Now it's time to get back to work.

The accepted wisdom is that we must work hard to get ahead. But that's not really true. It doesn't really matter how hard you work. What matters is how much you get done. Many people fall into the trap of doing a lot of work without ever getting anything done.

How does one get out of that trap? You start by learning to value yourself and your time. You must believe that your are a worthwhile, valuable individual with something unique to contribute to the world. When you adopt that mindset, you'll realize what a shame it is to waste your time. You'll want to find ways to be more productive because you'll value your own time so highly. Among those ways to be more productive:

Learn to say no. Unfortunately, people will take advantage of you if you let them. If they know that you'll do their work for them, then they'll let you. If they're doing something equally valuable in return, that's no problem. The problem comes when they start to take advantage of you. In the long run, no one benefits. You get bogged down in unproductive activity, and they develop a dependency mindset. For your sake and theirs, learn to say no -- firmly and politely.

Deal with things as they come up. Problems don't go away by themselves -- they just get worse. If you don't deal with things immediately, you waste time worrying about them. And by the time you get around to dealing with them, it usually takes more time and effort than if you had handled it earlier.

Keep focused. There are hundreds of distractions that can knock you off task. Find a way to focus on your goals. Write them down and review them several times a day. More importantly, find a reason behind what you're doing. When you're confident of what you're doing, and of why you're doing it, you will stay focused.

Never stop learning. Always be on the lookout for new ways to do something. Just because you've done something the same way for 3 years doesn't mean that's the best way to do it. Step outside your box and look for new and different ways to work.

Remember -- it's not how hard you work, it's how much you get done that counts. Keep yourself focused on what needs to be done, and you'll get to where you want to be.

Though it has no physical form, doubt can restrain you more surely than the strongest steel chain. Yet doubt is nothing but a thought, and has no power other than the power you give to it.

Although doubt can stubbornly hold you back, you can do something even more powerful. You can let go of it entirely.

Doubt is nothing more than a thought. Any doubt, with a mere fraction of an effort, can be forever gone the moment you decide to remove it.

If you fight against your doubt it grows stronger and more resilient. Yet when you simply release it and empty it from your mind, doubt falls away from you and quickly withers into nothing. There is not one single doubt that is permanently attached to you. Any doubt you have is yours by choice.

Let each of your doubts fall quickly and easily away. In the place where they once lived, choose instead to hold and nurture thoughts of positive, empowering confidence

What is your dream? More than anything else, what do you want to accomplish in your life? And why?

We get so caught up in the day-to-day activities, the "overhead" of life, that we usually forget to seek out and appreciate the real substance of life. What is your dream? Do you know?

Yes, you have one. You've probably had it since you were a child. When we're children, dreams come easy. Anything is possible and we're not limited by the narrow-mindedness that experience brings. Every child has dreams.

And then "reality" sets in. Responsibility. Decisions. Trying to please and impress other people. Little by little, as we grow older, the world begins to cover our dreams over. Layer upon layer of sludge and debris get piled on top of our dreams until finally we no longer know they're there.

But they are. They're buried deep, but your dreams are there. And occasionally you connect with them, if only for a second. You see something, hear something, catch a whiff of a scent from long ago. Your dream comes back to you for a moment and you feel a deep sense of regret that you never did follow it. Then something "more important" comes along and it's gone again.

What are you living for if not to follow your dreams? Are you living for money? Are you living for pleasure? Have you taken the easy way out and allowed yourself to live for someone else's dream?

Dig down deep and connect with your life's dreams. Have a dream and you'll have a life that's full and rewarding.

Welcome each moment, each feeling, each experience as it comes. When you constantly fear or fight whatever is coming next, you become continually stuck where you are.

By welcoming each moment, you begin to move forward. Even if the moment is not exactly what you wanted, welcome it anyway and you become free to move on to whatever is next.

Welcome each moment, whatever it might hold, and you will surely find something of real value in it. There is always a way to move forward, whatever the circumstances may be.

Instead of being weighed down with worry, anger or resentment for what is, put your energy into what can be. Rather than being imprisoned by the shortcomings of a particular moment, set yourself free to live its positive value.

Every moment has its problems, but so what? Welcome it anyway, and rather than dwelling on those problems, you'll already be moving past them. Welcome each moment for the positive possibilities it surely offers, and by so doing you'll begin to transform those possibilities into reality.

When troubles come toward you, let peace come from you. When the world is filled with anger, frustration and confusion, that is when a peaceful heart can be the most valuable.

The more peaceful you are, the more effective you become. When your heart is filled with peace, your energy is more positively and purposefully focused.

The longer you remain peaceful, the stronger you become. Peace on the inside thus leads to real, meaningful success on the outside.

You can choose to carry peace within you, no matter what may be happening around you. Let the calm, deep power of peace energize your spirit and it will surely make a difference.

With peace at your very core, your thoughts are clear and your actions filled with purpose. Whatever the challenges of the moment may be, you have what it takes to move successfully through them.

Peace is something you can always choose to carry confidently inside you. The more you do, the more moments you'll fill with purpose and meaning.

You know what needs to be done and you know you are capable of doing it. Now is the time to get moving. Though there are distractions all around, and plenty of excuses to be found for waiting until later, putting it off will only make it more difficult. Though there are problems and risks, and lots of things that can go wrong, the biggest risk is failing to do what needs to be done.

Though it can be a bit uncomfortable to step forward into new and unknown territory, it would be far more painful to live with the regret of not having done so. The opportunity to live, to take action, to make things happen, to make a difference is here today in this very moment.

Take hold of that opportunity and take hold of the enormous value it offers. Today, with your thoughts and your actions, with your discipline and commitment, you can add positive value to your life and your world that will stay with you always.

There is one day in your life that can make all the difference in the world. And that day is today, because it's the one that is here and now for you to live.

In the nineteenth century, before the invention of the internal combustion engine, crude oil was a nuisance. No one wanted it on their property -- it fouled the land and the water.

Then came the internal combustion engine, and the automobile, and the petroleum business. Suddenly, there was a huge market for crude oil because someone had figured out something useful to do with it.

Nothing other than life itself really has intrinsic value. In order for anything to have value, you must know what to do with it. And the more productively you can use it, the more value it has.

At the heart of most computers is a microprocessor chip made primarily of silicon. Silicon is more abundant in nature than any other element except for oxygen. As you walk down any beach in the world, the sand beneath your feet is composed largely of silicon. Yet silicon, when processed into a computer chip, can be worth thousands of times its weight in gold. What is it that makes silicon so valuable? It's not the material itself -- it's the fact that someone has taken it and purified it and processed it into something extremely useful.

Knowing what to do with something is more important than the thing itself. This holds true not only for tangible, material things but also for things such as ideas, business contacts, skills and information. Most people are caught up in the endless pursuit of trying to get enough, of trying to have enough. Such an approach will never work, because just having enough is never enough. You must know what to do with it. In fact, when you know what to do with what you have, you'll discover that you already have enough.

That is a very powerful concept. It frees you from the dead-end approach of getting, and focuses you on the wealth-creating approach of giving.

What if a manufacturing plant opened up, and all they did was stockpile raw materials? Certainly the raw materials are necessary for productive manufacturing. If nothing is done with them, though, they are virtually worthless. To produce wealth, the people operating the plant need to figure out what to do with all those raw materials, and then they need to do it.

The same holds true for you. In order to produce wealth, you need to figure out what to do with what you've got. How can you produce maximum value for others, using the skills, knowledge, contacts and resources at your disposal? Answer that question, and you'll immediately start creating wealth.