A huge percentage of home based businesses are run by people with children.

Many of those parents are stay at home moms, with some stay at home dads thrown into the mix.

When June comes, thousand of children say farewell to their teachers and school books. 

They hit home one day and begin a 2 1/2 month siege on our schedules.

Learning how to stay focused on the tasks we need to complete for our business is critical to success.

When our children are home on school break, we are endlessly distracted with their activities and outings.

Make a point of scheduling for yourself a block of time during each day when you will be the least distracted.

Focus on completing the tasks you need uninterrupted concentration for. 

For me, this would be the time I work on blogs, website content, and correspondence with prospects.

During times you are more likely to be distracted, work on business activities that do not require close attention to detail.

This might be sending out Direct Matches emails where you use the same copy & paste material.

Whatever your business activities are, remember to prioritize the most essential and productive tasks.

Don’t waste time on anything that can be addressed another time.

Spend that extra time with your children and enjoy your vacation time with them!

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

It is quite easy to get distracted and and start wandering around in cyberspace.  Your time gets swallowed up without realizing it.  You also end up feeling fatigued and unfocused.

Social Networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are notorious for taking up hours of time.

It is critical that you make a list of your daily marketing activities.

• List the site,
• Exactly what you will do on the site,
• How much time you will spend there,
• What time of the day or evening you will do it.

You have to stick to your list and not get distracted.

Once you are finished with your online marketing  activities, close your browser windows and walk away from the computer.

You may think you can surf the internet and find valuable content for your business.

Your time would be better spent contacting your customers, following up on your leads, and touching base with your team to brainstorm.

If you like to surf the net, schedule it into your activities and save it for after you have done more important things.

Last thing…always give yourself a day off!

You need one day a week to unplug from your business activities, turn off the computer and enjoy your family!

To be effective at building your Network Marketing business online, you have to keep yourself from getting lost in a virtual world.

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

People have historically made goals on January 1st and failed to achieve them.  It is almost a given and widely joked about.

When we are in business for ourselves, particularly if we are running a small home based business, we often set goals for ourselves throughout the year.

Our goals include personal and business growth.

It is our intention that we achieve all of our goals.  We are a community of success driven dreamers who fully intend to reach those dreams.

There are those times that we do not reach our goals.

I have just experienced one of those times.

A few months ago I made the commitment to enter the Ezine Articles 100 articles in 100 days.

I was on a roll, then things changed on the homefront and I  didn’t have the time to continue writing.

I didn’t meet the challenge of 100 articles.

What I did do was write 28 more articles than I had before the challenge. 

Most of those articles are ones I wouldn’t have committed myself to writing had I not been in the challenge.

You see, we are better off when we set goals for ourselves, even if we don’t achieve them.

It gives us a personal challenge to grow and practice success.

If we do not meet our goals, it is important that we look at what we did accomplish.

By setting the bar high, as long as we work to reach that goal, we have achieved the goal of trying.

As everybody knows, there are two groups of people:

1.  People who give lip service to success.
2.  People who push towards meeting goals.

So what is the next step?

Evaluate what you did.  Identify what worked, what didn’t, and what you need to do differently next time.

Then, set a new goal.

It really is that simple.

In the world of teaching it is called Review, Reflect, & Revise.  We must always be doing this to ensure that we are being effective.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Most people in MLM have read Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”.

While reading Chapter 7 {Organized Planning—The Chrystallization of Desire into Action} recently, the section on the Self Analysis Questionnaire grabbed my attention.

Hill advises that these 28 questions should be an annual end-of-year self-analysis.

We need to do this BEFORE making our New Year’s Resolutions. (I actually prefer New Year’s Goals.)

The purpose of this Questionnaire is to uncover a decrease in our faults, shortcomings, or weaknesses, and an increase in our virtues, assets, and strengths.

This will give us an honest evaluation of where we need to start with our Goals for 2010.

Below I have listed Hill’s
SELF-ANALYSIS QUESTIONNAIRE FOR PERSONAL INVENTORY.

