Valuing Yourself and Your Needs (As a Parent): This is about taking care of your OWN needs as a parent because when you consistently put yourself last to be taken care of and habitually continue to sacrifice your basic necessities to make everyone else happy…Essentially, what you’re teaching your children is that they’re here to be of service to others, then themselves. In other words, you’re teaching them to take advantage of you and use you as they please, which in turn communicates to them that they’re most likely to be used. To prevent this from happening, you need to set consistent limits that protect you from demands that could be overbearing and unfair. That way, you’re communicating that your basic needs are just as important as theirs. It’s true…often times parents that are constantly sacrificing themselves are idealized and praised by other parents. You know… the ones that have no hobbies, no friends and no avenue of enjoyment. Is this really desirable? Parents constantly stressed about the needs of others in the family are usually irritable, and unmotivated to try anything new, fun or exciting. How can parents do this long term with no outlet? Instead, us parents need to enjoy ourselves and focus on being re-energized. When you take good care of yourself, you provide the means to take better care of your children. Going out to dinner or cocktails, trips to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, date night with your spouse or even some alone time reading or going for a walk allows you to be a more productive, interested and patient parent.”

“Your behavior will guide the behavior of the other members of your team or the people in your organization.”

“You become what you think about most of the time”

“Always choose the future over the past. What do we do now?”

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude  toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather  than allowing it to master you.”

“I found that every single successful person I’ve ever spoken to had a turning point and the turning point was where they made a clear, specific, unequivocal decision that they were not going to live like this anymore. Some people make that decision at 15 and some people make it at 50 and most never make it at all.”

“There is a special way that you can accelerate your progress toward becoming the highly productive, effective, efficient person that you want to be.”

“Every minute spent in planning saves ten to twelve minutes in execution.”

“Develop the winning edge; small differences in your performance can lead to large differences in your results.”

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

“You can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.”

“1. Resolve today to “switch on” your success mechanism and unlock your goal-achieving mechanism by deciding exactly what you really want in life. 2. Make a list of ten goals that you want to achieve in the foreseeable future. Write them down in the present tense, as if you have already achieved them. 3. Select the one goal that could have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to achieve it, and write it down at the top of another piece of paper. 4. Make a list of everything you could do to achieve this goal, organize it by sequence and priority, and then take action on it immediately. 5. Practice mindstorming by writing out twenty ideas that could help you achieve your most important goal, and then take action on at least one of those ideas.”

“By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch, anything's a cinch A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step In addition, to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful  about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, low fat and  low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat saladswith fish or chicken at lunch.  Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks  and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world  class athlete before a competition, because in many respects, that’s  what you are before starting work each day”

“A major reason for procrastination is a feeling of inadequacy, a lack of confidence, or an inability in a key area of a task. Feeling weak or deficient in a single area is enough to discourage you from starting the job at all.”

“Your most valuable asset can be your willingness to persist longer than anyone else.”