When you think of success, do you envision money, a big house, and a fancy luxury car? Those items are great, sure, but what about a deeper sense of success – a success beyond your wildest dreams?
What actually makes up success?
Success is a personal definition. For some folks, it’s lots of money, and for others, it’s fulfillment and for others it’s freedom. Some people want to live in a mansion overlooking the ocean, while others want to live in a cottage by the lake or down at the farm.
Bottom line – success is what you say it is.
I tell service providers and freelancers that every single day. You define your own success. Want to know something even more powerful? Success is even what you say it isn’t. You get in your own way.
Let’s start with defining your own success. Here are a few tips on how to define what success is to you and only you…
What’s your why? We all have a vision of what success looks like to us. However, taking this notion one step further, ask yourself some key questions. What is your why is the first question. Why do you want to achieve this particular success?
Dig deep down and quietly meditate on your true calling, passion and purpose. Everyone has one and it’s only a matter of time before you are one of millions asking yourself, “Is there something more than this?”
What is the why behind your success? Do you wish to reach thousands of people and make a difference? Do you wish to help hundreds solve a problem you have experience with? Do you value freedom over material objects and items? Start getting in touch with your why.
What’s the most important thing to you? Do you value financial freedom, being of service, freedom to come and go as you please, the ability to create a flexible schedule which works for you and your family?
Once you get in touch with your why, your core need and desire will become to come to light. If you have a driving need to be your own boss or a passionate purpose to help others beyond your wildest dreams, this will come to light as well. Once you know your why, your core desire will come to the surface.
What actions steps do you need to take, and what does it look like to make it come to life? Once you’ve done the work to uncover your own definition of success, what your why is, and what’s the most important thing to you, it’s time to take a trip outside of your head and beyond your comfort zone into the world of action. While it’s nice to get inside your head and get in touch with your why and your what, it’s even more important to get in touch with the how. How will you make it happen?
We all want to be successful, but we self-sabotage. The minute we feel we are close to success, we make excuses, we run back to our comfort zone, we fear success or believe subconsciously we don’t deserve success.
We get comfortable in our comfort zone. We make excuses instead of making changes. We back slide and then feel guilty and miserable. We allow life to get in the way. Sometimes we are not aware of our own blocks because we live in a busy world with busy minds.
Let’s take a look at several categories of life and success scenarios for each…
Personal Success
We say we don’t have time, but the truth is we don’t make time. Have you ever noticed if there’s something you truly wanted to do, you find the time to do it? Even if means taking a sick day and doing nothing once in a while.
Choose one goal at a time – we all have the habit of getting overzealous in our personal goals and start out wanting to lose weight, diet and exercise, clean out clutter, take a class, earn a certificate, etc., and then we spiral out of control and fail at all of the above.
Worse than this, we stop trying because we climbed too high, too fast and fell way too short. Start with smaller goals. It’s almost like a no-fail system. It’s a win/win. Start with one goal – even the type A personalities out there can do this. By starting with one goal and one goal only, you have no place to go but up.
Talking to too many different people will only leave you vulnerable, especially when it comes to personal goals. Other people don’t want to leave their comfort zone and they want you to stay there with them as well. Spend small increments of time each day and set the timer. Spend 30 minutes one day and 15 minutes another researching your new personal goal and stop there.
Pick one person you trust to talk to about your fears, excitement and concerns.
Pick an action step for the week and stick to it. Get an accountability partner you will have to report to.
Continue to reward yourself as you go along and reach these milestones.
Slowly begin to incorporate this new goal into your life through small, actionable and measurable steps.
Acknowledge the success you are feeling on a small scale as time goes on. Don’t rush and don’t get ahead of yourself. Notice you are gaining momentum on your goal. It’s not bigger than you. It’s actually happening in smaller increments. Begin to get excited, and it will show. Power tip – the more you get excited about what you are doing, the more inspired you will feel and the more momentum you will create.
Career Success
Career goals may be a little easier to achieve than personal goals. When it comes to personal goals, you get up inside your head and you think or feel too much. It’s easier to set career goals and detach from them in a colder more logical way of thinking.
Examine and explore which area of your career is not working.
Ask yourself what your end goal is – do you want to retire earlier, work fewer hours, or have more power? What is your end goal?
Once you have discovered your end goal, start creating a plan of action.
• Pick five action steps, beginning with the smallest.
• Record them on paper.
Take one small action step per day for a set amount of time. Let’s use an example of three weeks. Take one small action step per day for three weeks to get closer to the second action step.
