9. Success = persistence with the 8 steps.

Persistence is probably the most undervalued and misunderstood virtue in modern life. A hundred years ago people understood that there was no such thing as a free lunch. However in the last fifty years the self help market has focused almost entirely on affirmations and feelings. One can can understand why, who want's to work for something if you can just wish for it instead?

The problem is, it's just not true. Now don't get me wrong. It is wonderful to know exactly what you want, in fact it is one of the first steps of success. However if you don't do anything to realize your goal how can you expect it to be? We hear the phrases "leave it to God" or "let your higher power show you the path". But God and your higher power have given you eyes, ears and a brain and they have filed that brain with knowledge, common sense, reason and logic. They are already helping. How can they help you further if you won't help yourself? Wishing for success does not bring success, because it is reactionary. Wishing, wanting even praying for something to change, is simply you reacting emotionally to things that you don't like in your life. 

When thinking of success It is important to keep in mind that it comes in stages, however even with this understanding most will still find the desire to wish for it too difficult to suppress. It is therefore important to understand what success is.

Almost everyone thinks of success as completion of a goal, but this is just not the case. Success is not static, so one must stop thinking of it in that way. We describe people as either successful or unsuccessful, but both these words imply a constant, not a goal. To be successful is in it's very essence, continuous, never ceasing. So one could say that success is not a destination but a journey. What's more important, succeeding once or being continuously successful? You see the goals that we obsess about are just a tiny part of our journey, there will be many more goals in the years to come. You don't want to obsess about a goal, you want to obsess about the method of achieving goals and this is what this blog has been teaching.

These 9 steps define the method of success. So if you are faithfully following these steps, even if you have not completed your goal, you are successful. You can't change your genetics to make the things you struggle with easier, all you can do is "continuously commit to the method". Don't obsess about the completion of your goal, it is counter productive. There is no end to success, so there can be no completion. One's obsession should be "continuous commitment to the 9 steps". 

If you still want to think of success as a destination, that's fine. But the destination you are striving for is the place where you "continuously commit to the 9 steps". This is the only thing that will enable you to break through to the next level. Sometimes you will be breaking bad habits. Sometimes you will be doing that which you have limited experience in. However it is only this continuous, forced and sometimes painful repetition that will allow you to progress. Once the repetitions have been built up, the action will stop being awkward because it'll be habit. You will then habitually do the correct thing. Think of a toddler learning to walk or a child riding a bike, they try continuously.

If you do not persist, success will resist.

8. Commitment, Help and Inspiration = Communicate

So often when we have a new goal or idea we internalize it. We keep it secret from the world, either out of fear of being ridiculed or fear of someone stealing it. The very problem with this, is that it is a fearful action and whenever we indulge our fears we stunt our progress. To be honest if you are fearful that your friends will ridicule you or steal your idea, are they really your friends at all?

Communication is so important because it the first step to becoming, you are informing the world of the new you. There are 3 main benefits of communicating your goal with others, they are.
1. Commitment. By communicating with others your true intent, you truly commit to it. This is in some ways because you don’t want appear a failure, essentially a negative emotion, but in this scenario it is used as a positive driving force. 
2. Enabling help. How can others help you if they don’t know your plan? By telling people what you are doing you enable them to aid you on your journey.
3. Inspiring new thoughts. The more you speak and think about your plan the more ideas you will develop. This is not magic, it’s a simple fact that up to now you have thought of your goal in the singular. Now that you need to explain it to others you will of course develop new thoughts and ideas as you are now thinking of it multi dimensionally / in the perception of others.

Communication is a wonderful tool that is so often undervalued  or even mistrusted. This is because of one emotion, fear. When it occurs, one must doubt the fear that has held then back and trust the plan that is moving them forward. Start communicating your goals and desires and you will find in abundance the commitment, help and inspired thought you need to succeed.

7. Physiology = Maintain a healthy body

I must admit I am no expert in nutrition or exercise. However what I really want to cover and make sure you understand, is how your physiology can effect your psychology.

I understand that the initial statement may not make a lot of sense, so let me begin with a few examples.

