SUCCESS
IS NOT AN ACCIDENT
Specifically,
what does success mean to you? This
is the first question that needs to be answered. Most people find it quite difficult to define
success. But if you don’t have a clear picture of success, how can you honestly
pursue it or expect to achieve it? Do you believe you’re successful if you have
a lot of friends and social status? Do you think you’re success if you own a
nice home, car, or other worthwhile passions? Does power bring success, or is it
the accomplishment of the next goal on your list that will finally usher in
success? Success, simple put, is an emotion we all want to experience. The
problem is that most us go through life borrowing someone else’s definition of
success! Trying to distinguish between the words of achievement, happiness, and
success to be a very helpful exercise in formulating your definition of success.
Is
your definition reasonable and attainable? Do you require all areas of your life
to be perfect before you allow yourself to experience success? Are you willing
to take path of success and are you ready to go for it? Creating a definition of
success that allows you to experience the emotion of success often tends to
promote even more and greater success in the future. Success breeds success.
Once you have your new, constructive definition of success, allow some to
internalize it and really believe in it. You have to buy it to get it working
for you. The most successful people in the world are those who have taken time
to figure out exactly who they want to become and what they want to achieve, and
then invest the hours of their days in activities consistent with these ideals.
The unsuccessful are those who have no real direction in life. Success is a
planned outcome. The Bible says, “Do not
be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also
reap.”
Success
is not an accident! Success in life comes from one thing: deciding exactly what you want to
accomplish and then deliberately choosing
to invest the minutes and hours of your life doing only those things that
move you in the direction of your goals. It’s simple. It’s the truth. And the
moment you fully accept it, your life and lives of those you love will never
again be the same. Success, however you choose to define it, is absolutely
predictable.
Lesson
1
Choose
Success
To
give a definition to success, here are 5
criteria to help you crystallize your unique definition of
success
1.
Make
it within your control, not based on outside circumstances or other
people.
2.
Make
it quantifiable so that you that can hold yourself
accountable.
3.
Make
it perpetual so that you can satisfy on a daily basis.
4.
Choose
your own definition, not a borrowed one.
5.
Make
it based on absolute truths, not subjective, timely or situational
values.
Assignments
1.
Write
out your personal definition of success and failure.
2.
Write
down everything in your life that you can control and over which you have
absolutely no control.
3.
Write
out 20 of your positive characteristics.
4.
Write
out 20 of your past accomplishments.
5.
Write
out 20 blessings you expect to be grateful for 9 years from
now.
6.
Describe
your ideal day in detail, from the moment you wake up until you drift to
sleep.
Lesson
2
Choose
Who You Want to Become
Before
you choose your goals, first choose who you want to become. Who you are triggers
what you do. You must realize the purpose of your existence as human being on
this earth. Make your personal Mission Statement. Once you have completed your
personal mission statement, you will have a clear picture of the person you hope
to become. A sense of destiny will come over you as what you most love to do
become what you do best. As you do what you love and you’ll stop being your own
worst enemy. The more you experience your true place; you will begin living more
honestly, freely, and intuitively. You will be happier, healthier, and more
prosperous. You will be constantly changing and becoming someone new. As you
begin to change, our world changes with us.
Make
a written personal mission statement as under:
1.
What
three qualities would you most like to see associated with your
reputation?
2.
What
three activities do you find most enjoyable?
3.
What
three activities are most important to you?
4.
What
three things would you like to change about your life if you had not
restrictions or limitations?
5.
What
6 things do you want in life more than anything else?
6.
Who
are the three people you admire most and why?
7.
Of
the people you admire most, what one quality do they all have in
common?
8.
What
would you be willing to die for if you had to?
9.
Why
do you go to work in the morning?
10.
What
are your four most important roles in life?
11.
What
qualities would you like to be known for in each of these
roles?
12.
What
evidence would prove you have those qualities?
13.
What
would you like to see written on you tombstone?
14.
If
you could write your own eulogy, what would you want it to
say?
Assignments
·
Now
compose your personal mission statement and make sure it is written in present
tense as if it were true today.
Lesson
3
Choose
to Write Down Compelling Goals
The
very act of writing down and setting magnificent and compelling goals unlocks
your creative powers, and the act of writing your goals is completely under your
control.
