Tag Archives: Enjoy

The Right Way To Take A Vacation- Five Ways to Balance

We all look forward to vacation. It’s a time to relax and enjoy ourselves. There’s just one problem- we spend the week before vacation packing, making arrangements and making sure work is taken care of. Then we spend the week after vacation unpacking and catching up. So we basically sandwiched our relaxing vacation between two hyper, active periods.

So you’re saying “at least I’m enjoying my vacation”- right? Wrong! Some people spend their vacation running to catch every tour- how is that relaxing? Others may take a “relaxing” vacation on the beach. But let’s think this through. After working hard all year and being extra active the week prior to vacation, is sitting and doing absolutely nothing for a long time good? All their creativity and energy is wasted. And just sitting isn’t necessarily giving enjoyment. Energy cant be stored from vacation and brought into real life.

The problem is there’s no balance. No balance the week before- too much activity. No balance the week after- too much to catch up on. No balance on vacation- too much or too little activity during the vacation. The solution, of course, is better balance.

Balance With Smaller Vacations

Instead of going on long vacations consider taking numerous long weekends as vacations. It allows you to have frequent balances against your daily grind. Plus you wont miss much at “work” being out for a short time.

Balance Your Long Vacations

Include a day on each side of your trip to pack and relax at home (and/or do some errands). This will allow you to start your vacation leisurely and transition to real life at the end your vacation. This way you wont need a vacation after your vacation.

Balance Your Leisure

A resting vacation (e.g. sitting by the pool) doesn’t have to be all vegging. Challenge yourself to swim some laps or have other fun in the pool- giving you some exercise. (Plus if you keep eating out this will help keep the weight off). Also have a pad next to you at all times. Now that your brain has a chance to relax you’ll find yourself more inspired with more ideas than ever.

On my recent vacation I did this and came up with this article and other solutions to problems I’ve been working on.

Balance Your Itinerary

Just because you are in a foreign city it doesn’t mean you must spend every waking minute exploring it. Do touring as long as you enjoy it- you don’t have to see everything. Take some time to “relax” also. On relaxing vacation don’t sit at the beach till the last second which would cause a stressful run to catch your plane.

Balance Your Bad Days

If you’re feeling stresses by your day to day- just take a random day off. Just sleep late and treat yourself to some rejuvenation and fun. It will give you an instant productivity boost.

So relax and enjoy your vacation.

How to Succeed Without Really Trying

No Elevator To SuccessMichael Jordan can beat you at a game of basketball without trying. Donald Trump can find a better real estate deal than you with just a few calls. Jeremy Schoemaker can make money on a web site faster than you with minimal effort (and get other people to promote for him for free). Skellie can get more subscribers for a new site in just 5 days than you can in a year of trying. So how do they do it? Why is it so easy for them? The answer is they built a machine.

In this article I’ll outline how you can build your own machine. The concepts are simple but the results are long reaching. Building the machine may require hard work to create a foundation, but once it’s built you can achieve success without really trying. Follow the four rules below and your machine will give you long term, self-perpetuating success.

Long Term

Is Trump smarter than you? Maybe, maybe not. But his machine is certainly better than yours for making real estate deals. Trump’s machine has many industry contacts to get him the right deals. It has his knowledge in evaluating deals. It has his financial backers allowing him to move on his deals. His machine has many parts to it that allow him to succeed almost automatically.

A machine is different than an experience. It’s built to have long term results. I may have bought a house once and certainly would have some knowledge of buying a house but I’m not setup to do deals consistently. It’s more than just being smart- anyone can take the time to read a book to get the essentials of success. It’s about building a foundation. It’s building the bank relationships. It’s building the industry relationships. It’s building a track record to make people want to invest in you. It’s building a staff that knows what needs to be done. It’s the mind set that this will be done more than once, so I should plan accordingly and not just get it done.

Quality

The Trump example doesn’t mean that you need to be big to build a machine. Being big can actually be detrimental if you don’t have your machine under control. Let’s take Skellie for example. Does she have a big organization behind her? No. Is Skellie a better writer than you? Probably, but not necessarily. She may be a good writer but there are probably a number of blogs that are better written than hers that don’t receive the attention she gets (I don’t have examples because those blogs don’t get attention so I haven’t seen them). So what is it that makes Skellie able to launch a site and instantaneously attract 1000 subscribers? It’s her machine of course. Her machine is her ability to use her creative talents and harness loyal readers. Her machine includes the loyal readers she built up at Skelliewag. It includes her contacts with other bloggers. You get the idea.

Building a machine requires a commitment to quality otherwise your machine will work against you and create problems instead of solutions. Success requires that you solve the problem. That you create a process to ensure quality. That you review your open commitments so items don’t slip. A well built machine does the same thing over and over again.

Skellie didn’t take shortcuts by sacrificing quality in her content. Quality takes constant introspection and improvements. For example, Skellie batches her writing to one day a week (in advance) and has a system to deal with writer’s block. Skellie has found the way to keep creating quality content and her machine helps her achieve success.

Self-Perpetuating

How does Paris Hilton have the resources to continue her escapades? Simple, she’s an heiress to the Hilton fortune. The money in her trust is her machine. The money that built her nest egg just keeps earning more money with little effort. Some people are lucky enough to take advantage of other people’s machines.

A machine simplifies a process and makes success self-perpetuating. It provides a road map to the future and provides the tools to get there faster. This is what makes Success Making Machine special. It’s not merely a few helpful tips, it’s something you can build on.

Enjoy It

Even when I’m old and grey, I won’t be able to play it, but I’ll still love the game.
Michael Jordan

I’ve always told people that to be successful you have to enjoy what you’re doing and right now I really enjoy what I’m doing. I’m having too much fun with my life. Why would I want to do something else? Why would I want to run for governor?
Donald Trump

Enjoy your work and you’ll never work a day in your life. If you asked Trump or Jordan to do what they do for free, they would. With dedication like that it’s no wonder they overcame the obstacles in their way.

You can build your machine to eliminate the tasks you don’t like. Machines can do the heavy lifting. I’m sure Trump isn’t interested in the nitty gritty of making his deal more tax effective, but people in his machine take care of that for him. Always enjoy the journey.

The Right Way to Build a Machine
Building a machine is a conscious decision to create a quality focused, automated system for the long term for something you enjoy. Using these principles helps you realize your efforts today can have huge long term ramifications that can improve your life. Once your machine is built you can just live on the interest- without really trying.

What kind of machine do you want to build?

 

Next step

Think about your goals. How can you make a quality machine that self-perpetuating built for the long term?

Now, look at the principles to building your machine.

Photo by: Coda