1.  Physiology effecting your psychology in a positive way: You get up and go for a brisk walk. When you return home you feel awake and motivated.
2. Physiology effecting Psychology in a negative way: You have a big meal at lunch, when you get back to work you feel tired and lethargic.
I am sure you can think of many other examples, now that I’ve tuned you in to what I’m trying to explain. But it is also important to realise that it can also work in reverse. Here’s an example.
3. Psychology effecting your physiology in a negative way. You make a mistake and start feeling fearful. Consequently your body feels tense for the rest of the day.

As you can see, both ones physiology and psychology effect each other in positive and negative ways. The key thing is to try not to micro manage your life and stress about what might be effecting you. Just be sensible and let common sense prevail. We’ve already covered how to keep ones psychology happy. So now we just need a few guide lines for managing your physiology.

1. Try to get 8 hours sleep a night so you wake up fresh.
2. Make sure your breakfast and lunch are nutritious not heavy, to avoid feeling sleepy.
3. Have a glass of water with each meal, to ensure you’re hydrated and to aid digestion.
4. A short walk at breakfast and lunch will get fresh blood and oxygen into the organs, revitalizing them. These are also great times to de-stress and refocus.
5. Moderate the bad things in your life, chocolate, alcohol, crisps, ice cream etc
6.  Try and get some vigorous exercise at least 3 times a week, to release some endorphins.
7.  If you struggle with sleep, try going for a short slow walk just before bed, using the time to wrap the day up mentally.
8. Generally whenever you suffer a psychological upset (mistake/failure) make a note of it then take a break from what your doing for 5 minutes. A little distance puts things in perspective and clarifies the mind.

As you can see maintaining a healthy body is not particularly difficult, so long as you rely on your common sense and are honest with yourself.

6. Psychology = Maintain a health mind

The whole premise of Positive Productive Thinking is to maintain a healthy psychology. This is because the better one feels, the more easily they are able to accomplish things. So it stands to reason that if one is able to manage / control how they feel, they will be able to maintain a healthy psychology and achieve more. 

IMO maintaining a healthy mindset requires 4 areas.

1. Have a Purpose: Everyone needs a purpose, to feel that their life has meaning, a reason to live. Do this by reminding yourself of your direction, drive, long-term objectives and plan of action for the day. NB It's important to move onto the next objective as soon as you've achieved the last or you will find you stagnate.

2. Acknowledge your achievements (update 090913): to update your perception of reality and remind yourself of things to be positive and grateful about.

2. Be Positive: Say some Affirmations, all this requires is for you to say something upbeat about yourself and whom you are becoming (like acknowledging your achievements)

3. Be Grateful: Say some Gratitudes = simply requires you to list all the things that you are grateful for.

Affirmations and Gratitudes
Don’t have long winded gratitudes and affirmations, they’ll become meaningless. Some days they’re going to rush out of you, some days they will be a slow trickle. This isn’t a problem, it’s about quality over quantity. Start with things that spring to mind and when these run dry, follow with a generic collection you know you want constantly ie: "happy, healthy, loved, positive, successful, guided/protected" . Don't think about your affirmations and gratitudes (you think all day long), The key is to FEEL them. The more you commit to the feelings you generate, the faster you will reap the rewards. (If stuck work from a 5 year perspective listing your major milestones up to present, the same is true for over coming negatives, ask "will this matter in 5 years?"). Spend about 5 seconds on each one, breathing in while you say them. This limits the your affirmations and gratitudes to about 30 seconds each. You want to do this first thing in the morning and last thing at night so you start and end your day right. Right being: In control with direction, drive, a plan of action, a plan for dealing with progress and with positive feelings about oneself.

You want this set of tools to be like a Swiss army knife, light and portable. Don’t make it an enormous tool box you have to lug around, because after a couple of days you’ll just leave it in the hall with the umbrella! If it takes longer than 5-10 minutes in the AM or PM, your plan is too complicated or your saying too many gratitudes and affirmations, you need to revisit them and simplify. If you want to do some particularly intense work on your affirmations and gratitude, do so when you have a large section of free time. Lunchtimes, after work or weekends are perfect. Mornings and bedtime are not!  

It is no mistake that the tools you need to maintain a healthy psychology are the same tools that are required to be successful. But you must remember that it is the implementation of them daily that keeps you on track. Whatever you are feeling, is a perfect reflection of your state of mind.