Continue using this model until all five action steps are completed and you have arrived at your career goal.
Financial Success
Money is probably one of the biggest blocks for most people. Money has so much power to control us – if we let it. Here are a few action steps to take around having success in the area of finances:
What’s your story? We all have stories around money. It’s your job to uncover your story. Do you believe you’re not good enough to make that kind of money or do you believe only greedy people have and receive money? Do you tell yourself a story that only people who are better, smarter or more worthy will have money? Define your story.
Once you uncover your negative money story and self-sabotaging habits surrounding money, you can now write your own brand new story.
Start practicing positive affirmations around money.
- I can have more money flow easily into my life and for positive reasons.
- I can create abundance.
- I feel so excited about the abundance of money coming my way.
- Financial prosperity is possible in life if you get help from people that are professionals in the field, continue reading.
Practice these daily, several times a day, visualize on them and meditate on them if you truly want financial abundance and of course, make sure to check the SoFi website if you want to get more financial advice. It’s not a work harder/make more scenario. It’s about being in ease and in flow.
What is prosperity?
Have you ever looked at somebody and wondered to yourself how they did it? Lots of people feel the same way about others who are successful. We tend to look at others and think they are lucky or they get all the breaks or their husband/wife/parent made it happen or they come from money.
When it comes to prosperity, it is vital to understand you don’t wait for prosperity and abundance to come to you. You create it.
Choose an area in your life where you want more prosperity. Is it in your career, your financial status, credit card debt or savings and retirement?
Prosperity is a mindset
Once you understand prosperity is a mindset, the rest will flow. Prosperity is not something that happens to you. It is something you make happen. Change your mindset around prosperity.
Your subconscious mind is solely responsible for all of your habits, even your prosperity habits. In order to tap into the power and leverage of the subconscious mind, you will need to work on creating new mindset habits.
Positive thoughts create prosperity. Your subconscious mind only knows its past history. All the stories, the negativity, and the events are ingrained in your subconscious mind.
If you allow your subconscious mind to rule the roost, you will see the same habits and the same trends without much change. Begin to reprogram your conscious mind with positive thoughts and, over time, this practice will show you how quickly and easily you can create prosperity and success into your life.
Take on the practice of positive thinking. You don’t necessarily have to make things up if you are not at that stage, however, you should take on the practice of what is working as compared to what is not. The more you focus on what is well in your world, the more enhanced wonderful things will appear and magnify in your life.
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If you want to find success and pursue your life purpose, you need to:
• Get out of your head and into your heart. Sometimes we all suffer from what is known as analysis/paralysis. We think too much and we don’t drop down into our own hearts.
• Take time to be quiet and sit still. Whether you go to the beach or the boardwalk or the park, you need to schedule time in to be quiet. As odd as it may sound, scheduling time to be quiet will actually help you to get into the process of being quiet anywhere, anytime randomly. When you sit still and get quiet, you can actually hear a little better than you normally do when there is so much noise in your head.
• Take notes. Take time to journal your thoughts and feelings on paper. When you journal, you don’t have to worry about filters. You don’t have to worry about what people will say, respond or how they think. Write your private thoughts, dreams, desires and wishes for your life purpose down on paper.
• Get clear. Once you take on the practice of getting quiet and being still, you now have the opportunity to get clear. To clear your mind of the clutter. To make clear goals. Taking notes is a great way to get clear. Once you get clear, it’s time to take some of those action steps as previously mentioned.
• Make a declaration. Once you are clear, start declaring your life purpose. Make positive and happy statements about how excited you are about pursuing your life purpose. Keep it simple, don’t elaborate and allow people to ask their questions.
• You don’t have to have all the answers. When you don’t have the answers, don’t doubt yourself, just simply be open to finding the answers. Keep declaring your passion and purpose anyhow. The answers will come in time.
Your Goals: How to Achieve Them Once and for All
- Action steps. No goal is achieved without this first important step. It is vital you get out of your head and into your heart and then into action. Without small, measurable action steps, your success remains nothing but a story.
- Small steps and bite size pieces. It is important not to get over zealous with your goals and do not take on too many at the same time. Stick with one goal, one set of actionable and measurable goals.
- Having an accountability partner. There’s nothing like a best friend who tells you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it. Having an accountability partner is one of the best ways to keep yourself in line and in check. There’s no greater or worse feeling than having to tell somebody you did or did not do something you were supposed to.