Goals
are most important recipe of success. Goals provide you with clarity of outcome.
As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take
you there.” Design your goals that really inspire you, that are interesting,
motivating, and stimulating that you’ll get up by 5 a.m and stay up burning the
midnight oil. Goal setting come close to being your best. Do you know someone
who is extremely well educated but has no goals? Of what practical use is an
education if he or she can’t apply the knowledge to some worthwhile purpose? The
primary benefit of mastering the skill of goal setting is that you begin to take
personal control of your life.
Seven
reasons why people don’t set goals?
1.
They
have not yet accepted personal responsibility or their lives.
2.
They
fear criticism.
3.
They
don’t know how.
4.
They
don’t realize the importance of goals.
5.
The
curse of early success.
6.
Fear
of failure.
7.
Fear
of success. (Some people are afraid that if they succeed it will put pressure on
them to repeat their success. To avoid this pressure of having to “live up” to
this new standard, they procrastinate and never give it their best, hoping that
lack of competence and confidence at the current level will remain a
secret.
When
you choose to write down compelling goals, you are simultaneously choosing a
compelling future. Exciting goals foreshadow an exciting future.
Goals
work for anyone who is subject to the law of gravity. To ensure your success,
follow these simple guidelines sincerely and the results will take care of
themselves.
Eight
Rules for Highly Effective Goals:
1.
Highly
effective goals are written.
Research shows that people with written goals earn ten to 100 times more that
equally gifted individuals who neglect to put their goals in writing. Writing
down your goals helps you to crystallize your thinking and gives you a physical
device for focusing your attention. So make your goals written contracts with
yourself.
2.
Highly
effective goals are stated in present tense.
Writing goals like this allows you to recruit you mind to help you reach your
goals. In essence, it creates a new field of sight. If you don’t have specific
goals written down for your life, you are mentally malnourished.
3.
Highly
effective goals are stated positively.
Words are simply symbols for thoughts and ideas. Every time you write or say a
word, you evoke a vision in your mind. And you can’t evoke a vision of not doing
something.
4.
Highly
effective goals are consistent with your personal mission
statement.
Your goals should cause you to grow more like the person you created to become.
They should be goals that are personally meaningful to you and not meaningful to
someone. The pursuit of goals should force you to become more like the person
described in your personal mission statement.
5.
Highly
effective goals are specific and measurable.
The more you are focused on your goal, the more you’ll be aware of the people,
ideas, and resources around you that can help you reach that
goal.
6.
Highly
effective goals are timebound.
Deadlines put positive pressure on you to take action. Otherwise it’s human
nature to keep putting things off. Comfort is often confused with success, and
complacency is the result.
7.
Highly
effective goals are reasonable and challenging.
You must come out from your comfort zone and you must be willing to experience
discomfort. It’s often been suggested that you set goals with a 50 – 50
probability of success. Your goals must have a degree of believability. Goals
that are unreasonable for you lock up our creativity and tend to act as
de-motivators. Believe in yourself by setting and then achieving progressively
more challenging roles. Your talent, skill and creativity will rise to meet the
level of goal you set for yourself. So think huge.
8.
Highly
effective goals are thoroughly planned.
You should have tangible steps for each of your goals. You need to compile the
details, make a plan, write out all the activities, prioritize the, time
organize them, and rewrite them as often as necessary to make your plan perfect.
Revise it, improve it, plan, and think on paper. All great leaders trained
themselves to be great planners.
The
goal setting Workshop
Here
is the most powerful, the most practical, and the most effective goal formulae
ever put together. Follow this method and exercise the self-discipline to put it
into practice on a regular basis, your result will be out of all proportion to
what you put in.
Step
# 1: Brainstorm Your Dreams-
Take
out a pad of paper and a pen or pencil. Now think and write down what do you
want to do the “Next 30 Years” at the top of a blank sheet of paper. It can be
anything and everything you have ever wanted to be, do, or have. Don’t impose
any limitations. – real or imagined- such as money, age, sex, race, family,
children, education, connections, or anything else. Limits only have power over
you and your future to the degree that you let them. Suspend all judgment on
whether or not you can achieve what you want or whether you are worthy of it.