5. Progress = Achievements and Problems

Progress:  There are no limits to what you are able to achieve, but accept that humans are not robots and will make mistakes. Acknowledge your achievements at all times but especially in failure so you don't beat yourself up, it will never be completely negative. Acknowledge your strategy's achievements at all times but especially in success, so you don't get a big head. 

Achievements

Achievements are of course fairly easy to deal with, but the one thing you must do is acknowledge them. It is very easy when constantly focusing on the big picture to forget or ignore your smaller victories or judge them unfairly against your large goals that might take months/years to accomplish. This is a major mistake as it creates low self esteem as one soon feels that despite their best efforts  none are ever enough.

Maintaining high self esteem is very important for continued success. All of us at some point have experienced feeling good about ourselves and I'm sure most have acknowledged that when we feel this way, everything in life is easier.

The problem with this is not the way we feel, but how we think. We are basing our self esteem on our feelings, rather than our actions. What’s wrong with this? Well more often than not, our feelings are based in the past. A good example of this, is when you start your first job. Although we were young adults with ample social skills, most of us felt like embarrassed and nervous children. I’m sure most people can relate to this, or can think of a situation in which similar feelings have arisen.

The key thing to take away here is that, we judge ourselves on how we feel, but what we feel is often out-of-date. This is why it is imperative to acknowledge your daily achievements and feel the good feelings that this brings. As it updates your perception of reality and of yourself. This action ensures that you end each day happy and start each day in a healthy state of mind.

Having said this it is equally important to acknowledge the achievements of your plan so as not to get overconfident and take too greater risks.


Problems

Problems are not things to fear, they are things to embrace.
As soon as you acknowledge and accept them, they allow you to learn and thus make your plan stronger.

There are only 2 types of problems, they are...

1. Personal Problems: The only time you fail personally is when you don't commit to your goal. The failure of your plan is not personal failure because you did not create it, the plan did, therefore it is external. When you fail personally to commit to your plan there is a simple explanation and a simple fix.

Explanation: Provided it’s not fear... When you find that you are not committing to your goal It’s not lack of desire (that you don’t want to be successful) that halts you, it is lack of direction and drive (that you’ve got so caught up in the detail you’ve forgotten why you’re doing it).

Fix: Simply remind yourself of your Direction by stating your goal then remind and give yourself  Drive by explaining why you want it. you can do this as often as needed. This simple exercise realigns you and reminds you why you are doing all this work and why it deserves your faith. Let your emotions (self pity / self flagellation / self righteousness) go , they only keep you from doing what needs to done.

2. External Problems: Accept that external problems maybe your responsibility but they are not your fault. Whatever the problem, stop, get the facts, work only from the facts and acknowledge that you can only work as fast as the world will allow. Again let your emotions (self pity / self flagellation / self righteousness) go , they only keep you from doing what needs to done.

Remember that the very fact that you trying is progress and must be acknowledged.

Lastly let me say this (and this is learnt from years of experience). Indulging your emotions is time consuming and completely counter productive. The emotions you feel won’t change anything and will only make you react incorrectly for longer. Why? because it extends the period in which you are over emotional.  Let your emotions go (self pity / self flagellation / self righteousness), they only keep you from doing what needs to done. If you still can’t calm down let me ask you this, “will this even remotely matter in 5 years time”?

4. Action and Fear = Action your plan, even failure is progress.

Action

Action is a gift as it allows us to practice, learn, develop (our plan) and ultimately achieve our goal. (When we act we are able to see our idea in reality, rather than in our imagination).  Once you take the first couple of steps on your journey you can begin to make informed decisions. Is the ground soft or hard? is the terrain flat or undulating? if you know the answers to these questions you can make your journey so much easier. You can map a route through the valleys to avoid all the hills and you can walk on the grass to make your journey more comfortable. But remember just like this metaphor, if you stop at any point during your journey and do not continue, you will never complete your journey / achieve your goal.
As I'm sure you can guess, all action requires is that you work through your "to do" list. If you've planned correctly this should not only be easy, but it should be fun too. 

