Life is in phases, men are in sizes!
There is no doubt about the phrase because many people today see life as not being fair to them expecting manners to fall from heaven for them.
A philosopher once compared two words that look alike but they are different, “suffering” and “offering”. That is, if you want to live a suffering-free life, then you must be ready to offer something, no matter the competition.
Stanford MBA School, Professor Jeffrey Pfeiffer, in a research on success and power identified focus as one of the main factors that determines a successful person.
Sounds generic but Pfeiffer cites the example of a young LBJ turning down a lucrative oil investment because he knew, down the road, being allied with oil companies could hurt his chance at sitting in the oval office.
It is no doubt that he was thinking way ahead and making decisions aligned with his goals.
Note, most successful CEOs tend to stay in one industry and at one company because energy is not diverted and a strong base is established.
Now the question is, do you desire to live a successful life? If your answer is yes, then you must programme your mind, and hack your body to stay in a positive state, a state of action taking throughout the day.
According to Prof Pfeiffer, “One of the biggest pitfalls in the modern society is to fall in to the trap of going on autopilot, to be walking dead and do what everyone else are doing. Most of us are too busy reacting and responding to the environment and what’s happening around us. While we should act and take charge of our own world, and our own reality. We forget to stay focused and we forget about our goals.”
Action
As an entrepreneur, though not there, but my sustaining factor is creating a powerful belief system both for myself and about myself.
Ask any successful person what their number one rule for succeeding is. They all believe in themselves and what they’re doing, and they are not afraid to say it. If you don’t believe in yourself, why would anyone else?
When people ask you about your goals in life, don’t be afraid to say it out loud. If you have high goals, they might laugh and look at you funny. But if you’re insecure about your goals, you will make insecure decisions that will lead you nowhere. Go against the grain, stand out. After all, how many people in the world today are actually living the dream?
Be determined and believe in yourself. People will respect you for having the guts for going after what you truly desire.
Years back, I shared in the believe that my success can only come if I travel abroad but later, I told myself, since I have nobody who will give me millions to travel abroad and there is no job out there, then what can I do because I must not beg from friends to eat. Then I looked inward, I found where my strength lies.
The first step to living and achieving your dream is to believe it and imagine it. When you believe in your mind that you’ve already achieved your goals you will develop a sense of certainty. That certainty will lead to action steps, when you know what the outcome is going to be it’s much easier to pick out the actions that are necessary to get there.
But there is need for you to guard your day-to-day decisions because that will lead you to take the appropriate actions to reach your goals. Have a purpose with life, act according to your values, and don’t let people tell you what to do or how things should be.
When you start to make more conscious decisions, you will start to think about if this is going to take you closer to your goals or drift you further away. While you are taking the decision, you must bury your ego and get along if you want to be successful. Alliances and allies are far more likely to be beneficial on an everyday basis. Ego can be a huge enemy even when you know what the smart move is.
It is a great advantage to be able to swallow your pride and lose the battle in order to win the war.
Finally, you must write down your goals and invest in yourself. A wise man was once asked what the best possible investment someone could make. His answer was short, sweet and simple: “Invest In Yourself.”
Go get it.
It is never too late to start all over again if you are not happy about yesterday but you must submerge your ego and get along.
No matter how old you are, where you are from or what you do for a living, we all share something in common — a desire to be successful!
