The level of your achievement will be heavily dependent upon the people you surround yourself with. If you hang out with people who are negative about you or your ambitions, the chances of success are minimal. But if you surround yourself with positive, encouraging and supporting people – success is much more likely.
Don’t get me wrong – you still have to put in the hours, learn and improve your knowledge and skills and do the work, but then the possibilities are endless. Go ahead and dream – set yourself goals that are inspiring to you personally. If you’re going to dream, you may as well dream big! And if you’re going to set goals, set big goals! Tell people your goals and focus your time with the people who think your goals are fantastic, who make good suggestions and encourage you to move forward.
Learn to know yourself. Recognise times when you are motivated and when you are not. What creates those different feelings? Create self-awareness so that you know if you start feeling less enthusiastic and take action to get back on track. There are lots of things you can do to generate a positive feeling, here are a few ideas, try some and pick the ones that work for you:
- Read positive and practical books that are relevant
- Read blogs by successful and motivating people
- Join local business groups that will help motivate and educate you
- Mentor someone who is at an earlier stage of learning than you
- Write your own blog to pass on what you’re learning
- Take regular exercise – whatever you enjoy
- Find ‘buddies’ to provide mutual help and encouragement
- Make and keep a list of all the things you’re grateful for
- Focus on only the things you can make a difference to
- Create a “dream board” with pictures representing what you want to be, do and have in your life
- Create a “bucket list” of 100 things you want to be, do and have. Plan to achieve one per quarter. Each time you tick one off, add a new one
- Listen to audio books from wise people – Jim Rohn, Stephen Covey, etc
- Set about learning something new every month so that you’re continually getting better at planning, executing, communicating and improving
- Plan where you want to be in 5 years time, then plan what you need to do to start over the next 90 days
The list could go on. Now think: How many of these things do you regularly and consistently do at present? If the answer is “not many”, are you ready to make a change in your life? Whatever you’ve achieved so far in your life is not an indicator of what you can achieve in the future – the future is entirely down to what you make it, starting today.
