10 Steps for Achieving Success

In this article, I would like to share with you my “10 Steps for Achieving Success”. It is your attitude and your willingness to do these things that will determine whether you succeed or fail.

Goals are important because they will help keep track of your progress, and they will allow you to adapt to the ever changing world we live in. Facebook and Twitter were not around 5 years ago, and their quick rise to fame only reinforces our need to change and adapt with the market. I predict that within the next 5 years, newer more advanced tools will allow the human population to interact even easier and more dynamically. You can either choose to run and hide from change, or you can embrace it. Either way, you will control it or it will control you.

One of the great things about goal setting is that it will provide you a sense of direction. It will give you the necessary strength you need, in order to handle any setbacks you face. By learning to effectively set goals you will become more confident. By working toward your goals, you will raise your self-esteem and self-respect. As you move forward toward accomplishing your goals, they will give you a tremendous feeling of personal pride and accomplishment.

Before starting your goal setting journey, I always encourage people to determine their main purpose in life. It is this one goal that you want to accomplish more than any other goal. This is the goal that you desire with a burning intensity and that you absolutely want to achieve.

When you determine your main purpose, it will become your mission, you will find it to be a driving force in your life and all that you do. In order for it to be effective your main purpose must be clear, specific and measurable. It must be time bounded and committed to paper. It must be accompanied by a plan to achieve it. It should be the central focus and key measure of most of your activity. Once you start moving forward towards your main purpose, you whole life will begin to change.

1 - Determine what you want in life

This sometime is the hardest step for most people, and thus one of the major reasons people fail. The ability to clearly define what you want can be very challenging because of our innate belief that we are not good enough or that we don’t deserve to be successful.

Take a moment, and determine how much you want to earn? What kind of home you want to live in? What kind of car you want to drive? What kind of activities you want to be involved with? What about your health, kids, school, friends, etc.?

Be clear in setting your goals. 80% of your success hinges on how clear your goals are. The clearer and more specific your goals are, the better. If you don’t know what your goals are, make a note to call me after you finish reading this article.

2 - Write your goals down on paper

Don’t laugh at the power of visualization, and take the time to write you goals down in clear, specific and measurable terms. Writing down your goals takes them out of your imagination and crystallizes them into the physical world. It takes them from being a wish to a place where you can see them and touch them. By writing down your goals you instantly jump into the top 10% of all people. If you would rather stay with the 90%, please stop reading!

Writing down goals combined with daily action towards achieving them, works virtually without fail. It unlocks your potential and subconscious mind in order to see and recognize opportunities in all areas of your life. Even though this works so well, it’s very difficult to get the average person to sit down and decide what it is he or she really wants in their life. The average person will spend more time planning a trip to the grocery store or a family vacation than they will spend on planning their life.

3 - Set a deadline

The subconscious mind responds very well to clear specific deadlines. Setting a deadline deepens and intensifies your desire to achieve that goal and it will increase your belief that you can accomplish your goal. This is why credit cards and utility bills have due dates, they create an urgency to accomplish a specific task.

When faced with big goals, I encourage you to break it down into smaller goals. For example break a one year goal into 6 months, 3 months, 1 month or even 1 week time-line. This will also make it easier for you to accomplish your specific goals and it will provide you with a very detailed plan of what you need to do right now to reach the next step of your goal.

On the other hand creating a deadline will force your subconscious mind towards your goal, and in turn develop your motivation and drive. Deadlines also seem to attract the people and resources into your life that you need to accomplish your goal. This happens because once you have set a deadline your subconscious mind will gravitate towards accomplishing your goals.

So what happens if you miss a deadline? Simple, get back on your feet and set another deadline! There’s no such thing as unrealistic goal, only unrealistic deadlines. A deadline is really just a guess based on current knowledge. If your knowledge changes to a point where you need to change a deadline do so, but don’t give up on the goal.

The primary reason people don’t set goals is due to a fear of failure. They are afraid that they will feel bad about themselves if they don’t reach their goals. Remember that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

4- Identify your roadblocks

Identify the obstacles that stand between you and your goals, most specifically those roadblocks that stand between you and your main purpose. Ask yourself, “Why you have not reached your goals already?”

