SUCCESS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT

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 4^th quarter. What do you need to accomplish by the 3^rd quarter, 2^nd 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