Jonathan Robinson - Shortcuts to Success: The Absolute Best Ways to Master Your Money, Time, Health, and Relationships

Other books by Jonathan Robinson

The Little Book of Big Questions

200 Ways to Explore Your Spiritual Nature

Communication Miracles for Couples

Easy and Effective Tools to Create More Love and Less Conflict

Shortcuts to Bliss

The 50 Best Ways to Improve Relationships, Connect with Spirit, and make Dreams Come True

Copyright 2000 by Jonathan Robinson

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact: Conari Press, 2550 Ninth Street, Suite 101, Berkeley, CA 94710-2551.

Conari Press books are distributed by Publishers Group West

Cover Illustration: Kurt Vargo

Interior Illustrations: Copyright Ashleigh Brilliant, Santa Barbara, CA. www.ashleighbrilliant.com Reprinted by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Robinson, Jonathan, 1942

Shortcuts to success : the absolute best ways to master your time, health, relationships, and finances / Jonathan Robinson.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-57324-188-1 (trade pbk.)

1. SuccessPsychological aspects. I. Title.

BF637.S8R63 2000

646.7dc21 99-042066

Printed in the United States of America on recycled paper.

00 01 02 03 Data Repro 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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W e live in an era of constant change. In order to create a high quality of life when so much activity is continually happening, it's more important than ever to master certain skills. The methods presented in this book to help you master your time, health, relationships, and finances are some of the finest tools available for building success. They can help you manifest the life you desire more quickly, easily, and effectively than you may have ever thought possible. Don't underestimate their power. Even just a single idea or method presented in this book can have a profound impact on the quality of your life.

Webster's dictionary defines success as the achievement of something desired. However, in our materialistic culture, success has often been confused with fame and fortune. There is nothing wrong with riches and respect, but true success is more than just that. In order to feel successful, we need to have various aspects of our lives in balance. Millions of dollars will do you little good if your health is poor, people dislike you, and your life feels out of control. On the other hand, avoiding the area of finances can lead to a life of constant anxiety about money. If you can learn the shortcuts to creating good health, relationships, time for what you enjoy, and financial prosperity, then you'll likely feel successful. This book will help you learn about some of the most efficient, effective, and practical ways to create the life you really want.

F or most Westerners, poverty has taken on a new meaning. Instead of feeling a lack of money, a majority of people are feeling a lack of time. Indeed, we do have plenty of material prosperity. Even middle-class folks of today live better than kings lived just fifty years ago! Our civilization gives us the riches of libraries, endless channels of free entertainment to watch, telephones, supermarkets, and air conditioned cars to speed us wherever we want to go. Yet we don't necessarily have the time to enjoy all our good fortune. Unlike fifty years ago, people spend a lot of their lives rushing around, feeling like they lack the time to do the things they truly desire. To a large extent, we've traded our precious time for more money and the many comforts it can buy. However, for those who feel an ongoing poverty of time, there is hope. As you learn about and use the time management ideas in this section, you'll feel like you're in control of your timerather than it being in control of you.

I assume that if you're reading this book, you're already familiar with some basic time management ideas. Nevertheless, I hope to introduce you to several ideas you may not have heard before. While some of these ideas may not fit your current lifestyle, even one new idea taken from the following chapters can significantly impact your entire destiny. After all, time is more than money. The manner in which you use your time determines the quality and direction of your life. Fortunately, time management is a skill that is easily learned. As you use the ideas in this section, you will feel like you are accomplishing more with your time, and using it to experience greater personal satisfaction.

I n order to be successful, you first need to define what success means to you. While Western culture may define success in terms of riches, fame, beauty, and youth, these things may not be what you really want. I first learned the importance of defining what I was after when I was in college. My roommate, Tony, was a varsity basketball player who was always challenging me to a game of one-on-one basketball. At first, I avoided the challenge, but finally I caved in. I said, I'll play you a game on one condition: I get to bring any one-ounce gadget onto the court and place it wherever I want. Tony agreed. We went to the court and I brought out my one ounce gadgetwhich was a blindfold, and I strategically placed it over Tony's eyes. Then I said, Let the games begin! Admittedly, the game still ended up being rather close. Yet, because I knew exactly what I was aiming forand Tony didn'tI beat him despite my complete lack of skill. Knowing what you're aiming for is more important than luck, skill, or expertise.

In order to define what success is to you, it can be helpful to think about when you've felt the happiest in your past. When were three times in your life that you were, for a period of at least a month, rather happy and excited about your life? If you can, write a very brief description of these three times. As you review these three times in your life, do you notice any similar themes or events that occurred during each of these times? For example, were you traveling during these times, or were you moving forward in your career? Perhaps on each of these occasions you were in a rewarding relationship, or you were enjoying a leisurely pace of life. Whatever you notice about these periods in your life, take note. If they brought you a feeling of satisfaction in the past, they could likely bring you a similar feeling in the future. Therefore, if traveling made you happy in the past, you would likely feel successful if you could travel more in the future. Simple.

Unfortunately, it's easy to fall into other people's view of success and lose our own. When I was in junior high school, I fell into my mom's dream for me to do very well in school. In the school I was in, if you got straight A's for a full year, you got a little pin from the principal. Well, I worked real hard to live up to my mother's good intentions for me on how she defined success. By foregoing my social life, I managed to get straight A's for a full year. A couple of years ago while cleaning out some drawers, I found the cheap, gold-plated pin I received for achieving straight A's. I looked at that $2 pin and realized that this was the booby prize for going after someone else's idea of success. Don't let that happen to you. Instead, remember what has really made you happy in the past, and aim for that in the future.