WHEN IT COMES TO AIMING HIGH in life or in your business, you have to dare to be different.

1 – Dare To Be Untraditional

In every culture around the world, we have set traditions that bind us to the community. Things that pull us together and make it easier as a group to live, work and play together. WHile this has been the foundation of how societies have formed and prospered, they can also bind us to doing and thinking in set patterns that are no longer serving us.

Look around and you can see that 95% of people are basically doing the same things and getting the same results. Then look at the most successful people on the planet, the 5% and you can see a marked difference.

If you want to move forward and be a high achiever, someone that lives an extraordinary life, you need to let go of some of these traditions that have become so ingrained into your daily life. The ones that are not serving you in reaching your goals and the life you want to live.

2 – Attitude and Adaptability

To raise the bar and move to a new level, you need to take a different approach to the way you do things and try new ways.  If you keep on doing exactly what you have always done, you will just keep on getting what you have always gotten.

When you become conscious of your daily routines, then you can start to grade them. Which ones are bringing you closer to the life you want? Which ones have no positive effect on your life and which ones are slowing you down?

It’s not easy to run a self-examination and move away from things you have let become habits. It means taking a long hard look in the mirror of your life and being honest with your results.

The life you currently have is a reflection of your inner beliefs and attitudes. From where you live, what you eat, what you drive, what you wear, to the people you spend most of your time with.

If you want to raise the bar on your life and move ahead, then each of the areas in your life needs a bit of attention and focus so that you can shed the things that are not helping and start picking up new habits that are propelling you forward.

3 – Develop Your Unique Personality

To reach the higher levels of success, you want to dig deep inside and ferret out what is unique about yourself. What are the things you love to do, what are you really good at and what is it that you just hate to do.

The more you can concentrate on the things you love, what brings you real joy in life, those are the things that you will work hard on and bring out more of in your life. Those are the things that if you focus all your attention on, then you can really shine.

The world rewards those that shine brightest. When you have a true passion for something, when you live and breathe it every day and strive to be the very best at it, it shows up in your attitude. People can see it and want to be around it.

We have all met those people in our lives and they just shine with the passion and commitment they have for what they are doing.  They don’t let the small things get in the way of what they are doing and just seem to be unstoppable.

Excellence comes from having such a deep passion for what you are doing and letting all the little things around it be handled by someone else or dropping them.

4 – Act Like McDonald’s And Disney

What does that mean… Think about it, when you go to one of these places, they have systems. You can go to any McDonald’s in your country, order a hamburger in one location or a different location and get the exact same thing.

So what does that mean for you or your business?

People want to know that when they deal with you or your business, what the outcome will be. It makes them comfortable and builds trust. Also, systems allow you to save time and when you have them in place, you can measure them to see if they are taking you closer to the results you want in your life or farther away.

You already have many systems or routines in place. Think about it, I bet that each morning when you wake up, you start your day doing the exact same thing. It’s how the human mind deals with things. We build up these habits, systems, and routines, so we don’t have to think about how we are going to do something every time we need to do it.

We STOP THINKING about the steps and just do it. The thing is, often these systems were put in place a long time ago and are no longer leading us to the point that we really want. It is only by stopping, taking the time to look at them, see what effect they are having on our results, then making conscious changes to them, that we can alter the results to end up with a much better outcome.

5 – Use Technology to Enhance Your Communications

You may be thinking I am talking about Facebook or the latest social media app you are using… And while those do have good benefits for staying connected, I am talking about going beyond that.

Scheduling time to talk with people you know, again having a system, leads to stronger relationships. And all life and business success is based on the relationships you make, keep, and nurture.

Doing simple things like putting reminders in your calendar and blocking our time to actually speak with people, even friends and family is an important step in building the life and business you want.

3 Free tools I use ALL THE TIME are:

• XMind – For mindmapping ideas quickly and reorganizing the order they going in.
• Trello – For a visual “Kanban” board of tasks that need doing, when I will do them and who I need assistance from.
• Google Calendar – Yep, it’s simple to use, has reminders, and I can use it on any device, and place.

When you combine these 3 tools together, it is remarkable what you can get done and how much more productive you can quickly become.

6 – Commit To Kaizen

Kaizen – or “the practice or philosophy of continuous improvement” is really a key difference between the top 5% and the other 95%.

Being dedicated to a minimum of 60 minutes a day of reading, watching or learning new things is a real game changer. Picking up a book and learning new ways of thinking about your life or your business can make all the difference between success and failure.

Kaizen is something I brought into my life over 30 years ago and it has had a huge impact on who I am today and the level of success I have achieved.

In the early days, when I first started doing this, I was not really sure it would pay off for me. I was super busy building my first company and thought that the time was sometimes wasted as I was more focused on doing rather than learning.

Then as I just kept at it, I noticed it opened new ideas for me. I started to think differently about my life and my business.  Little by little I was picking up speed and moving ahead.

I started enjoying more and more learning new things, putting them into practice, measuring the results I was getting.

You can do the same. We have so many ways to get access to quality information and training systems these days, that it is available to anyone, anyplace. 

Commit to Kaizen and reap the rewards and of new energized you and your business.

7 – Be Relentless In Your Pursuit Of Remarkabe

We live in a fast paced world. Competition is all around us and is growing every day.  What will separate you from the crowd is a burning desire to be remarkable. To be different, to stand out, to be someone that others look towards for leadership.

To raise the bar and reach for the stars, it all begins with you.

You want to acknowledge your inner desires, set the plan of action in place, get the support of great relationships, then go for the gusto. Be relentless. Commit to being the very best version of you that you can be and never, ever give up on your dreams.

It means learning to focus on putting 100% into what you are doing in that moment. Doing the absolute best you can do right now, finishing it off, then moving on.

It means measuring your results.  What actions are you doing on a daily bases and what results are you getting?  Are you getting the results you want?… If not, then you MUST change the actions you are doing. When you measure, then you have a way to gauge your results and then take active movements to make the changes that will lead you to the place you want to gt to.