Cultivate GREATNESS | Personal Development

Success is not a one-time act. You need to repeat one success with a second; and the second with a third … life moves forward and you need the next success to satisfy your growing expectations and desires.

You need to know how to make Success a habit.

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” ~ Earl Nightingale

Therefore, who succeeds? The only person who succeeds is the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. The person who says, “I’m going to become this”… & then begins to work toward becoming it.

Here are 8 steps to help you realize success as often as you want:

1. See yourself, as you want to be 10 years, 5 years from now. Describe how you will be at end of each year for next 5 years.

This is long-range planning and need not be done too often. Once a year is adequate. Frequently looking at and imagining the long-range future has a tendency to discourage small incremental efforts in the short-term.

The key is to start with a 10-year vision; then the 5-year and work back towards success spot for each year for next 5 years. From the start fix whether you are talking and describing the beginning or end of the year.

Do not mix the 2. If you fix on beginning as your time reference, it should remain beginning for checking status for all the time-slots: day / week / month / year.

Will you evaluate, analyze, consolidate and visualize at the beginning of the day / week / month / year or at the end? Decide this upfront and then stick to it.

I personally prefer to do it at the end so that I can start the next time-slot well prepared but everyone has his or her preferences. Select the one that you tune to but be consistent in all time-slots.

2. Write a description of the person you want to become by calendar year end: the money, health & relationships you want to have - Act the part — You are that person!

Here I want you to work from a feeling of abundance. I would like you to read & forget about the one paragraph: because if you remember what you should not do you may find yourself doing what you should not do … merely because you are focusing on not doing it!

Often you are told to evaluate where you are and then describe where you want to be … and plan how to get where you want to be. This exercise unfortunately focuses on your lack of something: it reinforces scarcity and the gap discourages you from even taking the first step forward.

What you should do is: forget about where you are today. Just describe where you want to be. Make it as wild and ambitious as possible. Think of great people who did just such ‘impossible’ things. Feel that you have already reached your goals: in the areas of money, health and relationships.

Behave, think, feel and act today in the same way that you can see yourself after having accomplished your goals. To learn what makes you tick and how you can gain the skills required to make success a habit, read the article “How to Align Your Goals for Success” and the ebook “Project Serenity - How to gain happiness and peace”

3. Establish definite goals - money, health, relationships Experience the sensation of these goals accomplished.

Whenever you sit down to define your goals remember to work from an abundance mentality. Go ahead stand at the place where you want to be, and define what you have accomplished.

These are the goals that you must plan for now in the present. This exercise will take a lot of time and practice because from childhood our minds have been tuned to work from a scarcity mind-set. Remember your own past accomplishments, remember great men who did ‘impossible’ tasks, history repeats itself: all you need is faith and confidence that you too can repeat history.

Think positive thoughts about yourself. Take total responsibility for your current position. It was your reaction and responses to circumstances that have placed you were you currently are. Learn to change your attitude if need be.

4. Look back … from the vantage spot of goals reached.
What have you done to reach that point?
List these activities. Do them.
Who has helped you reach this point?
Request their support. Do as they say.

It is a good idea to prioritize the list of activities and have no more than 3 that are mandatory for the day. In the beginning, define just ONE mandatory activity and complete it. Then move onto 2 and finally 3. In a single day, never ever plan to complete more than 3 mandatory activities.

Classify the activities into 4 Quadrants: Simplicity and Impact. Low Simplicity (i.e. complex, difficult, time-consuming) and Low Impact is Quadrant 1; High Simplicity and Low Impact is Quadrant 2; Low Simplicity and High Impact is Quadrant 3; High Simplicity and High Impact is Quadrant 4.

When you assign priorities, ensure that you give higher priority to Quadrant 4 activities and least to Quadrant 1 activities. Quadrant 2 and 3 you can categorize as you wish: I would prefer to complete the simple activities and get the benefit of even the low impact early on; therefore I would prefer Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 3 any day. But there is not much to prioritize between Quadrants 2 and 3 really.

While planning for Career Success, here are some tools that will help you create your list of activities: “7 Ways to Reach Success At Any Stage of Your Career”

5. Every day evaluate status, praise yourself; go back to step 4.

Planning activities even in the minutest details does not guarantee success. What helps you succeed is keeping track of progress, anticipating possible roadblocks, mitigating them, facing issues head on, and taking necessary corrective actions. You should re-plan every day. Whatever may be the state of your activities, you should praise yourself for at least ONE accomplishment of the day, however small it may be.

6. Every week analyze progress, reward yourself; go back to step 3.

The key to praises and rewards is to maintain a Journal of the reasons why you praised yourself daily, why you rewarded yourself every week. Go through this list and I am sure you will be able to justify the celebration recommended in the next step.

As human beings we do have our ups and downs. It is how fast and how well we recover from our downs that determines how fast we progress during our next up cycle. The Journal helps remind us of how good, how great, how unique we are and gets us through the next down phase with greater energy than before.

7. Every month consolidate, celebrate; go back to step 2

Accomplishments have a funny way of getting buried under the debris of day-to-day blunders, mishaps and existences. Celebrate with your support team, your near and dear ones.

The praises you received from others could be passed onto your support team for reinforcements. The rewards that you give yourself can also be shared with those who wish you well. However, it does not matter if you sometimes enjoy praises and rewards with yourself.

However when it comes to celebration time, it is highly recommended that you gather your support team and friends too. This has the added advantage that you recognize publicly those who have supported and helped you. Your support team meets each other and gels together … and this will help them help you better in the future.

8. Every year take a vacation, visualize; go back to step 1

Often you see things more clearly when you take one step away from the situation. You need to sharpen your axe. You need to get your reinforcements in place.

A vacation away from the nitty-gritty of your goals, your list of activities and your accomplishments is sure to rejuvenate you. Do give yourself a holiday at least once a year for at least 3 consecutive days, preferably a week.

You could do the visualization on the last lap of your vacation after you have refreshed yourself. Remember that on your return from vacation, you should complete your visualization BEFORE you start any other activity … even checking your mails can wait … especially checking your mails.

Naseem Mariam is the editor of “Management that Soars” eNewsletter & author of “Project Serenity - How to gain happiness and peace”. Her writings draw life from her 18 years experience as software Project Manager. Let her guide you towards Faster All Round Success and a Stress Free, Joyous Life. Her free ebook and Newsletter tell You How. Subscribe with projectdioxide@sendfree.com Visit her at http://www.123projectmanagement.com