There Is No “I” In Team

“Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.”—Unknown

1TW-around-tableOne simple fact of life is that we can achieve more together with others than we can alone. Some of us like to work alone and even avoid being part of a team because we have had poor experiences in the past working with others. However, the right kind of teamwork utilized together with others brings us much closer to success at a much faster rate than if we insist on working alone. Never ignore the power of teamwork; it can exponentially increase your success and make you much better at whatever it is you want to do.

I like to use the acronym TEAM, which stands for Together Each Achieves More. I like this acronym because it not only highlights the importance of teamwork but also teaches us a much more subtle lesson. Teamwork not only benefits the team collectively but each individual individually as well.

What I mean by this is that, as a member of a team, you are more than you are alone. You have others who shore up your weak areas and you, in turn, shore up theirs. You instantly become stronger, faster and better. You accomplish more and you have access to more resources. You become a Super You! The great thing about this phenomenon is that it has a ripple effect into the rest of your life, as well. If you work as part of a team, you absorb their knowledge and skills and they, in turn, absorb yours.

Being part of a team not only multiples your success but divides your work, making it more manageable. In true teamwork, there is always the benefit of having people around you who are good at what they do and who can take off much of the load you may be carrying. You will be able to work more effectively and get more done yourself, which in turn benefits other members of your team. Working together, you are much more likely to experience success and to experience it more quickly than you would have done alone!

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Ambitiously Accountable

“Accountability separates the wishers in life from the action takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions.”- John Di Lemme

accountability-VS-responsibility2Part of being successful is being accountable, not only to others, but to yourself as well. When we are accountable to ourselves we prove our accountability to others. Accountability helps us develop consistency and good habits.

When you are personally accountable, you take ownership of situations that you’re involved in. You see them through, and you take responsibility for the consequences – good or bad. You don’t blame others if things go wrong. Instead, you do your best to make things right.

In the workplace, accountability can go beyond your own tasks. You may be in charge of a team of people, in which case you would be accountable for your team’s actions and tasks as well.

Before you can be accountable, you must be honest. Success comes when you’re completely honest with yourself, and with others. This means setting aside your pride, and admitting when you’ve made a mistake. You then must will to remedy that mistake and be able to learn from it.

If you can be honest with yourself and live an accountable life, you will be well on your way to living an ambitiously successful life.

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Own Your Happiness

“Don’t put the key to your happiness in
someone else’s pocket.” Unknown

Key to Happiness on an old worn wooden desk top
Whenever I hear about a woman, or a man for that matter, who is struggling to get over a breakup or a job firing, I am always curious: how much of that person’s own happiness did he or she invest in that relationship? Unfortunately, all too often the answer is “too much.” You are the only person who can influence your happiness. In order to achieve success, you must own it; you must take responsibility for your own feelings rather than foisting them on to someone else.

Follow the logical train of thought here for just a moment. If someone else “makes you happy,” then you have put a huge burden on that person. Would you want to be responsible for someone else’s feelings? Of course not. No one would. That is an impossible burden to bear. Yet, many of us expect our spouses or our children or our bosses or our co-workers to “make us happy.” How can they possibly do that if we are not already happy?

Another reason never to fix our own happiness on someone else is because that person may disappoint us. As much as we do not like to admit it, spouses do sometimes walk away, even after years of marriage. Children may disappoint us by making poor choices. Bosses may fire us, even if we tried our hardest to do a good job. All these things are challenges, but they do not have to be tragedies if we own our own happiness. When you are not expecting someone else to make you happy, you begin to take steps and do things that are much more conducive to supporting your goals and your dreams. You just act differently, and other people will see the change in your confidence. Ironically, when you become self-confident, people are more eager to work with you and meet your expectations!

If you want real happiness and success, own it yourself. Become responsible for your own happiness and watch how quickly you move from depressing to dynamic when you stop relying on others for your joy!

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Live a Consistent Life

The Top Key to Success that Applies to EVERY Situation and Person

consistency-is-key

The value of repeated action.

Consistency is one of the most underutilized keys to success.  When you have a “never-give-up” attitude about your work and your goals, you tend to achieve daily successes and ultimately big successes.  That never-give-up mindset is what consistency is really all about.  I am continually amazed at what people accomplish simply by sticking to a course of action and performing the same actions over and over again!