1. Have I attained the goal which I established as my objective for this year?

2. Have I delivered service of the best possible QUALITY of which I was capable, or could I have improved any part of this service?

3. Have I delivered service in the greatest possible QUANTITY of which I was capable?

4. Has the spirit of my conduct been harmonious, and cooperative at all times?

5. Have I permitted the habit of PROCRASTINATION to decrease my efficiency, and if so, to what extent?

6. Have I improved my PERSONALITY, and if so, in what ways?

7. Have I been PERSISTENT in following my plans through to completion?

8. Have I reached DECISIONS PROMPTLY AND DEFINITELY on all occasions?

9. Have I permitted any one or more of the six basic fears to decrease my efficiency?

10. Have I been either “over-cautious” or “undercautious”?

11. Has my relationship with my associates in work been pleasant, or unpleasant? If unpleasant, has the fault been partly or wholly mine?

12. Have I dissipated any of my energy through lack of CONCENTRATION of effort?

13. Have I been open minded and tolerant in connection with all subjects?

14. In what way have I improved my ability to render service?

15. Have I been intemperate in any of my Habits?

16. Have I expressed, either openly or secretly, any form of EGOTISM?

17. Has my conduct toward my associates been such that it has induced them to respect me?

18. Have my opinions and DECISIONS been based upon guesswork, or accuracy of analysis and THOUGHT?

19. Have I followed the habit of budgeting my time, my expenses, and my income, and have I been conservative in these budgets?

20. How much time have I devoted to UNPROFITABLE effort which I might have used to better advantage?

21. How may I RE-BUDGET my time, and change my habits so I will be more efficient during the coming year?

22. Have I been guilty of any conduct which was not approved by my conscience?

23. In what ways have I rendered MORE SERVICE AND BETTER SERVICE than I was paid to render?

24. Have I been unfair to anyone, and if so, in what way?

25. If I had been the purchaser of my own services for the year, would I be satisfied with my purchase?

26. Am I in the right vocation, and if not, why?

27. Has the purchaser of my services been satisfied with the service I have rendered, and if not, why not?

28. What is my present rating on the fundamental principles of success?

With Tomorrow being the LAST day of 2009, NOW is the BEST time to complete the questionnaire.  This will prove to be one of the predictors for your business success in 2010. 

Remember to share your answers with your mentor.

Enjoy the end of this year and this decade!

Next step is to work on your goals 2010!

Believe In Your Success, I Do!
Karen

“People always tell their goals.

Fine. You need goals.

But your WHY is a big, big, big reason that will keep you going.

Where’s your fire? What do you LOVE? What do you HATE? What is really important to you? What do you really want? What situation in life do you want to get out of so it never, ever, EVER happens again?

It’s not goals. It’s not money, either.

Your real WHY is never money.

It’s about who YOU really are.

Your driving factor must be WAY more than money.

It’s something you want…or something you want to get away from. Better yet, BOTH. If your “WHY” is a 70% and you come up against an obstacle that’s a 72%, you’re gone. You’ll drop out, disappear.

But when your WHY is a 99.9%, then you’re here to stay and be successful.

Why are you on this planet? In one form or another, you’re here to change lives. Touch lives, and help people. What were you meant to do?”

This is the beginning of Michael Dlouhy’s explanation on the importance of you having a strong WHY the ebook, Success In 10 Steps. The entire section can be found on pages 23-29 in the free ebook. (Follow the link in the sidebar to the right.)

Most people in Network Marketing want to know every tip and trick to being successful in their business. Understanding fully about your WHY is one of the most important steps anyone can take.

One of the most common misunderstandings is confusing the difference between a WHY and a GOAL. Think of a WHY as a PURPOSE.

Think of the question: ‘Why Do You Go To Work?’

Your GOAL is to make money.

Your WHY, or your PURPOSE is to pay your bills or provide for your family.

GOALS give you the way to achieve your PURPOSE, or your WHY.

