I want to be victorious within my family.  I want to raise my two beautiful daughters to be confident, happy, productive women. 

I want to remain married ’til death do us part. 

I want to be victorious in my career and earn a good living for myself and my family. 

The list of victories in life that I desire could go on.  I’m sure we all want certain victories, but how do we attain these prizes?  I want to do what I can to give myself the best chance possible of winning where it is important.  Where should I concentrate my effort?

The critical element to achieving great victory in life

The key to achieving great victories is leadership.  Without leadership there is no common direction.  Individuals, families, teams and organizations that lack leadership wander aimlessly.  They have no common purpose to achieve.  They are only guided by their personal agendas, wants and pleasures.

The only way to realize a great victory is for everyone to work together to accomplish the individual goals necessary to win the victory.  This means that one or more people have to lead the way.  They have to rally the troops toward the cause.

Four steps to lead others to great victory in life

Are you leading the people in your life toward a great victory?  You cannot expect them to get there without leadership.  Here is what you need to do:

1.  Picture yourself as a leader

First, you must assume the leadership role.  You must take it upon yourself to lay out the direction you think you need to go to achieve victory.  Leaders do not need a formal position or specific authority.  They just need to see the gap between where things are today and where they need to be.  Once you see yourself as a leader, then you can start working toward victory!

2.  Create an audacious vision

Envision for yourself what winning will look like.  You have to begin with the end in mind!  You need a compelling vision in order to motivate your “team” to join you in achieving the victory.  Work out a very detailed and complete vision of exactly what you want the future to look like.  Don’t think small!  Your vision should be exciting and challenging.  Daydream to your heart’s content!

3.  Set high goals and expectations

Break your vision down into individual goals.  These are the steps it will take to achieve your vision.  This is where you begin to convert your dreams into a plan.  A part of setting goals involves creating expectations.  Let your “team” know that you expect a lot from them.  People will live up to what you expect.  They want to please you.  If you set the bar too low, then that’s all you’ll get.

4.  Praise your team for success

Be liberal with your praise as your “team” starts to make progress toward your vision.  Encourage them.  Pat them on the back.  Reward them for a job well done.  People like to be recognized for their accomplishments.  Also, people tend to repeat the behaviors for which the are praised.  This will build momentum!

Lead your team to great victory in life!

Great victory is possible if you stand up and lead the way.  Your family, employer, church and community need you to lead them to victory.  They want to be a part of something worthwhile.  Don’t let them down!

I’m certainly not going to leave my future to chance.  I’m going to do my best to lead the way.

What are you going to do to win a great victory in life?

Photo by cmaccubbin

Earlier this week, I heard Bob Stoops speaking about achieving success and winning.  For those of you that don’t know, Stoops is the head coach of the University of Oklahoma football team. 

During his ten years at Oklahoma, he has won 109 of 123 games, the most wins by any Division 1-A school during that period.  He also led the Sooners to become the 2000 BCS National Champions.

I’m a graduate and fan of Oklahoma State University, a rival of Oklahoma, but even I have to admit that Coach Stoops’ winning record is impressive.  Obviously, Stoops knows what it takes to win and he knows how to motivate others to achieve success.  I believe we all can learn from his wisdom.

Three things Stoops said it takes to be a winner

Winning doesn’t just happen by chance.  It also isn’t just about talent.  There are plenty of talented people out there that don’t end up successful in their field.  I think Stoops hit on three things in his talk that are key to being a winner.  Here they are:

1.  Have a well-prepared plan

Football teams spend a lot of time preparing for each game.  They practice, analyze the other team, watch films, memorize plays and decide on a game plan.  But, Stoops emphasized that he asks for a lot more than that.  He stresses to his coaches that everything they do should have a thought out purpose.

He believes that the more thorough the plan, the better chance they have to win.  They plan meetings.  They plan what they want to say.  They plan how they are going to plan. 

Preparation has become almost a religion in the University of Oklahoma football program.  This is what has made them winners.  They don’t wing it.  They plan for every eventuality.

In football, as in life, you have a limited amount of time to prepare.  You can’t waste a single minute.  You have to use your time wisely.  This level of preparation and planning is what separates the shining stars from those left in the shadows.

2.  Start with great expectations

You must set the bar high to achieve great things.  A leader must cast a grand vision to lead his team to victory.  He’s got to stick his neck out and show that he believes they can win and win big!

Stoops doesn’t begin the season telling his players that they’ll play the first few games to see how things go and then decide on their goals for post-season play.  No, he starts with great expectations.  He sets the bar high and paints a crystal-clear picture for his players and coaches of where he wants them to be at the end of the season.

Coach Stoops knows that you have to start with great expectations and then even if you fall a little short, you’ve accomplished something big.

3.  Refuse to use excuses

Finally, you’ve got to reject any and all excuses for failure.  Stoops said that they are out there everywhere and often they are so tempting to accept.

