Turn These Three Unfortunate Recipes for Failure into Potent Secrets of Success

This is an abbreviated version of an article from the success roadmap posted earlier to selfgrowth.com.

Just about everyone longs to create more success both in life and in business. The drive to be all we can be and feel fully alive is commendable. Unfortunately, in our passion to have an excellent life, many of us get sidetracked by inadvertently becoming the victims of some enticing formulas for failure instead of relying on tested keys for success.

The issue, then, is "How can you stay away from the plight of those who are unprepared?" By taking your future in your own hands, as you are doing right now. And the easiest path to follow is in the shadow of individuals who have achieved what you want to achieve.

Three Common Blueprints for Failure and Potent Secrets of Success

1. A strategy of working harder, rather than smarter.

This is part of seeking the safety of the crowd. Most of us were taught to set our sights on a steady job with health insurance and some kind of retirement package. It is becoming decreasingly likely that this will happen and even more unlikely to be satisfying. Most employees now find themselves working extra hours and extra jobs just to get by.

If you want to create a genuinely awesome life, you have to work smarter. Put an end to herd thinking. To create different results, you have to do things differently. And if you look for the truth, you’ll see that working smarter means you can earn more while working much less.

2. Waiting for the ideal opportunity.

If you ask people when they intend to start doing the things they truly desire with their lives, the typical response comes in the form of a hazy reference to that perfect time someplace in the future.

You might have noticed that the perfect time never comes. The only time you have is the present. Opportunity, as they say, may only knock once. The fact that you’re reading this indicates that opportunity is at your door now. The key is to grab it and don’t let it slip out of your hands.

3. Groping blindly in the dark.

You are the creator of your life. If you don’t have a clear vision of what you desire in life, how can you possibly create success?

So form a clear picture of where you are heading and what life is going to be like when you get there. Set your focus on your goals. Have a picture of your brightest possible future in the forefront of your awareness on a daily basis and see how your life begins to transform.

With this image of a bright future in your thoughts, you can venture forth and make it become a reality. If you are realizing your purpose in life, enjoying the things that create the greatest sense of aliveness and give life meaning, giving up is not an option. Many truly successful people point out that the primary key to their success is that they didn't stop moving forward even when everyone around them quit.

The ones who succeed are those who keep going. Continue to take steps in direction of your dreams. It makes no difference how small these steps may be if you’re continuing forward. You may be astonished to find that even a small adjustment in your course turns into a significant shift over time. And the time to commit to your dream is now.




By  Jean Wolff

How to Feel More Successful In Life

Every day you accomplish tasks, meet goals, check things off your to-do list, and become more successful in life. You continuously work towards having the life that you want, and everything you do is one step towards that life. But if you are anything like me you don’t feel successful every single day of your life – even though you’ve accomplished a lot in your days.

Feeling like a failure is habit-forming. We constantly focus on the things that we don’t do, or don’t succeed at in life, and we call ourselves failures because of these things. The truth is we have many more successes in life than failures but we choose to put our attention on the things we didn’t get done.

I’m not just talking about huge things that we are striving to be successful at in our lives. I’m also talking about the little things that we do every day that affect how we feel about ourselves.

Let’s say you are a business man who is trying to further his career and lose weight as well. Here’s an example of a typical day:

• Drive to work with no accidents.
• Accomplish all the tasks set out to do.
• Exercise 1 hour.
• Make an important phone call.
• Send an important email.
• Learn something new.
• Eat really crappy food the entire day.

The list above contains a lot of successes throughout the day, and one failure in the eyes of someone trying to lose weight or eat healthier. What do you think he most likely focuses on at the end of the day? His focus will probably turn to the fact that he ate really crappy food all day and take over the spotlight from the rest of his successes during the day.

This is what many people do, and it’s hard to feel successful when you focus on your failures. But there is a way to feel more successful in your life! Put the majority of your focus on your successes!

You can do this by reminding yourself every night of the successes you had during the day instead of the failure, and build on those successful endeavours for future success.

One way to do this is by keep a success journal. Every night before you go to bed write down at least 5 things that you succeeded at during the day. This will be personal to you but it can range from brushing your teeth to landing the big account! Anything that furthered you in your life, made you feel better, made you do better, and pushed you forward is a success.

