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Author: Kelli Smith

What’s your idea of success? How do you define it? Is it wealth? Fame? Power? Inner peace? Success is a vague notion, which means that becoming successful can be a frustrating, impossible journey; after all, you can’t hit a target you can’t see. So let’s examine what success really is, and how you might set out on the path toward reaching it.

As kids, we measured our success by our stuff - and how it stacked up against our friends’ stuff. When your best friend got the hottest toy on the market for Christmas, your own gifts paled in comparison. In high school, you wore what your friends thought was trendy - or dealt with the merciless teasing that came with being out of style. For adults, success might mean having a bigger house in the trendiest neighborhood, then inviting your friends over to show off the new living room set.

When did "success" come to mean "having stuff"? Is money really all it takes to make you feel successful? And if there’s more to success than wealth, what is it? How do you find it?

Money Doesn’t Solve Everything

Garrett Sutton is an attorney, author, and member of Robert Kiyosaki’s team of Rich Dad Advisors. He has written two books, Own Your Own Corporation and Real Estate Loopholes, a 2004 bestseller which he co-authored with former advisor Diane Kennedy. Sutton has encountered much professional success, but disagrees that money alone can make anyone successful.

"There have been studies regarding job satisfaction for lawyers, and it’s a lot lower than you’d expect," says Sutton. "Even though they’re making money and have good professional standing, the job satisfaction index is low. I think part of that is that they dread going to work each day to bicker and fight, or to grind out paperwork that maybe after a while has no meaning to them. You can get caught in this path toward partnership, where they’re really expecting you to give up your life…At some point, the money doesn’t solve everything."

In fact, it’s not just attorneys who wrestle with job satisfaction. A 2005 report by the Conference Board, which was based on a national survey, shows that an increasing number of employees are unhappy with their jobs - regardless of income or age. In fact, only a little more than half of all workers earning more than $50,000 a year are actually satisfied with their jobs. Only 14% are "very satisfied."

And job satisfaction is no small thing. Researchers at University College in the U.K. studied 216 middle-aged men and women in London, and discovered a link between happiness and health. It turns out that the bodies of people whose daily lives make them happy actually produce healthier levels of important body chemicals than those who are unhappy. Happier people may have healthier hearts and a lower risk of certain diseases like diabetes.

As if your health weren’t enough of a reason to find inner satisfaction, here’s another: results of a 2005 Gallup survey found that employees who are disengaged in their work cost the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity.

It’s hard to say what success really is, but unhealthy and unproductive people definitely aren’t it.

Don’t Succeed - Thrive

Anne Lazarus is a Reno, Nevada-based business coach who primarily works with principals of owner-operated companies, and some top-level executives, to help them thrive personally and professionally. She coaches people who are "stuck" and unable, for one reason or another, to get to the next level on their journey to success. She says the biggest problem she sees is that people generally define success too narrowly, for instance by how much money they make or how many hours they work. "Their definition of success is so narrow, it doesn’t enrich their lives to achieve that goal."

She recalls the old Ed Sullivan Show routine that featured a man spinning plates on a pole. If that pole represents your life, says Lazarus, most people think of success as adding one more plate. And if you get too focused on that one plate, instead of the big picture, the whole thing collapses. Making $100,000 may seem like success, but if you have to work 100 hours a week to get it, you might break some plates. "You have to get enough of the right plates all spinning together, then check on the wobbly ones…it’s a balancing act," she says.

This is why she suggests thinking not in terms of "success," but in terms of being efficient while thriving. Success isn’t a perfect place, a destination to be reached. There’s always something more to do or learn. If you are good at what you do, make the amount of money you want, have the right clientele, and are effective, you can have fun. And when you’re having fun, you’re thriving. Instead of focusing on success, she advises making incremental improvements, or what she calls "the 10 Percent Solution."

"Too often I find that people are going for all or nothing, black or white. This is why I don’t like the word success, like it’s some perfect place out there. I prefer to think of it as being pointed in the right direction, a compass heading," she says. "All you have to know is where you are now, where you want to be, and how to get there. And everyday, just go 10% further, be 10% better, learn 10% more. It’s like compound interest that builds on itself. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress."

