Success has held my focus a lot lately. I am intrigued with why some people are so successful and some struggle to reach the level of success that they want to reach. I realized that success means different things to different people, and I believe that is the way it is supposed to be.
Your definition of success may evolve as you grow on the journey of life. I still believe there will always be a core belief of success.
I have ready many books about what it takes to be successful. Currently I am reading a couple of books by Denis Waitley, The Psychology of Winning and The Winner’s Edge, and he makes some great points about winning in life.
My Daddy
Today, I am embarking on the 6th anniversary of my daddy’s death, and I have often written about the long journey I went through grieving his death, but as I read comments this morning about him from others, a coworker wrote that daddy always had a smile on his face.
Thinking about that smile he worked with made me realize my daddy lived a life of happiness. He loved life and what he did. He loved big and lived by some high standards.
Some may not view his humble life as a life of success, but I realize that he lived a very successful life. One that I can strive to reach each day.
I was listening to a talk this morning and a leader was sharing some success points by Dexter Yager in the book “Don’t Let Anybody Steal Your Dream.” He shared from the book the 10 ten things that Yager laid out for people to do daily to be successful.
We always want to set the goal and claim it as though it has already happened. When we speak about setting goals, I want to reflect on the previous blog about SMART goal setting. When we set goals, it’s beneficial to set the goals in past tense. For instance, you may say I sold 10 policies versus sell 10 policies. The mind doesn’t know real from pretend, and it will start to search for those 10 policies. This will definitely aid in your success.
Learn from the Best
The first one is to learn from the best. Be careful who you take counsel from. You always want to surround yourself with the best. Success leaves clues and what better place to find the clues than by learning from those that have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
Practice
The second one is to practice as if your life depended on winning people over. Success comes in the repetition. Very seldom will you have a moment of immediate success. It comes from consistency in your actions and flexibility in your behavior.
Improve
The third one is to continue to get better. Continue to improve yourself through repetition, self development, self reflection, and self care. You and only you are responsible for your level of success. Others cannot keep you from being successful. They may provide obstacles and challenges that you have to be flexible and work around.
Motivate Yourself
The fourth one is to motivate yourself. Humans have limited motivation, so you have to depend on the consistency of your behavior to become habits. If you only do things when you really feel like them, there will probably be more days you are slacking than you are working. Depend on the power of muscle memory to propel you forward.
Write Down Dreams
The fifth one is to write down your dreams. Written down goals are more likely to be reached than those that are just thought. When we write down the dreams/goals, they become concrete. Writing your goals helps create a vision in your mind of how you want to be in the future. You can visually see the goal and understand the difference it will make in your life. When we see something clearly, it creates change in our actions as it provides clarity and direction to us.
Touch Your Dreams
The six one is to touch your dreams. This one sounds a little crazy, but I think this may be where the power of a vision board comes into play. If we have pictures with our dreams, we can look at and touch those goals and dreams we have set for ourselves.
Reverse Engineer a Game Plan
The seventh one is to divide your dreams into obtainable goals. You start with the big picture goal and reverse engineer the steps it will take to achieve those goals. You set actionable steps to do each day that will move the needle in you achieving and grasping your goals and dreams.
Practice Visualization
The eight one is visualize yourself reaching your goals. The power of visualization is the mind doesn’t know real from make believe, so as you visualize you have achieved those goals, it doesn’t know you haven’t already reached them. It will work for you to help you to achieve them. A side piece of advice regarding visualization is to visualize disassociated. That means you will visualize seeing yourself in somewhat third person. For example, if your dream is to speak on stage, then you will want to visualize yourself on the stage like you are looking from the audience. One shouldn’t visualize from the first person.
Do More
The ninth one is to do more. A lot of days you may feel like there is no more you can do. There is always room for more action. I am a big fan of list making, so you have a plan of action for the day. You do not waste time trying to figure out what you need to do, you have the list, and you get busy. If we are not careful, we will spend our days strolling on social media and think we have done more than we have at needle moving activities.
Pray
The last one is to pray. Work like it depends on you and pray as if it depends on God. At the end of the day, it depends on God.
Which one of these could you use improvement on. At different seasons, we may find we are flourishing with certain ones and lacking with others. If you can commit to intentional actions in your business, you will reach success. There is no certain time table, but your result will end with success.