Write down your success, why you felt is was a success, how you can add-on to that success, and your next action to take towards that success.

For example:

Success – Made an important phone call

Reason – Built a new relationship with an important person.

Further progress – Keep in contact with that person.

Next action – Arrange a lunch meeting for next Thursday with this new contact.

Making a habit of doing a success journal nightly will allow you to see that there are many things that you do during the day that you are successful at and it will stop you from focusing on your failures. It will also make you more successful during your day because you will be actively looking for things to do that you feel are a success and can write down later in your journal. And lastly the ‘next action’ step will keep you moving forward by scheduling in action orientated moves that build on your successes.

But remember that even failures are successes because you learn something from them. You can take what you learned and apply it to your next day. You probably realize that you don’t feel good eating crappy food and remember that lesson for the next day, so even the realization of your failure becomes a success!

Stop kicking yourself about things you didn’t do before your head hits the pillow and start focusing on your successes. Your health, happiness, and life will thank you.




By  Kari Farmer

Herd Mentality

Booths featuring products and services related to employee engagement, mobile learning, global performance, and results measurement were overflowing with conference attendees as I walked the trade show at a national conference where I was speaking. Just a few years ago the magnets were initiatives like total quality management, six sigma, diversity, work-life-balance, and customer driven.

Every few years there are band wagons of "solutions" for the ills troubling companies, with contingents of experts ready to sell the latest "fix" to eager herd-minded buyers. Reinforced by trade and business magazines featuring successful company examples of this "new" thinking, they're gobbled up like chocolate chip cookies in a kindergarten. It's interesting that started-but-failed initiatives aren't highlighted, or the long-term impact of unintended consequences scrutinized for what these flavor-of-the year programs elicit.

If generational differences are the headlines now filling business magazines, then you'd better start addressing them, right? If work-balance is unbalanced and hijacking your employees' morale, it's time to hire a consultant, right? Maybe. But what if "balance" is as illusive a concept as happiness, needing to be defined and managed by the individual not some company entity? Or it's a buzz-word for deeper issues undermining effectiveness in the workplace? What then?

The solution to these and other organizational issues is not herd thinking. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one to dismiss ideas or thought leaders who shift our collective perspective. Nor am I quick to ignore technological changes that make innovative communication more productive and efficient for businesses and individuals. And I'm certainly not suggesting that well-founded and sustained initiatives are not important for businesses or industries or bottom-line results. They are.

But the tag-along herd approach of throwing the latest program or consultant or technology at a problem, or cloning the practices of "best companies" for your department or organization can do more damage than good if these same initiatives are the wrong fit, or sit dormant after launch collecting dust on a shelf in management offices, only to be replaced with the latest, hottest, next thing that ignites a "gotta have it - gotta do it - this is the answer" mentality.

Herd-following fails when the behavior accountability for what is introduced is not linked to bottom line results, or integrated into workplace practices with rampant, sustained, patient focus.

The answers to complex problems that plague your business are usually not band wagon solutions. More often than not, people problems result when what leaders say and what they do are not in alignment.

If you introduce a new program as an important company initiative, but relegate it to HR or training or customer support to champion, instead of making it an accountable strategic objective, don't be surprised when it's as successful as those motivational posters hanging on bulletin boards.
If budget tightening happens when sales plummet, but you award yourself a bonus before freezing the salary of your staff, don't be surprised when discretionary efforts and innovative ideas get frozen, too. When you treat employees as one-size-fits-all interchangeable parts, don't be surprised when they treat customers that way. And when scathing emails from top leaders feel like parental tirades, don't be surprised if they're answered with sandbox antics.

You see, you can buy the latest social-networking interface for collaborative staff work, or the best learning programs for staff growth and development, or even the most innovative gadgets for staying connected, and you can even provide a stellar menu-driven employee benefit plan, but if you're missing the foundational pieces of credibility, trust, and respect with your staff, you're missing the ingredients needed for any sustainable and successful initiative. Want a winning organization? Start there. 




By Nan Russell