Fear

The only time you will have a problem with action is when you experience Fear. Just to clarify when you feel doubtful this is also fear, only in a different guise. If you feel doubtful it doesn’t make sense, you’ve got a plan. So you’re fearful your plan will fail. Anytime you don't follow your plan, it's not doubt, it's not indecision, it is, fear!

If you find that you are simply unable to even bring yourself to act, don’t worry. You’ve just over thought things and you need to unwind and reframe. The following are the three steps to overcoming fear...

1. Firstly acknowledge the truth, that life is quite short and if you continue doing nothing, you’re going to continue getting nothing.
2. The next thing to do is remind yourself of the wisdom of Aristotle. “He who can overcome his fears is truly free”, because he can continue to progress. Put another way, if you don’t overcome this fear you will never achieve your goal.
3. Try again but with a positive attitude and execution bias. Have another go, but all the time keeping in mind that even if you lose you will be creating an opportunity to learn, breaking a bad cycle and practising a skill you need to develop. You are essentially getting three positives for one negative!

Outcome/Execution Bias
Fear is caused by falling back into the bad habit if not taking responsibility, so ultimately not feeling in control. This happens because we are focusing solely on something we have no control over (the outcome) rather than something we have complete control over (the execution).
You must do all you can avoid outcome bias (the valuing of an outcome more than anything else) and concentrate solely on execution bias (the valuing of the correct method of achieving goals). You can be successful once or twice out of luck, but if you know the correct method you can improve you winning streak exponentially.  In other words, you only ever fail when you don't follow your plan, not when the outcome is something other than you desired. Things don't always work 100% of the time, it doesn't mean they're wrong. So long as you execute your plan perfectly no matter what the outcome, you are successful because you are doing the thing that will most likely work, you are practicing and learning so will be in a position to update your plan if needed.

If you don’t move you can’t progress, it doesn’t matter if movement results in failure. Failiure in itself is progress because it allows you to learn and adapt. Doubt the fear that has always held you back. Trust the plan that is moving you forward.
 

3. Guide = Create a Motivational Plan of Action that Works

We are all guilty in our hectic lives of rushing into things, usually with the best intentions and then some how ending up lost and confused. This is solely because we fail to create a plan of action. Whatever you are trying to accomplish, be it a goal you want to achieve or a negative you want to cut out, you need to plan for it. The key to planning is to know exactly what you are trying to achieve. This way you will be able to create a thorough plan of action. This in turn will enable you to move quickly and effectively between tasks and consequently to the completion of your goal. It's taken me years to learn this but just sitting down for 5-10 mins (or however long it needs) and planning what needs to be done is the key to staying on track, because it keeps you focused and productive.

Key areas for Success
The key thing before setting about writing a plan of action is to acknowledge that there are 4 main areas that you need to work on to create a buisness/product/service that will work. These are longterm objectives (they may take months or years to achieve) and each will require its own plan of action, they are...
1. Create a business idea.
2. Analysis: create a business plan for the idea by analysing it and how it fits into its market sector.
3. Learn how to run the business plan works in reality (with a small investment).

NB 1. 2.and 3. are symbiotic. You will spend a lot of time (usually enjoyable) working between them. You may create an idea start analyzing it, find some it works very well, some not so well, so update the idea with your findings, then start learning it (trading it with small capital) to find that things don't work quite the same in reality, as you such you review the business plan with your ideas for improvement.

4. Start trading (fully invest)..
As you can see when viewed together or individually they are really quite daunting, this is why we want to write a plan of action for each one.

The whole point of a plan is to action it, so don’t write a thesis. In fact create the opposite. You want to break your goal down until it is just a list of small un-daunting tasks. Essentially you want to end up with a numbered "to do" list.  How do you know if you've broken the task down enough? Simple, if you’re not able to achieve it or if you read back your list and any of it requires you to think or concentrate, you need to revisit it.

I can’t emphasize enough the need for simplicity especially if you’re struggling to complete a goal. Break it down so a child could do it. Children often need a point by point explanation.  An example of making a telephone call might be. 1. Get the phone number ready. 2. Pick up the receiver. 3. Dial the number . 4. Wait for phone to ring. 5. Wait until they pick up 6. Tell them who you are 7. Ask your question. 8. Say thank you.. 9. Place the receiver back in it’s cradle. 10. Tell dad how it went. Note that none of the numbered tasks should require you to think or elaborate, they must be easy to understand and easy to achieve.

