Ten Crucial Principles for Success
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Posted by Jimmie Burroughs- Email this article to a friend
Succeeding at anything requires lots of efforts and usually a lot of skill and knowledge. These 10 guidelines can give you the extra boost that might just be the difference between success and failure. Precision thinking requires precise action; the following is an action guide for helping you to succeed in business or in life, but you must take action:
- Set Goals that are beyond what you know you can accomplish.
- Never settle for mediocrity; aspire for the best.
- Be in control of your life and your future instead of allowing others to decide for you.
- Take action on what you know and continue to learn.
- Be consistent; a little action each day mounts to a lot over time.
- Be positive, and as Dale Carnegie once said, “Don’t complain, condemn or criticize.”
- Be a giver, not a taker, and design your life to help others.
- Enthusiasm is contagious and will do more to motivate others than anything you say.
- Be a hard worker and never a slacker.
- Be teachable and learn to teach others.
Set Goals that are beyond what you know you can accomplish.
Goal setting is an absolute for success; otherwise how are you going to know where you want to go; it is like having a road map when you start on a journey. Set your goals beyond what you know you can accomplish; this creates some incentive to reach them. Using good sense in your goal setting is the essence. Goals that are extreme cause discouragement when not reached, so plan challenging goals but keep them within reason. Keep your goals before you so they will be fresh on your mind when you commence each day. Be sure to write them down and from time to time, and review then and update them as needed. My old drill sergeant used to say, if you do not have a target, you shoot in the mud. Do not waste time shooting in the mud, set some targets and shoot at them.
Never settle for mediocrity; aspire for the best.
If you are content with mediocrity, you are never going to excel. People who excel make it their goal and are not pleased until they reach it. People who excel at anything work very hard at it; it just does not happen by accident. Gifted people still need to work and practice to develop their gift. Musicians practice their skill for hours on end. Athletes work very hard to be able to perform as they do.
Be in control of your life and your future instead of allowing others to decide for you.
The difference between the person who is content with just a job and those who dream to be successful entrepreneurs is they take their future in their own hands; they are not content with someone else setting all the rules and making the plans for their daily lives. I do not mean to seem opposed to working for someone else. In some instances, success comes through that venue. However, for many people, their best success comes by how skilful of an entrepreneur they become. Rich, successful people, in general, are the ones who are in business for themselves.
Take action on what you know and continue to learn.
Do not wait until you think you know everything about something to take action. Take action on things as you learn them. I started building websites a few years ago and have been learning and implementing as I go. If I had waited until I thought I knew it all, I still would not have started.
Be consistent; a little action each day mounts to a lot over time.
The Bible is a very big book. In fact, it is a book of 66 books. If written on standard thickness paper, they would fill a library. For several years, I have read the Bible through each year. If you consider how little ground you cover each day by just reading a few chapters, it can be discouraging. I read three or four chapters of the Bible each day; however compared to the massiveness of the Bible, it seems like little is accomplished. Nevertheless, all I have to do is be consistent, and by December, I will be finished the entire Bible. That is how big jobs are accomplished; just a little each day consistently. Here is a suggestion: Go to the library and check out a book that parallels your interests and read a chapter or two a day. Before long, the book will be finished, and you will be ready for the next book. Education requires consistent study and accumulates just a dribble at a time over time.
Be positive, and as Dale Carnegie once said, “Don’t complain, condemn or criticize.”
Successful people as a rule are positive people. Complaining, condemning and criticizing are for losers. It is annoying and very non-productive, yet most of us do those things at least sometimes. It does take time to break the habit, but when you do, it will free you and make you about 100% more attractive.
Be a giver, not a taker, and design your life to help others.
Let us face it we live in a world of takers who are interested in #1 most of the time. When we break out of that mold, we realize the gratification and joy of helping others and gaining a valuable key to becoming successful. Most successful people have learned as Napoleon Hill said in his book, “Think and grow rich” that helping others to get what they want and need is a way to grow rich.
Be enthusiastic; it is contagious and will do more to motivate others than anything you say.
Nothing gains the attention of others like enthusiasm; not your appearance or what you say. How you say something is far more significant than what you say. The literal meaning of enthusiasm is “God in you”. God is the most positive force in the universe. The greatest enthusiasm comes when a person truly has God in them. This only happens when we have a personal relationship with God.
Be a hard worker and never a slacker.
Most people are lazy when it comes to do things they do not want to do. That is why it is important to choose what you want to do in life rather than letting life make the choice for you. The best time to do this is when you are young, single, and don’t yet have the responsibilities of raising a family that can imprison you in a job you don’t want to do; not that it can’t be done later on when you do have responsibilities. I did not know what I wanted to do until long after I had a wife and children. It is just much harder then. Doing what we enjoy makes it easy not to be lazy. Sure, you can be lazy about some things, but when it comes to your success, it is going to take a lot of hard work.
Be teachable and learn to teach others.
The “know it all” will always be ignorant because they have fooled themselves into believing they already know. Not one soul on this earth has more than a fraction of the knowledge now available, let alone the knowledge that is still un-discovered. Gaining knowledge is a life long journey; it never ends. I started college like a know it all and graduated realizing how little I know compared to all there is to know. Un-teachable, know it all people are by their own ignorance destined always to be ignorant.
Teaching others and forming a network is like cloning yourself. Instead of just two hands and one brain, you can have many. No one person can accomplish near the things that a network of people can when united in reaching a goal that benefits all involved.
About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is a motivational speaker and author who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Development for more than 30 years. There are hundreds of articles to help you on this website (Website Contents) in your personal growth.
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