There are twelve necessary elements involved to achieve success:
1. Take time each day for reflection, contemplation, meditation, stillness, and silence. Focus on self-awareness.
Since everything that exists arises from infinity, you must be intimate with infinity in order to have what you want. Meditation connects you with the larger aspects of yourself and also with the divine.
Learn to meditate and then develop the discipline to do it daily; make it a habit, like brushing your teeth.
Contemplation of one’s inner self and the outer world will lead to wisdom.
2. Get in control of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual body.
Stop allowing other people, your culture, events, or circumstances to take you on yourself. You are you. You own yourself. Take the control.
Think what you want. Feel how you want. Believe in what you decide is best for you.
Create your own ideals. Define your own purpose. So, live that purpose.
3. Develop a strong self image. Learn to love yourself.
Know yourself. You are an exceptional individual. You are unique in the entire universe. You are special. You are sacred.
Know who you are and then love who you are.
Self-love is not self-centeredness; it is simply the recognition of its sacredness.
4. Think for yourself. Get out of mass consciousness. Use your creative imagination.
Look around. If you want to be average, to be the norm, think like everyone else. If you want more out of life, learn to think for yourself.
Don’t let your culture become your cult. Schedule yourself.
5. Set your goals. Create your own game plan. WRITE IT.
Write down your goals. Define them. Affirm them.
If you can’t make a plan, then you could also plan to fail.
Let’s take a look at some research from two college studies on written goals. The results will amaze you and hopefully convince you to start writing your own goals now.
In 1984, a follow-up study was conducted on the 1964 class of Harvard Business School. All members of the class declared that they had, upon graduation, clear goals to accomplish in life.
Only 5% of the class of 1964 had taken the time to write down their goals. 95% of this group had achieved those written goals 20 years later.
Of the 95% who did not bother to write their goals in 1964, only 5% had achieved their expected goals.
Even Harvard graduates are only successful when they plan to be successful and then commit their plans to writing.
The Harvard study was preceded by an earlier study by Yale University.
This study found that only 3% of the graduating class of 1953 had written goals.
Twenty years later, in 1973, this 3% of Yale graduates had accomplished more than the other 97% combined.
Set your ideals, clarify your goals, and then write them down. Take them with you. Check them frequently. Map your progress. Plan to be successful.
6. Do whatever it takes. Develop self-discipline.
Become your own disciple. Don’t get distracted or too lazy to do what it takes to achieve your goal.
Develop the discipline to be what you need to be, do what you need to do to have what you want to have.
7. Be helpful. Think win / win. Find a way to create success or happiness for others.
People succeed by giving others what they want. “Find a need or want and then fill it” is an old business truism. Examine your own ideals.
Are there others who have the same wishes?
Find a way to give others what is in tune with your shared ideals and you will prosper.
8. Educate yourself, then use, apply what you know. Applied knowledge is power.
Be wise. Apply what you learn to your life.
Many people know the secrets of happiness and success but do not apply them and are confused by the lack of harmony in their lives.
9. Be visionary. Thinking ahead. Use the past. Live the moment.
Create the future. Use your imagination. Become a visionary.
Turn off your television and turn on your inner vision.
Learn from the successes of others. Learn from the failures of others.
Everything you see was created in the past. Use the past but don’t let it use you.
Live fully in this present moment. Imagine your ideal future. Make it real.
10. Use your time wisely. Live a balanced life. Be, do, have.
Remember to take time to play.
It stimulates the functioning of both halves of your brain so that your mind can inhabit and function in a larger space. Plan, rehearse, and then execute.
Don’t just spend all your time doing without first being.
Frenzied activity is the sign of those who choose to work hard rather than be smart.
They are those who spend as much time thinking and thinking as doing, those for whom “work is play” are the ones who succeed.
11. Speak your truth. Live your word. Say what you want to say, say what you say.
Above average people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and below average people talk about other people.
Talk about your truth, your ideals, what you want to see manifested.
Don’t spend too much time talking about what is already manifest, what already exists. That makes you average. Let other people live their lives. Don’t waste time talking about them.
They may advise you not to talk about yourself. Do not listen. It’s bad advice. Always speak, first of all, your own truth. Otherwise, you will end up living in someone else’s.
12. Enjoy the ride. Be here now. Be in the present moment. Be a spiritual being.
Happiness does not come tomorrow with sunrise.
It is only available now in each present moment.
Slow down enough to enjoy this moment and each of the following will bring its own reward. Be grateful for everything you have in the here and now. You will end up having more to be thankful for in the next moment.
Develop that attitude of gratitude.