Success is Not the Key to Happiness, This is..

Your happiness is your success. These days, a booming business is available to anyone, even you. Gary Vaynerchuck, author of crush it!, says not to measure your success by the wealth and grandeur of your business, but to measure it in happiness.

The secret to success is only made up of three simple rules: love your family, work super hard, and live your passion. If you are measuring your success in happiness, that first rule is crucial. Second to that, working hard may be on obvious rule for achievement. However, it is one of those things that are easier said than done. Finally, the key to your true happiness is living your passion: “Are you living, or just earning a living?” (Vaynerchuck, 3). 

We as a society have shifted in the way we do things. With the invention of the Internet, we’ve been flocking towards the web to socialize, shop, find entertainment, and more. This is a gigantic opportunity for businesses to harness and take advantage of. With the global audience that has moved to the Internet, it is clear that businesses, too, must move to the Internet.

Now, personal branding has never been easier, and advertisements are found (these days, personalized advertisements) everywhere in the online world. The Internet is a moneymaking machine just waiting for you to learn how to use it. Using the Internet as a tool will boost the speed of your success, and minimize the money you would need to put in to make it flourish. Keep in mind that, “[these tools] are only as good as the person who uses them” (Vaynerchuck, 12).

You have to have passion and an excellent work ethic to make things happen. If you have the drive, you have the power and everything you need to start making money. However, this isn’t all about the money, this about taking your passion and finding a way for you to live from it. Remember, we’re measuring success in happiness. 

Written by Natalie Mansilla,
Growth Hacker

Use SMART Goals Standard to Reach your Maximum Potential

Whether you call them goals, objectives, targets, or your Holy Grails, if you want them to ever become a reality in your life, they need to be something specific and measurable.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bounded. If the goals you’re setting for yourself comply with this standard you will have a bigger chance of achieving them than those, for instance, that are too vague or don’t come with a specific deadline.

So, the SMART standard goes like this:

S, for Specific: Your goal must be clear and detailed enough so anybody can understand it –including and especially yourself!

M, for Measurable: always add dates, numbers, and amounts; “more money”, or “less weight” won’t work. You’ll have to set an exact number; that is, how much of that do you want (we’ll also add a “by when” a few lines later).

A, for Attainable: your goal should be something able to be accomplished given the specific amount, deadline and all the circumstances around it. This doesn’t mean you choose to go on the easy way –something that too easy to achieve; but shouldn’t mean that you are going after the fantasy either (like losing 100 pounds in a week). Be smart and don’t limit yourself based on your beliefs, but don’t set yourself up for the impossible.

R, for Realistic: and this means it should be in line with your life purpose. It is a waste of time to climb all the way to the top of the ladder only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

T, for Time-Bounded: here it is our “by when”. Setting a deadline for the completion of your goal adds a vital accountability and motivational factor to this formula. If you don’t have the pressure to make it happen, you won’t do what’s necessary.

For example: if your goal is to do some jogging but never seem to find the time –or the will, you’ll get more “motivation” with a mean Rottweiler chasing after you than with a friend sweet-talking you into it.

And I’d like to add one more item to the list:

Align your Goals with the Greater Good; see that you don’t harm anyone in the process of achieving it.

Like the great coach Jack Canfield stated once: “you can have a goal of breaking 50 car antennas on your way home… It’s specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bounded; but you’ll surely harm a lot of people in the process…

So keep this in mind: always see that the fulfillment of your goals would help create a better world for everyone.

And remember,  if you ever find yourself a little short in the motivational department, wel... you can always get a Rottweiler. 

Spice Up Your Day with Inspiring Morning Habits

We, humans, are creatures of habit; whatever we do in one given situation, we tend to repeat in another. There might be some theme variations and adaptations, but once a structure has been set, we use it everywhere and that –sometimes inadvertently- builds up in time defining how our whole lives will unfold for us.

We can’t help it… habits are embedded in our mind’s functional structure.

Since habits will always be there, we might as well make them work to our advantage. We can design an empowering start-up routine that will set a high tone for the rest of the day. Take these 3 steps as a starting point to design your powerful morning routine:

     1. Avoid negative thoughts

First and foremost, you have to flood yourself with positive thoughts from the moment you wake up. You might think thinking about your problems is a good strategy to find the solutions… well, nothing is further from the truth.

Negative thoughts bring your mind –and physical- state down making it extremely hard to find or even work for a solution.

Positive thoughts, however, optimize your state and get you on a peak level of performance; and in that state, solutions present itself. Don’t take my word for it, you will see it yourself.

     . Visualize success for your day

Whenever a challenging situation presents to us, we immediately start thinking about what could go wrong. I don’t know, maybe we believe we’ll be more ready if we expect the problems… but the truth is we are actually creating them by anticipating their existence.

Well, we can also do the opposite: we can expect our success, visualizing it in detail, celebrating the achievement before it happens. This way we become the creators of our future success.

     . Be always in a state of Gratitude

No matter what happens around you, there is always something to be grateful for. Start looking for the things, situations and people who already are in your life but that you have taken for granted; feel the gratitude for all that, and while you are in that state of appreciation, life will bring to you more and more things that match that very same level of appreciation you were expressing.

Next time you wake up in the morning, go through this exercise and then, just jump right out of bed and start taking action!

I would love to hear about your experiences once you start putting all this into practice.

Cheers!