11 Ways to be at your Successful Best

Success to me is all about reaching my maximum potential, doing my best work, reaching my best whatever it is, earning the most money aligned to my capability, living a life full of passion, being a class act, having an impact, and never comparing myself with others. The first step towards any form of success is to define what it means to you. This is the most important step any of us will take in our lives.?

What are the elements of success? What does it take for anyone to succeed? I have come up with 11 elements which if taken care can bring you all the success you want. Here they are

Believe in yourself?– The first quality you need to develop to succeed in life is to have a strong belief in yourself. It doesn’t matter if others don’t believe in you as you can still succeed. However, if you don’t believe in yourself there is no way you can achieve. Believe there is something special within you and you can succeed in whatever you choose to do. Identify your key areas of strength and align your work to match that.

Set goals for every area of your life?– This topic has been beaten to death. However, goals do help in giving direction to your life. Every success book talks about it and there is some truth to it. Set some goals in all areas of your life like personal, career, financial, social, and contribution. This will give you a completely balanced approach to life. One example of a goal could be I run a half marathon by September 20th in 2 hr 50 min. My view has changed a bit on goals I think too much focus on the end result takes a little out of our performance. The other approach is to go all out every day maximizing your potential and if you are convinced you did your best then whatever results come your way there lies your success.

Throw your whole heart into your work?– If you don’t do what you love then love what you do. When you consider that there are many people looking for a job it should be clear that you are lucky to have a job. First, define all the things you like about your job. Mention the benefits you get from the job. Look at this daily and you will be energized. Zig Ziglar famously said to adopt the day-before-vacation attitude every workday because you get more work done on that day than any other day. Rather than trying to make your work passionate bring your passion to work which may energize you more.

Manage your time well?– Of course, we all get the same 24 hours. What you do with it will ultimately determine if you attain the success you want. First, have a list of activities to be done, choose the most important from that list, and focus only on that. After that is done go to the next priority and so on. Also, ensure you program a bit of recreation every day if possible. I have written four articles on time management which you might find useful.

A to Z of Time Management

?24 Hours — 7 Ways to be?Ultra-Productive

?10 Time Management Tips for 21st?Century

?Say No to the Experts — My Time?Management Philosophy

Have a financial plan?– I get tired of people who say money is not important. Wrong it is vitally important only if you have too much money you can say that. Money is important and so it is imperative you set a financial plan which works for you. There are so many books that have excellent information on this topic.

Read broadly?– It has been well established that when you read broadly you feel better about yourself and you are also well informed. Make sure you read all the business articles and subscribe to Inc. or Fast Company to keep abreast of the trends. You get ideas when you read that you won’t get any other way. The recent books I liked are The Wisdom of the BullFrog, The Earned Life, Hearts Touched with Fire, and The Song of Significance.

Keep up to date in your industry?– Of course, with the explosion in information, technology, and new trends we have to be on the cutting edge of learning in our chosen profession. The best part is most of the data can be found in books, blogs, and podcasts.

Love life?– You have to love life to get the most out of it. We all have faced ups and downs but ultimately viewing life as a gift will get us inspired to give our best. Our life is god’s gift to us and how we live is our gift to god. Just think about this when we wake up it is us and when we go to sleep it is us. Wherever we go there we are and while others may leave us for whatever reason we can never get away from ourselves. So in this case it makes sense to really appreciate ourselves for who we are and accept ourselves unconditionally.

Choose to be happy?– Happiness is a personal choice. I have defined my happiness project which involves accepting yourself as you are, defining your purpose, treating every day as the best day of your life, setting goals, staying grateful, and doing something you like every day. Define what will make you happy and do those activities. Check out these articles.?My Happiness Project?and?A to Z of Happiness

Develop Resilience?– Grit is the number one quality needed for success. Develop resilience by having a core set of beliefs that nothing can shake, looking for the good in every problem, replacing worry with purposeful action, having a mission statement, and constantly bouncing back from temporary setbacks. Check out my article on?10 Keys to Develop Resilience.

Never Give up?– Finally, never give up. You may be down but you are never out. Look at sports stars they lose one game but they come back to the next game renewed to fight another day. This is applicable to our lives as well. The only thing our game is every day and we can’t afford to slip too much. Check out this?7 Ways to Overcome Failure

If we adopt these 11 things we can get the most out of life. Success is within our grasp for all of us. Thanks for reading this post.

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.