If you've ever attended a great seminar, then you've suddenly felt confident enough to climb Mount Everest, lose ten stone of body fat in a week or start a political revolution. In the likely event that your newfound motivation dissipated shortly afterwards, here's how to maximise the precious time and money spent on seminars, audio products and motivational books.
1. Take it away- When I visited New York City last year, a friend and I went to watch a Broadway musical. We loved the show and afterwards Girlfriend insisted we join a rather lengthy queue at the back of the room. "Surely we've got to have something to remember this by," she said. It made absolute sense and in the end I scooped up a number of souvenirs myself. Memory is fickle so don't expect to remember much of what you hear at motivational seminars. Take notes, buy the message on DVD or audio, or at the very least take home a branded pen to remember the day by. Every time I see the knick-knacks I bought in NYC I remember an aspect of the Broadway performance. Likewise, keepsakes from motivational events can help reignite your waning sparks of enthusiasm.
2. Replay- If you bought literature or compiled notes for yourself, make time to read and re-read them. Replay audio and DVD messages over and over until it penetrates your subconscious. The more you listen, the more detail you'll pick up. If the teaching is useful, make time to take it in. Listen intently as you commute, do the washing up or work on the PC. Get creative with the way you manage your time.
3. Take small steps- Don't get bogged by info overload. Practice whatever strategies you learn one step at a time. Pace yourself else you'll get fed up altogether and give up on the quest for self improvement. Habits are formed over time and cannot be changed at the wave of a wand.
4. Be consistent- Stick with the program until you see significant and lasting changes. For instance, if a book has called your time management skills into question, keep consulting that book until you are able to manage your time more effectively over a period of at least 3 months. Likewise stick with the weight-loss DVD you bought until you learn not just how to burn fat but how to keep it off as well. If the material doesn't work for you, find one that does but keep sight of your objectives no matter.
5. Pass it on- The best way to maximise your investment in motivational seminars and products is probably by sharing the valuable lessons you have learnt with others. Talk to family members, send (SPAM compliant) emails to colleagues, organise book readings at your house or have DVD nights in with friends. My husband and I attended a motivational event once and ever since have used some of the anecdotes to cheer each other up. By sharing the tickets with him, I've earned a free reminder service! When you pass something on, you get it back one way or the other so be sure to motivate others every little way you can.
According to selfhelpInc.com, the personal improvement industry turns over about $2.48 billion annually. Whether you work with a coach or walk the path of self development alone, be sure to maximise your precious time and money starting today.

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Ọgọ Ọgbata is a writer and speaker who empowers people to create more fulfilling lives by discovering, developing and harnessing their many talents. An abundance of insightful articles, FREE resources and helpful tools are available on her site. Do you want to stay motivated long enough to do more with life? Visit http://www.creativityandsense.com right now!


