21 Step To Success

What makes someone successful? What does success mean to you - health, wealth,  happiness, good relationships, prestigious job, fame, freedom? It  means different things to different people. Here are some techniques that successful people have used.  Have a look at them and try a few on for size.

1. Have a clear vision and write down your dreams and goals.

You can either follow your dream or work for someone else to make their dream happen  and guess what they probably don't have good intentions for you. So it's important that you write down you specific, timely vision and goals and repeat them every morning and evening.

2. Dream big

If you are going to thing of something, you might as well think big. There is less competition out there when you think big.

“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.”...Steve Jobs

3. Have a reason why 

This is possibly the most important thing to succeed. If you have a big enough why, you can do any how.
 In his amazing book ' Man's search for meaning', Victor Frankl said that the people who survived the concentration camps were the ones who had a reason to live. They had something to do, someone to see, some place to go to.

You need  a big reason why for yourself and also when communicating your vision to others. This is beautifully summarized by Antoine de Saint Exupery (of the Little Prince fame).

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea"

If you can attach your reason why to others (your parents or a friend  or your kids) then this makes a much more stronger motivating, driving force.

4. Set timed milestones

Once you have your goals, you need to have a plan with time -bound milestones. Break your big goals into smaller, realistic, assigned blocks. This helps make the plan more realistic and achievable.

5. Set up a feedback and measuring process

If you were walking with your eyes closed near a cliff, you could fall to your death. It is obvious you need a measuring and feedback process here. However in life and  jobs and relationships, people are so 'busy' in the day to day that they forget if they are going in the direction they want to. Time goes quicker and quicker and  it is the end of the year before you know it and most people don't know where the year has gone or what they have done. A feedback and measuring process will help you keep on track.

6. Focus on Value not Money or Fame

You should do things not for fame or money but because of the value you are providing.  Millionaires have told me that everytime they have gone after money they have failed but when they have gone to provide value, they have succeeded.
Everyone knows about the Wright brothers  and their first first manned flight but not many people know about Samuel Piermont Langley. He  had government support and  lots of public exposure. He was after fame and money. His attempt failed dismally. The Wright brother's then tried 9 days after with no fanfare or large public and they succeeded. They were constantly working to  improve and testing and reworking. They use to take many sets of replacements, when they were testing to fix and retry. They were after value and not just money and they succeeded.

7. Love the Journey

You need to find something that you love to do. Like a passionate surfer. He goes out because he loves to surf, whatever the conditions or how he is feeling and because he constantly does it, he gets better and better.

8. The perfect is the enemy of the good

Perfectionism leads to procrastination which leads to paralysis. The famous phrase is ready, aim,fire. 

It should be ready, fire, aim. People wait too long and miss opportunities. You should do it and then update and improve it. If you  wait for perfection, you will be too late.

9. Look for simple solutions

A lot of time we are following the day to day process, but not being smart.
Ask yourself the question 'How can this be easy'?. This will make your brain look at how you can simplify and find solutions to overcome obstacles, be more efficient and effective.

10. Focus

When Warren Buffet came to have dinner with Bill Gates and other guests, they were asked what is the one thing that has contributed most to their success and they both answered focus. Make sure you focus by having a clear goal and just working on the task in hand. The Pomodoro technique is a good way to focus.

11. Be yourself

Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
Why are you trying so hard to fit in, when you were born to stand out?
Don't try and copy someone else, you can take bits from them but what makes you unique is what is special about you and your business and your impact on the world. Never forget that.

12. Make your goals much bigger than your problems so your problems become insignificant.

This is another big one.
Many people suffer from depression or dehabilitating  anxiety attacks and they take medication to resolve it, which has the danger of side effects.
The trick is to focus on your goals and make your quest so big and colourful that it takes all your attention. You will be so focused on this that you will just blast through any problems you have and you will not even think about your anxiety.

13. Fail often

Thomas J. Watson (the head of IBM) talked about this. He said:

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't as all. You can be discouraged by failure - or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's where you will find success"


Thomas edison failed many times in his attempt to create the lightbulb. Hesaid "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" If  you learn, you don't fail.

14. Take action

Don't procrastinate. Start now and do it.
Try and build little successes into your plan to build momentum.

15. Never stop learning.

You are either going forward or backward. You are never standing still because other people are moving forward. Technology has put so much information around you and accessible so you should use it. You can  learn anything on line now, e.g on sites like udemy, khan academy, creative live, safari books,  You Tube, Wiki How

16. Dont be afraid

A lot of the time we don't do things because we are afraid. However what we worry about is usually much worse than reality. 

F.E.A,R stands for False Expectation Appearing Real. Mark Twain summarised it best....

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

So the thing to do is :

a) Write down what you fear

b) Think what is the worst that could happen

c) Think what you could do mitigate that happening

d) If the worst happened think what you could do to recover (and you could set this up now).

17. Give back

Giving makes you feel happier.Scientists believe that altruistic behavior releases endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.”

18. Think positive

Don't think of a red elephant. Don't thing of a massive red elephant charging  towards you. Don't think of his red trunk and tusks. It's difficult isn't it. Your brain can't not think of anything. So if you are thinking negative thoughts they are impacting your life, your environment and your destiny. So think positive.

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words. 

Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions. 

Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits. 

Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. 

Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny. — Chinese proverb

19. Get daily habits

You become what you repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not a skill but a habit...... Aristotle

So in order to become successful, you should build daily routines to help you become successful. e.g exercise daily (go for a walk/run/swim/ go to the gym), show gratitude, think of your top 3 tasks for the day, plan your day the night before).

20. Start with the end in mind

This is Steven Covey's habit no 2 from his book '7 Habits of highly successful people'.

There is a famous latin phrase ' Respice Finem' (it means look to the end).

Both of these show that you should focus on what you are trying to achieve as many times we get lost in the detail and in the process of doing stuff and  therefore don't achieve the results we want.

21 Be grateful 

Many of the most successful people are grateful. A good morning routine is to say, when you wake up, 3 reasons that you are grateful. This makes you feel much happier. 

Copyright Ash Fernando 2018