Sunday, July 19, 2009

what makes you a success - how to start?

In the last few weeks, I have been amazed at the amount of traffic and emails, spam, sells, contact me's etc I have received and it suddenly struck me that it seems without doubt, everyone wants to be a success.

Do you?

Exactly - who ever answers that question with a ' well I’m not sure, if I want to be successful, provide for myself and family, have loads of great friends and a really good lifestyle...aherm ...let me think about that!!! And I’ll come back to you. It also seems to me that many people who are great at MLM and marketing and selling themselves also have some fantastic programmes to tap into this natural human desire to succeed and basically sell you 'how to' packages on how you can match their number of friends, make millions and sit on a yacht by a fantastic sunset sipping a cocktail while surrounded by loving admirers ....oh and by the way you can stay sat there by getting loads of other people to do the work for you and re-sell their amazing products and lifestyle while you endorse even more of their products...... and then give great testimonials as to why and how you did it and then everyone can copy your success.....BUT, and there is still truth in the adage that nothing is really for free, it's just a pull line to get you hooked, revved up, jealous ...whatever lights your fire and gets you motivated to buy in to them.

Now, I am not in any way decrying some of the really generous, genuine people out there who really do share their knowledge and success in a meaningful way but what I am saying is DO NOT go into anything blindly without really using and answering some basic questions about yourself and what you really want in your life. It used to be that success was measured by what you had (very firmly); even when people deny they are materialistic , it is human nature to want to be in a good place and have a good life - the key is how YOU measure success and what it means to you. You can feel hugely successful in your life because you have always paid the bills, you have a steady comfortable life and a loving long term partner and great kids who love you OR it might be that you are the CEO of a global company with a fantastic retirement plan and a holiday home in a beautiful place and are on your 3rd beautiful wife who is an ex-model!

The point I am making here is that success is also relative and although we can't help ourselves, affected by outside influences and opinions.

To really get back to basics I refer back to my earlier comment of why am I doing this? what do I really want and what am I going to do to get where I want to be....it's not about the what I haven't got, what everyone else has and what I think I should have....it's all about the basic understanding of who you are and what you can do. So without waffling on further - here are some really basic questions to ask yourself before you sign up to every fantastic offering out there and set yourself up for a fall.

1. What would make me really happy? - Security? Risk? Challenge? Teach? sell? Grow? Develop? Money?

2. What do I really know about myself? - Risk taker? Implementer? Planner? Introvert? Extrovert? Decisive? Team player? Solo? Tough? Emotional?

3. What do I want to achieve? In other words what does success look like to YOU!

4. What are the key drivers in my life? Family? Friend? Position? Title? Security? Money? Emotional satisfaction?

5. What do I really love doing or feel really passionate about? Selling? Talking? Gardening? Reading? Family?

6. What skills do I have that I can use? Admin? Language? Facts? Figures? People? Creativity?

7. What skills don't I have and how/where do I get them? - Knowledge base? Who I know and what do they know? Learn new skills? Copy and expert?

This is fairly basic thought provocation, but once you have answered these you will find that you have a lot of information and will ask yourself even more questions and automatically want to search for more answers BUT at least from a base of understanding yourself and your real desires and needs to be truly happy.

I have seen so many people measure their success on 'been rich' having a great title and good position, only for them to realise when they have all that, they really just wanted to be a gardener or a writer etc and now feel trapped by all their hard work and success.

What really makes you a success is to be passionate, because once you have that fire in your belly, nothing will stop you - no matter how many knocks you get and how many failures you learn from and how many people tell you that you're barking MAD, YOU will get through it with passion and belief and as you know yourself better than anyone else...YOU know what you want and where you are going with it and your intuition will grow and YOU will succeed!

So get out there and put some real thought into who you are and what you want, don't be afraid to be you, set yourself some short, medium and long term goals, don't be afraid to ask for help or learn new skills and JUST GO FOR IT!!!

ps - By all means ask me some questions!

Tracy Sheldon

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