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Secret No. 1: Make a commitment to yourself! Decide right now that you’re genuinely serious about getting out of your runadamill-boring-as-dog-poop job and into your dream career. You are the only thing that’s holding you back.

Secret No. 2: Identify what’s keeping you from being successful. Okay, so you have some artistic talent and you’d like to be a full-time painter. Tough, tough world to break into, and for most people (who have the talent), the toughest part is not the art, but the business side of things.

So, say that’s you… you need to identify which part of the business you’re not good at and then devote yourself to improving every day. So, you hate sales, right? Art and sales don’t mix, right?  Well, you damn betcha they mix… if that’s you’re limiting skill, take a sales seminar, join a public speaking group and practice, hang around other artists who’re good salespeople… commit to doing what it takes to increase your limiting skill. Yeah, and don’t gimme that old song and dance about what you really want to do is just paint. If that’s what your destiny holds, go out and find a benefactor!

Secret No. 3: Hang around the right people. You’ve heard this from me a gazillion times.  Stay away from the complainers and moaners and stick to successful, fun, positive people.

Secret No. 4: Get and stay healthy and in shape. Success (in anything) requires a lot of energy; energy requires a lot of good health. I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling physically good, my mental energy is just higher. When I’m not eating the right foods, I feel like crap, and I usually end up thinking like crap.

Secret No. 5: Think of yourself in your chosen profession. Picture yourself working in your dream job. Picture yourself doing what you love and being very, very good at it.

Secret No. 6: Be kind and gentle with yourself. Always. Congratulate yourself on your small successes. Tell yourself how good you feel and about how you feel about how the progress you’ve made, even if small, the last couple of days has been good. Tell yourself how you want to be rather than beating yourself up over your current shortcomings. Check out Jeffrey Gitomer’s classic tome, the Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, for lots of help in this area.

Secret No. 7: Make a positive contribution toward your goal, every day. Do at least one thing every day that moves you toward your dream job goal. Talk to others in the field, take a course, read a book about your desired job, make a to-do list, and keep moving forward. The Japanese call this kaizen… small steps, regularly. So, practice kaizen.

The successful people I know are action-oriented, sometimes to the point of obsession. Get out there and do stuff. Don’t just talk about it.

Ready-fire-aim should be your motto.

Do it, then fix what’s not working. And, keep doing the stuff that works.

Don’t over think and over strategize.

Let me know how I can help you.

Michael Werner runs Dream Jobs Dialog and is also the CEO of InfoSource, Inc., a company trying hard not to be like Microsoft.