Successful people are productive people. Part of being productive is taking control over those areas where you can exert some control. Here are 10 areas of your personal and professional life over which you can exert some control:

1. What you wear. I’m assuming that if you are reading this article, you are an adult. So you get to choose what you wear.

2. What you think. Exert the executive control that is part of the mature human’s brain. You are not a goldfish.

3. Those with whom you associate. We are defined partly by those with whom we associate. It has been said that others know who we are if they know who we “hang out” with. Associate with the best. If you want to grow and be successful, be around others who are growing and being successful. Duds hang out with duds.

4. How you spend your time. You have 168 hours each week…just like everyone else. It’s the great equalizer. What makes the difference is how you spend (or invest) that time.

5. What you do with your money. You get to decide where your money goes. Really.

6. Where you work. If you find yourself complaining day after day, week after week, month after month, or (heaven forbid) year after year about your job, your boss, your profession, then make a change. You choose.

7. Your responses to others. You can control whether you allow others to offend you, make you mad, give you joy, insult you, inform you, edify you, build you up, support you, or…

8. Your attitude. As an adult, you get to decide whether you are positive or negative, open or closed, and so on. Take a good look at your attitude and see if you think it is the attitude of someone who is successful.

9. Portions of your environment. Take control over the aspects of your environment that you can (lighting, colors, clutter, etc.)

10. What you ingest, including food and drink. By the time you are out of your teens, you have a pretty decent sense of what food and beverages work for you and which ones don’t. Have more of the ones that work for you and less of the ones that do not. No one is forcing you to do any differently. It’s under your control.

My belief is that we all have more control than we think we do…at least over those items that I’ve listed above. Be thankful for the control you have and use it in a productive manner.

5.  Some failures are a result of something outside of your control.  Best laid plans and all that…The airport you’re supposed to be flying out of is socked in for 24 hours and you miss your son’s dance recital. Your mother falls and breaks a hip. Since you are the only child (or the only responsible child), you miss a couple of key deadlines because you need (and want) to be taking care of your mother’s matters.   You can feel like a failure – or recognize that you aren’t.  Sometimes life has a way of getting in the way of ‘success.’  Focus on the areas that are within your control.  Manage those ‘failures.’  All of these “failures” were but a comma in the flow of your life…not a period.  Pause and move on.
In your life, you have many opportunities for success and failure.  If you would like additional tips, tools, and techniques that you can use to support your successes, then access one or both of the following free resource websites:

**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)

**Articles (http://www.ArticlesbyMeggin.com)

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!

1. Some failures are huge disappointments.  Generally, if your marriage “fails,” you feel some disappointment. You went into the relationship with some sense of expectation; when it doesn’t work out the way you were hoping and planning, then it’s incredibly disappointing.  Not earning tenure at your university MAY be a huge disappointment or it may be the best thing that every happened to you because you find another position at a different university – and you thrive there.   

Be sure to continue with tomorrow’s post and learn more about ways to view failure – and between now and then, you may want to access one of these tools (free): 

**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)

**Articles for Professors (http://www.ArticlesforProfessors.com)

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!

“Don’t worry about *the* world; worry about *your* world.”

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned about the globe and/or the global issues that face all of us.  It is to say that we need to focus on, ‘worry about,’ be concerned with those things that are within our realm of influence.

One of the special events for Life of E’s members is “Being and Staying Positive in a Freaked Out World.”  It will be on Wednesday, December 17th and will be accessible to E’s either live, or later as a download.

Remember, “Don’t worry about *the* world; worry about *your* world.”

It might be worth taking a look.  We all have to focus on what we can control…not on what we can’t.  There’s PLENTY that we can’t and that’s what is freaking us out.  Focus on what you can…it may have a calming influence.  It has for me.