Our beliefs determine what we want and what we do when we don't get what we want. If you have limiting beliefs like, 'It's too difficult', 'I'm too young', 'it's not possible', 'I am not a good speaker', it is highly unlikely that you will set inspiring goals in the first place. If you don't have empowering beliefs, you will not set goals for yourself. And nobody can set goals for you either.
Similarly, limiting beliefs about yourself and the situation will make you 'give up' rather than change your strategy and take action until you succeed.
If you believe that you don't have the capability or that 'it is too difficult', then you are more likely to quit than change your strategy and take action until you succeed. So an empowering set of beliefs is truly one of the keys you need to punch in, to set the rest of the formula in motion.
The second key that drives the success are our values or what we hold dear to us, and live by. Values are like emotional hot buttons that drive our behavior. They are what we value as important in our lives.
All of us regard values like 'success', 'freedom', 'security', 'love' and 'happiness' very differently. And it is the way we internally rank these values that determine the kinds of choices we make, and the actions we take.
Some people are driven towards reaching their goals because of their need to feel secure. Others may be driven by a different value, like freedom. 'I want to earn enough to be free' (free from want, free to walk out of a boring job) is an often-heard goal.
The important thing is that whatever our values are, they must be aligned with our goals. The main reason why most people never feel driven towards their goals is because their values are not aligned, their values may even be in conflict with their goals.
I once had a student (a young mother) who could never feel consistently motivated towards her goals of achieving her sales targets. It was later that it dawned on her that her goals and values were in direct conflict. She valued 'family' but as a professional, she also valued 'success'. This internal conflict drained a lot of her energy, and held her back. She wanted to achieve her career goals but she felt guilty whenever the pursuit of her goal prevented her from spending time with her family.
Successful have empowering beliefs that they can achieve what they set out to do and they ensure they align their values with their goals. If you want to become successful, develop empowering beliefs and align your values because if you don't, there is almost no chance that success will knock on your door.
Embrace Success
First of all, you must embrace success.
This may seem strange. As much as you want success, a part of you might fear that success may cause you too much pain. What kind of pain might this be? You might lose the support of your peer group. Birds of a feather do flock together. You could be getting subtle hints that your friends would feel jealous or hurt if you become more successful than they.
If it should be the case, the first thing you need to do is be aware of what they are doing. Awareness give you a choice. You can agree with their discouraging comments or reject them. However, this wastes your energy. Better to hang around people who are positive and encourage your success. Although leaving old friends, even if they are negative, can cause you some immediate discomfort.
Positive Self-Image
The second key is a positive self-image.
This includes not only believing in yourself, but liking yourself. This is vital. Believing in yourself gives you high motivation and conveys credibility to other's like nothing else can. Others will not like you anymore than you like yourself. If you don't like yourself, people may feel sorry for you and console you, which is different from liking you. If you genuinely like yourself, you become irresistibly attractive.
Furthermore, your success is tied to your self-esteem.
If you think of yourself as a five, on a scale of 1 to 10, your success level will hover around the number five mark. If you're performing below a five, you will feel uncomfortable and do what it takes to succeed at least up to that level. If you are performing above five, this will be incongruent with your self-image and you will unconsciously do something to sabotage that success. It might be something as simple as getting lazy and not working, or you might start making serious mistakes. That's called self-sabotage.
Self-Confidence
Lastly, you need to develop self-confidence.
When you are self-confident you are naturally motivated to do things. You have high self-esteem and will achieve more.
You can improve your self-confidence. Hang out with supportive people. People who have a positive outlook and are optimistic. They dwell on your strengths and encourage your efforts.
Avoid unsupportive people who will "ding" you. It is easy to spot people who are outright critical and maybe even hostile to you. Hopefully, you automatically avoid this type. However, there are subtle detractors. They may cut your self-esteem with a raised eyebrow or snicker. Or when you do something that deserves some praise, they remain silent. I call this kind of behavior "dinging." It's like when you drive your shiny automobile over a dry gravel road. Another car may drive by throwing tiny stones and ding the surface of your car.
When you cannot avoid people who ding you, simply be aware of and laugh at their game. They are trying to make themselves feel good by making you not OK. While they have the power of making you not OK with them, only you have the power of making yourself not OK with yourself.
Self-confidence is something you create moment by moment. Self-confidence is not something you have. You create self-confidence when you think about your successes or anticipate a successful outcome. Dwelling on your successes is a good habit to get into. There also are mind programming techniques with which you can create self-confidence instantly. These techniques are taught by Neuro Linguistic Programming, Tony Robbins.
Summary
Ultimately, the success of your business rests on you.
To build a life and the business of your dreams, you have to have a solid foundation. You need to build these three cornerstones: full acceptance of being a success, a positive self image, and the ability to be supremely self-confident whenever the need arises.
Copyright (c) 2007 Stan the Mann
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Both Adam Khoo & Stan The Mann are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Adam Khoo has sinced written about articles on various topics from Recreation and Sports, Web Development and Computers and The Internet. Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, best-selling author and a self-made millionaire by the age of 26. Discover his million dollar secrets and claim your FREE audio CD program