My 10 Principles of Success

Over the years, when you work with many successful people from all walks of life, from business to academia, and athletes to corporate executives, you observe a series of patterns that these individuals display which determines their successes.

I am not going to say that all the successful people that I have met practice all of the 10 principles I am going to introduce you to, however they would most definitely practice 6/7 of these and they directly contribute to their success.

I want to invite you to read these 10 from the perspective that if you do not practice them, ask yourself why…

If the conclusion you come to is really just an excuse and that with a little more self-reflection or change of attitude you could adopt the missing principle, it would serve you.

Now if you look at any of these 10 and you believe you do practice them, ask yourself, are you playing full out, or do you only practice them when you feel like it, or time allows?

Whatever camp you fall into, I hope you find these 10 principles a useful read and they give you some food for thought…

1. Take Total Responsibility for Your Success

No one is going to save you and nobody else is responsible for your success!?

In cases where some people have a head start, be that money, contacts, opportunities, certain environments….are they guaranteed success? No, not at all.

I am sure you know people who haven’t had that advantage and the still been very successful.?

When you adopt the mentality of total responsibility, your thinking will start to shift from why is this happening to seeing what the opportunity opening up is. Simply because you are owning both the failures and the successes.?

2. Know Your Value

Whatever your scenario, be that running your own business or in a career - know your value!

People are attracted to positive and confident people, who are humble but not arrogant.?

When you know your value, this gives you an anchor to operate from. You are able to say no with confidence and you are able to hold your own in negotiations.

You don’t need the seek outside validation, which is outside your control, it actually gives you a sense of peace within yourself which you can operate from.

One if the best ways to understand your value is to ask 3-5 people, whose opinion you hold in high regard, whom you trust and who you know well enough to to know they will tell you the truth and not just to make you feel good!?

3. Create Non-Negotiable Habits that Serve You

We all have habits, some will serve you, some don’t.?

Successful people have non-negotiable habits that serve them.

The ‘good’ ones could include, keeping fit, eating healthily, a morning and/or bedtime routine, me-time, education, self-reflection.

The not so good ones could be, drinking too much alcohol, eating too much processed food, smoking, not getting enough sleep, and consistently being late for things.?

Now the key here is for YOU to decide what habits that you have, if they serve you to be successful and make them non-negotiable.?

A habit is a settled behaviour and the more you have that serve you, the better for you in the short. medium and long run.

When you start a new habit that serves you, it's important to note that the results will not be instant. Whatever you choose to adopt, embrace the notion of delayed gratification.

4. Take Action To Develop Clarity

One of the best ways to gain clarity around any activity is to take action.

Some of you may believe you’re not ready to take action, maybe that you need more preparation, some of you may feel you’re not in the right frame of mind, some of you may feel that you need to have a plan.

All of those reasons are valid. However, do not underestimate the power of taking action to develop your clarity.?

Because when you take action one of three things occur:

• You either get a result you want or expect
• You get a result you don’t want or don’t expect
• You get a miracle as something completely unexpected occurs!

Now that you have new evidence, this gives you more clarity to take the next action…

5. Be Consistent & Persistent

It’s easy for anyone to take action once or twice, the key to success is in being consistent and persistent.

The reason why many people aren’t consistently or persistent is because they’re either looking for instant results or the original reason for them taking the action is not clear, you then get disheartened with the (lack of) progress you are making.

It is important to remember this,? if you never give up if you’re consistent and persistent you won’t fail.?

Now failure is not a problem. The key here though is, as you take action and be consistent you may fail at certain things but as I mentioned in the previous principle, about taking action to develop clarity with that failure you are now in a better position to be consistent with your actions.?

6. Take Care of Your Physical Well Being

Health is wealth, and when you look after your physical wellbeing it makes everything else easier.

If you are operating from an empty cup or your tank is empty, it is very hard to serve the people around you.

We are never going to have a life without problems. The key here is to have problems that are worthy of you.

The more successful you are, you'll have different problems or challenges lets say, so it’s important that you keep the physical wellbeing of your body as healthy as possible.?

You can get away with this maybe at certain ages or times in your life, but we’re not immortal, looking after your body allows you to look after everything else.?

7. Have An Open Mind

Having an open mind is crucial to success.

I’m not sure what having a closed mind really achieves. However, I would concede having an open mind with parameters is the way forward.

This goes back to some of the principles I’ve talked already talked about, know your value, taking responsibility for your success, taking care of your well being and taking action.?

Have an open mind, be pragmatic but ambitious so you don’t miss opportunities, you then embrace more challenges.

Also, consider this, there are things that you know,? there are things that you know you don’t know, and there are many things you don’t know you don’t know.?

8. Lean into Uncomfortable Situations

You are always going to encounter uncomfortable situations, irrespective of how successful you are now or you aim to be. The key is to lean into those uncomfortable situations and not react but respond.

Lean in with the right mindset, lean in with the appropriate actions and lean in with the right strategy. Do not repel an uncomfortable situation, it might scare you, it might make you feel very uncomfortable but when you lean into these types of situations it only makes you stronger.??

You realise that actually the fear you are feeling around that situation may not necessarily be genuine and more often than not, you’ll probably be surprised of how you can handle that situation.

9. Be Patient and Prolific

When you are patient you give yourself the grace of space. Being patient does not mean you should not be prolific. Be patient for the results but be prolific in your actions.??

When you’re prolific you’re constantly looking at the outcome, use those outcomes to test to measure new actions and never standstill.

Sometimes being too patient can mean you’re not as active as you could be, the principal here is to be detached from the outcome. So when you take lots of action in some outcomes you will have success, some outcomes you won’t.?

Trust the process, be patient, be prolific and allow the success you deserve to come to you.

10. Know What Success Looks Like for You.?

If you don’t know what your personal success looks like, how do you know when you get there??

Know what success looks like for you, be that financially, the position you want in your life, or a set achievements you want accomplish.

Be so clear that when you describe it to someone else they understand what success looks like for. You are able to articulate it in tangible terms,? are you able to demonstrate it on the court.?

When you know what a success looks like for you,? it’s much easier, then, to reverse engineer the steps you need to take and create your roadmap to your success.

There are many principles of success, but these 10 for me have what consistently turned up when working with other successful people and also looking at how I can be more successful.?

I would love to know which of these you already practice, which of these you think you need to practice more and which of these you don’t practice but would like to take on.

I look forward to seeing your success.?.

To understand in what areas you need to change your game, take The Change Your Game Scorecard here.

Change Your Game Scorecard