The difference between winners and losers often boils down to commitment. Are you going to do your work day in and day out, or not?

It comes in small choices. Do you eat that broccoli or the Twinkie?

It is a matter of decisions. The people that win aren’t always the ones that make the right choices one hundred percent of the time, but the trick is to make the right choices more times than the wrong ones. Day in and day out, eat those vegetables or get up early or do those sit-ups. Eventually, everything will add up, even if it doesn’t feel like it. If you do enough of the right, eventually something will burst and you will get the thrust that you have been working for.

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Ah, the happy dance. One of my favorite things to do. This is a silly dance where you wiggle around, twisting and turning in excitement. The only time you get to do the happy dance is when you are celebrating something. It is a form of celebration and recognition that you have accomplished something. It the accomplishment can be big or small.

I’ve done happy dances when I have gotten book contracts, scheduled TV appearances, and made some sales. I have also done a happy dance when I lost a pound, didn’t cuss even though I really wanted to, or when I actually had a balanced checkbook. I even did a happy dance after making a phone call that I didn’t want to place. It didn’t matter that I totally bombed on the phone call—a happy dance is earned because the job to make that phone call is off my list.

Every day there is something to celebrate. Look for it, recognize it, call attention to the accomplishment and happy dance away.

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Stepping It Up all begins by taking the first step on the path.

A lot of us are standing at the starting line of ambitions, dreams, and desires. We look at the line drawn before us and think about whether we want to cross it. We ask ourselves a whole host of questions, like:

• Do I really want to do this?
• How much work is this going to take?
• Is this really a good idea?
• What is my spouse going to think?
• Maybe I should just forget about this—what was I thinking?

And on and on our mind chatter goes. We spin in confusion as we look at that starting line and stand there waiting. What are we waiting for? We are waiting for the right time. When are we going to know it is the right time? When taking the first step gets easier.

Does this happen in real life? Sometimes. Often not. Is it always good to step across the starting line on our ambitions and dreams? No. So how do we know when we are being wise and when we are allowing fear to hold us back? The answers are simple: ask yourself why you aren’t taking the next step.

Are the reasons because you are unsure that it is the right path? Or is it because of fear? Do you really want to do it and you just don’t think you’d be successful? How long have you been in hesitation mode? If it is forever, and you know deep down inside that you are meant to do something or just want to—cross the starting path now.

If you aren’t taking it because you have an uneasy feeling—listen. If, after listening, you figure out that this is the wrong starting line you came up to—leave. Find the right starting line and, chances are, crossing that line will be much easier.

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Please tell me that I am not the only one guilty of this. I set out a goal, I visualize it, and I review it on a steady basis, and yet I still haven’t taken one action—not even one baby step—toward accomplishing my goal.

I realized last year that I had one of those goals. Day in and day out, I would look at it and do nothing about it.

Now, I am a little slow, but I finally had the ah-hah. That goal—in my case learning to speak French—wasn’t a strong motivater. I really didn’t want it. If I did, I would have done something about it during all those months. When I got very honest with myself and clear, I could care less if I spoke French. It was a passing whim that I wrote down just so I would have a goal in my personal development area. When I changed my goals in that area—in this case to specific tasks that I thought would be character developing lessons for my children and would enhance our relationships together—immediate action took place.

I had been stepping down the wrong path, and because of that, I wasn’t going anywhere and only adding resistance.

Look carefully at the jellybean that you put before yourself. Is it something you really want? Or is it something you wrote down because you feel that you “should,” either out of your own sense of guilt or what others put on you. If you have one of those on the list, do yourself a favor and eliminate it and replace that jellybean with one that will work with you and your life purpose better.

Step It Up Living is not hard work where you force yourself to do things that you believe are good for you. Our purpose is not to recreate flashbacks to when you sat at the dinner table with your parent standing over you insisting that you eat your vegetables or else everything good in your life is over. Those kinds of events only created resistance in your life, and if you set up going after your jellybean in that fashion, it is a sure fire way to set yourself up for some major backlash. The rebellious child within you will throw a fit and demand to eat the ice cream or popcorn and feel she or he deserves it and won’t listen to reason until the consumption has occurred.

Step It Up Living is a regal way of life where things flow in natural order and beauty. As you look forward to the direction where you want to head, it is not a list of “shoulds” and “oughts.” You are the queen or king of your life, and you get to lead out into the world of your wishing and creation. It’s your choice what type of motivation you put in place. It is your choice how you position your jellybean in your environment. It is your choice if you allow your own and other weak-knee excuses to limit the glory of your rein. And last but not least, it is your choice if you pick a jellybean that is truly inspiring and worth the price you’ll have to pay.

If your world is one filled with love, beauty, and reward, uprisings will not occur. The people in your kingdom will notice the flow, the beauty, and the grace of your life and become inspired by it. They will naturally want to be around you and listen to your goals and aspirations and will want to help you make your kingdom and your vision a reality. You will be hailed as a great and blessed ruler. This is possible for each of us to achieve.