Consistent action creates consistent results.  Let us use a very simple example.  Suppose you have a habit of misplacing your car keys.  You decide one day that this is never again going to be a problem for you because you are going to take action to always know where your car keys are.  You decide that you will install a hook by the door and every single time you walk in, your keys will be hung on that hook. Now this may not sound like much, but think about the hours of frustration and wasted time you just saved!  However, this system only works if you hang your keys on the hook each and every time you enter the house.  If you do not do it even one time, you are on your way to inconsistent results.

“Consistency is not perfection; it is simply refusing to give up,” as some anonymous, wise person said.  When you refuse to stop doing the same thing over and over, you are going to get a result.  If the action is negative, you will get a negative result.  However, if the action moves you closer to your goal, you will eventually receive positive results.

Consistency is not easy.  If it was, everyone would be successful!  Sometimes you have to force yourself to do things the same way over and over.  However, your success will largely depend on your decision to never give up and remain consistent in all your actions.  When you make that choice and take those steps, you will be amazed at how much you accomplish and how quickly your level of success rises!

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Live!

“Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.”
~Unknown

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When it comes to living, many of us suffer from one of two problems: we spend all our time looking back or all our time looking forward. When you really live, you live in the moment, not in the past or the future. That does not mean that you cannot follow your dreams, but it does mean that you must take the time to appreciate what is happening right now. We must learn to live each and every day as if it is the last. What will do you today to promote this mantra?

It may help to get a little perspective on time itself. Time is something that passes around us, but we are also a part of it. You have been alive every second since you were born, and during that time millions of seconds have passed. Every single moment you have lived you have been doing something. What you were doing might not have been productive; you may have been worrying, regretting or engaging in some other negative mental exercise. On the other hand, there have probably been moments of joy and happiness as well. We live each second, but we do not always enjoy each second we live.

Since we have to live every second of every day for the rest of our lives anyway (and I do not suggest you try not living them!), why not make the most of every moment? It simply makes more sense than struggling through the day. You can start by getting rid of the mindset that says, “Tomorrow I will start taking care of myself,” or “The past was so much better than the present.” You really do not have any other day but today, because yesterday is done and tomorrow is not promised.
When you live in the moment and follow your dreams on a day-by-day basis, you really begin to live, maybe for the first time in your life. No matter how much time you may have wasted in the past, start right now living in today!

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Finding Passion in Discontentment

It Can Be Easy To Find Yourself Discouraged When You Are Faced With Dissatisfaction In Your Life.

passion

You might find yourself discontented with something going on in your life and be tempted to simply give up on it or continue on in the same manner, unhappy with the world around you. I promise, this is not the only solution to discontentment.

Passion can almost always be birthed out of dissatisfaction in your current state. Let discontentment be an indication for the need for change. Whenever you feel disgruntled in your life, take time and examine exactly what it is that is causing you to feel that way. Analyze the situation, and decide if there is anything that you can do to improve the situation. You just might find that working on the situation leads you to realize that you are passionate about making change.

Nelson Mandela once said, “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” He was a proponent of people not settling for just whatever they were given, but wanted everyone to step up and take action. I think this is absolutely true and relevant to every person. When you find yourself discontented, do something about it. Let it fuel your passion, inspire you to make a change, and head towards success.

We should never simply accept discontentment in our lives, nor should we let it be a reason to give up. Instead we should view it as something transformative. It could lead us on a path to something new and exciting that we could never have even imagined before. In order to do this we need to be ready to take action and seek change when something is not going the way we would like in our lives. A new outlook can do wonders to improve a situation, and if we start seeing discontentment as the first step to positive experiences in our lives, we can change our own circumstances with greater ease and optimism.

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You Decide When It’s Over

“Success in life comes when you simply refuse to give up, with goals so strong that obstacles, failure, and loss only act as motivation.” –Unknown

Entrepreneurs with high determination actively pursue their goals. they identify opportunities, take initiative, and rise above obstacles. They are focused on winning and will not take no for an answer. This attitude helps them launch new businesses, enter new markets, and invent new products despite formidable barriers.

