1 Million Dollars in 365 days…

I’ve just recently completed a 30 day personal development program. The beauty of this program is that I designed it myself, and it cost me nothing other than my time, some paper and a desire to stick with it. The rewards have been fantastic!

The purpose of this 30 day program was to challenge myself, take things to another level and give myself a sort of “detox” from the everyday things in life. This was also an experiment - I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to work.

My main focus was to complete the 30 day program. I could then evaluate it, the results I got and then refine the program for the next 30 days and so on. The objective is to improve my life in a holistic way - covering as many aspects of my life as possible. The way I designed it was simple:

“Complete 5 daily tasks, each day, for a period of 30 days. “

It’s pretty basic to setup. I just made a word document, tabled with each day and 5 rows for the 5 tasks for that day. The way I planned it, was by thinking of the goals I wanted to achieve. An example of my plan below

As I mentioned….pretty simple, yet effective. Now as you can see, I would leave a couple of spaces each day so that I could add some tasks either on the day or at the beginning of the week.

Some tips for making your own 30 day program:

• Once you’ve completed your program, print it out and staple it or get it bound.
• Reward yourself - under the last day, write something you will get if you complete the 30 days, that will motivate you to continue
• Choose tasks that work towards making you feel empowered and achieving your goals
• For extra motivation, encourage your partner (or friends) to do the their own 30 day program & then compare results at the end (and celebrate!)

One of the coolest things for me, was once I completed the first 30 day programme, my wife asked me to set one up for her. She’s been doing really great so far and seems to be achieving more & feeling more empowered!
You may also be pleased to know that I’ve put “update blog” as one of my five to-do’s, every second day, on my current 30 day program - so the drought is over!

So get cracking & start your 30 days program TODAY!

Ok, so maybe it was JUST 42km, but it may as well have been 1000 miles! This is the start of the 45th Rotorua Marathon, complete with Maori Warriors giving us runners some extra motivation.

It turns out that 42km is quite a long way. This was certainly such an amazing experience and I stil can’t really come to terms with the fact that I actually completed it. You reach different milestones on the race. There’s the 1km mark, you feel great, charged and full of energy. I was still feeling great at 10km.

At 18km I couldn’t take it anymore and had to start walking. I had managed to injure my right knee (which did happen once during training). I was alternating between running and walking, but eventually it was too painful to run.

When I set out to achieve this goal and complete a marathon, I envisioned myself running the whole thing. Sometimes life doesn’t always work out exactly how we plan, but don’t let that stop you. I certainly didn’t let it stop me. I decided before I even ran the marathon that I was going to finish.

I wanted to complete the marathon (my first ever) in under 5 hours. I had trained for 12 weeks and put a lot of effort, sought lots of advice from experts, and drank a lot of water and ate a lot of carbs! I also was doing this to raise money and awareness for STOP THE TRAFFIK - an international organisation dedicated to freeing people across the world from slavery.You can read more about the fundraising at http://www.justgiving.com/ryankilfoil

I didn’t make the decision to start walking easily. I tried to run through the pain as long as I could. I had never walked any long distances before, so wasn’t sure how my body would react or how long it would take me.

“It didn’t matter that I didn’t know those answers. I knew the outcome -I would finish this marathon today.”

That really helped me get through this. It’s crazy because you don’t realise how long it takes to walk 1km until you have to walk 25 of them in a row! I kept picturing myself walking over that finish line.

The last 10km were really tough…..then the last 3 were even tougher. They were tougher physically but, mentally, I knew I had made it at about the 36km mark….when I turned the corner and saw my beautiful wife standing there, so happy to see me. It gets lonely on the road…

This is a picture of myself, walking the last 100 metres, with my beautiful wife and our daughter Sophie, cradled in her arms:

Walking with her gave me more energy. I couldn’t stop to moving because my legs would seize up so I just kept on walking as fast as I could. She walked with me for a few seconds, gave me a kiss and moved back to the car, where our 12 week old daughter was still sleeping.