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Another important principle of creating the right jellybean motivation is having a deadline. It was a do-or-die situation for my children. Either they got the basement cleaned in the time frame that I set out, or they wouldn’t get the jellybean. No weak-knee parenting from me. I have been around children long enough to know that if you go soft on them and coddle them, saying, “That was close enough,” and then give them the unearned jellybean anyway, you are shooting yourself in your foot. Those kids don’t rise up to their potential. They know they are going to be rescued. This holds them back and quite frankly makes for miserable out-of-control children, because not mastering our potential makes us grouchy. It’s a natural byproduct.
The same byproduct will happen for us if we give ourselves weak-kneed excuses for not accomplishing the tasks that are needed in order to get the jellybean. Think about the times when you gave yourself the excuse to stay in bed instead of dragging yourself out and hitting the gym. Did you feel great about yourself the rest of the day? Or did you do what I do when giving myself a pass and run through the excuses all day, rationalizing and trying to make myself feel better?
Having a timeline that you must meet is important on many levels. 1) It keeps you focused on the goal and helps you overcome many of the distractions. 2) Like what my children found when they didn’t have enough time to argue with me about the guidelines, they had to give up all the excuses or the doubts that the task set out before them was impossible, and get to work.
It has amazed me when I applied this same application to my life. If you set up where you must step it up to get the jellybean, take away all excuses, and make it so the task must be accomplished, miracles can happen. I have completed historical books that required a ton of research in less than a month. With one particular book, I worked nonstop and doubted I could complete it and doubted that it would be quality. But in that same month, I did have time to do several rewrites. And the critics praised that book as one of my best.
I didn’t complete this task alone. When I was asked to do it, I surrounded myself with my supporters and asked them if I should do it. They all wanted to see the book produced, and they were willing to give their assistance. My sister became my full-time researcher, and my husband helped locate documents and was the nanny and editing support. My children happily agreed to put off the housework to play with the neighbors.
I also included on my support team my health professionals, who kept my body in working order so I didn’t have to go down because my arm stopped working or any other of a hundred possibilities.
Now, I don’t choose to write books that fast any longer (exhausting!), but the principle is amazing. I was able to accomplish what I thought was impossible through using focus, support, and not having time for second questioning.
What have you been able to do that you thought was impossible? What principles did you use? How can you incorporate them into your next jellybean effort?

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Often times the answer to creating the right motivation is found in the environments within which we surround ourselves. We will be going more into this in a later chapter. For now, look how you are setting yourself up in your environments. If you are trying to lose weight, do you meet with your friends at a pizza house every weekend or go drinking at bars? How might this behavior not be supporting you?
If you are trying to lose weight and decide to go social dancing every weekend, how might this help you win? If you are motivated more by competition, how can you use that character attribute to support your attainment of the jellybean? Can you set up a competition with another person to see who can lose the most pounds? The popularity of weight loss challenges on various TV shows reveals that the public awareness and the competition can be extremely effective for some.
Others would prefer to motivate themselves more privately by thinking about the benefits of continuing to live with their loved ones, and how better health would improve their lives.
It doesn’t matter how you motivate yourself as long as two things are present, a) it is complimentary to your personality, and b) the method you use has sustainability.

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Clearly the five or ten dollar bribe that the writer mother was using wasn’t the right item to motivate her children. When she dangled it in front of them, they ignored her and went on with their agenda. The mother was unsuccessful in getting their attention. When I used the jellybean as a reward, I knew, both from them asking for it and from years of experience with them, that this was what they wanted.
But rewards have more levels to it than that. I had spent years being the oldest of eight, surviving five brothers, and frequently being in charge. For survival purposes I had to learn quickly to motivate. When I put up a reward, I needed to speak the language of the person I am trying to motivate. For my four- and five-year-olds, the motivation was candy that they rarely got.
When you are trying to set up the proper motivation to get what you want, what needs to be in place? Do you know yourself well enough to set up an environment where you have the proper motivation to go through all the hoops and obstacles that are going to present themselves along the way? What can drive you through all the resistance, excuses, and pressure to quit? What do you want badly enough that all the work would be worth it?

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The windows had frosted from the frigid weather as a group of writers nestled around the dining room oak table. We were reviewing each other’s material, highlighting effective passages, and leaving a trail of red ink over less inspiring words.
My young children often busied themselves downstairs with toys, PBS shows, and games like spying on the adults. The understanding was that the oldest would keep an eye on the younger ones and notify me if there was any trouble. The only drawback to the plan was that the oldest normally instigated the trouble.
On this particular winter day she had slipped into my sewing kit, mesmerized by the multi-colored threads and their possibilities.
The possibility she settled on was stringing the thread from one corner of the room to another, dancing around columns and couches and TV set. Whatever could be ensnared was ensnared, until the basement looked like a large spider web trap of thread.
When I checked on them, I quickly told them to clean it up. A few minutes later, Jackie crept up to me as I sat with the group. She tugged on my shirt sleeve.
“Mom, I want a jellybean.”
I looked into the intense blue eyes, brushed a blonde curl off her forehead, and said, “If you and your brother clean the basement in five minutes then you can have a jellybean. On your mark, get set ….GO!”
My daughter hurried off, calling her brother’s name.
I smiled and turned back to resume work, when a lady in her late thirties crossed her arms over her chest and huffed, “I can’t get my kids to clean anything, no matter what I bribe them with. It doesn’t even matter if it’s ten dollars, they won’t do it. You can get your kids to clean the whole basement for a jellybean?”
Now here is the question:  How did I get my four- and five-year-old to dash off and hurry and clean their mess? And even more importantly, how do you use the same skills to get what you want in your life?