Just write it down every thing and anything you can imagine without letting your
mind stop. You will find that just
completing this simple brainstorming process will produce a renewed sense of
enthusiasm for your future. There will be an inner excitement, a surge of
vitality and positive anticipation. You’ll want to revise and review this list
at least once a year. Now that you’ve written down everything you could ever
possibly want, look over your list and make sure you have some challenging
goals- may be for example financial goals, marriage, happy relationship,
personal growth or so many other things. To lead a happy, balanced life, you
need a balance of goals. So, what ever it is, write it
down.
Questions
to help you start your brainstorm session. Remember, no limits!
·
What
do you want to have?
·
What
do you want to be?
·
What
extraordinary things would you like to do?
·
What
kind of impact do you want to have on your profession?
·
How
could you turn one of your hobbies into a business?
·
Where
do you want to go? And who do you want to go with?
·
What
would you like the quality of your marriage to be?
·
What
charities do you want to support?
·
How
much money do you want to donate your life time?
·
Would
you like to get a massage every week? How about every day?
·
Would
you like to skydive or scuba dive?
·
How
much passion do you want to have in your marriage?
·
Would
you like to change your job?
·
Would
you like to set up a new entrepreneurship?
·
Would
you like to become a millionaire? How about a billionaire?
·
Do
you want to work for someone else the rest of your life?
Step
# 2: Create Your Ideal Lifestyle
Look
into the distant future and create a vivid mental image of the life and you’d
like to be leading. This will become your personal vision for the future. The
number of years you project into the future can vary depending upon your
experience with goals and your current level of comfort. In order to make sure
your actions and choices of today match up with the life you want tomorrow, you
must begin with the end result in mind. You have to know where you’re headed.
You cannot effectively lead your life if you only have short term goals. It
takes a long term vision and long range goals to reveal the most appropriate
short-term goals. So mentally project yourself into the future. Try for at least
9 years. You can view these benchmarks as the sub-goals that need to be met
before your long-term vision can become a reality.
Step
# 3: Take the 3- Year Leap
Now
that you have some ideas about your future, let’s tackle the mid-term by
creating clear, specific, measurable, achievable, and most importantly written 3
years goals and their corresponding plans for accomplishment. Your 3 year goals,
from today to 3 years out, are intended to be sub-goals or milestones on the way
to your long-term vision. So make sure that they are in alignment by asking the
questing, “Will the accomplishment of these goals lead me to my
vision?”
Step
# 4: Convince Yourself
Next,
list all of the rewards. What’s in it for you? Why do you want to achieve this
goal? Think about the feelings and emotions you’ll enjoy as a result of
achieving your goal and the reward you will get. Make sure you have enough reasons for
accomplishing your goals. If you have enough reasons, you can accomplish
anything. Determine the WHAT. Figure out the WHY, and then the HOW! When you
know what you want and when you want it badly enough, you can always find a way
to make it happen.
Step
# 5: Plan on Paper
Every
failure can be traced back to lack of proper planning. Planning is deliberate
act of pulling the future into the present. Things don’t improve by themselves.
Evaluate your life in light of where you’ve been, where you are now, and where
you intend to go. Remind yourself that all successful people plan on paper. Be
aware, that plans are hardly ever 100% accurate. The starting point of 3 year
planning is to see yourself already in possession of your 3 – year goals, then
work back to the present. This means that you must mentally project yourself
into the future to the time and place where your goal will be a reality. From
this vantage point look back to the present and critically assess the steps you
must take to reach your goal. This is back to the future. To translate all this
into action, think about what you need to accomplish in the 4th
quarter. What do you need to accomplish by the 3rd quarter,
2nd quarter and, finally, in quarter number 1.
Step
# 6: List Available Resources
Now,
write down all the resources available to you to help you reach your 3-year
goals. Who or what could help you reach your goals? Identify the
resources.
Step
# 7: List Potential Obstacles
Now
list all the possible obstacles you may encounter. Think of this as crisis
anticipation planning. Better safe than sorry. If you write down the obstacles
and take a good look at each one, you often find that the obstacles don’t even
exist. How will you personally need to change and grow before this goal can be
achieved?