Simply put, successful people do not give up. They are ambitious, they are driven and you must be these things if you want to reach your goals. No one can tell you when it is over, only YOU can decide when it is over. You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed try again. Life is going to throw all sorts of obstacles at you that will make it more difficult to reach your goals, but you must overcome them, you must never give up.

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Work-Life Balance: It’s Not What You Think It Is

When people complain about work/life balance, their major gripe is that they work too many hours and have too little free time. In other words, they almost always see it as a quantity issue.  But is it really?

work-life-balance

Like most working professionals, I’ve spent a good part of my life thinking about how to best achieve a healthy work/life balance. Clearly, there is enough research to convince us all that doing so will certainly lead to a happier, healthier life.

Over the years, though, what I have noticed is that this elusive “balance” actually has very little to do with quantity. Instead, it has more to do with quality, with how your time is spent when you are either working or playing.

In my mind, balance is determined by how energized and engaged we are, regardless of whether we’re at our desks or in our dens. There is no hard-and-fast formula for how much time you should spend at work and at home to be happy.

Think about it: if you’re on a roll and accomplishing a lot, a 60 or even 70-hour workweek can be exhilarating. On the other hand, if you’re bored, apathetic, or discouraged, a 40-hour workweek can drag on…and on…and on as you become progressively more exhausted.

For most high achievers, I think the real reason why we feel a lack of balance isn’t that we don’t have enough free time; it’s that we spend the free time we do have feeling frustrated and angry. And when our “life” time is stressful and draining, we bring that misery with us to the office, which decreases professional satisfaction…and creates a vicious cycle.

So, what’s to be done? Here are some ideas to incorporate into your personal time that might help you find some of that elusive balance you’ve been chasing for years:

Stop treating your loved ones like employees… If you’re an ambitious high achiever at work, you have a certain personality type. Plus, you’re used to everyone on your team pulling their weight, acting with initiative, meeting deadlines, etc. So you carry these “professional” expectations home with you. You expect your spouse and your kids to be high performers too. And when they aren’t, you spend all your time explaining, convincing and nagging—in essence, giving them bad performance reviews. Not only does this hurt your relationships and create a tense environment at home; it also means that in some ways, you’re never off the clock.

…and adjust your expectations of others. Accept the fact that in your personal life, you can’t force your friends, neighbors, spouse, and even kids to have the priorities you think they should. You can’t force them to complete tasks in the way you would complete them. You can’t even ensure that others will fulfill (what you see as) their full potentials. I’m not saying that you should accept failure or condone mediocrity, but do realize that it’s not your “job” to micromanage how others live their lives. You might be surprised by how much weight this mental shift lifts from your shoulders!

Instead, focus on preserving and nurturing relationships. The next time you find yourself focusing on getting things done at home or fixating on how they’re getting done, ask yourself: Is what I’m doing right now helping or hurting my relationships? Is it pushing me closer or farther away from my loved ones? Is it energizing or draining me? If the answer isn’t positive, follow up with: How important is this task or action, really? Is it more or less important than my relationship?

Keep your family in the loop. When you’re busy or stressed at work, the tension tends to mount at home, too. And if it feels like your family is uncaring or oblivious, you’ll be that much more frustrated. Help your family help you by putting them on notice whenever possible. If you know the Friday before vacation will be stressful and you’ll probably have to work late, make sure they know they shouldn’t expect you to do all of the packing. If you’re on deadline for a big project and you’ll have to do some work at home, explain that it’s important for you to have peace and quiet. Often what goes “wrong” (and disrupts your balancing act) is that your loved ones get a surprise and aren’t prepared to help you guard your sanity.

Unplug as much as possible when you’re at home. Yes, you’ve heard this one before, but be honest: are you really unplugging? Thanks to laptops and smartphones, most of us are only a scroll, click, or swipe away from the office. Even if you “only” check your email after the kids are in bed or send “just a few” texts to a colleague, for instance, you’re still bringing work home. Instead of focusing on all of the activities you want to accomplish in your free time, you’re forcing your brain to think on two different tracks at once, which depletes your mental, emotional, and even physical bandwidth. Of course you’re stressed and irritated! Use this rule of thumb: if it can wait until the next workday, let it.

