successful. Check out his website, his blog, and the many free resources he offers. I can tell you firsthand that he is somebody who walks the talk. He doesn’t just talk about success. He lives the principles that he talks about.