Now an avid hiker, Lazarus could once only walk a mile in a day. But by asking herself to walk just a little bit farther each day, she improved her abilities tremendously; not only was she eventually able to hike the entire 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail, but she is now able to hike 25 miles a day. "It’s about doing a little better tomorrow than you did today," she says. "That progress builds on itself, until you get there."

The Keys to Success

Interestingly enough, the most successful people often don’t think of themselves as successful. Even Garrett Sutton, a bestselling author, hesitates to think of himself that way. "I got on the bestseller list and it felt great," he says, "but the next day it didn’t matter. I thought maybe I wasn’t as deserving, or I could do better. So it’s really about cherishing those successes along the way."

So be honest with yourself. What is it that you really want? What is your goal? Once you figure that out, take small steps each day along that path, celebrating your achievements along the way. It’s the journey, not the destination, that offers true success.

So start by breaking out of your comfort zone. We all like to do what we’re good at. But if we’re not improving ourselves, we’re certainly never going to grow or become successful. "When we learn to do the things we couldn’t before, the things we’re not comfortable doing, we become effective at them," says Lazarus. "And chances are, you’ll end up liking those things after all."

Author: Annette Phillips

There are many factors that may keep you from changing yourself enough to find success. Yes, I did mention change because if what you are doing today is not working chances are you will have to change to find the success you seek. You can be as successful as anyone else, but first you need to identify what is holding you back so that you can change it and move forward to success.

Fear is probably the biggest factor holding people from success today. Most of us are not willing to take any risks to be successful. Now I am not saying you should stake your financial future and put a second mortgage on your home to be successful, but neither am I saying you shouldn’t. If the goals and your commitment are big enough you have to do what it takes to get you there.

Fear is usually a matter of not understanding something enough. Educate yourself on every aspect of what you want to do, understand what it takes to be successful in your field and then DO IT. Make sure that you understand it as well as you can, this will help alleviate fear. Lack of knowledge about your field can lead to failure. Focus on the things you can change, or influence and work in those areas. Fear of things you cannot change is simply a waste of your time. Take action and start to move forward. Advance on the fear daily and it will begin to retreat.

Pressure from family and friends is another thing that can really hold someone back. Family and friends are very well meaning and sometimes they can advise us and "save us from ourselves" so to speak, but most of the time when we share our ideas with family and friends they get scared for us because we are so excited and they advise us against the venture because they don’t want to see us hurt. They are well meaning, but if you want to be successful you will have to be able to either keep your distance from the negative people or you will have to be able to look them in the face and thank them for sharing and they move ahead with your decision without letting their fears poison your excitement and drive.

Do not allow others to make your decisions for you unless they are where you want to be. If you want to find success you will have to change what you are doing and go against what they are doing. Make a stand for yourself.

Since you have always done something a certain way and it worked reasonably well you are comfortable with it, but if it’s not getting you the results you really want you may have to break the mold and do something a lot different to find success.

Most people have habits that keep them from being successful. Be willing to break those habits and replace them with new more profitable ones. It takes 21-30 days to develop a new habit. Make a commitment to change just one thing a month and you will see improvements immediately. If you want different results you are going to have to take different actions.

How much do you really want to be successful? Do you really care? Lack of true commitment is a real killer for success. You may think it sounds great to make lots of money every month, but doing what it takes to get there is another thing altogether.

Do you really care enough to make a commitment, take action and get things moving? This is crucial to your success. You need to really take a look at your current situation and decide if you have what it takes to be successful or if you just have what it takes to dream about being successful. There is a big difference between those two.

Do you see yourself as successful? If you see yourself negatively you will have a tough time overcoming that and being successful. Make a list of what you want to be and then turn those things into positive statements about yourself. Your list may look like this:
I am motivated.
I am organized.
I am decisive.
I am successful.
I am educated.
I am happy.
You get the idea from that list that it can include anything you wish to be. Start going over that list and change the habits that will make those statements true and say those true statements to yourself. This will change your mindset and your success will increase as you begin to see yourself as successful. When you start seeing yourself as successful others will see that too.

