Review Your Flight Options
By Brian Tracy
Once you have become clear about who you are, what you want, and what your true goals are in each area of your life, you can begin to evaluate all the different routes by which you can reach your destination. Now you can determine the strategies and tactics that you can use to achieve your goals and arrive at your destination on schedule.
Develop Options Continually
One of the most important rules that I have ever learned is this: You are only as free as your well-developed options. Before you can plan your time and your life, you must be absolutely clear about both the hourly rate that you are earning today and the hourly rate that you want to earn in the future. Every hour that you spend on a low-value or no-value activity is costing you $25, $50, or more.
Determine the Highest and Best Use of Your Time
Whatever job you choose to take, company you choose to make with your money, or time you choose to spend on a particular activity, think it through carefully in advance and be certain that you are making the highest and best use of your time and resources.
Refuse to Settle
Abraham Maslow once wrote, “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” Many people, because of fear and timidity, settle for far less than they are truly capable of achieving. They stay in jobs they don’t like. They stay in relationships that don’t make them happy. They invest their money in things they don’t understand and leave their money there long after they realize they’ve made a mistake. If you are not satisfied with any part of your life, with your current seat selection, remember that you can always pay a price to be free.
Ask for What You Want
In business and in your personal life, remember that every term or condition that you are ever offered has been decided by someone and can be changed by someone else. Whether this involves the pay and conditions of a job, the terms of a contract, the costs of products or services, rental or lease rates of offices or equipment, or bank terms for loans of credit, if you are not happy for any reason, don’t be reluctant to ask for something different.
Cast a Wide Net
The rule with ideas is this: Quality is a function of quantity. This means that the more ways you achieve your goal that you consider before you embark on your journey, the better will be the quality of the choice you make. Cast a wide net. Don’t fall in love with the first idea that occurs to you. You must continually remind yourself that emotions distort evaluations. This means that the more emotional you become about a course of action at the beginning, the less able you will be to make the best decisions and determine the best way to reach your destination.
Action Exercise
Imagine that you are a consultant who has been brought into advise yourself on the very best course of action for you to take to achieve a goal or reach a destination. As your own consultant, force yourself to remain calm, cool, and objective about the advice that you give to yourself.