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A queen who lived through high periods of drama and chartered the course of overwhelm was Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her second husband became an Angevins King of England, Henry II (1154-89). With her marriage to Henry II, she brought with her the land of Aquitaine, which added considerably to Henry’s vast continental empire.
Eleanor of Aquitaine was well known for her fiery personality. She let nothing stop her. Not her previous marriage to King Louis VI of France that had been annulled on grounds of consanguinity. Not the fact that she was Henry’s senior by eleven years and they had a tempestuous marriage with eight children in fifteen years—five sons and three daughters. Oh, and not the fact that England was in civil war while she and Henry persevered.
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine survived the death of her oldest son, who died 11 June 1183 of a fever in France. Her son had been raging war against her other son, Richard. The contention in the family didn’t stop there. The queen wasn’t innocent in the turmoil. When her husband separated from her, actively involved in affairs, she incited a rebellion against the king through her sons. This bold action of conspiracy against the king ended with her being put under house arrest at Winchester for sixteen years, although captivity did not extinguish Queen Eleanor’s ambition. Her husband died 6 July 1189, at age 56, from injuries sustained from being thrown by a horse. Queen Eleanor continued to live for many more years, dying at age 82. After her husband’s passing, Eleanor became actively involved in her son Richard’s taking the throne and arranging for his marriage to Berengaria of Navaue.
Her long life is a testimony to the fact that she learned to rise above the family drama and not allow stress to stop her.
Another signal that she mastered overwhelming events was the fact that she played a major role in the 12th century, which is extremely impressive considering that at the time medieval women were considered nothing more than chattel.

One of the ways Eleanor thrived through the chaos was by capitalizing on her smarts, enterprising nature, and beauty. Eleanor rose to her high position by maintaining a lofty royal vision of herself, which she held onto steadfastly.

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Taking charge of your life, and not blaming, shaming, and rationalizing others, is one of the principles that some of the greatest kings and queens that ever ruled learned quickly and applied efficiently. The interesting thing that history teaches is that when royalty did accept responsibility for their actions, things tended to work better for them than when they looked for an escape door.
A classic example of this principle is King David who ruled ancient Israel from 1010-970 BC. His ability to take on responsibility was revealed early in his life, such as the famous story of how he became appointed king. He was from the tribe of Judah. David was a young shepherd boy who worked in the fields tending to his flock, and was the eighth child and youngest son of Jesse. When the prophet Samuel came to visit, all of David’s other brothers attended to the feast, but David stayed true to his responsibility and continued to mind the flock. Samuel eventually sought David from the field and anointed young David to be king.
What would you do if you were anointed king? I doubt many of us would do what David did. His attention immediately went back to attending to his current responsibility, the sheep. He continued to work the sheep until the day he was summoned by his father to visit his brother’s at a camp for soldiers. While there, he heard Goliath, a Philistine, jeer at the army of Israel.
Most of us grew up hearing the story of David bravely taking on Goliath with a sling slot—killing the giant with one flick of a sling, thus freeing Israel.
Although David was a mere boy at the time of this incident, he was already the anointed king of Israel, and it was his duty to protect the people of Israel.
Another part of his duty and the responsibility of his forth coming position was to become educated in the affairs of running a kingdom. David again rose to task when he was summoned by Saul, the current king, to join the court and play music, when beckoned.
He continued to honor his responsibility as future king by fighting to protect his people in war. He was an exceptionally powerful warrior, claiming many victories, including successfully reclaiming the city of Jerusalem by forcing the Philistines out of the country.
There are many praiseworthy qualities about King David who had a bright future laid out before him. But he became snagged by blaming and rationalizing in his personal life, which many people believe led to his eventual downfall.
King David became involved with another man’s wife, and when the woman involved became pregnant, instead of taking responsibility for his actions, King David tried to hide them by having the woman’s husband sent to the front of the battlefield where he would surely be killed.
Many believed this caused a myriad of tragedies in his life, including his son Absolom trying to kill him to usurp the throne. And his son Amnon raping David’s daughter Tamar. David also suffered early death of his children and huge amounts of shame. Many scholars attribute the Book of Psalms to King David, saying he wrote them as penitence as he suffered under the weight of his actions.
How do we avoid a downfall like King David?

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