By Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant

You can do anything, and navigate yourself through anything if you have the proper road map.  When you are guided by peace, driven by love and if you have a clear direction you will reach the highest point of your destination.  My motto is, “Begin Within!”  Once you clean up the inside, everything and everyone on the outside will fall in line with your center.

Be Clear About What You Are Doing

This sounds real simple, yet it is a point we often miss.  This means making sure that your inner conviction and your outer actions are in alignment with and complement each other.

Be Clear About Why You Are Doing It

Very often, we allow what we “don’t want” to determine and sometimes control our behavior.   Doing anything just to prove you can do it will ultimately lead to a sense of being unfulfilled. Sit down and get quiet with yourself and make sure you know fully why you are doing what you are doing.

Identify and Heal Your Judgments

You must remain flexible.  Judgments keep you stuck in what should and should not be, leaving little room for what can be.

Know Your Worth:

Pick a destination that allows you to stretch and grow beyond your comfort zone into a higher vision of the self you know right now.

Declare Your Value:

Time and energy are valuable commodities.  Declare your own self value by not wasting time or energy with things and people who are not moving you in the direction you have chosen for yourself.

Communicate Authentically By Asking For What You Want:

The easiest way to get what you want is to ask for it.  When you flip-flop between what you feel,  what you say and what you do, you send out mixed signals, which means you will get mixed and often unsatisfactory results.   (It is also a good practice to make sure that your no means no and that your yes means yes.)  Write it down, speak it out loud or clearly picture it in your mind will help you to do this.

Learn From The Past

Just because something hasn’t happened does not mean that it will not happen.  Do not allow the past to weigh you down.  Learn from your mis-steps and mis-deeds.  (Be prepared to do a new things in a new way rather than crying over what didn’t work.)

Ask For Support When You Need It

Everyone wants to claim their own victory, however, most victories are a team effort.  Open yourself to receive support, assistance and guidance from others.

Love What You Do!

I never think of my ministry, Inner Visions Institute, as purely a business venture.  I consider it a service to the world. This means that it is the part of my life that I offer to God.   Everything that I do for God, I do in love.  I love to write!  I love to teach and share ideas!  I love to support other people in finding their passion and vision in life.  It may not be written anywhere as a sound business principle, but believe me, it works!  Love magnetizes whatever it touches and, it attracts more love to it.  It also helps to know that love and money are ruled by the same vibration.

Don’t Do It Just For The Money!

My daughters and I started Inner Visions on my kitchen table.  I wrote the Newsletter, they helped me fold it.  At first, we didn’t even charge for it.  We sent it out to anyone who requested it because we wanted them to have the information.  When someone suggested to me that I charge for the Newsletter, I was appalled!  Over time I came to realize that I could never charge for the love and energy I put into my work.  However, it is necessary to charge people for the cost of production and my time.

Have A Vision! Stay Focused!

When times were real tight, nothing I did generated an income.  I was tempted to throw in the towel and go back to practicing law.  When I was alone at night, I would remember how I got started.  More important, I remembered why I got started.  Loving people!  Sharing information!  Healing the planet!  When I woke up in the morning, I would be so charged up, I would count my pennies, make new arrangements to pay the bills and renew my vow to do whatever was necessary to spread the word.

Specialize!  Make Yourself Unique!

One day, without any prompting from me, Dr. Dennis Kimbro walked up to me in a convention center and began to compliment me on my work.  He told me how important my work was and how good I was at it.  Not only did I need to hear those words on that day, he went on to give me the best advice I have ever heard.  It is advice I still use today.  He said, “Don’t try to do everything.  Specialize!”  Pick something and stick to it.  He went on to say, “Make yourself unique!”  Do what you do in such a way that no matter what anyone else is doing, people must have what you are offering.  I specialize in loving with excellence and listening with compassion.

What makes you unique?