Keys to success (2)

Be flexible in the approach to achiev­ing your goals. So notice exactly what is working for you; and notice what is not. Change your approach in some way – you will need to brain­storm various approaches – then continue to observe. By contin­ually changing your approach and finding what works and what does not, you will literally become unstoppable.

If you really want success, in whatever field of endeavour you are pursuing, you can have it – yes you CAN! But you need to be prepared to work for it – to do whatever it takes. Finding out and then doing whatever it takes is the quality of flexibility.

FAITH

Faith is the acceptance of principles which are not necessar­ily demonstrable; faith is also the strong belief in something without proof or evidence.

There will be many people who will tell you that you will never, or simply cannot, achieve your dream. They are the 80 per cent of people who once had a dream but have now settled for something less. They are the children who once stood in line at school, believ­ing they would one-day become pilots, doctors, engineers, soldiers, pastors, politicians, air-hostesses and so on.

But their experience of life gradually ground them down; and their dreams were reluctantly put away. Those dreams still live some­where, deep down within their hearts, but they no longer believe that they are achievable.

First, their parents worked on them: questioning their abilities, doubting their chances and telling them that they once had the same dreams. Their parents told them they needed to grow-up, be more responsible and life would work out just great.

Then their teachers worked on them: saying that we all have such ambitions, but in the real-world, you needed a trade, a job, a career – and that life had so very few of these exciting opportunities. They ingrained the attitude of the ‘scar­city mentality’ into their charges – rather than the ‘abundance men­tality’. They told these children that there just was not enough good stuff to go around.

Finally, their friends worked on them as they also settled for the jobs on offer, they questioned: what was so wrong with being a salesperson, a plumber, a secretary or a bricklayer? The world needed these trades-people and there was nothing wrong with making an honest living by providing these services. That was how, gradually, their beliefs about the world were changed – they no longer believed that it would be possible to reach the heights they had once dreamed of – and they made the decision to settle for less; much less.

After all this negative condition­ing, many people had their dream literally strangled out of them. And when you are once again ready to pursue what is in your heart, you need to be aware that you are still not immune to this negative conditioning: there will still be very many people ready to tell you why what you are now doing, or about to do, is hopeless.

If your thoughts are positive, affirmative and full of faith, then they are transformational. You become literally changed and therefore better able to achieve your purpose – the goal that other people do not think you can possi­bly achieve.

That is why you need faith – a deep-down belief that, regardless of the evidence, you are going to make it. You are going to achieve what you have set out to accom­plish. You are going to make a difference in this life.

THANKFULNESS

Thankfulness is a virtue and a dynamic – activates the Law of Attraction; thankfulness is also a positive emotion involving a feel­ing of indebtedness.

Attitude affects so many things in life. Salespeople are told to maintain a positive mental attitude because it ultimately affects their sales, sports-people are told to cul­tivate a winner’s attitude because it affects their performance. The laws of success tell us to cultivate a grateful attitude but why should THANKFULNESS affect our success?

It may be difficult, at first, to see exactly how thankfulness, or gratitude, can be such an important key to your success, but by seeking to maintain an ‘attitude of grati­tude’ you are indeed tapping into the timeless laws of success.

Thankfulness is fundamentally related to positivity and negativity. It is so much easier to be positive about your life and the things that are going on in it right now when you are grateful. As A. W. Tozer once commented, “a thankful heart cannot be cynical.”

The workplace is full of people who are cynical – ready to run the company down, run the boss down and run the industry down; and do you know something, they can, and do, actually produce the evidence that supports their beliefs. Such people are also employing the laws of success; but by talking about what they do not like, they are using the principles to attract what they do not want. Their reality simply reinforces their views about the company, the boss, the industry and whatever else has been the subject of their negativity.

On the other hand, having an attitude of gratitude impacts your countenance and your general out­look on life; and people generally will prefer to work with happy, cheerful, grateful people than miserable, down-cast, merchants of doom and gloom. As a con­sequence, truly grateful people, literally attract opportunities that others miss or even possibly repel.

Thankfulness is an attitude and an important key to success. It is an attitude we all need to learn to acquire – particularly when we feel we are in difficult circumstances. So learn to be grateful.

PASSION

Passion is the strong, enthusi­astic devotion to a cause, ideal, or goal; passion is also your heart’s one true desire or the deepest desire of your heart.

It is impossible to think about passion without reference to the heart. Deep within your heart, there is a desire, the pursuit of which will bring you all the hap­piness, success and fulfilment you really want. To find your passion is to identify your own unique purpose in life; to live your passion is to achieve the “Deepest Desire of Your Heart.”

You can achieve whatever you want. You can be the person you were meant to be; and you can really live the life of your dreams. Those are bold statements but they are true; and more and more peo­ple are discovering this wonderful truth for themselves. But if this is indeed true, then why is it that so many people are pursuing jobs and careers they do not really care about?

For our parents and grand-par­ents, growing up in a world with comparatively few opportunities, it is true to say that their lives were consumed with the whole business of ‘making a living’ – looking after what Abraham Maslow called their physiological and social needs. They worked hard and never really enjoyed the luxury of considering what might be termed the ‘higher needs’ of the human condition.

Many people in today’s work­place are indeed seeking to reach higher and often people think they have reached their peak when they have started to meet their ‘esteem’ needs, that is, the basic human need for respect, recognition and responsibility. For many people, this means pursuing an interesting career; rather than just getting a job.

However, for very many people, there is still an inner emptiness. Often, this emptiness is experi­enced more starkly when they have actually become successful in their chosen careers. They start to wonder exactly what life has been about. The trappings of success: promotion, automobile, house did not bring about the happiness they anticipated. This is a consequence, as Stephen Covey puts it, of climbing the ladder of success only to find when they reach the top that, all along, the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall.

To really achieve success in life, you must be bold enough to go even higher: to consider what Maslow called. SELF ACTUALI­SATION. This means becoming the person you were meant to be; and living the life you were meant to live. Only by doing this, can you possibly hope to find the true success you really desire?

BY SAM ADDAIH (RTD)