Don’t forget to nurture yourself. Think back over the last few weeks or months. Is there a recurring thought of, I didn’t get to do this enough? (I’m not talking about chores; but about activities you enjoy.) Whether it’s journaling, reading for pleasure, playing with your kids, or indulging in a hobby, it really is important to do things that make you happy on a regular basis. For me, that activity is working out. I need to be active to feel healthy and balanced. Don’t buy into the notion that your needs and wants can wait. If you want a healthy work-life balance, they really can’t!

Develop a spiritual awareness. I’m not talking about religion, per se, but about doing something for your soul. Serve others, attend church services, meditate, take a solitary walk in nature—whatever is most meaningful to you. In a world that’s full of noise, distractions, and responsibilities that are constantly competing for our attention, it is so easy to be sucked dry. (And often, you don’t even notice that it’s happening until you’re completely burned out.)

Staying connected to yourself, to other people, to your values, and (if you so choose) a Higher Power will help you to live with more balance.

One more thing: don’t forget that your balanced life won’t look like mine or anyone else’s, because the root of balance is centered in what fuels, energizes, and revitalizes you.

If you’re not sure exactly what that is, well, you’ve just hit upon one of the biggest benefits of embarking on the journey to work/life balance.  You get to learn something new about yourself. If you’ve been too you’re busy trying to control and shape everyone around you, you’ve probably been too busy to discover what brings you joy. It’s time to change that. Enjoy the ride!

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I Can Do This!

What Are You Motivated To Do?

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I am always fascinated by the power of motivation and how it influences everything in our lives. In order to be successful, you have to get up every morning and tell yourself, “I can do this,” but what makes you do that? What motivates you?
Enthusiasm drives most of the choices we make. Of course, we may also choose to behave a certain way based on our perceptions of responsibility or obligation. We can also even choose to do something because we expect an eventual payoff, such as when we engage in painful exercises in the hope of looking and feeling better at some point in the future. We also make choices in order to avoid pain or a perceived disadvantage, as when we manage to avoid charging something on our credit cards because we do not want to face the big bills.

Ideally, however, ambitious women understand what motivates them from a passionate standpoint. They know the secret of how to tap into that motivation to push themselves to do more.

When the movie Saving Mr. Banks was first released, audiences were fascinated by the story of how Mary Poppins came to be. Walt Disney waited 20 years for the screen rights to that story, but he finally managed to make the movie in 1961. Not only did he know that the movie would be successful but he also knew that children around the world deserved to see it made professionally and beautifully. It was a labor of love for the children of the world, and you better believe Walt Disney was passionate and motivated!

It has been said that you must be passionate about something or disturbed by something in order to be motivated. I believe it is always better to be passionate than to work from a position of negativity, although I realize that negatives can be powerful motivators. Think about how it feels when you look forward to something: the excitement, the physical reaction, the joy you have just thinking of an event. Now think about how you feel when you are facing a relatively unpleasant or boring chore that you could care less about doing. Do you see the difference?

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Love Yourself

“The strongest factor for success is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it.” Unknown

love-yourself
You may have heard of “loving yourself” without really understanding what that means. It does not mean being enamored of yourself so that you think you can do no wrong. It also does not mean always blaming yourself for everything that happens, good or bad! Instead, it means treating yourself the way you would treat your own child: expect the best but love in spite of the flaws.The simple truth is that if you are no good to yourself, you are no good to others. Building self-confidence and self-esteem comes from only one thing: you have to believe in yourself and love yourself for who you really are.

 
It is almost impossible for you to love yourself without taking a good, honest look at yourself, “warts and all.” Yes, you may be carrying a few extra pounds or you may not be any good with managing money. However, I would be willing to bet that the person you fell in love with and chose to be your life partner is not perfect. I would even be willing to bet that your children are not perfect, although it is hard to admit it! If we love these imperfect people so deeply despite their flaws, why do we have such a hard time loving ourselves in spite of our own flaws?

 
At the other end of the spectrum is recognizing your self-worth. No matter who you are, there are things you are good at. You possess certain critical talents. You have an affinity for something. Whatever it is, recognize and celebrate it! Start out by saying, “I know I am very good at _____” and fill in the blank with a genuine compliment. I recommend taping this to your bathroom mirror so that you see it every morning. What better way to start your day than to fill yourself with self-confidence and self-esteem? Show that you believe in yourself and love yourself and soon you will begin to reap the benefits of this mindset.

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