Step
# 8: Identify Ways to Overcome Obstacles
Next,
list some ideas to overcome the obstacles you just wrote down. List all the
solutions to possible obstacles. Approach each one with the feeling that you
already have a good solution. Challenges or setbacks are intended to teach us
something. They prepare us for performing more effectively at next
level.
Following
Through After the Workshop
To
implement and coordinate a concrete system for keeping up with your list of
goal-directed activities, use three lists. First, a quarterly strategy list of
everything you must do to accomplish each of your 90-day milestone. From that,
select the most important items to create your weekly objectives or Weekly
Master List. Then, plan each day from that. So, you’ve gone from a long
Quarterly strategy List to a Weekly Master List down to a few manageable items
for each day – all leading you toward your 3 – year
vision.
Assignments
·
Write
down 150 goals for the 30 years of your life.
·
Choose
5 goals to focus on for the next 3 years. Make sure you have a well balanced set
of goals.
·
Plan
the accomplishments of your goals on paper using “ Back from the Future”
technique..
·
Begin
the power habit of rewriting your top 5 goals each
morning.
Lesson
4
Choose
to Invest Your Time Wisely
Make
sure you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your time constraints are
unique and unmanageable. It does not matter where or how you’re currently
living. Your progress and success in life will depend more than any other factor
on how you invest the 24 hours you’re blessed with each day. You have to
minimize wasted time, work smarter, maximize your productive capabilities, and
experience more Vital Time. And when you tell yourself that you didn’t have
enough time, you undermine your inner credibility and fortify a self-image of
underachievement and irresponsibility. Your self image affects the way you
manage time. Creating Vital Time requires that you understand how the internal
picture you hold of yourself affects your ability to make the best use of your
life. The key to becoming an outstanding time manager is to start thinking of
yourself and speaking of yourself as an outstanding time manager. If someone
asks you about your day, tell the, “today is the best day I’ve ever had. I’ve
managed my time perfectly today. I don’t have time to tell you anymore now
because I’ve got things to do.” Vocalize, verbalize and then
actualize.
Follow
10 Vital time Tactics:
·
Overcome
procrastination
·
Organize
your workspace
·
Handle
reading material efficiently
·
Handle
everything once and only once
·
Delegate
·
Control
your phone calls
·
Manager
interruptions
·
Batch
similar tasks
·
Block
out chunks of time
·
Run
masterful meetings
Assignments
1.
Determine
how much your time is currently worth.
2.
Determine
how much your time should be worth to create the lifestyle you
desire.
3.
Make
a list of your top 3 highest payback activities, both personally and
professionally.
4.
Keep
a log of your time for the next 2 weeks. (Use 15- minute
increments)
5.
Brainstorm
a list of 20 ways you can specifically improve your personal time
management.
Lesson
5
Choose
to Get Out of Your Own Way
Whatever
you direct your mind to think about will ultimately be revealed for everyone to
see. Among the most powerful influences on your character, personality, and
attitude is what you say to yourself and what you believe. This is
self-talk. At every singly moment of
every day, you are either talking yourself into or out of success. By talking
yourself into success, it means talking yourself into your unique definition of
success. You are constantly redefining
and reinventing yourself and your future with every thought that races through
your mind. It’s scientific fact that we are constantly talking to ourselves, and
this inner dialogue, or self-talk, can and must be controlled if we are to
maximize our god-given potential. Self talk can be most simply defined as what
you say or think to yourself, either silently or aloud.
Every
thought you think either moves you toward your goals and the person you hope to
become, or it moves you away. As King Solomon put it several thousand years ago,
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he!.”
Become
a Visionary-
You
must make the shift from reactive thinking to proactive thinking. You must stop
working for your mind and instead, enlist your mind to work for you. Remember
your self-talk tends to work against you unless you are aware of it and use for
your own goals and ambitions. So your self –talk should be positive self-talk.
Successful men and women train their minds to think only about what they want to
happen in their lives.
The
Mental Principles
Since
the human brain seeks comfort and pleasure, and tries to avoid and move away
from discomfort and pain, your natural tendency will be to go back to the old
ways of doing things. While this tendency is natural and common, it must be
overcome if you are to unlock your full potential. You must be willing to be
uncomfortable or uneasy if you want the rewards of higher levels of personal
effectiveness.
