How to Regularly Achieve Repeat Success
By Naseem Mariam
Success is not a one-time act. You need to repeat one
success with a second; and the second with a third … life
moves forward and you need the next success to satisfy your
growing expectations and desires.
You need to know how to make Success a habit.
"Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal."
~ Earl Nightingale
Therefore, who succeeds? The only person who succeeds is
the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal.
The person who says, "I'm going to become this"… & then
begins to work toward becoming it.
Here are 8 steps to help you realize success as often as
you want:
1. See yourself, as you want to be 10 years, 5 years from
now. Describe how you will be at end of each year for next 5 years.
This is long-range planning and need not be done too often.
Once a year is adequate. Frequently looking at and
imagining the long-range future has a tendency to
discourage small incremental efforts in the
short-term.
The key is to start with a 10-year vision; then the 5-year
and work back towards success spot for each year for next 5
years. From the start fix whether you are talking and
describing the beginning or end of the year.
Do not mix the 2. If you fix on beginning as your time
reference, it should remain beginning for checking status
for all the time-slots: day / week / month / year.
Will you evaluate, analyze, consolidate and visualize at
the beginning of the day / week / month / year or at the
end? Decide this upfront and then stick to it.
I personally prefer to do it at the end so that I can start
the next time-slot well prepared but everyone has his or
her preferences. Select the one that you tune to but be
consistent in all time-slots.
2. Write a description of the person you want to become
by calendar year end: the money, health & relationships you
want to have - Act the part -- You are that person!
Here I want you to work from a feeling of abundance. I
would like you to read & forget about the one paragraph:
because if you remember what you should not do you may find
yourself doing what you should not do … merely because you
are focusing on not doing it!
Often you are told to evaluate where you are and then
describe where you want to be … and plan how to get where
you want to be. This exercise unfortunately focuses on your
lack of something: it reinforces scarcity and the gap
discourages you from even taking the first step forward.
Read the article “How to Conquer Fear of Success”. Now
forget about this paragraph (after you read the
article:-)
What you should do is: forget about where you are today.
Just describe where you want to be. Make it as wild and
ambitious as possible. Think of great people who did just
such ‘impossible’ things. Feel that you have already
reached your goals: in the areas of money, health and
relationships.
Behave, think, feel and act today in the same way that you
can see yourself after having accomplished your goals. To
learn what makes you tick and how you can gain the skills
required to make success a habit, read the article “How to
Align Your Goals for Success” and the ebook “Project
Serenity - How to gain happiness and peace”.
3. Establish definite goals - money, health, relationships.
Experience the sensation of these goals accomplished.
Whenever you sit down to define your goals remember to work
from an abundance mentality. Go ahead stand at the place
where you want to be, and define what you have
accomplished.
These are the goals that you must plan for now in the
present. This exercise will take a lot of time and practice
because from childhood our minds have been tuned to work
from a scarcity mind-set. Remember your own past
accomplishments, remember great men who did ‘impossible’
tasks, history repeats itself: all you need is faith and
confidence that you too can repeat history.
Think positive thoughts about yourself. Take total
responsibility for your current position. It was your
reaction and responses to circumstances that have placed
you were you currently are. Learn to change your attitude
if need be. Read the article “3 Ways to Help Yourself
Towards Success” and receive the free email course "Success
comes from Within" with a mail to within@sendfree.com
4. Look back … from the vantage spot of goals reached.
What have you done to reach that point? List these
activities. Do them. Who has helped you reach this point?
Request their support. Do as they say.
It is a good idea to prioritize the list of activities and
have no more than 3 that are mandatory for the day. In the
beginning, define just ONE mandatory activity and complete
it. Then move onto 2 and finally 3. In a single day, never
ever plan to complete more than 3 mandatory activities.
Classify the activities into 4 Quadrants: Simplicity and
Impact. Low Simplicity (i.e. complex, difficult, time
consuming) and Low Impact is Quadrant 1; High Simplicity
and Low Impact is Quadrant 2; Low Simplicity and High
Impact is Quadrant 3; High Simplicity and High Impact is
Quadrant 4.
When you assign priorities, ensure that you give higher
priority to Quadrant 4 activities and least to Quadrant 1
activities. Quadrant 2 and 3 you can categorize as you
wish: I would prefer to complete the simple activities and
get the benefit of even the low impact early on; therefore
I would prefer Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 3 any day. But there
is not much to prioritize between Quadrants 2 and 3 really.
While planning for Career Success, here are some tools that
will help you create your list of activities: “7 Ways to
Reach Success At Any Stage of Your Career”.
5. Every day evaluate status, praise yourself; go to step 4
Planning activities even in the minutest details does not
guarantee success. What helps you succeed is keeping track
of progress, anticipating possible roadblocks, mitigating
them, facing issues head on, and taking necessary
corrective actions.
You should re-plan every day. Whatever may be the state of
your activities, you should praise yourself for at least
ONE accomplishment of the day, however small it may be.
6. Every week analyze progress, reward yourself; go to step 3
The key to praises and rewards is to maintain a Journal of
the reasons why you praised yourself daily, why you
rewarded yourself every week.
Go through this list and I am sure you will be able to
justify the celebration recommended in the next step.
As human beings we do have our ups and downs. It is how
fast and how well we recover from our downs that determines
how fast we progress during our next up cycle. The Journal
helps remind us of how good, how great, how unique we are
and gets us through the next down phase with greater energy
than before
7. Every month consolidate, celebrate; go to step 2
Accomplishments have a funny way of getting buried under
the debris of day-to-day blunders, mishaps and existences.
Celebrate with your support team, your near and dear ones.
The praises you received from others could be passed onto
your support team for reinforcements. The rewards that you
give yourself can also be shared with those who wish you
well. However, it does not matter if you sometimes enjoy
praises and rewards with yourself.
However when it comes to celebration time, it is highly
recommended that you gather your support team and friends
too. This has the added advantage that you recognize
publicly those who have supported and helped you. Your
support team meets each other and gels together ...
and this will help them help you better in the future.
8. Every year take a vacation, visualize; go to step 1
Often you see things more clearly when you take one step
away from the situation. You need to sharpen your axe. You
need to get your reinforcements in place.
A vacation away from the nitty-gritty of your goals, your
list of activities and your accomplishments is sure to
rejuvenate you. Do give yourself a holiday at least once a
year for at least 3 consecutive days, preferably a week.
You could do the visualization on the last lap of your
vacation after you have refreshed yourself. Remember that
on your return from vacation, you should complete your
visualization BEFORE you start any other activity … even
checking your mails can wait … especially checking your
mails.
Copyright @ 2003 Project Dioxide Consultants (P) Ltd.
Naseem Mariam is the editor of "Management that Soars"
Newsletter & author of "Project Serenity - How to gain
happiness and peace". Her writings draw life from her
18 years experience as software Project Manager. Let her
guide you towards Faster All Round Success and a Stress
Free, Joyous Life. Her free ebook and Newsletter tell You
How.
Visit her at http://www.123projectmanagement.com
Know How You
Can Be Rich
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