No matter what you do for work if you are willing to change yourself and do whatever it takes you will be successful. Being successful takes action, not just wishful thinking. Expect opposition and handle it so that you can keep moving forward and create a successful future for you and your family. When you are willing to make changes in your life to move toward success you cannot help but find it. Take the first step today!

By: Rosamunde Bott

It’s a word we use constantly. Authors of self-help books use it in their titles all the time. If you are a human being with any kind of goal or project, you want it. But what does it actually mean? How do we define success?

We may all want success, but we don’t all see it in the same way. One person’s success may be another’s failure. Some people would be very happy to get a B in exam. For some people, anything less than an A is a failure.

What does a successful person look like? Do you imagine someone with an expensive, fast car with a Rolex watch? Do you think about a sportsperson winning a gold medal? A great contributor to humanity, such as Ghandi? Or do you imagine a person who is merely happy?

If we have achieved our goals, but are not happy, are we truly successful? Perhaps this just means that we have not clearly defined our own terms of success. If achieving our goals does not bring fulfilment, perhaps it was someone else’s goal we were aiming for. Our parents, peers and teachers may be very good at imposing their own views of what success means, but the danger is that it may not ultimately be ours, and it can take a long time to find this out.

There are many different definitions of success. Before we travel the road on the journey to our goals, we need to be sure that we understand our own vision of success.

For example, let us say that you own your own online home business. Of course, you want it to be successful. But what does this success look like for you? Is it extra income so that you can go on an extra holiday every year? Do you want it to bring you a full time income so you can leave your current job? Or do you want to be another Matt Morris of Success University and make millions? Which of these definitions means the most to you?

The other danger, other than not defining our own terms, is that we set our terms too high. I’m not saying we should not have big goals – we can all benefit from thinking big – but if our only goal in life is to be a millionaire, it might just take a little time to feel successful! Why not be successful every day? There are many ways in which we can set ourselves little goals or tasks for every day, or every week so we can feel we are making progress and be a successful person.

Here’s an example. One of my biggest goals is to become a bestselling author. However, I don’t think that I am not successful because I have not yet achieved that. For me, I am successful if I write every day and am continually working towards my main goal. I have other writing successes, such as completing four novels and having articles published in glossy magazines. Yet, while these are all successful achievements, they are also stepping stones towards more confidence, more goals and greater achievement.

While we are aiming for the stars, we also need to look around us and see where we are successful every day.

To find your own success definitions, ask yourself the following: What is important to you? Write a list of your important values such as integrity, humour, family or freedom and make sure your goals fit in with these. When did you last feel happy and proud of yourself? What were you doing, or what had you achieved?

Author: Jordan Cheng

Is it possible to achieve success without struggle, despite what most of us have been taught from our younger days that success is impossible without massive hard work and sufferings?

As you go through stages of life, the painful reality you have to contend with is: Even hard work and struggle does not guarantee success. To most people, success seems like a mystery, a puzzle. Despite pain-staking application of the universal rules and principles taught by the gurus, success remains elusive.

The irony, as you may also have noticed, is that some people seemed to have gained success so easily. These people are often deemed to be the lucky ones, with unexplainable factors that guide them to do the right thing at the right time.

What is this missing linking of success? Is it really a fuzzy factor that picks the winners at random?

The level of difficulty in reaching success is in direct proportion to the level of clarity we have about our life goals and purposes.

Do you have to toil away at tasks you never enjoy in order to gain success? Most likely so if you are fuzzy about what your want in life.

Can success be acquired in a joyful and fulfilling way? Absolutely! If you have achieved clarity in your life direction and mission, and have placed them firmly at the center of your focus, your life will be characterized by daily experience of joy and fulfillment.

