How to Succeed at Everything that Matters

Everybody wants to succeed. Success, though, rarely comes easy. Nor does it happen overnight.

We often hear about overnight success stories, certain companies or individuals thrown into the limelight, having made millions from something or another. What we fail to realize, or rather the people calling them an “overnight success” fail to realize, is that there is usually a pretty substantial history building up to that success. Long hours, lots of money invested, family, goals or desires sacrificed, etc.

Sure, that “overnight” success might have come from an abnormal popularity surge, but that surge stemmed from a lot of hard work that few every truly understand.

So what helps bring success to any individual or company. Here are a few steps that, if followed, won’t guarantee success, but will position you better to achieve it.

• Set achievable goals
  What? You haven’t set any goals? You can’t reach a destination until you know where you’re going. But the key here is to make sure your goals are achievable. Sure there is nothing wrong with seemingly outrageous, long-term goals (gives you something to work towards) but we often forget to establish the shorter term goals that can be more immediately achieved. If your goal is to become a millionaire, you need to set many smaller goals that can be achieved along the way.

• Write down your plan and establish deadlines
  Putting your long- and short-term goals down on paper is essential. It’s a way of committing to them. But go even further and create deadlines for those goals to be achieved. You may not hit every deadline, but taking them seriously and doing what you can to achieve them is the only way to stay on the path that will lead to your success.

• Visualize yourself attaining your goal
  This one may sound a bit silly, but if you can visualize yourself having achieved your goals you’ll have a continual fire lit under your feet. Nothing spurs people to action as the visualizations of thoughts and dreams of having succeeded. By doing this you keep the taste of success in your mouth spurring you to do whatever you have to do to continue down that path you have established. Those that don’t visualize their success find that passion needed to achieve it has left them.

• Stay informed
  Part of the process of achieving your goals means you have to stay informed of things that are relevant to your success. Education is key, and you need to always be learning new strategies, new methods and developing new ideas that will help you achieve your goals.

• Create a climate of confidence around you
  Nothing dooms well laid out plans than listening to naysayers. Surround yourself with people that will build your confidence. In fact, it’s best to surround yourself with other successful people. They’ll encourage you and help you build the confidence you need to get through even the roughest of times. Stay confident and do what you have to in order to create an atmosphere of confidence wherever you go.

• Help others become successful
  People who are so focused on their own success neglecting the needs and wants of others often find they have a harder road to travel to achieve their goals. However, those that give and help others in their own path of success build a pool of people that will, in turn, do the same for them when they are in need. Giving and helping others is one of the most crucial aspects of becoming a successful person.

This framework for success can be applied to anything that you do, both at home or on the job or anything in between. Success isn’t really that hard, it just takes a lot of hard work. There is no magic formula but there is a great deal of planning and determination. So few succeed at what they do because they are not determined to do what it takes to succeed. But you can, if you put your mind and energy into the things that make the biggest difference.