My Reading Notes From:
No Excuses
By Brian Tracy
Most people think success comes from good luck or enormous talent, but many successful people achieve their accomplishments in a simpler way: through self-discipline. No Excuses! shows you how you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life, including your personal goals, business and money goals, and overall happiness.
With these guidelines, you can learn how to be more successful in everything you do –instead of wistfully envying others you think are just “luckier” than you. A little self-discipline goes a long way — so stop making excuses and read this book!
The price of Success must always be paid in full, and in advance.
The keep is to keep doing it. Don’t stop once you start getting success.
If your work life and career were ideal, what would they look like? What one discipline can you develop to help you achieve it?
If your family life were ideal, what would it look like? What discipline can you develop to make that happen?
If your health were perfect, what discipline would make that possible?
If your financial situation were ideal, what discipline would help you the most?
Why aren’t you already as successful as you would like to be? What 1 discipline would help you the most?
What one skill could you develop to help you achieve more of your goals?
If you could wave a magic wand and have 1 discipline that would help you be the person you want to be, what discipline would that be?
Who you are today is the sum total of all of your experiences that you have made up to today.
Whatever you dwell upon will grow in your life. So, the more you think about the values you admire and want – you program them deeper and deeper into your sub-conscious.
Make a list of the people that you most admire – and next to them, write the special values you admire about them.
Your personality has 3 parts:
Your self-ideal: The part of your mind that has your values, goals, aspirations, and ideals. The values you most admire in others and aspire to have.
Clarity! Superior people have clarity about who they are and what they believe. Firm and resolute on any value related issue.
Your self-image: The way we see and think about ourselves. Especially before an event of importance. Our inner mirror. People will see you as the same evaluation you have of yourself.
Your self-esteem: How much you like yourself. Your emotional core. The more you see yourself as a valuable person, the more optimistically you will see your world. Will depend on the consistency of your self-image.
Your role models will have a tremendous impact on shaping your character. The more you admire someone the more you strive to be like them. That’s why clarity is important. Always behave consistently.
The failure to accept responsibility will weaken your power. Making excuses will keep you from increasing your power by preventing you from confronting your fears and developing the skills to improve.
I am responsible for my life, and everything that happens in it. I do not blame, or explain.
Our own feelings of inadequacy lead us to see outgoing people as being better.
The concept of “sin” gets us looking for rights and wrongs. Anytime there is something unpleasant, we look for the right or wrong. Apply blame. Adds a subtext of irresponsibility. People don’t want to accept responsibility.
One of your great missions in life should be to eliminate negative and emotions. Anger is generally contingent upon blaming someone or something else in your life.
It takes enormous self control to take responsibility.
Even if you are not responsible for an event, you can take responsibility for your response to it.
Law of Substitution: you can substitute a positive thought for a negative one.
Even AA tells people that one of the first things they have to do is take responsibility for their drinking.
Your own intelligence can be a double edged sword. You can either use it to discover how others have wronged you or find blame – or you can use it to find ways to make yourself successful and make progress. Can’t do both.
A true leader takes responsibility for the situation of which they have control.
Refuse to be unhappy today over things that happened in the past. “When you turn toward the sun, the shadows fall behind you.”
Only about 3% have clear set goals and plans. And they accomplish about 97% of what is done.
Hope is not a strategy for success. A wish is a goal with no energy behind it.
The disciplined act of writing your goals, and your plans to accomplish them, and working on those goals daily will increase the likelihood of accomplishing them 10x..
Writing out your goals is a PsychoNeuralMotor activity. The act of writing forces you to think and concentrate. It forces you to choose what is most important to you and your future. So, when you write down a goal – you press it into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious puts it to work 24/7.
