Success is measured differently to everyone. For some, success is fortune, fame, and a trophy wall. For others, success is social status or popularity. Although money and recognition often go hand in hand with success, they are not the most important ingredients.
To me, success means a lifetime of personal fulfillment, from creating a sense of meaning in my life’s work. It’s something that cannot be given by anyone and cannot be taken away by anyone either. In order to achieve success, it requires risks, overcoming challenges, and using yourself to your fullest potential.
I learned that success is a journey and not a destination. My journey has helped me to look inward to navigate my life’s path that is most meaningful to me. However, before I was able to do that, I had to learn all the ingredients I needed in order to create my success.
Self Awareness
Self Esteem
Positive Thinking
Self-Direction
Self-Discipline
Self-Motivation
Positive Relationships
Combine Self Esteem, Self Awareness, and Positive Thinking and mix well. Then slowly add in Self Direction. Once completely combined, add in Self Discipline and Self Motivation. Lastly, add in the last ingredient, Positive Relationships and mix well.
As you can see, true success comes from within.
It all starts with self awareness in identifying and appreciating your personal qualities, skills, individual value and interests. To take those personal qualities, skills, and value and figure out what would give you your life’s purpose. Successful people use self awareness to build confidence in themselves and find the courage to go after their dreams. Without self awareness it becomes difficult to figure out what you really want out of life.
Once you become self aware and know your value and have confidence, self esteem comes easy. Self esteem helps you work toward your dreams and goals when other people criticize you or get in your way. It also allows you to believe that you are worthy and possess valuable personal qualities to become successful.
Now that you are self aware, possess self esteem, your thought process must be positive. Every person goes through good and bad, positive and negative experiences in life. Instead of dwelling on the bad or negative experiences, successful people learn to focus on future possibilities. I’ve learned to look for the positive in every negative situation. The setbacks I have experienced have lead to the greatest opportunities. Learning to use the power of positive thinking will propel you towards your goals.
These 3 ingredients in itself became a powerful tool for me. I became UNSTOPPABLE. By the time I was 32 years old, I went from working in the corporate world one day to being laid off the next, to taking a job I knew NOTHING about, only to take the money I was paid during the layoffs and bought the company where I took that job I knew nothing about. At the time, the other people who got laid off when I did, could not see past the bad situation they were in. They lacked self awareness in their value, lacked self worth, and let the negative thoughts of how they were going to be able to afford their bills and all the negative feelings and fears that go with those thoughts and they left feeling defeated and powerless.
After I bought the company, I learned that it took more than those 3 ingredients to achieve greater success. I no longer worked for anyone else. No one else determined how much time off I could have a year or how much I could earn. I learned very quickly that my paycheck was a true reflection of what I did. And what I did needed to be more than just what my personal value was, self worth was and positive thinking. I needed to have self direction, be self disciplined, and have self motivation in order to achieve my dreams and goals.
So what is self-direction? Self-direction means having the ability to set a well defined goal and work towards it. Having a game plan for life. Successful people can tell you where they are going, how they are going to get there, and who they are going to share their journey with. Once I had my direction, I was on auto pilot. I worked every day doing result producing activities that got me closer to my goals.
I also had to be self-disciplined because success just doesn’t happen, it requires work. No matter what direction and what your goals are, you need to be self-disciplined to take action. Successful people take action and charge of their lives. I learned I had to be 100% responsible when things go wrong, but also take credit when they go right. I had to think critically and be harder on myself. Even though I now own the business, I had to lead by example and still come in at a certain time and be the last one to leave. Granted no one owned my time, but in order to be successful you need to give 100% of yourself all the time.
On the path to achieving success, the personal fulfillment, there was NO time to be lazy. I had to find ways to self-motivate to stay motivated. I listened to the Secret by Rhoda Byrne every night before I went to bed. I read personal development books. I set personal goals that had meanings behind them, rather than goals other people thought I should have. I understood my goals and dreams and kept moving forward despite the fear of failing. It’s what gets me out of bed every day.
The last ingredient in my recipe for success is building positive relationships. I learned to surround myself with positive people. People who where better than me, people I could learn from, people that had already obtained their dreams and were working on new ones. Trust me, sometimes it was not easy. Family and friends are not always positive to be around and in fact can often times be toxic to you without you even realizing it. So my advice is at any point you get a negative feeling from being around a person, distance yourself and then ask what value do they bring into your life. That will usually give you the answers you need.
Wishing you all an abundance of SUCCESS!
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