To
benefit from self – talk it is helpful to understand the seven mental principles
that support them.
1.
Cause
and Effect:
Your
thoughts are causes and your circumstances are effects. All causation is mental.
Nothing happens by accident. And just because a cause cannot be determined does
not mean there is no cause. However, many do attribute the effects in their
lives, the results they achieve, to either good or bad luck. This is done for
one of three reasons (1) to relieve the individual from a sense of
responsibility if it’s bad luck, which deflects attention from the true source,
(2) to appear modest or humble if the luck is good, or (3) simple ignorance as
the true cause or causes.
2.
Belief:
The
principle of belief says that whatever you believe becomes true for you. Once a
belief is locked in, you tend to notice only those things which reinforce that
your believe is true.
3.
Subconscious
activity:
The
subconscious mind always agrees with and complies with what the conscious mind
tells it. Your job is to convince the subconscious that the conditions you
desire already exist. Your subconscious then piques your awareness to the
opportunities around you that are consistent with your goals.
4.
Substitution:
The
conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, either positive or negative.
But you cannot eliminate a thought directly. You can only do so by substituting
another one for it. Give your minds something else specific to think about.
Replace thoughts of worry with thoughts of faith and
confidence.
5.
Mental
Equivalency:
Before
physical creation there has to be a mental creation. Develop a clear picture, vivid mental picture
of any goal you hope to achieve in advance of its actual
accomplishment.
6.
Concentration:
The
principles of concentration states that whatever you focus upon grows and
expands.
7.
Relaxation:
Your
subconscious absorbs positive self-talk fastest when you are relaxed and
unhurried.
For
effective self-talk, use positively phrased languages. Say, “ I am reading one
hour every evening,” rather than, “I am no longer wasting my evenings watching
TV”. Secondly, your self- talk should be emotion provoking causing you to
pre-live the experience. Thirdly, your self-talk should always be in the present
tense. The subconscious mind does not understand or acknowledge the past or the
future. It operates only in the here and now. The most powerful words in the
English language are those that come after the words “I AM”. Finally, self-talk
you design yourself, which is personal to your life and your goals, is mot
effective. The more the self-talk is repeated it gets internalized and become
part of you.
Formulate
Your Own Self -Talk
Since
everything you think or say should lead to the accomplishment of your goals, you
must have a definite and specific idea of what your most important life goals
are. See yourself as already in possession of your most important goals. Now,
ask yourself this key question: “If I had already accomplished these goals, what
would I believe about myself that I don’t now truly believe? Think of one of the
most compelling goals you want to achieve in the next three years. Develop a
clear picture of it in your mind. Now answer this simple but profound question:
Why don’t you have it already? If your goal is to be financially independent and
that’s very important to you, then why aren’t you already financially
independent? Why haven’t you already accomplished this goal? Self-talk helps you
shore up your mental equivalent. It gives you the ability to create and fortify
beliefs that support the person you want to become and the goals you want to
achieve. Whatever your answers were, it doesn’t matter. You can turn any of them
to your advantage by practicing positive opposite therapy, which activates the
principle of substitution. Positive opposite therapy provides you with the
mental nourishment that must come before goal achievement. What you choose to
believe is completely up to you. The important question is this: “What should
you believe?” We know that beliefs come first and results come second. So, what
should you believe? An accurate answer to this question requires that you first
develop complete clarity about your future. The clearer you vision for the
future is, the easier it will be to determine what you must first believe in
order to get there.
Assignments
1.
Make
a list of what you would believe about yourself, your potential, and the world
if you had already achieved your most important goal.
2.
On
separate notecards, neatly write at least 10 self-talk statements for each of
your top five 3-year goals.
Lesson
6
Choose
Positive Visualization
Enhance
your visualization powers so that you can maximize your performance in every
area of life. Visualization works based on the sane principles as self-talk.
Self-talk and visualization complements each other. Visualization intensifies
your self-talk and self talk reinforces your visualization. You can
visualization two primary aspects of a goal. One is the specific outcome itself.
