Success

While there is no one right way to get to success, there are short cuts. I’m frequently asked what they are. Two elements are important in my definition of success.

One is that it contains a measurable outcome. In other words, I set out to accomplish something and it is specific enough that it can be measured that it was or was not achieved.

Second, success also involves an outcome whereby the world is a better place when we achieve that success. When we attain success, it is my hope that we are leading ourselves up. This means that we become a better person in the process. While there are numerous books written on the subject, I break my success strategies into the following formula…

Vividly Clear Purpose + Focused Thought + Activated Feeling + Inspired Action + Written into Goals Taken Each Day + Timelines + Gratitude

A Vividly Clear Purpose involves spending time knowing our self and our “why”. This is your BIG WHY! Ask yourself the following questions: Why is it so important to achieve this success? Why am I here? Know, honour and align your top values to be expressed through your purpose.

Focused thought means keeping the end goal prioritized at the forefront of our minds daily. When we can describe what we want to see with such minute detail that if we tell a third party, they too can get a picture of exactly what we want, then we know we have clear thought. Why? We create a vibrational match in our consciousness right “now”. We become future focused on what we want, and available to both our own creativity and we “see” opportunities that are a match.

Activated Feeling provides the thrust to move the why forward. Especially when we hit roadblocks or detours. The passion fuels our midbrain to stimulate the emotional rewards and the behaviours needed to support moving towards the desired outcome. When we really, really want it, we feel fulfilled while working towards the desired future. If things get tough, we are sustained through our desire of a preferred future.

Inspired Action differs from plain ol’ action. It’s the type of action into which we put our hearts and souls. We take action from the highest order. What we do on a daily basis comes from a place of serving the “greater good”. When we work from inspiration, it does not feel like work.

Goals, when written, reviewed daily, and stated out loud are more likely to be done. They need to be revisited as they provide the feedback as to whether we took that step forward today and what the next step, or correcting step, might be for tomorrow. Evidence has shown that the act of writing out our goals activates more areas in the brain, although the trade-off is that it’s more of a challenge to get them to pop-up on our computer each day.

When we align our passion/feeling (thrust) with Inspired Action and take a baby step forward with our goals each day, what we’re doing is chunking down the accomplishment into bite-sized manageable steps. We can achieve the seemingly impossible. There’s a reason we say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

We want timelines to hold ourselves accountable. Pencil them into your work each day. Otherwise there is no urgency to act now. Timelines hold us accountable to continually move forward.

Gratitude reminds us to be thankful for what we have and all the people, places and things that have helped us move forward. This with other practices helps us remain in an energy-rich state. Plus we can forgive ourselves when we mess up.

For more, read my new collaborative book “Managing the Art of Success”with Jack Canfield, Les Brown and Mark Victor Hanson.