Time Management Irrefutables will force you to make tough decisions, as long as you are serious, that is. Developing a set of Irrefutables to run your business or life by is a way you can start to show yourself that you are, in fact, serious about becoming successful and actually start to achieve some of the goals you want for your self in life. I have a saying, "if you want to run with the big dogs, you have to get off the porch". That is one of my favorite quotes. (Not an original, do not know where it came from, sorry) It seems so descriptive and captures the essence of what you are trying to say, especially in this instance.

When you create a series of Irrefutables, ways that will define what you do and how you will do it, you have taken the first concrete steps to taking charge and driving your own agenda. Irrefutables will make you ask tough questions and then make tough decisions, both of which are good things for people who are serious about becoming successful.

Tough Questions

Any one who is not happy with their results has to start to ask themselves some tough questions. If you do not, then you are going to continue to be unhappy, indefinitely. Indefinitely is a long time by the way. Here are a few questions that need to be asked:

• Are the means to change my results within my capabilities?
• Do I control my own destiny?
• What am I prepared to do to change the results that I am currently achieving?

The questions are tough because they place the burden where it should be placed, on our own shoulders. If you do not want to shoulder the responsibility for taking control of your own future, then you have to realize that you really are not that dissatisfied with where you are now and where you will probably continue to be for the foreseeable future. Only when your dissatisfaction level rises to the point where you are prepared to actually do something concrete about it will your prospects for the future actually change.

It's a tough pill to swallow when we have to admit that we are the reasons for our lack of success or our lack of happiness. Without this admission, chances for things improving are minimal. This is not a self-pity exercise, far from it. What we want to do is take the reins and move on, as quickly as possible. It is a huge positive step forward when we realize that the cause, as well as the cure, lay within our own control.

Tough Decisions

What are you prepared to stop doing today and start doing differently tomorrow that will create the results you want? It is a simple, but not easy switch of activities that will lead to you realizing some of the goals that you currently not achieving. This is where developing your own Irrefutables will help immensely. I have been with thousands of my clients, either on a one to one basis or in group seminars and very rarely do the participants not know the areas of their professional or business lives that are the root cause of their lack of results. Salesmen know that if they made more calls, the results would come. Production managers know that if they spent more time planning, production would go up. The answer does not lie in the means, but in the will, more precisely, the lack of will.

For there to be real progress, there has to be some fundamental changes in the core functions that are being done now. I'm not talking about the window dressing cosmetic things that will always fluctuate and change; I'm talking about the irrefutable activities that are required by you, that are at the core of what will make you successful. Let's take our salesman as an example. This person makes his livingby getting a commission every time he sells a house. No sales, no commission, no success; a pretty simple equation. This person must create a core value in his business, must work within an Irrefutable that dictates he must make 20 sales calls a week, minimally.

This is the tough question, tough answer part. He asks himself the tough question, "What will it take for me to become successful?" The tough answer is "at least 20 sales calls a week". That answer now becomes the answer to another tough question, "what are you prepared to do to become successful?" We already have the answer to that question; make at least 20 sales calls a week. Once this process is complete, there will be a certain amount of relief in knowing at least the way for our success has been partially laid out for us.