At the 3km mark I got another boost, when I saw my dad walking towards me. He walked with me for those final 3km. It felt like ages, and it was so great to have him by my side. When I got the final 200m, I was greeted by the rest of my family. It meant so much to have them all there, cheering me on. I felt like I was about to cross the finish line in the Olympics for gold….what a feeling!

As I walked over the finish line, there was more cheering and the announcer called my name. 6 hours and 26 minutes of constant movement. I did it. I completed a marathon - my first ever. Sure, I was in a lot of pain and my body ached from fatigue, but I felt like a million dollars!

Sometimes in life we get thrown some challenges, and it’s all about how we respond to those challenges and the support that we surround ourselves with, that will decide the outcome.

This is me and my good friend Dan Necklen, after finishing the marathon. I couldn’t have done this without you mate. Thank for the support - you’re a legend!

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all those hundreds of people that have supported me in this effort. Those that had the courage to make a donation to make a difference for those people in this world that are still sold into slavery - by supporting my charity - STOP THE TRAFFIK.

For all those amazing people that gave me advice about running and training - thanks for your efforts, it was all worth it! To my wife and two kids, thanks for your patience, especially on my long 2 hour runs. Your support has been invaluable! To everyone else that I haven’t mentioned personally, sorry but my goal tonight is not to make this the worlds longest blog post…although it probably getting there!

I would like to end this entry, by saying to everybody - don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. This is how we grow and evolve. When you next challenge yourself, throw everything you have at it. See yourself crossing that finish line, whatever it may be. Until next time, keep those dreams alive….

 All the best - Ryan Kilfoil

Lately there’s a lot going on both locally and internationally. What happens when there’s a big event such as this massive shift in economic climate? People get made redundant, there’s down-sizing, expenditure cuts & job security is a thing of the past.

So what do you do? What if you have all these goals that you have set for yourself in 2009 and then along comes this big “recession” and throws all your plans out the window. Do you go back to living your ordinary life? I don’t think so.

Remember there’s ALWAYS two sides to a coin, no matter how many times you cut it in half and how thin it becomes. So what is the flipside in today’s climate? OPPORTUNITY!There has never been a better time to seek opportunity. And you know what they say”Seek & Ye shall find”. Now’s your chance to test that theory.

“Live in the moment, not in the past or the future. Live for the right now”

The Kiwi Millionaire

 We all come up against obstacles in the journey to achieving our goals. One thing we have to remember is that it is usually the journey that is the most transformational part of the entire experience. When you reach your goal, you realise that it wasn’t even about the end result, because you received so much more from the journey itself.

I believe that in order to get the best results, we have to focus on what we want to achieve, and then see where we are in relation to that goal. That means, what is happening around us RIGHT NOW. Not this month, I am talking about these couple of minutes that you are spending reading this.

Stop for a moment and close your eyes. What’s going on right now that could be your next opportunity? Take a minute to appreciate the silence and very soon you will see that there is actually no such thing as silence, there is always something happening. All you need to to is decide what you are going to do with it.

How to find opportunity in your everyday life:

• Always keep an open mind - don’t dismiss anything
• Always ask yourself whether something can be improved upon
• Don’t focus on finding the opportunity, & opportunity will come to you

Whether you are looking for a new business, new property, new hobby or anything else that you would like to add value to your life, then now is the time to do it. Your future is in your hands, all you need to do is take action. So decide on an action to take, and take it, right now…

Well, I think I need to pick up the pace as I still have NZ$1,000,000 to go, and I’m already 15 days into it! I don’t really know if this is related to my goal or not - I’m starting to get some clarity in my life. I’m talking some serious “I can see the future” stuff going on. Clarity in my work life, family life. Clarity with friends, family, karma (yes it’s out there) and even animals. I still don’t have clarity on how I am going to make my Million, and I’m strangely calm about it.

Over the last 10 days, as every day ticked by, I felt the pressure mounting to come up with the “next big thing”, to have that “eureka” moment. Now I am just unbelievable confident that I am going to achieve it. And every time I sit down to write a post, I feel even more confident.

I have been researching a bit on the internet, (more…)