When working on writing out your WHY, you will find it takes time to refine it. At first, it is very common to write down money related GOALS.

As you work through this stage, ask yourself this question: “What is the money going to bring me?”

I may want to make $10K a month (my GOAL), but what will that bring me (my PURPOSE)?

My PURPOSE, or my WHY is to spend more time with my family (e.g. travel)?

See the difference?

If you’d like to learn more about writing out your WHY and your GOALS, you are welcome to download the ebook to read more of what Michael teaches.

After you have finished the section between pages 23-29, email me your WHY and I will assist you in working on it.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

Here it is…two weeks since I last posted. As a matter of fact, it feels like I haven’t done any work at all during this time! We have been getting ready for Thanksgiving, had family come in from out of town, kids on school break, and my nephew got married Saturday.

And Christmas is around the corner? Whew!

Most people face the challenge of how to divide a limited amount of time between an unlimited number of activities and obligations during holiday times.

How do we enjoy the holidays and our families and still keep our home based businesses running?

“Letting it Go” with the thought of resuming your business activities January 2^nd is not a great idea. You will lose the momentum you have built and it will take some time to get yourself going again.

So make a plan NOW to manage your business during these often hectic times. It’s never too late!

Prioritize your biz activities.

First, write down everything you do while working your business.

Then make a list of the must do activities that keep your business bringing in business.

This would be things like your marketing activities…adding friends on Facebook, sending emails on Direct Matches, whatever it is you do to reach potential business partners and customers.

On days when you don’t have time to take a breath, give yourself a goal of completing at least one of your easiest, quickest activities. Don’t worry about the other stuff…email, newsletters, and organizing your desk will wait!

Remember the Slight Edge philosophy. Doing a little bit each day keeps driving you TOWARDS your goals. Doing nothing keeps you right where you are then starts sliding you back into doubt and failure.

I’ve written about setting goals many times.  Most of us already have the idea of how important setting goals is to achieving our success.

Many people actually know how to write them.  Goals have to be specific, measureable, and have a specific timeframe to be met.

Then why do so many of us fail to succeed?

Wrong formula?  Not enough self help tapes?  Not committed enough?  The dog ate your homework?

Well, according to Tom ‘Big Al’ Schreiter, the secret is in our motivation.

No big surprise there!

The real secret is in the kind of motivation…it’s got to be emotional!  It has to grab you in your gut and get you twisted over it!

Tom has written a special report teaching his goal setting techniques.  You can get it here:  “Setting Goals Is Easy.  Achieving Goals is Difficult.”

Following is an excerpt from Tom’s report… 

Dear Friend and Subscriber,
You’ve heard the gurus, the so-called experts, the trainers and the local big mouth after six beers. They all say the same thing:
“You gotta set goals. That’s the key to success.”
Right. Sure.

If setting goals is the key to success, then we’d all be super-successful now, right?
Well, we aren’t.
You see, it’s easy to set goals. Every year we set goals for the new year, to earn more money, to exercise, to lose weight, to be more loving, to win the local tennis tournament, to wake up an hour earlier, to sponsor more people, to spend more time with the kids . . .

Hey wait! These are just a list of some of my goals that I didn’t achieve.
And that’s the story of our lives. We all set goals. That’s easy. That’s no problem.

The problem is that we seldom achieve these goals. Does this sound like you? Like your downline? Like your prospects?
I bet it does. Because failing to achieve our carefully planned goals is just human. We mean well, but we consistently underachieve our goals.

Why is this?

I think that we secretly make a list of all of our
shortcomings and then set goals to fix them. Unfortunately, there is a reason we have shortcomings in our lives.

We have shortcomings because those things
are hard for us to do!

Are you ready to do something REALLY difficult?  This may get scary!

“Fear of loss is always greater than the desire for gain.”

Download Tom’s free report.

If you need some help getting started with your goals, I’m always here to help.

Believe in Your Success, I Do!
Karen
mentor.karen.j.miller@gmail.com

So what?

