1. Define what success means to you
Is it just having enough money or more money than you might ever need that allows you to feel and judge yourself a success? Is it about having a beautiful house worth more than $2,000,000 on the upper east side of Manhattan? Is it about having a loving partner who supports you in your endeavors? Do you equally support each other? Is it through the tertiary education roadmap that you only feel valid you can make a meaningful and successful contribution to help the world economy turn? Is that your definition of success or is it someone else’s? Maybe your mom’s or your dad’s? When her daughter Christina found her on the floor of her office, in a pool of blood having hit her head and breaking her cheekbone as she fell, CEO of Thrive Global and celebrated author of Thrive, Ariana Huffington had a wake-up call in more ways than one.((HuffPost: Arianna Huffington Talks About How She Defines Success)) The exhaustion and overwhelming stress which had led to her fainting drove Huffington to radically introduce new work ethics, values and rules at the editorial. Ten years on from her accident, Huffington still leads the conversational charge amongst global leaders to change the badge of honor that successful people need to work 24/7, and give everything of themselves and more, even it means compromising their health. As opposed to letting power and money be the two measurements of success, she explains wisdom, well-being, wonder and giving will give you greater success by nurturing your psychological well-being. We can’t argue with Huffington that without that, we are proverbially dead in the water. Warren Buffet stated the way he defines success nowadays has nothing to do with money:“I measure success by how many people love me”.You can’t but fall in love with the wisdom and nobility these words seem to reflect, but keeping it as your only definition of success is probably dangerous. Lacking today’s wisdom at 20 years of age, would Buffet have had the same definition of success? Think about where you are on your journey. You are likely to have different goals and different measures of success as you navigate your roadmap. Huffington and Buffet explain non-tangible ideas of success are crucial for our overall success. Let’s also not forget though that through tenacity, persistence and many other success habits, these business leaders also rate extremely high on the power and money metrics. However, that’s not all there is to it. If you are not sure how you would answer if someone asked you what your definition of success is, here are some clues to get you thinking and feeling. As your head hits the pillow and before you close your eyes, what’s most important is that you can internalize that you have chosen your definition of success and you can full responsibility and accountability for deciding upon it.
2. Review your progress and satisfaction across different areas of your life
Review the main areas of your life. Not just those where you feel you need to make changes. Review all of them:- Your career vocation or business life;
- Your relationships – your intimate or life partner, family and friends;
- Money health and financial management strategies;
- Commitment to your faith or religion and spiritual personal development;
- Your physical and mental health;
- How satisfied or content with this area of my life am I presently?
- Where would I like to live this current level of contentment to?
- What would that new level of satisfaction look like, feel like?
- How important is this area compared with the other areas of my life?
3. Get to know your values and priorities to gain further clarity on what you want
Don’t make the mistake of thinking goal setting can be done in one sitting. You want to make sure the pursuits you put down on paper aren’t fly-by-night moments of excitement that ebb and flow with the rise and fall of tidal trends. Become better at identifying your priorities by exploring how you feel about each of your life areas. Think about the ratings of satisfaction you might have denoted for each. And now write down what you want to be, do and have. Put aside your initial literary ramblings and revisit them in a couple of weeks or one month. Without looking at your initial thoughts, do the process again and see what consistencies show up. What keeps coming up as feeling important? Around what ideas is there the same yearning or emotional pull? If you’re unsure about what you feel you wish to head towards, be in allowance of this. Don’t be jumping to quickly fill the void. The desperation is likely to have you catching the tail of the last exciting concept in fear of missing out, or trying to fill the void of excitement you yearn for. Increase your practice of pausing and asking yourself: Why does this resonate with me? Could this be a distraction which complicates the route I have mapped out? Am I becoming that person who proverbially chases two rabbits and catches none? In his book The Heart of Love, Dr. John Demartini explains how becoming strongly aware of your values and priorities helps you understand why you are and where you are in your life at any given moment. If you don’t know what you feel you stand for, look at where you direct your time, energy and attention. Look at your behavior and work backward. You might think making money and creating financial wealth is high on your radar. However, if you spend more than you earn and allocate money to depreciating objects as opposed to appreciating assets, your behavior is inconsistent with those typical of someone who is financially astute. Look back to your areas of life and ask yourself if the goals you have set are in alignment with your values. Look at your daily behaviors and ask yourself if the way you operate satisfies steps which take you further toward those goals. If not, all is not lost. You’ve simply got some harsh truths and reality checks to face before you can go any further on your roadmap to success.4. Make room deliberately to work with a coach
You have to come to terms with the fact that you’re likely to be swimming against the tide. Once you make clear unwavering decisions about what goals you’re aiming for, prepare to be un-liked, unpopular, criticized and potentially ostracized. There’s a high possibility you’ll lose the friendship and support of some however you will gain new friends and the support of others. Regardless of what area/s of life your goals pertain to, make room to work with a coach. Choose wisely who that person will be to encourage and walk beside you. Whether it be a certified coach, a family friend/mentor or qualified therapist, find someone who knows how to work with the specific issues and challenges that lay ahead without any agenda other than your success. Having that impartial guide can be an invaluable constant. This helps keeps you on the straight and narrow even if other areas of your life aren’t going swimmingly.5. Get highly familiar with your habits and behavior so you can create successful ones
Despite the scientific evidence in support of it, we’re not recommending you need to start getting up at 5:00 am and exercising for an hour before you even think about starting your day. You should start asking yourself these questions far more frequently:- How well do you know your habits and routine ways of operating?
- Do you know what choices and patterned behaviors help or hinder you?
6. Monitor your progress, celebrate the wins and make adjustments along the way
You must become good at deliberately rewarding yourself when you make changes that take you further along your roadmap to success. Professor of cognitive neuroscience Dr. Tali Sharot explains how the brain responds and adapts far better to rewards than punishment when it comes to learning behavior and creating new habits.((Tali Sharot TEDxCambridge: How to motivate yourself to change your behavior)) When we apply punishment, we reinforce the traumatic memory as being more important than the actual lesson we might have been meant to learn in the first place. When we gamify rewards on our success journey, we inject fun and humor. We also reduce the stress that often comes with learning new things, habits and adjusting to new ways of being, doing and having.Final thoughts
If you hit a progress plateau at any point, you might need to allow yourself to plateau and switch your attention to another priority. The switch may allow you to think more freely and clearly about how to move past your roadblock. Or it might simply be a good time to stop and smell the roses. Your muscles grow stronger in their resting phase after a workout. Animals hunt profusely to build up their energy stores before going into hibernation. Remember that continually forging ahead is not a natural rhythm. Repeat the cycle of rest, recovery and rallying forward then…start again.from Lifehack - Feed https://ift.tt/2qw0ilO
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