How to behave for success
Many times I hear people describing success as "the world smiling at your efforts." Although this statement may be true, it waters down the amount of effort invested to make the world smile in the first place. She is not easily impressed in case you were not aware!
There is more to success than just the world smiling at you.
The world does not just smile at you out of the blue. It takes some effort (some times a lot of it too) on
your part first to crank up the beam.
You have to genuinely smile first at the
world first for it to reciprocate the gesture.
As you should already by aware, the phrase ‘genuinely smile’
is a metaphor to represent an inherent genuineness in your approach to your
business, life, relationships, projects… etc.
Pay attention now..
Success starts from within. Your behavior,
mindset, mentality has to project success for success to notice, locate and
smile back at you.
Now, here is a list of behaviours that lead to success once they are nurtured;
- Work towards a
solution, NOT around a solution
I remember doing an experimental research thesis back in
university. My technical supervisor would always discourage me from invoking the ‘trial and error’ whenever I was experimentally trying to prove my thesis.
“Work towards a solution, Not around a solution,” she would
say.
I was stubborn, as you could have guessed, because I feared to
commit. I feared to commit because I was not 100% certain a positive answer would come out. No one had done the experiment before.
“What if I commit and then find out that I took the wrong
route or chose a dead end?” Is the question I would silently ask myself,
feeding my resistance.
But I soon figured out that what she proposed was actually
beneficial on a vast scale. Because when you fully commit to do something and
put all your body, mind and soul into it, you will learn deep and valuable
lessons you might have never learnt whilst living in fear of exploration.
"In a world of innovation there is no such thing as a wrong answer," she would tell me.
"Its either you succeed or you would have successfully proven that a particular method does not work even if the theory supports it"
It soon dawned on me that my perception was in the wrong place all along.
Instead of focusing on my goals and letting them drive my progress, I had let fear of failure and fear of the unknown take both the driver and passenger seats while I hid in the back seat.
Commitment to your goals does not only enrich you with knowledge and lessons, you open new avenues which
you could use in the future or in the event that your initial plan was a dead
end.
An even bigger lesson was that there is always a way to do
something.... anything. My supervisor knew this and so encouraged me to commit, because only
when your back is against the wall will you find a way of drilling a hole into
the seemingly impenetrable wall.
A man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore – Myles Munroe
So the first behavior to gear yourself for success is to COMMIT. Never let the fear of failure discourage you
from venturing into your dream. Tackle the bull by its horns.
Dive into the pool of opportunity body, mind and soul.
Do
not just deep your finger to test for
temperature and other suitable conditions because the conditions will NEVER be
suitable, you will always find something that will pour fear into you and
paralyse your ability to act.
COMMIT, COMMIT,
COMMIT!!
2. Clearly define your
agenda
One mistake many people make before taking off on a journey
towards success is that they set a blurry agenda.
Ultimate goals are not set
and targets are not clearly drawn and labeled. All they know when they take off
is that at the end of the day they “want to make money, lots and lots of it.”
But without a set goal or target upon which you intend to build your empire you end up skipping from one gig to the next because
of the failure to commit and build on your sprouting goal.
This way,
whatever has the slightest resemblance to your 'plans' becomes the ideal
solution, even it is a huge distance under par to what you should have
achieved.
Instead of developing and settling on your own spring of
income, you move around with a cup from one fountain to another, temporarily
quenching your thirst.
If
possible, write down exactly what you want to achieve before undertaking each
task. Make a list of all your objectives, aims and the ultimate goal. Clearly mark out your bull's-eye and take your best swing at it.
This will
help you know exactly where you are going after you commit. Its pointless to
dive into the ocean without a specific target because the very first shore you
come across will appear like the best resort.
The problem with a blurry agenda is that you will tend to
settle for less. Anything within your radar becomes acceptable and ideal. But
then, why settle for half a plateful when a buffet is right within your reach?
3. Fall, learn and rise
Commitment comes with its fair share of troubles. If the
road were a smooth one, everyone would be an accomplished being and there would
have been no need of this post and neither would you or anyone else been
reading this article.
However, the truth of the matter is that once you learn
to commit to a target, you are bound to take a few falls and bruises. Now, the
critical behavior for success is the ability to rise up after every fall and
continuing.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall - Confucius
But simply rising after a fall is not enough. You have to
learn from every fall so that when you rise you are wiser and stronger.
Otherwise you will only rise so that you can fall again and again until the
challenges break your spirit.
In fact;
It is better to fall and never rise than it is to fall and
rise without having learnt anything from your fall.
This is because the consequence of not taking lessons will
inflict deeper and sometimes irreparable damage to self esteem. And need you
know, success can never run on an empty tank of self esteem and belief.
RELATED Article: How to build self confidence
4. Plan and always have
a strategy
In as much as every journey needs a map, every road trip
towards success also requires a blueprint.
Assuming all your goals and agenda
are already clearly defined, you must have at least an idea of how you will get
to your intended destination.
No one ever drives a car pointlessly in the hope that they
will end up reaching their desired destination without a map of knowledge of
the city. When in new territory, everyone keeps a map at hand. The same should
be done for your goals, career, objectives and vision.
Many times people tend not to realize their success
potential not because they don’t deserve it or lack the necessary requirements
but only because they never plan for it. If you cannot start planning on
building a multi-million dollar firm or project, then there is a very good chance you
will never see it come to reality.
Success is not a fairy tale dream I’m afraid, where everything just goes right for the sake of a happy ever after. Success is a
sequence of planned events that take shape when implemented under a fair amount
of commitment, hard work, learning and sound strategy.
On several occasions, commitment and hard work are
implemented in the absence of strategy and the results may painfully not end up
being the desired ones. That is why in this world we have so many hard working
people and dedicated individuals whose lives always surprise you when you hear
that they have not really hit the ground running with respect to their own
projects. That is because strategy is a critical aspect of success.
Not only should you be hard working, but you must have a
perfect balance of patience and timing. If you cannot be patient, you can make
mistakes that will nullify your hard work. At the same time, perfect timing is key.
You must know exactly when and when not to implement your plans.
There is
always a window of opportunity or time frame in which your plans will get make
the most impact when implemented. At the same time, when timing is poor, the
exact same plans may seem irrelevant and useless.
You should also know when to attack, defend, play possum and
sometimes you even have to retreat so that you can attack. It is a combination
of these delicate little things in unison that make a good strategist.
There is just sooo much to talk about when it comes to strategy that we might easily get
Many
strategists have made a comfortable living not by starting their own
multi-million dollar companies but just by moving the right pieces in-between
other companies or the stock exchange market at the perfect time.
These critical nitty-gritties such as perfect timing,
patience, planned offence, tactical defence, planning, calculating etc… all
fall under strategy. When you have a plan and you invest hard work and sound
strategy into it, you become closer to being unstoppable.
It does not end here! Click the link below to get more success behaviours for your armoury:)
It does not end here! Click the link below to get more success behaviours for your armoury:)
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