The biggest problem many people have with success is: The glamorous kind of success that gain the recognitions and envies of others may not align with your heart’s deepest desire. If you can reconcile success with what your heart truly desire, you can really gain success easily. This is the missing link to finding success without struggle!

Most people see success as achievement of goals. The fact is, success should be experienced during the journey. Over more than two decades, I have been pursuing success in studies, sports, career, and even self-development goals. I was extremely goal-oriented, always perpetuate the timeless principle of one of the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People": Begin With The End In Mind!

As I reflect on all these years of experience, I found myself looking at the glaring paradox of success: When I focused only on the goals, the joy and excitement of success is often short-lived. Success is usually achieved after a long period of struggles and sometime unpleasant hard work. The main reason being that I was pursuing success that does not align with my life purpose. I was drawn to prestige and glamor, more than inner joy and fulfillment. The simple lesson that took me years to realize is: Pursue only goals that you can enjoy the journey.

Most often it is how we define success that determines whether we are able to enjoy the journey as much as the end goal.

Take my favorite sport for example: marathon running. When I set my goal on running a marathon race, I give myself 6 to 9 months to train for the race. It is important to have a clear and specific goal on the marathon race. For me, I have a clear goal to complete the full course in three-and-a-half hours or better. I am setting this goal to push myself to instill better discipline in diet and exercise, as well as in my work. It is a challenging goal to me because the last marathon I run more than ten years ago was barely below four hours.

With this end goal, I work backward to find out the pace that I need to run during the race. I would then be able to know the gap between my current form and what I need to achieve in eight month’s time. I work out a training plan to do weekly long run, speed work, and interval training. The training schedule will be in a progressive manner where I should achieve peak form when it reaches the day of race.

To cut the long story short, there are lots of details in preparing for a marathon race. However, the single most important thing I have to focus on is how I define success. It is a mindset business. While I have set a specific time goal to finish the race, it is not my definition of success. The success is not found in the distant future eight months from now. Success is defined by my daily commitment in working out the training program.

With this definition, I experience success everyday whenever I:

- Complete a 12-mile run.
- Work out an exhausting but satisfying speed training.
- Push myself to finish the punishing interval training even when my muscle is aching.
- Resist the temptation of tasty food to stick to the sports diet
- Defy the urge to run too hard so as to avoid over-training or injury.
- Diligently attend to blister and chafing so as to recover in time for next day’s training without disruption.
- Remember to replenish my body fluid sufficiently to restore the required balance.

Even though I have to sweat, suffer muscle aching and even injuries, doing these is not a struggle to me. It is fun and exciting. It keeps me energized everyday.

I look forward to the training regime everyday, anticipating the excitement and fulfillment of finishing each exhausting training session, knowing that I have achieved success for that day. The compounding effect of such success mindset is empowering. I know fully well that these small successes will add up to huge success in time to come. Even if I do not meet my time goal at end of this year, I know I have succeeded anyway as long as I follow the training regime diligently. I would already have experienced success on a daily basis for eight months even prior to the end goal. The final achievement of running time will be wonderful but it will not undermine my success. I am not comparing myself with others.

