I want to give you some perspective. Let’s go back to the question. Why are some people successful while other people are not? Think about it! If you look at a group of people in a high school or college graduating class, anywhere in the world, after ten or twenty years, some of these people will have created great success while eighty to ninety percent of them have not. Why? What makes the top 3%, 5%, or 10% the top 3%, 5%, 10%? Do they have a vision of the desired success? Do they believe fully that they can achieve the success? Do they believe in themselves? Do they work harder? Do they set goals? Do they create a plan to achieve those goals? Are they more persistent? Are they consistent? Are they committed to their vision? Do they fight through adversity or do they quit short of their goals? Do they strive for excellence in everything they do? The answer is they do all these things and more at a higher level.
In my experience, the biggest difference between the ultra-successful people and everyone else is their belief level. It is their level of belief in themselves, in their business, project or company. These top money earners have a clear vision that they will have success and that they deserve that level of success. Successful people expect to have success. Average people say, “I’ll give it a try and see if it works out for me.”
It is my opinion that the one area of belief above all the others is self-belief and belief that you deserve success. If you don’t believe in yourself and you don’t believe you deserve the success, your mind will never develop the plans to achieve your vision or dream of success. You have basically said to your subconscious that you don’t deserve it so you don’t believe it will happen. Your mind then says you can’t accomplish the vision and shuts down. Now you have a dream without substance. It will remain a wish or dream instead of a goal with a plan. I’m not a psychologist, but I’ve read many books on the mind and how it works. Here is a very simple explanation: everything you do, every action, every move you make, starts with a single thought. Earlier I shared this example: if your thought is “I’m hungry,” you’ll get up, go to the refrigerator and find something to eat. If your thought is, “I cannot succeed, I could never be a millionaire, I could never be promoted at my job,” you are right. Your mind, based on that negative thought “You can’t,” will never create a plan to accomplish those goals. On the other hand, if your thought is, “I will be successful. I will be a millionaire. I will get that promotion,” you are also right. Your mind will then start the process to create ideas, plans, and the action necessary, to reach the goals that you believe in and believe you deserve. In the final analysis, whatever you focus your thoughts on, your dominant thought, is what your mind will plan and create. Whether positive or negative, your mind will carry out whatever you are focusing on.
What thoughts are you focusing on?
What are your goals?
What is your vision of success professionally, financially, personally?
Are your thoughts positive or negative?
It is very important to remember that your conscious mind can only focus on one thought at a time, positive thought or negative thought. It is very important that you keep your focus on the positive side as much as possible. Think thoughts like, “I can accomplish this and I will make this happen.” Larry DiAngi, in his book Overcoming Rejection Will Make You Rich, states that we have 40,000 to 50,000 thoughts daily. Of those thoughts, for most people, 87% are negative thoughts while only 13% are positive thoughts. That means we have between 34,800 and 43,500 negative thoughts daily. That is a staggering statistic. If we change our thinking and work to think more positively, even just a little bit, it will have a huge impact on our success. Your thoughts are your choice.
Are you grateful for your job or do you hate it?
Are you grateful for the home you have or do you wish you had a better one?
Are you grateful for having a car to drive or do you despise getting in it every day?
Change your thoughts and you can change your outcome.
Another perspective I want share, prior to discussing belief and the other success principles, is taking responsibility for where you are in life. This is a must to move forward and create the success you deserve and desire. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, must understand and take responsibility for where they currently are in life. We cannot move forward without doing this. We are all right where we are supposed to be based on the choices we have made in life. Here are examples of what I’m talking about. We choose to go to college or not. We choose to work a certain job or not; we choose to stay at that job or move on somewhere else to a new job; we choose how much effort and time we put into that job to have success. Where we currently live is based on the choices we’ve made. The car we drive is also based on these choices.
Until you are ready to take full responsibility that you are where you are in life based on your choices, you cannot and will not move forward in life toward success. You can’t blame your parents; you can’t blame your teachers; you can’t blame your boss; you can’t blame your coaches. It’s all about you and the choices you have made in life. It’s not about the adversity you have faced. It is about how you choose to handle that adversity. In fact, everyone faces adversity and problems in their lives. The difference between ultra-successful people and those not as successful is how the ultra-successful people choose to handle the adversity and problems. The fact is, the more successful a person is, the more adversity they have faced and the problems are bigger that they have had to overcome.
Are you willing to take responsibility for the choices you have made in life?
Are you willing to take responsibility for where you are in life based on the choices you have made?
Are you ready and willing to make a different choice today so you can be in a better place tomorrow?
LIFE LESSONS
You must believe that success is something that everyone can achieve. We have been talking about specific success principles and laws that if followed, will produce success for anyone. How far up that ladder of success an individual goes is determined by how strongly they believe in themselves, how clear their vision of success is, how strongly they want to succeed and how hard they work at the principles of success. Some of the attributes necessary to be successful are belief, desire, work ethic, commitment, positive attitude, personal growth and seeking wisdom, taking personal responsibility, excellence, creating a plan, and taking action on that plan consistently and persistently over time.
Everyone in life has ups and downs. Everyone has trials in their lives that challenge them. Everyone has tragedy in their lives. Successful people have these ups and downs too. The difference is how successful people handle them. They don’t allow these challenges to get them off track. They stay committed to their dreams and goals. Have you ever seen someone living in the house of your dreams? Have you ever seen someone in your dream car? Have you ever seen someone living the lifestyle you want? Why is it that their dreams came true and yours haven’t? The people that are living their dreams are doing so because they have lived by proven success principles. By creating a step by step plan, they turned their dream into their reality. If they can live their dream, why can’t you?
We are where we are in life because of a series of choices. Our choices are based on our individual perspective. Perspectives can be based on where we were raised, the environment we were raised in and who we hung out with. It’s also based on our belief system in ourselves. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like someone whose father owned a company and they simply took it over; they didn’t really climb to success, they were merely handed