The other is the process or series of steps you must take to get there. It is
important to practice both, but if you have to choose, practice outcome
visualization because it is the realization of the actual goal that counts the
most, not necessarily how you get there. In process visualization, you mentally
preview the necessary steps to accomplish your goal. The mind actually trains
the body to perform just it did in the mental rehearsal. The more you see
yourself performing effectively, the more comfortable, confident and relaxed you
fee in the actual event, and the better you will perform. This sense of
familiarity breeds excellent results.
Here
are some ideas to help you pull your visualization script together: First, state
your specific goal in the form of an affirmation.
·
Why
is reaching this goal important to you? What are the benefits?
·
Imagine
the exact moment that you accomplished this goal or fulfilled your dream. What
event do you most represent this accomplishment?
·
If
this were happening right now, how would you feel? Step into that moment.
Pretend you are there right now. What emotions would be most
dominant?
·
What
do you see around you that is evidence of your
accomplishment?
·
What
are you doing?
·
Sounds.
What do you hear? Clapping, laughter, music, chatter, ocean waves,
etc.
·
Which
of your values are most reflected by what you see?
Surround
yourself with visual representations of your goals or ideal lifestyle. Having
these visual reminders in your environment is an effortless way to stay focused
and motivated.
Assignment
1.
Complete
a visualization script for one of your top five 3-yesar
goals.
2.
Invest
10 to 15 minutes a day re-reading the script and imagining that your goal is
already a reality.
3.
Collect
visual reminders (pictures, quotes, sketches, etc.) for each of your top 5 goals
and place them where you will effortlessly see them daily.
Lesson
7
Choose
a High – Energy Lifestyle.
Boundless
energy is not an accident. Individuals who experience a continuous, revitalizing
flow of energy make different choices than those who consistently operate from
an energy deficit. You can increase your return on energy and your return on
life by becoming highly sensitive to the choices you make regarding your
lifestyle. Remember, your level of energy equals your level of heath. If you are
short of energy, you are short of life. When you are run-down, drained, or
otherwise out of balance, the quality of your choices is negatively influenced.
Your choices become more oriented around the short term. You think more about
what is expedient than what is in your long-term best interests, you act
defensively and reactively.
Seven
Keys to a High – Energy Lifestyle
1.
Write
down a goal for how long you want to live healthfully and
productively.
2.
Develop
a positive mental attitude.
3.
Control
stress.
4.
Combine
aerobic, strength and flexibility exercise.
5.
Eat
for energy.
6.
Sleep
for success.
7.
Rest
and rejuvenation.
Seven
Steps to High- Energy Nutrition
·
Plan
your meals
·
Eat
low-fat to very low-fat foods.
·
Eat
frequent small meals and light snacks.
·
Work
in five or more servings of fresh fruit and vegetables.
·
Limit
the white poisons: sugar, salt, bleached flour.
·
Drink
lots of water.
·
Supplement
your diet with an all-natural, high-quality vitamin and mineral
formula.
7
Tips for Better Sleep
·
Arise
at the same time everyday.
·
Eat
for deep sleep.
·
Reserve
the bedroom for sleep and sexual relations.
·
Develop
a calming bedtime routine.
·
Make
tomorrow’s “ to do” list before entering your bedroom..
·
Hide
the clock.
·
Set
the thermostat.
7
Tips for Replenishing Mental Energy
·
Take
frequent 5-minute stress breaks during the day.
·
Don’t
work for one day every week
·
Take
a4-day vacation every quarter
·
Take
two weeks of vacation annually
·
Declutter
your home, car, office
·
Get
a massage
·
Re-cultivate
the simple pleasures of life.
Assignments
1.
Set
a goal for how long you want to live healthfully and productively (your age and
the year)
2.
Make
a list of all the lifestyle choices consistent with living productively and
healthfully until the age you set for a goal.
3.
Make
a list of all the choices that not consistent with living to your life span
goal.
4.
Write
on a notecard the following self-talk statement: “My daily choices create my
perfect health.” Tape this notecard to your room mirror!
Accept
that you are totally responsible for your success. Not the government, not your
boss, not your parents, and not society. Only you. No one is coming to the
rescue! Only you have the power to make the choices that will accumulate into
the fruits of an exciting, successful, and satisfying life. Remember, the
pursuit and attainment of success and happiness is completely up to you. Choose
to take the initiative and you’ll find opportunities you never imagined
existed.
The
end
