Make this your best year with these success suggestions.
Did you start off the year with bold resolutions? Are they still on track? If so congratulations. As only 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolution. I find this puzzling because commitment is so integral to success of anything. In fact, “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions.” But maybe that is because people who make goals also make resolutions?
I am not sure why resolutions and goals are hard. But some speculate that a resolution that failed is not important enough. Or provide lists of reasons of what we lack. Such as a Vision, A Game Plan, or Social Support. Others believe it has to do with expectations not being realistic. Or the resolutions were not properly defined. Perhaps a wrong mindset, time management skills lacking, or you are living distracted. Any or all these could be the cause.
It is great to understand and accept your limitations. But to be successful at anything it is important to focus on things that make you successful. So I ask fellow bloggers a simple question.
“What are the three things you would suggest someone do to achieve success?”
Liudas Butkus, Blogger/ programmer at Easym6 suggests:
- Have a quality life. If you think that you can work all day and succeed faster you are in for a big surprise. If you neglect all other parts of your life eventually you will start to feel miserable and your productivity drops down low. Live a quality life and you will be productive.
- Be patient. Nothing really comes fast in life and it feels that things seem to stop when you want them the most.
- Work smart not hard. You can either work hard, or you can work smart. Always look for a simpler way to do things.
Adrienne W, freelance writer and blogger at Cleverpedia suggests:
- Turn my goals into habits. I don't believe that success comes as a result of making sweeping changes overnight — I think it happens as a result of replacing your bad habits with good ones. For example, too many people make overly ambitious New Year's Resolutions that pile on the goals with little to no action plan, when instead they could be making small but steady progress towards making their goals into habits.
- Stay accountable. It is really easy to be lazy. To counteract my inclination to procrastinate or blow something off, I use a tool called Habitica to remind myself of tasks I want to do every day or on a regular basis. You could achieve the same thing with a to-do list, but I like that I can be in a group with my brother, significant other, and other friends so that when I am not achieving my goals, they know to encourage me (and vice versa).
- Don't break the chain. This was a habit practiced by Jerry Seinfeld. He had a single task — write jokes every day — and a big wall calendar. Every day that he wrote jokes, he would mark off that day on the calendar with a big red X. After a while, he was getting chains of days and even weeks and months of red Xs… What's incredible is, the longer the chain got, the more driven he got not to break it! I keep a small pocket calendar for this purpose, but I revisit my goal each month. Some months, my goal is to work on my blog every day; other months, I have made it my goal to study programming or exercise. It is a really motivating technique and I can personally attest to the power of the chain.
Louie Luc, of Buzz Nitrous suggests:
- Set Up Goals. “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” So you’d better have your planning done right. That means setting up goals and breaking them into smaller milestones you try and reach every day in order to get closer to your ultimate objective: be successful. As soon as I started following this approach, my daily tasks become lighter and easier and that brought me, even more motivation and focus to keep pushing forward.
- Focus. Every time you lose focus, you’re just walking away from your dreams. Get away from the ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’; just pick a strategy, plan or model that you feel comfortable with and that you know works and stick with it. FOCUS means just that: “Follow One Course Until Successful”. Being focused made me get my work done without distractions and feel less overwhelmed by the zillions of other possibilities I had in front of me. I picked just one of those options, kept getting better at it every day and success became much more reachable.
- Be Positive. Just picture this: You’re carrying a tray filled with glasses of wine and you’re really scared you might trip and break them all. What do you think it will happen? Most certainly, you will really end up breaking them all and feeling ashamed in front of your guests. Why? – You ask. Because you were concentrating all of your energy on negative thoughts (“I must NOT trip”; “I do NOT want to break this”; “Careful, so I will NOT lose my balance”) you forgot to watch your step! Think positive, be positive. Focus on what you have to do to make things right instead of thinking about what could wrong. I’m a believer in the ‘Law of Attraction’ simple because it sounds more logical to me that if you concentrate your attention on whatever you have to do to make it work you are really “watching your step”.
Steffi Black of Steffi Black Coaching suggests:
- Clarity of Core Values and Purpose: Figure out what you stand for first and then work towards aligning that with your life and career purpose. I always did a life plan each year and knew I wanted to serve others and that my favorite part of overseeing a team was motivating and empowering them to live their best lives.
- Goal-Setting Plan: Work with a strong template that lists out the areas you want to achieve success in for a New Year. By planning ahead on what I hoped to accomplish, I had a clear focus, which helped me remain positive when obstacles came my way. I knew I was in it for the long haul.
- Focus on what you want and leave behind that which distracts you. Use your time and energy towards your goals and keep ‘your eyes on the prize!' By being clear on what I wanted to accomplish, I was able to have stronger boundaries and say no to what did not serve that. I could focus on what moved me forward not sideways or backward.
Jonny Pean of The Finance Wand and A2Zesolutions suggests:
- Know that you ARE going to be an entrepreneur one day. You must have heard a lot of times that procrastination is one of your biggest impediments to success. There are people who want to become entrepreneurs but delay the steps required to fulfill their ambitions. There are others who even procrastinate thinking that they want to be entrepreneurs. Don’t be either. I knew that one day I would helm my digital firm right from the time I started looking for jobs.
- Know your forte. Let me tell you that you can never be completely sure of what you are capable of until you’re doing the work yourself. Yes, you might have your own preferences but don’t shy away from trying new things. Besides financewand.com and a2zesolutions.com, I have another blog called techiestudent.com/ which is quickly climbing up Google’s radar. Never knew I could actually tackle “technology” until I started managing client projects as an entrepreneur.
- Start acting. Taking from my first point, I would like to say “start acting today” –don’t procrastinate.
All of these are great suggestions and there are common threads throughout. But we each have to pick the list that works for us.
For me achieving success starts with:
- A crystal clear definition of what success is. You have to know every detail of what you are aiming for. Create a vision board, or a visual set of images that define what success actually looks like. Define how you will feel. What smells can you identify? Embed those images into every decision you make. Embed those smells and feelings into every action you take. Whatever your definition of success, the more you Embed it into your “being”, the quicker you will attain it. But you must absolutely believe in your definition.
- Create a process of reviewing that definition every single day. Whether it is visualizations, meditating, or a gratitude journal, do it every day. Your mind must stay focused on the goal. The more focused and immersed you feel in creating your success – the more likely you are to achieve it. Get immersed in that process and take action on it.
- Mindset. Your mindset will determine your success. For many years, I worked with YPO/WPO. An organization that is built by successful business owners. I watched extremely successful business owners in a variety of education and personal exchanges. Through many meetings, managerial positions, and fun activities – the biggest differentiator was mindset. Those that really had it all had a powerful understanding of mindset. They understood the importance of having indisputable values in place. And they showed up exactly how they wanted to be seen. They were the people I was proud to be associated with.
I believe that mindset is the most important thing and will affect everything else that you do. And I believe that everyone should have access to this learning. So, I have created a complimentary email course to help set you up. Join me on this journey and realize your success this year .