We all want to succeed in life. We want to succeed in our personal relationships. We want to succeed in our professional lives. Yet despite this desire to succeed we so often do not find success. Just what is the secret to success in our personal and professional lives? Being proactive.

It is easy to place the blame for our failure to succeed on the many factors that influence our lives. Perhaps we were born with certain disadvantages or at least with no noticeable advantages. Perhaps our early years are at fault. Perhaps today it is our family, our employer, our community, or the current economic climate that is causing us to fail. While trying to displace the blame is certainly a very human reaction it is only a reaction. Assigning blame for our failures, even if we accept the blame for ourselves, will not do one thing to change our failure. However if we move past the blame game and start to think proactively — better yet become proactive — then we will be on the path to success.

The blame game is very limiting. Not only does it set you up to repeatedly fail, it does nothing to encourage growth. However once you move past blame and begin to think about what you can do and what you can change. Once you begin to take advantage of your inherently human abilities and strengths you are bound to find success. Human beings have imagination and independent will. This means we can analyze a problem, come up with a creative solution, and implement the plan. We have the power to change ourselves and our lives. This is the true path to success.

Many people are familiar with the term — proactive — however they simply believe it means to take action on our own initiative. While this is certainly a key component of the word. Becoming a proactive person is more than simply taking action. It goes deeper than that. Being proactive means that you not only take action but you also take responsibility for yourself. This means giving up the blame game for good.

In order to ensure your success you must accept your personal responsibility for your own failure and success. Do not blame others, conditions, or the past, but rather choose to respond to failure or success in a positive way.

Remember that failure does not have to be the end of the road but can rather be the beginning of a whole new path. If you can accept the blame for your mistakes and learn from them then take those lessons to forge a new plan of action then you are bound to find success.

You are a resourceful and imaginative person. These qualities are among your inheritance as a human being. If you use the qualities to take responsibility for your actions and generate new initiatives then you are bound to find more success in your personal and professional lives.

If you have ADD and you’re in a situation right now where you want an end result, whatever that may be, say… Make more money. And you’re very specific about that end result, but have no idea how to get there, you have to ask more questions. It’s the only answer.

Successful people generally do things in an ADD way that they don’t really realize. Here’s the ADD way step one is decide what you want very specifically. I’m making $2,000 a month; I want to make $5,000 a month. That’s your end result.

From knowing the end result, you have to back into things, which is a very good way for people with ADD to do things. This is where the questions start. You have to start asking more questions. Ask yourself first, “How could I go from $2,000 a month to $3,000 a month?” Now you get to use your incredible ADD creativity.

You decide, “I could get more clients,” or “I could leverage this or that.” Get your ADD brain cranking on ideas. Whatever the specifics are, you get to use your creativity in asking more questions in a really positive way.

To be more successful, whether you have ADD or not, you have to decide what you want and then, go ask people how to get there.

For a lot of people with ADD, deciding what they want is a real challenge. Making that decision on what you want can be very, very difficult. That’s one major concept that really runs throughout all the axioms. There are methods and ways you can decide exactly what you want.

One of the things people face is they decide what they want and then they come up with a new great idea. Well, who do you ask? Do you ask your neighbors? Do you ask your relatives?

If you’re trying to do something in business, for example, let’s say, trying to figure out a new ADD-friendly system for your business. The obvious choice would be to ask someone who understands technology, how to do a particular thing.

But, you never know who’s going to be around you. That’s the thing. So many ADD people get stuck with “I don’t know who to ask.” So, they get stuck on that.

So, OK… When your dog gets sick, do you ask a friend who’s never had a dog and raises parakeets how to get your dog healthy? No. You call the vet because the vet has expertise that you don’t have about dogs.

Or, if you were trying to make a million dollars, would you ask someone who’s on welfare? Definitely no. You would want to ask somebody who’s already been there and already knows. But what if you can’t find someone who’s already made a million dollars? Who would you ask?

Somebody who has made half a million. Or $100,000, right?

The point here is: Don’t allow your ADD brain to stop you. Ask advice from people who are smarter than you and people who have done what you’re trying to do, or at least something that’s like what you’re trying to do. The whole point here is get an idea and ask lots of questions. It will generate more ideas, but make sure you’re asking the right people, people who know what they’re talking about.

What exactly is motivation? Everyone does not always define motivation the exact same way.

Some people describe motivation as a mental force that drives a person to accomplish an end such as finishing a project or saving for retirement.

Some people say that motivation is why some individuals do one thing and others do something all together different. Motivation is often discussed in terms of setting and achieving goals and also what determines the behaviour of a human being.

Motivation is sometimes defined in terms of feelings that push a person to achieve a given objective.

Often motivation is believed to be the reason that a person chooses to do anything in particular, whether it be applying for a specific job or taking a chance by asking someone out on a date.

In the realm of psychology, motivation is closely connected to behaviour in terms of the initiation as well as direction, intensity and persistence of it.

Motivation has to do with having the interest in doing something and then having the willingness and ability to see it through to completion.

Motivation however is not the same as emotion or personality. Motivation is instead a dynamic and temporal state of mind.

A person who is motivated can be motivated to accomplish a long-term goal or a short-term goal and both have value.

Sometimes a motivated individual will break a long-term goal down into a series of smaller short-term goals in order to make the end result easier to reach for and attain.

The motivation to work towards any given goal can change and often times circumstances make it necessary for a person to modify their level of motivation.

An individual’s personality on the other hand is basically a permanent part of the characteristics of the person that does not change.