Determine what actions you need to change in order to achieve your goals. What stops most people from achieving their goals, is their endless excuses. I was tired, there was a baseball game on TV, I need a day off, your ability to sacrifice the comfortable couch for success will determine if you make it to step 5. If this ever happens to you, revise your main purpose, because it probably wasn’t strong enough to sustain your daily actions.

We believe that 80% of the reason you are NOT achieving your goals is contained in yourself some way. What is going on around you is what is holding you back? Once you figure this out, you must focus all of your strength and energy on removing that key point. Many times by removing the number one roadblock, you can do more to help move yourself forward than any other single activity. Whenever you can identify a major obstacle or roadblock, you must face it head on and take control of it.

5 - Identify your skills

Keep asking yourself, “Why am I not at my goal already?” Determine what skills you need to achieve your goals; there is always something that is holding you back. Make sure you constantly search for the missing piece of the puzzle.
What is the one skill you developed and did it consistently enough that would have the greatest positive impact on your business? If you don’t know the answer, ask your mentor or coach directly. You must find this out; it’s the key to acceleration, leverage and multiplication. In order to achieve a goal you have never achieved before you have to apply a skill or ability you never had before.

The good news is that if someone before you has learned and become excellent at this skill, you can too. Believe in the fact that no one is better than you and nobody is smarter than you. If someone is more successful, than they simply worked at it longer than you have.

6 - Identify your resources

You can achieve the little goals by yourself but it takes teamwork to achieve the really big ones. Make a list of all the people in your life (friends, family, coworkers, people with special skills, etc.) that can either help you or hinder you in the attainment of your objective. Once you have that list organize it by priority.

You have probably heard the saying, “The devil is in the details.” The most successful people in this world are those who are the most meticulous and careful about the details in their lives. They tend to think on paper. They check and double-check everything. They leave absolutely nothing to chance. The Average Joe on the other hand believes in luck, they are too lazy to write things down, they continually forget their purpose, and miss countless opportunities as a result of it. Inspiration can flash though our mind daily and if we fail to record them they can easily be forgotten.

Once you have created a list of people who can help you, think about how you can help them in advance to gain their support. Everyone needs a reason to do something. Most people only respond to one question, “What’s in it for me?” What benefit will the people who help you receive for doing so?

7 - Make a plan.

Create a plan to accomplish your goal based on the first 6 steps you have already learned. List every detail you can think of. Keep adding to your plan and continue working until your plan is complete. This will take some time but once complete you will have created a powerful tool for your own success.

Now take the time to prioritize your plan, by importance and relevance. The most important steps should be completed first and so forth. You must first remove all your major obstacles, and then gain the skills and knowledge you need followed by the other more specific tasks.

A person with a plan and goal will run circles around someone without one. Someone that knows what they want writes it down and makes a plan to accomplish it. A person, who focuses on a plan, is a stronger and a far more successful person than someone who is vague or unsure.

8 - Take action

Taking action is perhaps the most identifiable quality of highly successful people. Action is critical for the success of your plan. It’s vital to do something every day that moves you closer to your goal.

Develop the momentum principle of success. The momentum principle of success simply states that although it may take a tremendous amount of energy to get started toward a goal, once in motion it takes much less energy to keep moving. If you stop completely it takes a massive amount of energy to get going again. This is why all successful people are action oriented – constantly moving toward their goals. It’s also why you should be actively working toward your goal on a daily basis.

9 - Visualize your goals

Imagine what your life will be like once you accomplish your goals. Your mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what imagination is.

Taking the necessary steps to imagine your goals as accomplished will allow your subconscious mind the ability to recognize and attract all the resources you need to make your goal a reality. Your mind tries with all its might to make your words and actions consistent with your clearly imagined goal. The more real or vivid your visualization, the better or more effectively this works.

Believing in yourself and believing in the power of goal setting, is what will allow you to achieve success in your personal life.

10 - Never QUIT

Make a decision right now that you will never give up on your goals and mostly importantly, your main purpose.
The one key ingredient that separates the 10% from the 90% is their never ending burning desire to never give up, especially when the going gets rough and trust me it will.

There are a lot of misconceptions and get rich quick promises in the market today, as a result, many people quit before realizing their true expectations. Only those that are determined to succeed, and those who refuse to give up will win in the end. For it’s this same determination that will lead you to discover what it really takes to succeed.