It would be easy for Stoops to say, “We lost because our star running back was injured” or “We lost because of a bad call from the official.”  Often the fans and the media would buy these and let the team off the hook for not winning, but where would that leave them?  As losers, that’s where.

Stoops stressed that in football and everything else in life, if you want to be a winner, then you have to work through the hard times.  You’ve got to put your nose to the grindstone and press your way to the other side.  It takes hard work and perseverance to be a winner.

Once you start using excuses to cover up your mistakes and rationalize away your failures, you have started down a slippery slope leading only to Loserville!

Follow Stoops advice and be a winner in life!

I was very impressed with what Coach Stoops had to say.  These three things really stuck with me.  I believe they are a big part of what has helped the University of Oklahoma win so many football games.  But, more importantly, I think we can follow his advice to become winners ourselves!

What part of Stoops’ winning strategy can you use most in your life?

 Photo by Billy A

Many people need to overcome some difficult obstacles in their lives right now.  There are people all over the place that are struggling. 

Some are unemployed, some have health issues, some are having marriage difficulties and some are financially strapped.  Whatever your situation, hope is the cure.

Hope is the fuel we need to make good things happen in our life.  Hope is what drives us and pushes us toward something better.  Hope is…well, our only hope.

Where there is no vision, the people perish ~ Proverbs 29:18

We must stoke the fire of hope deep in ourselves if we want to overcome obstacles in our life and return to days of sunshine and happiness!

3 things to do if you are struggling with hope

Last night, I attended Dave Ramsey’s Town Hall for Hope.  It was an exciting and powerful event dealing with the fear many have about our current economic situation.

Dave said that many of us are filled with the Spirit of Eeyore!  You remember Eeyore, don’t you!?!  He was the donkey on Winnie the Pooh that was always going around moaning things like, “Oh, poor me.  Nothing is ever going to get better.  Why should I even try?”

We must cast out the Spirit of Eeyore and I’m about to tell you how to do it!

Dave closed by offering three things to do if you are struggling with hope.  These three things are very simple.  Anyone can do them.  Yet, they are also very powerful.  They truly can restore your hope if you will just do them.

Here are the three things Dave Ramsey suggested along with some comments from me:

1.  Get up and take action

Do something!  Stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Yes, life might have dealt you a bum hand, but the only way to fix it is to do get up and get busy making it better.  Take some kind of positive action today!  Even if it doesn’t make much sense – take action!

The simplest action can start giving you back a sense of power and control.  Make a phone call, go for a walk, read an encouraging book, do some research on the Internet.  Take control of your life and start making something happen!

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey tells us that successful people are proactive.  You must take action if you want things to change.  The first step in creating change is to do something.  Get moving!  Create a little momentum.  Before long you’ll become the little train that could!

2.  Don’t participate in loser talk

Stop the pity party!  You have to start turning your thinking from negative to positive if you want better things to start happening.  Loser talk is poison that is destroying your hope.  Stop this self-defeating behavior!

Refuse to engage in anymore griping.  Instead, go out and get your self a positive audio book and listen to it.  If you are broke without a penny to your name, then go to the library and check one out!  Feed your mind hope-building encouragement and you will start to see things turn around.

You’ve got to pull yourself out of this tailspin!  Stop watching the news or participating in discussions that drag you down.  Instead, use that time to find opportunities to build yourself up.  I highly recommend going to Joel Osteen’s web site and reading the positive message of hope he has to offer.

3.  Learn to give again

This one seems counterintuitive.  You might think, “I’m down and out.  I just don’t have anything left to offer someone else.”  Well, we all have something to give.  If nothing else, we can offer someone else encouragement.  We can share a little hope with them.

Doing things for others gets our mind off our situation and worries.  It invigorates us.  Go help your neighbor work in their yard.  Donate a wad of cash to your favorite local charity.  Serve dinner at the local soup kitchen.  Give of your time, talents and treasure.

Giving is one of the best ways I know to rekindle your hope!  When you give, you will reap a harvest of hope.  You will chase away the haze that covers your life right now.  Giving will truly help you regain a positive outlook on life.

You can overcome obstacles and get your life back on track if you will simply do these three things to restore your hope!

Just do it!  Trust me on this one.  No matter how bleak your situation may seem, there are brighter days ahead if you will start today to regain your hope!  The three things above are simple, easy and there is no excuse in the world for why you can’t do them.

Do you want your life to be better?  Then get busy making it so.  No one else is going to fix what is wrong.  YOU are the one that has the most power to change your current situation for the better.  Do you believe that?  If not, then do the three things above to regain your hope in yourself.

I’ll leave you with one last thought.  Do you remember Randy Pausch and Christopher Reeve?  Few of us face more bleak circumstances than these two did, but they made the most of the time they had.  They lived with hope!  They were positive!  They inspired others and they gave of themselves to help others.  What more inspiration can you ask for?