Aspects of a person’s personality include such things as whether the person is introverted or extroverted, modest, conscientious, shy, loud and so on.

Emotions are temporary states that a person finds themselves in in order to cope with immediate circumstances, such as feeling sad, happy, frustrated, confused, anger and being in a state of grief.

Emotion does not automatically correlate with behaviour whereas motivation does.

Motivation is often broken down into two categories, that of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation occurs when the desire to do something comes from within a person and there is no obvious external incentive for it to take place.

Engaging in a hobby for pure enjoyment such as painting, making toy models, stamp collecting, scrap booking etc. are examples of intrinsic motivation. A great deal of research studies have been conducted on intrinsic motivation since the 1970s.

Extrinsic motivation is when there is an external factor present that serves as an incentive for behaviour.

This is commonly viewed in workplaces where employees are motivated by their superiors by being offered tangible rewards such as extra money or a promotion.

There are also intangible rewards which are things such as being praised for a job well done or receiving public acknowledgement for your efforts. Many people respond well to both tangible as well as intangible extrinsic motivation.

In the terms of the layman, productivity refers to the amount of useful activity you complete in a given time. It is closely related to elegance the ability to bring about the greatest results with the least amount of effort. It is the belief of the author of this article that productivity grows exponentially with the degree of elegance with which you perform tasks. So how do you increase your elegance and triple your productivity?

Mamy authors write about the powers of the unconscious mind. This is the subconscious mind that part of each person that takes care of the things we consciously take for granted from the beating of the heart, the regulation of the blood composition, the thermostatic regulation of the body’s temperature by the hypothalamus part of the brain or such processes that were once conscious then become unconscious as one develops competence e.g. driving, walking, being able to comfortably read the words of this article etc.

Would it be fair to say that to the greater extent that you can take control of and allow the unconscious mind to get you what you want, the greater productivity and elegance with which you perform and complete tasks will be? Imagine for a moment…how often do you wake up and start the day on automatic you get up, may be you stretch, you go prepare breakfast, clean you teeth, or if you’re smart and enthusiastic perhaps you go straight for a run or do some other form of exercise…

All those things are normal and fine, but if you examine this behavior it is a habit that you have formed. It happens on automatic if it happens smoothly and you don’t really think and decide about what you’re doing, the chances are its ingrained as a habit and your unconscious mind is running the behavioral pattern. So, the rest of this article will show you how you can use this information to create more of what you want by taking control of your unconscious processes, teaching your mind who is boss and achieving bigger and better results, small step by small step.

Try this for a week (7 days). Anyone who can do something for 7 days can do it for 21 days, and the experts say it takers only 21 days to learn a new habit. Do it for six months and the chances are you can keep it up for a lifetime it becomes so ingrained if you choose to. To implement this simple step and triple your productivity in a week, you will need only a pen and paper plus a little willingness to take control and do somethings you’ve been putting off.

Step 1: Write out a list of about 20 things each day that you know you need to do this can include even the most basic of things such as “get up out of bed”, “make the bed”, “clean teeth”, “switch out the lights”, “wash up my breakfast bowl”, “kiss my spouse good morning,” etc. You get the picture, just make sure that you have a list of 20 different things that are really easy to achieve.

Step 2: Decide to do the first thing on the list and then do it. Give yourself a tick with the pen and consciously tell your mind that this is a success. Your mind will be pleased with you and support you because you’ve decided to do something and then you have gone ahead an d done that thing that’s a successful loop it shows to your mind who is in control no matter how big or small the task.

Step 3: As you find yourself effortlessly doing this list, and rewarding yourself along the way by ticking off your “to do” list, you will find yourself feeling terrific about yourself. You will bring to the fore of your mind the things you’ve been dreading and putting off and actually create the burning desire to get them done well. You’re self belief will skyrocket.

Step 4: You can test yourself by slightly increasing the difficulty of the tasks, perhaps add something you don’t yet know “how” to do eg earn an extra couple of hundred in a week. By increasing your productivity like this and training your unconscious to just get on and support you to “do it” you may well find you achieve far more than you expected over the next week of doing this. You have it within you to triple your productivity in just 7 days. So go ahead, your instructions are above.

Learning the French language could tire you at some point but it does require you to use your verbal and mental skills to be able to learn, understand and apply properly the French language towards your normal day to day activities. Similar to speaking English, the French language has its own unique style to how it should be put to a good conversation. You certainly don’t want to use improper addresses to people who are older than you are and certainly, talking to someone you are not close yet using the informal French is just plain rude.

With all of the requirement you need to know about the French language, what is really the easy way to go around it? An online French-speaking friend suggests to analyze first to what purpose you are learning the French language. It could be for a business purpose and for that, you will need to learn the formal French more, proper grammar rules and application. On the other hand, you can say you want to learn French for the purpose of being able to understand French movies, music or simple messages from French friends. This suggestion does help because it allows you to concentrate on just the specific details that will matter at the moment. There is no need to worry about many details at the same time because you can move on to it later.

After setting what French words or phrases you want to know, you can start learning the proper way of how it can be pronounced. Of course, as you do this, it would be best that you have audio materials to guide you since this will keep you from pronouncing and using incorrect pronunciation. Don’t forget also to use a pronunciation guide which, elaborates the correct pronunciation and accent patterns.

Lastly, don’t hurry up on things. If you are in a hurry to learn French words or phrases, it really wouldn’t work since you don’t spend enough time to understand each of it. Assess yourself after each bits of lesson you undertake and check how well you have perform.