Why are some people great successes in life and others dismal failures? Some people say it is a matter of luck, or connections, or special God given talents or simply fate. Yet when we look at self made successes this is not what we find. We find that, as a general rule, self made people have certain beliefs, philosophies, attitudes, techniques and outlooks that failures do not share or have. They march to a different drum.
Could the difference between success and failure be nothing more than the philosophies by which people live their lives? I say YES. In many cases (not every case) this is true. For most of us, our level of success is going to be determined by how we choose to live.
This blog post is going to give you a broad overview of some of the factors that bring success. It isn’t meant to give you everything you need to know but only to familiarize you with these ideas. In some of my future articles some of these concepts will be examined in detail so you can learn and understand them at a very high level.
If you underestimate the power of these ideas you are making a serious mistake. These philosophies and techniques can get you operating in the same mode as many successful people and self made millionaires. Learning and adopting these concepts can be of tremendous benefit to you. We will begin with one of the most important techniques, which is goal setting.
Goal Setting
You have to start by defining your goals in very specific terms. (Note: 30 days of discipline will help you begin applying many of the techniques in this article. Go here Click here to view more details). People spend years without moving ahead because they think they have goals when in fact they only have vague daydreams. The more clearly you define your goals the better your chances for achieving them. The successful person has goals relating to every aspect of their lives. Of course you constantly need to adjust and fine tune your goals to reflect your changing needs and life circumstances. Finally, make sure you commit your goals to writing. This forces you to focus on them and helps you to etch them into your subconscious mind.
Think Big
All too often we are guilty of selling ourselves short by thinking too small. Develop the winning habit of thinking big. Set your goals high. You can never achieve great success if you are only willing to try for small success. If you are thinking of getting into sales, go into an industry where the top people have an earning potential of $250000.00 per year instead of $50,000. Set your goals as high as you possibly can. You will never be sorry for thinking big.
Motivate yourself
In order to move towards the successful achievement of your goals you must be highly motivated. Sometimes it is difficult for people to get motivated. You must push yourself. Think about all the benefits of achieving your goals. Think about how much better your life will be. Get yourself fired up. Picture yourself as a total success having achieved all your goals. Make yourself want the rewards of success more and more. The more you are hungry for the rewards of success the more motivated you will have. Once you start becoming successful you can use the taste of the first successes to help you on to more successes. Success can feed upon success. Enjoy every minute of what success you gain and use that enjoyment to motivate you on to even greater success.
Take Action
Take action now. Successful people are doers. They act while everyone else is still sleeping and talking. No matter what good idea you have, it is just an idea until you put it in motion. The talkers often want to wait until they have 100% of the facts before taking action. In life, this is too much of a luxury. To wait for the perfect set of conditions is to wait forever. Purposeful action, coupled with a determination to overcome obstacles sets the doer apart from the pack. This is what makes people successful. Don’t wait. Begin now. Action leads to experience and knowledge. It exposes you to new ideas and teaches you what works and what doesn’t. Don’t procrastinate and tell yourself you need to wait for the right time. Go and do it. Take action now.
Advance one step at a time
Moving ahead does not require that you advance at breakneck speed with reckless abandon. Unnecessary risk invites disaster. Advance one step at a time. Don’t be afraid of taking on a big challenge. You can accomplish it by simply taking on one thing first and then another. If you break down your goal into a number of small stages it will look much more manageable. Don’t be scared off by tasks that look too big. You can do them by just moving forward, slowly but surely, one step at a time.
Develop a Burning Desire
Intense desire, not just talent and aptitude, is a major key to successful performance. The more vital reasons you can generate for wanting to achieve your goal the better your chances of success. Pick a major goal and make it your mission. Develop a burning desire for it and you will become irresistible. The people who have accomplished the most in their lives have been the ones who focused on a goal and committed themselves to it above all else. The more intense your desire for success, the more committed you are to achieving your goal, the better your chances for success. And to a large degree it is you who decided how much you desire your success. Continue to motivate yourself to build more and more desire. Create a powerful inferno of burning desire and it will be hard to stop you.
Think positive
We do not always have control over the things that happen to us in life but we can always maintain control over how we react. Our reaction to a situation is always discretionary. We have the option of determining whether the glass is half full or half empty. An analysis of the traits exhibited by successful people shows that they almost without fail choose to think positive. They realize that they have the power within themselves to create their own world. The winners seem to look at the world with rose colored glasses and the losers use smoky grey. How can this be? Either the world is one color or the other? The fact is that we believe what we choose to believe. We can believe a lie deeply as the truth. We become what we dwell upon. Success orientated people know that negative thinking serves no purpose whatsoever. It doesn’t change the situation. It just makes you feel bad. So, they maintain control over their internal dialogue to keep themselves sunny and cheerful. Given the choice of who you want to spend the most time with, would anyone really choose to be with a gloomy, negative minded individual? I think not. Think positive. Look at things with an optimistic attitude. It can’t hurt and it very likely will help create an atmosphere of success in your life.
Build a winning image
Part of making yourself into a successful person involves building a winning image. It has a profound impact on how people perceive you. Why is it that a waiter will trip over himself trying to please one customer while almost ignoring another? Some people constantly get the “hey buddy” treatment while others receive the “yes sir” greeting. If you observe closely, you will see that those that command the most respect are also the most successful. Others see in us what we see in ourselves. We receive the kind of treatment we think we deserve. So build a positive self image to ensure that you think well of yourself. Look important. It helps you feel important. Make certain that the statement you make is one that says, “Here is an important, prosperous and intelligent person.” To be a winner you must think like one, act like one and dress like one.
