Dude, You’ve Succeeded Before . . . What Makes You Think You’ll Fail Now?

The only way you have achieved any success you have had in your life is by making commitments. When you make a commitment to anyone, including yourself, you have set your goal, and you can then start achieving it.

I am sure you, just like everyone else, have many different successes to date—maybe you have gotten a degree, started your own business, just got a raise, or wrote a book. Many different people have different views on what is successful and what is not—for some, success is raising a wonderful child or making a 15-layer chocolate cake; for others, it is completing a 20-story apartment building or flying around the world in a hot air balloon!

It is not important how others view your successes; what is important is that you view them as successes and know how you succeeded. Of the people I work with as a trainer in the health and fitness industry, 99.9 percent have succeeded in the past. Only about 10 percent consciously know they have. If you can recognize and point out your successes, you will be wildly successful.

I was working with a client who needed to lose a substantial amount of weight—about 80 pounds. She was a young and motivated business owner who started her own private practice in her mid-twenties—a real strong young woman. Her challenge was that she was afraid of starting to lose the weight because she thought she was going to fail. Sound familiar? Just about everyone can understand this at some level in fitness or in business. So I had her list her past successes in her workbook.

Surprisingly (not to me, but to her), since high school, she has been a success at everything she has done. There was not a year unaccounted for that she was not successful in something that she started. I pointed this pattern out, and she recognized it. Then I asked her, “You’ve been a success since high school, so what makes you think that you’re going to fail now? You haven’t failed at anything in 8 years!”

She understood.

Too many times, we can base our emotions and feelings on unfounded principles. What have you thought that you could not do before but then realized you were just making your own roadblocks?

Your past success can be the framework for your future success. Why? Because with each past success you have had, there have been ups and downs, times you wished you could quit and times you felt great. When you look at what you have done before, you can use that as a reference point for what you are doing now or a present goal.

Here is an example.

My college graduation was a big deal for me. I label it as one of my big successes. In those four years, there were times I wanted to quit, there were times when I had a blast, and then there were times when I questioned what I was doing in school in the first place.

Each one of those things I felt along the way toward graduation was all part of the larger picture or goal, which was the college diploma I received when I finished or accomplished my goal.

You see, every path to reach a goal is different because different things and emotions and circumstances come up when you are striving to achieve it.

But listen to this . . .

Every path to reach a goal is similar because the same types of things, emotions, and circumstances come up when you are striving to achieve it.

On the path to reaching any goal, everyone feels doubt, excitement, fear, and questioning. It is natural. So when you think about reaching your goals, you have to build in the structure—or know that these things will happen and that you can overcome them easily.

That is why looking at your own past successes is so important. By taking a past framework or structure of a goal that you achieved, you can actually see the times that you wavered, and when you waver while you are attempting this new and present goal, you will not get too discouraged because it is part of the process.

I apply my past success in college to many things. When I set a goal to run a race and two months before the race, I do not feel like I want to continue training, I will just think about the time I finished college and that there were plenty of times that I did not want to go to class anymore. Eventually, I got back on track in college, and with the knowledge of that, I know that eventually, I will get back on track with my training schedule and run the race that I set my sights on.

How can you apply this to your success? Think about what you have succeeded in and write down examples. It can be in business, with your family, with your personal finances, and so on. Break down each into a timeline, and highlight the high and low points. You will be surprised at how many difficulties you had that you did not remember.

You then can use this structure to be assured that you will continue to succeed in the future because you understand the anatomy of the path toward any goal.

** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life”, visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/greatways3.html