I’ve been talking about goals all week, and I’ve been encouraging you to join my 66 Days of Bold Action Challenge—where you’ll take action every day for 66 days toward a goal you have. Whether you join the Challenge or not, working toward your goals is an important part of your personal happiness and growth in life.

Since I’ve already done this Challenge once, myself, I know that there will be ups and downs in those 66 days. There will be days you want to quit. There will be days where you just don’t feel like putting forth any effort. There will be days where you feel like you just aren’t making progress. But you have to stay the course. 

When you don’t have the tools already in place to help you through those rough patches, you may very well give up. That’s why it’s important to have a support system and to be prepared to do the mental work that it will take to get through bad days. You have to actively...

When you set goals, you establish direction in your intentions, your actions, and your thoughts. It’s’ like setting a destination in your GPS—you decide where you’re going and you take the necessary steps to get there.

Believe it or not, there’s a science to setting goals effectively and putting yourself in the best possible position to actually achieve those goals. Of course, when we set goals, we want to succeed at accomplishing them and not just set them for the sake of setting them.

So let’s revisit how to effectively set goals, and crush them.

First, a little history. In 1981, a guy named George Doran wrote a paper that appeared in Management Review called, There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives. In it, he used...

When I was growing up, most of the houses in my neighborhood had a screen door on the front and back doors. Some of you may know what I’m talking about because you may have grown up with the same type of screen door on your house, and I’m sure there are still homes with those screen doors on them today.

The screen door acted as a barrier between the front door and outside. One of the coolest things about the screen door is that, if you wanted to leave your front door open, you could and the screen door would keep out the things you didn’t want in your house. 

If you wanted your home to catch a nice breeze from outside, you’d leave your door open so wind would blow in and screen doors would keep out the bugs, animals and random people. If you’re from the country, you probably know what I’m talking about. 

The screen door allowed you to see what was on the other side of the screen, but protect your space from any old thing just...

In my less mature years, I thought it was pretty cool that he spent so much time chasing women. I can’t say I wanted to do the same thing—not every single minute of life—but I didn’t see anything wrong with how he lived. I had also never given his actions much thought beyond the surface, “guys doing what guys do”.

As years passed, we would talk when he was going through painful times in his life. There seemed to be a common denominator in those moments. His low points always seemed to be related to women leaving him and him being single.

I witnessed him in relationship after relationship, at low point after low point, and I eventually realized that I had been wrong all those years. My friend wasn’t a player at all. He...

This can happen when you get a promotion at work, or find success in entrepreneurship, or even when you start a new business. You just have a nagging feeling that you don’t know enough to have accomplished that thing or that you aren’t talented enough to be among the other talented people with whom you are now aligned.

That feeling you experience in those moments is called Imposter Syndrome. We all get it to some degree. Most people get it in small doses for various situations, but some people get it much more severely. It can be so severe that it causes a person to retreat or give up the very...

I want you to take a moment and finish each of the following statements with the first thought that comes to mind.

1. I can…
2. I have…
3. I believe…
4. I am…

Did you finish those statements with positive thoughts about yourself or negative thoughts about yourself?

In a perfect world, it would always be easy for us to affirm positive thoughts about ourselves, but sometimes we can end up in a mental space that causes our brains to be overrun by negativity. When we find ourselves there, it can be hard to see our way out.

Self doubt is something that we’ve all struggled with at some point in our lives, so if you’re currently struggling, you shouldn’t feel like you’re in this alone. It’s a human thing to go through, and you happen to be human.

Turning any negative thoughts you might have into positive ones takes deliberate decision making. Even when you’re feeling confident and good about yourself, you have to be fiercely...

One happened when I was a teenager. It’s no secret that I can’t swim. I’ve talked about that a few times here, but when I was 14, I went to a water park on a school field trip. 

My classmates and I had been at the park for hours and I had stayed in my safe zone at the shallow end of a wave pool pretty much all day. At some point, I let my two of my friends talk me into getting onto a two person tube so the three of us could go hang out at the deep end. *Face palm.*

The plan was that one friend would pull us out to the deep end as myself and the third person sat on the tube. I expressed my trepidation because of the fact that I couldn’t swim, and they assured me that we’d be safe on this tube, and if I fell in, they’d save me.

Everything in my soul told me don’t do it, but my friends convinced me to ignore my gut and...

No matter what business you are in, you’ll have to communicate with people in some form or another. You may have to talk to customers to make sales, handle customer service inquiries, talk to suppliers, talk to business partners, talk to employees, and so much more. Whether you’re a new entrepreneur or a seasoned one, this can be one of the most intimidating parts of doing business. 

Many times, it’s intimidating because you have a hard time giving yourself credit for being an expert. You may feel...