Photo by bestfor

Our expectations have a tremendous influence in our lives.  What we expect to happen in our lives versus what really happens often defines our attitude at any given moment.  We have to properly manage our expectations if we want to be happy and get the most from life.  We all know that a positive attitude and enthusiasm will get you further in life than walking around like a sourpuss all the time.  People naturally gravitate toward those that are more positive and encouraging.  These are the people that we want as leaders because they are always telling us that better things are just around the corner.  Keeping our expectations focused in the right direction is essential to happiness, effectiveness, and success.

The factors that influence our expectations.

Do you wake up in the morning dreading the day?  Or, do you wake up, throw off the covers, and bound out of bed in expectation of a day full of opportunity?  You probably have days when you do both.  I do too.  Of course, we would like to get to the place where we have more days that we can’t wait to start.  Many people think this has to do with their circumstances.  They think that if they only had the right job or the right spouse or more money, then they would be happy.  However, I don’t think this is the case.  I fall into this trap as well, but over time I have started to realize it isn’t so.  Here are the factors that I think influence our expectations the most:

1. Our patterns of thinking
2. Our self-confidence
3. Our focus

How these factors determine our expectations and level of happiness.

We are our thoughts.  Our personality, our attitude, and our happiness is the result of our thoughts.  We are habitual creatures.  We like to get in a rut and stay there.  Some of us are in a rut of positive thinking and some of us are not.  Once we get in the wrong habit, then we all know that it is difficult to change.  However, if we want to be happy, then we must change the habit of accepting low and/or negative expectations for ourselves and our endeavors.

I think we often get started in the habit of expecting less than we should out of life because we have low self-confidence.  We don’t think highly enough of ourselves to believe that we deserve the very best life has to offer.  We don’t believe we deserve to truly be happy.  When life lives up to this low expectation, then we feel justified in our belief.  It is a vicious circle of thinking.

One of the reasons we get caught in this loop is because we lack focus.  It might have started when you were young.  Maybe you didn’t know exactly what you wanted to do with your life right out of school.  It seems that so many people just kind of stumble into a profession and then into marriage.  Before you know it, you have an entire life and feel sort of stuck with it.  Your initial lack of focus in life may have gotten you started in the habit of setting poor expectations.

It is possible to change your expectations and get a better life.

The good news is that your life doesn’t have to remain the way it is today!  You are in control.  You may not feel like it, but you are.  If you change what you think about, you will change your expectations.  Once your expectations are full of positive anticipation, then you will achieve more, improve your relationships, and be happier.  Life will give you exactly what you expect from it.  If you expect it to be the pits, then it will live up to those expectations.  However, if you expect great things, take steps in that direction, and keep a positive attitude even when minor setbacks arise, you will start experiencing greater success in life. 

Practical ways that you can think your way to a better life.

1. Train yourself to be an optimist.  Yes, this is possible.  You have to start seeing the glass as half full, instead of half empty.  This takes some effort.  However, if you really want more out of life, you have to do it.  No one was born a pessimist so, it is possible to retrain your thinking.  Donald at Life Optimizer offers some great suggestions on how to do this in Being an Optimist – 8 Ways to Overcome Pessimism.
2. Find positive inputs.  We are all very influenced by what we read, hear, and see.  We have to eliminate the negative inputs as much as possible and replace them with positive ones.  Read encouraging books in the area where you most want to achieve success in your life.  Listen to audio books in the car.  Turn off the television and stop reading the news.  Go to church.  Sign up for a motivational seminar.  There are literally tons of ways to start receiving positive influences in your life.  It may be uncomfortable at first, but it will eventually change your thinking which will change your life.
3. Keep a journal of good happenings.  Get a notebook and write down every good thing that happens to you for awhile.  A cheap, spiral notebook will do.  If you do this, it will become the most valuable asset that you have.  You need to convince yourself that good happens to you.  This will help you change your expectations about the future.  Also, when a setback occurs and they will, you can refer to your journal to remind yourself of the progress you have made.
4. Refer to your goals often.  Goals give us focus.  They chart a course for our future.  Otherwise we are simply back in the mode of stumbling through life taking whatever it hands us.  Read your goals often to yourself.  You do write them down, don’t you?  It isn’t a goal until you commit it to paper.  You have to be intentional about how you live your life.  For more on goals, read The Power of Goals by Scott H. Young.
5. Use a mantra.  A mantra is a phrase or set of words that have significance or power in one’s life.  Come up with a positive mantra to keep you mindful of your new direction.  Whenever you catch yourself falling back into old, negative thought patterns, repeat your mantra to yourself several times.  It will help to get you back on track.  For instance, to remind myself not to get too stressed out, I have used something like, “Everything is happening perfectly for my benefit.”  It works wonders!

Set new expectations in your life and experience new success.

Use these suggestions to create a new way of thinking which will lead to new success in your life!  Most of the time, life will give us exactly what we expect.  When we manage our expectations in the positive direction by overcoming patterns of negative thinking, building our confidence, and creating focus, then we will make huge strides toward a happier, more fulfilling life.

Please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts on this article.  Also, if you like it, please Stumble or Digg it.  Thanks!

Photo by gadl