Act with enthusiasm
The enthusiasm you exhibit as you live your daily life does not go unnoticed. Nowhere is this more important than when you need to collaborate with someone and you need their best effort. Your enthusiasm serves as a positive influence on the other person and makes him want to do well for you Can a salesman afford to sound apathetic about what he is selling? How much success will he have with that attitude? The enthusiasm you show is the outward manifestation of your desire. The greatest performances have been turned in by people burning with enthusiasm for the task at hand.
Take full responsibility
A success oriented person takes responsibility for his life. He is at all times willing to take all the credit for the good that occurs in his life, but he is also willing to take the blame for the things that don’t work out. You are to a large degree in control of your life. Accepting that responsibility will go a long way towards helping you make your life successful. It is very difficult to advance when you believe that your life is out of your control and you don’t have much ability to decide your fate. Commit yourself to adapting the principle that you are in control of your life and you are taking full responsibility for it.
Avoid excuses
Successful people avoid the use of excuses to justify failure. Making excuses serves to rationalize failure, justify losing and make it all right to accept defeat. Highly successful people don’t waste time manufacturing excuses. They are busy overcoming the obstacles standing in their way. If you have a foolproof excuse, then you have selected an unrealistic goal. Refuse to lean on excuses as a crutch to support failure. They only weaken you. Become solution oriented and concentrate on the reasons you can do something, not the reasons you can’t.
Don’t fear failure
We spend a lot of effort protecting ourselves from the possibility of failure. This is done out of the mistaken belief that failing is bad. In fact, failure is the route to success. You must develop the courage to fail if you want to be the best that you can be. When asked his philosophy on the subject of failure, a young entrepreneur said, “If you’re not failing regularly, you’re living so far below your potential that you’re failing anyway.” I have never heard this better stated. Failures are just setbacks that tell us we need to adjust course towards our goals. It is just necessary feedback to help us find the right course to follow. In the game of life, the game is not over until you say it’s over. You don’t get called out on strikes. As long as you stay in the batter’s box, you have a chance to swing for the home run. True failure only happens when you give up. Remember, the most successful people fail the most.
Develop self discipline
Successful people develop the trait of self discipline. Doing the hard things in life is what brings us the biggest rewards. If it were easy to become a multi-millionaire, wouldn’t everyone choose to be one? Thinking positive, taking on responsibility, setting goals all require constant vigilance against backsliding. Right after the Christmas holidays, the health clubs and gyms are all full of people acting on their New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get in shape. Within a month, at least 95% of the people give up. Successful people stay on the task and see it through. Developing a high level of self discipline is essential to success in life.
Gain knowledge
Gaining knowledge is one of the most essential factors needed for success. Every business has at least a couple of people who have made themselves indispensable because they took the extra time and effort to become expert at what they do. In this age of rapid changes, knowledge is truly power and applied knowledge is extremely powerful. The top 20% of employees will always have a job, no matter what. Whatever field you choose to go into, determine what you need to learn. Invest in information sources. Buy books, audio and video CD’s and DVD’s on the subjects that interest you. One good idea can translate into a thousand times what it cost you. There are personal rewards above and beyond the raise and the promotion. Really knowing your stuff gives you a sense of confidence and helps increase yourself esteem.
Seek the help of others
No matter how much knowledge you acquire, you will never know it all. Seeking out the help of others is a tool for success. There are specialists in every imaginable field. Do not hesitate to seek help. One big reason for failure is that many people insist on doing it all themselves. They are too stubborn to seek assistance where they need it. Learning to use other people’s skill and knowledge is a very important quality found in highly successful people.
Develop integrity
The self made person displays integrity in the way he deals with the world. He does not compromise his values in his business dealings. He understands that his word is his bond. As a salesman, he does not promise things he cannot deliver by a deadline he knows he cannot meet. A lot of people take the attitude that this is a dog-eat-dog world. That you have to do it to them before they do it to you. This is nothing more than a rationalization for low level behavior. People respond instinctively to a person of integrity and often give him the best they are capable of.
Don’t burn your bridges behind you
Whenever we get ready to move on to something new, we tend to start ignoring our current situations. This applies to jobs as well as relationships. The prudent thing to do is to not burn your bridges behind you. Life works in unpredictable ways. You never know when you will need a good reference from a previous employer. So it pays to depart in such a way that your boss is sorry to see you go and would gladly rehire you. Don’t destroy relationships as you move up. Always try to end things in a positive manner.
Give the extra measure
The successful person gives the extra measure. He realizes the value in giving a little more than is being asked for. Most people look to get by with giving the absolute minimum that is required. The people who give more than what is required draw very favorable attention to themselves. They constantly are the first to move ahead and they usually end up far ahead of the pack. Winners almost always understand the philosophy of going the extra mile.
Strive for excellence
Striving for excellence will set you apart from your competitors. Most people just want to get the job done as quickly as possible and just well enough to get by. Successful people know that the concept of requiring excellent performance and the highest quality work from themselves leads to success.
Be persistent
The most telling trait of a successful person is persistence. Calvin Coolidge once said “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts (bums). Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” It has been said that persistence is to character what carbon is to steel. Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure in almost every endeavor. Most people just don’t stick it out. When the going gets tough, they bail out. Persist and you will prevail. There is nothing, absolutely nothing more important to success than persistence.
These are ideas that create winners. They truly have power. To begin your journey to becoming a kick ass Success guy, I recommend Victor Prides 30 days of Discipline Click here to view more details. This course will help you in applying the strategies discussed in this article and will give you a head start into success and discipline.
Until Next, Time God Bless.
Leon.