Finally to create a plan of action that motivates you, just be honest about when you feel most happy and proud of yourself. Then frame your plan, day and efforts around what you enjoy. Personally I'm not monetary driven so the thought of making money doesn't inspire any "get up and go" in me. I am however very driven by self improvement/betterment so the idea of getting up and creating, learning, ananlyzing, proving, experimenting really gets me motivated and excited. So these are the things I frame my plan of action, day and efforts around.

Remember the goal can be infinitely complex,  but the steps you create to achieve it should be easy to understand and achieve. If they are not you will get stuck.  Any time you fail to pass a step or struggle to understand it, you need to revisit your plan and break that step down until it makes sense and is accomplished.

2. Direction & Drive = Identify your Goal & Explain why you want it

Again this is an often overlooked and neglected part of life, but should be applied immediately after you have decided to take control of a goal you want to achieve, or a negative you want to cut out. I know this is  an achingly obvious statement but it is not quite as simple as it sounds.

The problem lies with what you think society values and how it affects what you value personally. Sounds complicated? It's not. Basically most of us have a default of setting monetary goals when it come to work/business. However the problem is a great deal of us are not monetary driven, we are life style driven. Now be honest you're thinking well I'm not one of those, I want money. But do you? Do you really want a million dollars, or do you actually want the life of what you conceive to be a millionaire? Personally I'm lifestyle driven. I want a pad in the city and place in the country (preferably abroad). I want to eat and drink well and be able to look after myself and my family. Well I can buy a two bed apartment in London for £169,000, I can buy a 6 bed house in the south of France for £100,000 and while I'm there I can eat and drink well for a fraction of the price i can in a city (approx £30 a day £11,000 PA) plus the schooling is very good. So for my millionaire life style i need £269,000 for the property and i need to make approx £23,000 PA (so my partner can join me too) to live the life style I want. I have a property worth £300,000 but I rely on it for income. So if I can make £23,000 above my property income I can sell the property release the capital and live my dream. But even if I didn’t have property. £269,000 plus £23,000 per year seems a pretty cheap price for what I consider a millionaire's lifestyle!

Break Down:
My direction is my goal: to make £23,000 PA.
My drive is explaining why I want it: So I can (a) have the lifestyle that my partner and I desire from (b) releasing myself financially and from the stress of the flat.

Can you see I have identified exactly what I want to achieve. It's not a generic wish of "a million dollars". Identify what you're driven by. Are you monetary driven or life style driven? Because if you get it wrong your goal won't motivate you! Then identify your Direction (Goal) and Drive (why you want it). It’s not lack of desire that halts progress, it’s lack of direction and drive. 

The key to motivation is identifying exactly what your Direction and Drive are.

1. Control = Take Responsibility

Taking control may seem obvious but most of us do not do this and think of it as a daunting and down right scary task, however it must be accomplished as it is the first step of success. The hardest part of this task is actually figuring out how indeed to take control.

Luckily the answer is simple. To take control you simply need to take responsibility.  That's it, it's a simple change of mindset. Stop letting things happen to you and start making them happen. I know how harsh this sounds, but honestly who else is going to do it? The fact is in most situations we are angry with ourselves or the situation because we feel out of control. That last sentence was imperative, we are unhappy when we feel we're not in control. You see it is not the situation that is the problem it is your thinking. Every time one blames a problem on an external source be it the train service, that pipe that burst, the guy that bumped into you or the goal the world isn't letting you achieve. We are taking control away from ourselves and are essentially allowing things to happen to us. We are not in control. But you will find as soon as you take control of the results you are getting and the emotions your are feeling, they will diminish and your self esteem will grow because you are dealing with them.

The train service, maybe you should have left earlier considering that you had an important meeting?

The pipe, maybe you should have found the number of a good plumber, electrician and builder when you first moved in?

The guy that bumped into you, If you had higher self esteem would you really be getting that upset about someone accidentally bumping into you?

The goal you’re not allowed to achieve. It's your goal, why is it the world's responsibility to give it to you?!

Take responsibility to take control of the results you are getting and the emotions you are feeling. You can't control the world, but you can control how you react to it. The only thing you have complete control over is you.