Intentionally Manifest Your Dreams

By Bruce Lund, NEXTPERT
Topic: Career Development, Marketing, Networking, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, Reputation Management, Social Media, Entrepreneur, Gen Y, Millennial, Job Searching

 www.nextpert.net 

Be Proactive vs. Reactive

Are you intentionally manifesting your dreams or are you just trying to “get by?”

As I continue along my doctoral journey, speak to young professionals, and write my book (to be released in the Spring), I’ve realized the importance of being proactive vs. reactive.

Look at any ultra successful person and you will find many different components to their success---hard working, creative, and determined will be right at the top. But as I have conversations with these people one key element stands out---they are intentional.

They have reason for every action they take. They know what their dominant focus or niche is and they engage in a consistent set of behaviors to accomplish their “wildly important goals”.

The power of intention is the key ingredient to manifest thoughts into action. Match your internal drive with external factors. Simply said, you know what you want so begin to achieve it. Align your thoughts with your actions.

I know as a young professional we have many different tasks taking up much of our time, but I ask TODAY for you to rank (in order of importance) where you SHOULD be spending your time and energy 

My rankings are:

1. Always be ahead on schoolwork
2. Fulfill GTA obligations
3. Finish book
4. Speaking Engagements
5. Anticipate the needs of my mentors

The brain is wired to excel at one thing at a time and “single-tasking” is very important. Always keep the main thing, the main thing. We all get the same allotment of time a day (84,600 seconds) and the most successful people manage that time.

Once you have ranked where you need to spend the most of your time and energy make it a non-negotiable to accomplish them. I was taught to use the “high-value activity” to achieve my dominant focuses.

High-Value activities for me today would be to (1) get up early make sure I have spent an hour in preparation for my class tonight. (2) Make sure all necessary paperwork is done and my lesson plan is ready to go for the class I teach. (3) Tackle one concept today for a chapter in my book. (4) Reach out to three people for a showcase speaking event. (5) Go through my “to do” list and make sure I am where I need to be on various tasks for my mentors.

I realize that many, and even the top, needs of your time and energy might not be at the top of your interests but this is what we call the “cost of sale”. It just has to be done. There is no point spending time complaining about it because it does no good whatsoever.

Even though this is eating up the majority of your time be sure to pick one area of YOUR interest and spend an hour a day towards developing it. If you spend one hour a day in the intended “niche” area then you will be considered an expert in that area 5 years from now.

Once you have developed your own personal gameplan for each day I guarantee you will begin to see a drastic change through the power of intention.

Confidence is the memory of success and that success will come through daily, systematic processes to be able to do something tomorrow that you cannot do today. Continue having private victories (which nobody sees but you) and when the time comes you will stand out as the BEST of the NEXT Generation and have an INTENTIONAL breakthrough and that much awaited public victory.

Live out of your imagination, dream, and don’t get caught up in the everyday struggles. You have the power to choose where you spend your time and energy so make other people learn to respect your time.

Bruce Lund is the Founder & CEO of NEXTPERT, a training and consulting firm offering insight and strategies to help recruit, train, and retain the BEST of the NEXT Generation leaders. Bruce is a Next Generation Expert completing his Ph.D. on the leadership of this unique group. Bruce has worked in and through many top organizations and teaches the whole self (Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit) approach in leading. He is seeking to become THE Leadership Expert Generation Y can count on for guidance to take them from where they are right now and teach them the distinctive habits of successful people to live an extraordinary life.