Simplified Work - Making Your Best Contribution
If you really want to grow your business you are going to have to answer a single question that almost no struggling entrepreneur ever asks themselves. You want to know what it is? Of course you do, so let's press on.
Now listen, don't let the simplicity of the question fool you because it'll be easy to dismiss it, but if you do, you'll never even achieve a fraction of what you are capable of. Ok, so here it is:
What Work Are You Willing To Leave Undone?
The sooner you realize that you can't read everything, nor can you cross off every item on your to do list the better. Because at that very moment you are forced to realize that you absolutely must prioritize no matter what.
You see, realizing you can't do everything helps you determine what you really must be doing, and realizing you can't read everything forces you to decide which information you must read.
Now if you are wondering how you make these difficult decisions, have no fear because the answer is simple. You have to know what you want and what you must do to get it. Once you know then you can make effective decisions about what you should be doing, who you should be talking to, and what you should be studying.
What's important is that we each make the best contribution we can. Ask yourself this: Are you currently making the best contribution you're capable of making? If the answer is clearly no, then there's no point in continuing on your current path, is there? Common sense suggests that if you know you're on the wrong path, you should stop walking. The longer you stay on the wrong path, the worse things are for all of us. Maybe it will take a few days to find the right path. Maybe it will take several years. But it's still better to be lost for several years than to be lost for a lifetime.
Why do we hold ourselves back from the best and settle for the good? Fear. We fear what it will be like to live on the edge of the best. Just imagine what it would feel like to be reading the very best book, doing the best workout, eating the best food, having the best job, enjoying the best relationship, living in the best house, driving the best car, having the best friends, living the best life.
If you're holding something that's just good while something better is easily within your grasp, then your good isn't really good at all. The good is the enemy of the best. You have to give up doing something good in order to do something better. Be willing to bypass many good things because they are just not good enough compared to what's best. You want to serve and help, but you want to serve and help in the best way you can.
You need to sacrifice the urgent for the important. Many a times, what's urgent is not really necessary to be dealt with after all. You need to go for what's best instead of what's good or even great. Do not forfeit the greater good by allowing yourself to be entangled with the lesser good.
Have you ever single-mindedly decided to pursue a goal or solve a problem and just as you were making progress on it something grabbed your attention and moved your focus away from what you were focused on? Then all of a sudden when you went back to try to focus in on it again, you felt like EVERYTHING backed up on you and you had even more problems or things to tend to or deal with first.
It is a myth that opportunity only comes along once in a life time. The truth is, it comes along every day. If you have a vision and a clearly defined goal for your business, you can now determine what opportunities compliment your goal and are congruent with your business goals or if the opportunity is really a cleverly disguised DISTRACTION.
Keep your eye on your goal and DO NOT allow outside distractions to pull your attention off of what you are aiming to achieve. The truth is, many of these distractions will come as HUGE opportunities presented with great marketing, the rest will come as your very own family and friends.
But, some opportunities must be seized. And if this one will help you do what you already want to do better, or are doing better, then you know to take advantage of this opportunity and achieve greater success or at a faster rate. Instead of chasing opportunities, pick your position. The one that works to your strengths and compliments your vision. The secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your deepest purpose and minimize distractions and detours.
You need to be great at ONE thing and good at every thing else. Those that end up quitting, try to be "great at everything", and in the end are great at nothing and good at one thing, which is making no money at all.
It is very likely that you are the only person in your business with the capabilities and knowledge and skills to bring in new business, and making sure projects get completed. This is the only way your business prospers. When you don't do these things, they don't get done!
Focus on things that directly relate to improving the results of your immediate business. Leave other things aside if you want to see exponential growth faster. It is all a matter of balancing between closing yourself to other opportunities and opening yourself to them.
Stay focused and concentrate on your goal. In doing so, you will maintain your momentum and quickly achieve your dreams and desires. Let others waste their time on things that don't get any real work done, while you focus only on what's best and what's important.

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Enoch Tan aims to help people achieve greater awareness in living and experiencing life. To evolve human consciousness to higher levels. To change lives and to create possibility. To revolutionize the way we understand the mind and reality. Because that is what governs every area of life and destiny. Learn Secrets most people will never know about the Mind and Reality! Visit Secrets of Mind and Reality now and Get Free Ebooks of Universal Secrets!


Not Only Athletes Love the Home Crowd
In the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the early round games are always played at neutral locations rather than at the home court of the competing teams. Why? Because it is taken as given that the team that plays on its home court in front of its home crowd would have an unfair advantage. Therefore, the games are held on neutral ground to ensure a fair outcome.
Should this really matter? The home fans don’t take one shot, make one dribble or play even one minute of defense. Yet every sports fan will tell you, “of course it matters!” Although sports are physical pursuits, they are played as much in the mind as they are with the body. The encouragement of the home crowd motivates. It creates incentive. The energy of the home crowd elevates the level of play of those they support. The home team players, buoyed by the home crowd, play better and win more. Statistics in most team sports bear this out. Look it up!
Athletes are not the only ones that love the home crowd. We all play better in front of our home crowd. We all perform better when supported by people genuinely interested, if not invested, in our success. The difference between our world and the athletic world is that we have no interest in leveling the field of play. It’s not that we have no interest in fairness, but simply that the game of life has too many players playing too many different games to gather them all on the same level playing field. Thus, you can’t afford any more disadvantages than are already inherent in the game. You must always make sure that you are playing in front of your home crowd.
Playing “home games” in life requires that you surround yourself with the right people. These “right” people to have in your crowd are the ones that genuinely want to see you succeed, people for whom your success is their success. These are the only people you need around you, the only ones you should allow in your life. Playing in front of the right crowd takes work, because our environment is naturally filled with those that are ambivalent, or worse, to our best interests. On a daily basis, we have to account for “haters” that exist to offer us their negative attitudes, “competition” actively sabotaging our program or “enablers” encouraging us to do the wrong thing. All of these people are members of the opposing crowd. You don’t necessarily have to ban these folks from the stadium, but selling them season tickets behind your bench is a bad idea!
Pay close attention to the people you allow in your life. Make sure that vast majority are rooting for the home team!