- Holding yourself accountable. check in with yourself every once in a while. Make certain you ask yourself the hard questions and tell yourself the truth about why you didn’t do something. Don’t make yourself wrong and allow yourself to feel what you feel and then take the necessary action step to correct it. Keep practicing.
- Learn how to take on self-discipline. Understand it takes practice and don’t beat yourself up. Just keep practicing. The more you practice the art of self-discipline, the more easily it will come to you.
- Positive self talk. Success is a good thing, and you deserve good things. In order to achieve success in all areas of your life, it’s important to watch the self talk. The better you talk to yourself, the better you’ll feel and the more prosperity you will experience in all areas of your life. Picture it this way – would you talk to your best friend the way you speak to yourself sometimes? Often times, the answer is no. Be kind to yourself in words.
Build the Success Momentum
Once you’ve got these skills, habits and mindsets in order, it’s time to keep up the momentum.
The biggest mistake, when it comes to momentum, is that people start too big and fall short. Allow enthusiasm and passion to fuel your momentum rather than let all the action take responsibility for keeping up momentum.
Nothing fuels momentum more than excitement. Find something every day toward your goal that makes you feel excited. When you are excited, you create your own momentum.
Create a plan – once you have the underlying feelings, you’ll begin to notice momentum building up speed, however, you need to reign in that momentum otherwise you might get overzealous. You may find yourself veering off into several other ideas and creative endeavors. Create a plan of action as to where that momentum will carry you so it doesn’t carry you away.
Believe in yourself – above and beyond all things, belief in yourself is key. Tune out the voices and opinions of others.
Failure is your friend – Understand the definition of failure – failure is not taking action, not taking chances and not taking risks.
Create a Reward System That Works for You
Allow yourself to treat yourself every time you achieve a goal. It doesn’t have to be big, but something that will make a connection in your brain that achieving goals reaps rewards.
Tell others about it your success. Don’t allow them to put you down or minimize your achievement. Whenever you reach a small goal, don’t be afraid to boast about it.
Keep a journal. Every time you have a success write it down. Every time you have a failure look at your journal and see exactly what you are made of and where you can change a habit.
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The Art of Visualizing and Manifesting
• Allowing the problem to sit for a while. When you think about a problem for too long it becomes bigger and more unmanageable. Journal the problem if that helps you.
• Let go of finding a solution. The quicker you let go of finding a solution, the sooner it pops into your mind. Did you ever look for something and can’t find it, but then the minute you stop looking, you find it? Same concept.
• Pick an uplifting vibe and stick with it. Get enthusiastic about how excited you are that your dream will come true.
• Know your goal, and name it. Be enthusiastic about your specific goal.
• Think about the end and not how you will get there and you will begin to manifest at the speed of light.
• Visualize daily. Notice more positive things than negative.
• Face your fears in small doses, then let them go as you realize you survived each and every thing you were afraid of.
Train your brain to have positive associations with things like money or work.
Pay attention to your thoughts – you have the power of choice.
Choose which emotion you want to associate success with – is it fear of failure or is it joy, happiness and fulfillment?
Create Success Habits
- No setting unachievable goals. Use SMART goals.
- Small steps/one new habit at a time until that one is in place.
- Write it all down and include the steps you will take to achieve each new habit.
- Celebrate success both personally and with others.
- Take a look at habits and what hasn’t worked for you, so that you can figure out a new strategy for what does. Everyone is different, it can take some testing to find your own thing.
- Make a decision. If it doesn’t work, simply make a new one, don’t beat yourself up over it.
- Always be in action and in momentum don’t sit in analyzing for too long. Keep moving.
- Delegate.
- Learn how to say no.
- Kick procrastination to the curb. Reward yourself for every goal achieved no matter how small, especially for the small ones.
Setting SMART Goals and Adjusting as You See Progress
Specific,
Measurable,
Actionable,
Realistic, and
Time bound.
These five points combined should fit each of your goals if you want to see actual results and success. The more specific you can be, the better. You definitely need a way to measure your progress throughout the year. You need to be able to identify and take actionable steps immediately, today.
Being realistic makes it a lot easier to reach the goal. This is why resolutions often fail, because people don’t set realistic expectations for themselves. And make it time bound, give yourself a deadline, whether that’s by the end of the year or by July, or by March 29th… pick a date for each goal you want to achieve.
You most certainly can retrain your brain to think positive and create new momentum building habits. It just takes practice. The more you practice, the easier it will become. With these tips, practices, and goal-setting techniques, you’ll be learning to think and aim big, and you’ll be achieving those goals easier than you thought was possible.
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