Stay on the Rails No Matter What

As a child I loved to immerse myself in Golden Books. I loved the little stories and pictures and would read them over and over again. I held on to most of them and now delight in sharing them with my daughter.

Little Golden Books are just that as they contain within in them little Golden pieces of wisdom. Who ever knew as a child that the words of a golden book held such priceless lessons that could teach us how to live a rewarding, successful and fulfilling life.

I re-discovered some of their pearls of wisdom just yesterday when I was reading to Kalyra the book ‘Tootle.’

Tootle is a baby locomotive who attends a school for engines so he can learn how to be a big locomotive. He attends many classes but the most important is ‘Staying on the Rails No Matter What!’ His instructor is adamant that the trains will never be any good unless they can get 100 A+ in this course. They can afford to ‘spill the soup pulling the diner’ and ‘turning the milk to butter now and then’ but if they come off the rails they fail!

Tootle wanted to be the NY flyer; the fastest train around. He began to work very hard to learn all he could but as time went by he kept getting distracted by all the fun things in the meadow and he would get off the tracks to go play.

Tootle had the makings to be the fastest train on the rails but he just couldn’t stay on them. Despite all his skills and deep desires he just could no help being enticed by the meadow. He began to fail ‘Staying on the Rails No Matter What’ and he was just going nowhere. His dream to be the NY flyer was getting further from becoming a reality.

The people of the village came up with a plan to get Tootle back on track and out of playing in the meadow. Tootle knew he always had to stop at a red flag and so the villagers hid in the meadow and at every turn of Tootle’s playing they held up a red flag and Tootle stopped.

He began to feel frustrated and disappointed in the meadow. How could he have any fun when he constantly had to stop? All the fun was gone and he found himself going around and around in circles. He couldn’t understand why the meadow was such a fine place to begin with and he longed for a green flag to help him get moving again.

Eventually he saw his teacher holding a green flag on the tracks and Tootle raced to get back on track. “This is the place for me” said Tootle. “There is nothing but red flags for locomotives that get off their tracks.”

And of course Tootle then went on to become the famous ‘Two Mile a Minute Flyer!’

What a profound message this story holds for it’s reader. Think carefully about it’s message and how it applies to your life at this moment.                                                                                      

What is it that is in the meadow distracting you from become the ‘fastest train around?’ How do you see these eventually turning into red flags? 

Distractions such as TV, facebook, wii, eating, playing, gossiping, non-productive tasks etc don’t help you to stay on track. Sure they are fun for awhile but eventually you’re going to get lost in this maze of red flags that just keep stopping you from getting to your destination. Pretty soon the fun will be gone and you will be frustrated, longing for a way out.

How are you going to get back on track and Who is going to help you?

Sometimes we need the help of a community and leaders to help us get back on track. Tootle’s community recognized his power, saw he was having difficulty staying focused on his goals and living up to his potential, and so they devised a plan to help show him the cost of his distractions and to get him back on track to becoming great.

My business has phenomenal success because it is founded on this principle. The community of people I work with in my business and the training I receive have taught me how to stay on track, ignore the diversions of the meadow and power on to be the best that I can be. There is always someone waving a green flag to help me just in case that meadow becomes too enticing.

It doesn’t matter how talented you are or how much you say you want something, if you don’t commit 100 A+ to staying on the tracks no matter what then you just aren’t going to go anywhere!

 

Technorati Tags: goal setting,staying focused,teachers,red flags,locomotives,Golden Books,success principles,wealth,achievement,home based business

 

Make YOUR Future Bigger than Your Past....

Driving in my car the other day I had an 'aha' moment and finally discovered the reason why my life took a serious nosedive for a couple of years. I could never work out what had gone wrong to make my life turn from near perfect to not so great.

I was utilizing my time by listening to empowering Personal Development CD's rather than crappy radio which only plays a constant stream of ads, DJ dribble and the same songs played over and over again. I'd rather use that time to develop me to make my life outstanding. I was listening to 'The Laws of Lifetime Growth' by Dan Sullivan and Catherine Nomura and what I heard made all the pieces of the puzzle click into place.

Dan says that to achieve lifetime growth and success you must make your future bigger than your past. A past is rich with experiences that provide raw material for an even bigger and brighter future. Your future is your property; it exists ONLY in your mind, therefore you can choose to make it whatever you like. A bigger future is a vision, an improvement of the qualities of your life now. You have to believe that a bigger future is possible. A bigger future is about what you choose to do with the time you have left.

I suddenly realized my problem and how to fix it. I had been making my past so much bigger than my future and how could I not. I had spent almost 10 years travelling the world. Craig and I spent the first 5 years of our marriage backpacking the globe. We trekked through many countries of Asia, Africa, the UK and America, as well as living in Dublin-Ireland, Bangkok-Thailand, Western Australia and Raleigh-North Carolina. Before that I had lived in London for two years and travelled through Europe.

We lived a total carefree existence. When we were travelling, our future adventures and experiences were always going to be bigger than our last adventure. Life was full of passion, fun and success. And then we decided to return to Australia to 'settle' and without realizing it, our future became very small. How could a life of working just to pay the bills possibly be bigger than our past? It wasn't, and we began to die inside, so we stopped growing and life became very small and meaningless.

I had thought that my fun-filled, adventurous life was over. I stopped believing and dreaming of a bigger future, I couldn't imagine there could be one (the power of a thought). That is the only thing that changed my life; I thought it into that mundane purpose-less existence.

So what do you do? How could I make my future bigger than my incredible past? Simple, think like this "If everything I've done so far is just the beginning, then what is next?"

Whoa!! What a mind shift. You mean that amazing travelling life I lived is just the beginning? Well doesn't that make for an incredible future in store for me! I am just bursting with excitement again. With that very simple shift in thinking, my future is now so so much bigger than my past. It's electrifying. My world is already having dramatic improvements and I am travelling and living life again.

Boy if this ....

...was just the beginning of my future - then My Goodness imagine what my future must now hold for me!! If I created this past before and now I know I can create an even bigger future, than wahoo let's get creating. I am so empowered to live a compeltely full life and all I can now say is

Who's coming with me????