Author: Rececca Commerford

Step One: Realize the Need for Change Albert Einstein defined insanity as, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The important first step on the road to success is realizing the need for change in your life. If the things you have been doing aren’t helping you on the path to success, why continue to do them? Reasons many people avoid change include not understanding the need for change and the comfort of the familiar. You are sacrificing your own future success for the ease of doing nothing. Once you realize the need for change, you have taken the first step.
Step 2: Goal Setting and Planning OK, you know what you have been doing isn’t working. What do you want? You need to know what you want out of life in order to go after it. Spend some time setting both long and short term goals. Sit down with a pen and paper and write some goals. What do you want to achieve in the next few months and years?
Once you have established your overall goals in life, you can do some planning for how you will attain the goals you have set. Don’t worry if you aren’t exactly sure how you will reach your goals. Do not let this stop you from making a plan and acting on it. "You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
ResetYourReality.SuccessUniversity.com has a weekly success plan which can help you define your goals and plan how to achieve them. The curriculum is designed to help you reach your success goals in as little as 12 months. You will learn valuable tools for goal setting, personal development, time management, networking and much more.
Step 3: Education For the successful person, education does not end when you receive your diploma. The most successful people are learning all the time. The skills you need to be successful can all be learned, but these skills are not taught in school. You need to seek out this knowledge. resetYourReality.SuccessUniversity.com has created a program with the help of some of the most successful people in the country. The best way to learn the keys to success is from those who have used them to their full advantage.
Step 4: Find a Mentor or Mentors The mentor-protégé relationship is rooted in our history and has helped countless people on the path to success. In fact, the Mentor first appeared in Homer’s epic The Odyssey. Odysseus leaves his son and kingdom in the care of Mentor. Mentoring is successfully used in programs for kids, business, the medical profession, the Arts and many other areas due to the value of the mentor-protégé model.
Finding mentors is not always an easy task. If you are lucky, there is a professional or successful person in your life willing to act as a mentor. Otherwise, you will have to seek out advice and coaching. A huge benefit of the Success University program is access to mentors and coaches to help you past the pitfalls and hurdles in your path.
Step 5: Persistence Pays Off The most successful people are persistent. They don’t back down or give up in the face of challenge or even great difficulty. Somehow, they stick to it, persevere and overcome the obstacles. This is an important quality to cultivate in yourself in order to reach your goals and achieve success. Motivation is critical to perseverance. You have to be motivated to stick to your plans, even in the face of great challenge. Following a weekly success plan can really help you stay motivated and achieve success.
Step 6: Repetition How did you learn to read? How did you learn to ride a bike? How did you learn to drive a car? It wasn’t learned in five minutes, but had to be practiced over and over again. Repetition is an important component to success. The more you do something, the better you will get at it. This is a fact that is well known to teachers and parents. The same holds true when learning skills and tools for success. You need to get out there, learn what you need to know and repeat the skills and strategies you learn at Success University in order to make a real change in your life.
Step 7: Start NOW! There are a million reasons to procrastinate and put off taking the first steps on the road to success. Don’t fall into this trap. Procrastination is your worst enemy, if you are serious about achieving success. The months and years wasted with a mindset of “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or “Someday, I will…” can never be reclaimed. Don’t let one more day slip away.

Author: Koz Huseyin

It is easy to find success. Simply switch on any television or radio, and you will find success. But, with all this success, why is so few people successful? It is an odd fact, as we believe if we hang around with the successful, then we will also. But, people watching multimillionaire actors all day long don’t find those results!

Success is all around us. Take a look all around you and you will find success. Now, we need to put things in perspective. Success is not just money, success is not just how much money you have in the bank. A doctor, who wanted to be a doctor all his or her life and actually becomes one, is successful. And actor who wanted to be on TV, in big films who becomes one, is successful.

However, even with whatever definition we place on success, the fact is that most feel everything but success. I often say you can judge a persons level of success by how enthusiastic they feel on a Monday morning!

The best way to become successful is by first defining what success means to you. When you know what that means, you have done a lot more for yourself than a years worth of paid income. Because, now you can move forward to the next most important principle, and that is modeling.

Why walk a new route? Why try to hedge away at reeds, and long grass to plot a new path? Success is done much more easily, and much more successfully when you walk in others footsteps. Imagine driving to the other end of the country if all you had was trees and nature blocking your path. But, with roads, with the efforts of others, the journey is much easier.

Modeling is a success secret. Finding the people you admire, and learning all you can about them, then being like them, thinking like them, acting like them, in your own kind of way is more likely to make success happen for you. After all, we only get one chance here, and whatever your thoughts of eternal life, all you got is now.

But, a new problem surfaces. So, you have moved away from TV, and got into personal development. Now, you see success, you try to act like a success, but the problem that comes is even with all these people in personal development, so few succeed.

Obviously all those people watching TV relate to what is being shown, and this is what often happens in seminars conducted by the wealthy and wise. We switch off and don’t really listen. We don’t take part, and get home motivated, but with no action.