This is your chance to take part in a world-wide countdown to achieve your dream goal(s) by the end of this year!

Are you up for the challenge?
Are you up to dusting off some of those New Year’s Resolutions?
Are you up for seeing your goals become reality?

Good.  So am I.

So let’s start by writing down exactly what you want to achieve by the end of this year.

• Define the “what”…weight loss, building your business, making a change in your environment.
• Be realistic.  I need to lose 100 pounds, but that is not a realistic goal for the next 100 days.
• Look back at what you have historically been doing successfully, then raise the bar enough so you have to jump to reach it, but don’t need to shoot yourself out of a cannon to get to it.
• Be very specific, like “I will lose 15 pounds”, “I will organize the stuff in the garage and give things I haven’t used in 6 months to charity”, or “I will sign up 1 new affiliate and 2 new customers into my business”.  Your goals have to be measureable.
• Write down the date you will accomplish your goals.  “By Thursday, December 31, 2009 at midnight.”

This is going to be fantastic!

Can you imagine how great your New Year’s Eve Celebration is going to be knowing that you set goals, worked towards accomplishing them, and actually achieved them?

Once done, setting your bigger goals, those for the year, will be much easier.

You will also be able to envision setting smaller goals….those with quarterly deadlines, monthly deadlines, or weekly deadlines.

Let’s get started now!
If you need any help, I’m a phone call away!
1-541-484-5455
Skype ID: karen.j.miller
k.j.miller.777@gmail.com

Your Friend and Mentor,
Karen

.

I subscribe to a few e-newsletters from people in the industry.  One of them is from MLMWoman.

In her recent newsletter, Linda Locke shared a time management “quick tip” for busy MLM business women.

“  Take ten minutes break. Right now. Plan your day on paper. Make
yourself a list of everything you would like to achieve today. That’s
right, everything.

Now, get two colored highlighter pens and mark all the tasks that
will take more than half an hour, and all those that will take less.

Set your own priorities for the jobs, but make sure you complete at
least two short ones for every long one.

For every long job crossed off the list or two short ones, give
yourself a small reward. A five minute break, a square of chocolate, a
cup of coffee. You choose.

Now watch as your busy schedule starts to make more sense.

Welcome to the wonderful world of time management.”

How’s that for a fantastic, simple to do, quick time management tip?

I’m going to take my break right now and make my list!

Your Friend and Mentor,
Karen

Most people who get into MLM, have hopes of running their own part-time business and making some extra money to stretch their budgets.

97% of people will fail at MLM.

There are many reasons why people fail.
One of those reasons is a failure to make a plan and set goals.

Part of this process is writing a mission statement.

A Mission Statement is not just for large businesses and organizations.  Everyone should have a personal mission statement.

A mission statement helps you focus your efforts towards your goals.

Napoleon Hill teaches in Think and Grow Rich that your goal must be a burning desire.  Additionally, you must write it down as your “chief aim in life”.

Jeff Olson teaches goal setting in The Slight Edge.  Write it down, make it specific, and give it a deadline.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey devotes a chapter to understanding your principles, identifying your goals and writing your mission statement.

When you have developed a clear vision of your mission statement, you will find yourself coming closer and closer to achieving your goals. 

As you achieve your goals and grow through your personal development, you will find the need to modify your mission statement.  It is never a static thing.  You will be rewriting to meet your changing needs.

How do you write your mission statement?

You can use a personal development book that will walk you through it.

Or…you can use this nifty free online tool I found that will help you write your mission statement in about 5 minutes.

Go to the Online Mission Statement tool and you will be directed step by step to enter your goals and the actions you take to get there.  The tool will also give you the option to edit your mission statement and have it emailed to you.

Whatever method you use to write your Mission Statement, you need a live mentor to help you evaluate your goals and mission statement.

Once you put forth the effort and work to write your goals and mission statement, your business will start growing and you will start seeing your success.

Wishing You the Success of a Lifetime!
Karen
k.j.miller.777@gmail.com

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