Always Moving Forward

Original blog post from February 17, 2011

Here are a few things that I have learned over the past few years that I am now actively applying to my life. These are helpful tips that I would encourage everyone to apply to their own life. As I am striving to always be constantly improving my life, I have found these to be a few of the more important keys to success. I plan to write much more extensively about how I will be, and have been, applying these to my own life in future posts.

1) Always be moving forward.

No matter where you are in your life, you can always be moving forward and making progress towards something new and productive. Set new goals and always be doing something to make some progress. Actions are always best, but if you don't know what to do, simply thinking about what to do is a positive form of progress. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out what to do, let alone how to do it. Moving forward is a direction, not a stationary point in time. Staying positive, brainstorming new ideas, focusing on your personal wants and desires, and taking action are all important steps in always moving forward.

2) Always be doing something new.

Regular routine is a good thing, but you should always be integrating new activities into your daily life. Try something new. Read something new. Learn something new. Doing new things stimulates your brain and thinking possesses in new ways, leading to new ideas and sources of inspiration. This is an important step to always be moving forward.

3) Always be learning something new.

Always be striving for conscious improvement and always be trying to better yourself in some way. Some small improvements everyday will have a compounding effect over time and will lead to tremendous progress and growth in the long run. If you learn something new everyday, after years you will acquired tons of new knowledge. Having vast resources of knowledge is greatly advantageous to almost every aspect of your life, from career to raising children to having conversions with strangers. Learning something new can be as simple as learning a new vocabulary word everyday, or reading a random Wikipedia article. Or it can be something like learning to play or practicing a musical instrument or learning more about a school subject that has always been of interest to you. The amount of information out there is limitless. Find something of interest to you and learn about it. This will greatly enrich your life and is an important step to always be moving forward.

4) Remove can't from vocabulary.

Do not say that you cannot do something because of some obstacle or difficult challenge confronting you. Accept the challenge and figure out a way to conquer it. Facing a difficult challenge head on is not always the best or only solution. Realize that you can do anything that you set your mind and heart too. If it is worth doing, and you stay committed to success, then you will find a way. Research the problem, learn as much about it as you can. Chances are that you are not the first person in the world to have ever experience such a challenge. There is more then enough information online about how to do anything, all you have to do is find it. Remember, there is nothing that you can't do.

5) Failure is not always a bad thing.

Sure everyone wants to win or be successful the first time around. Face it, it does not always happen like that. Sometimes it is your fault, sometimes it has something to do with variables outside your control, or sometimes it might just not have meant to be at that time. Whatever the case, try to look back at the experience and learn something from it. Failure is a valuable learning experience. Examine the situation, learn what you did wrong, learn what to do right the next time around and try again. If your failure had nothing to do with your lack of skills or honest attempt and was caused by external circumstances, learn from the situation and understand what went wrong. Maybe it was poor timing on your part or someone else's fault completely. Whatever you conclude was the problem, understand that it was not a complete failure because you at the very least learned something from the experience. And that is a success in it own right.

If you are always moving forward, you are inevitable bound for success. So always strive to always be moving forward. Good Luck.