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June 2009 Newsletter: The 25
Principles of Success
At the back of “Building Self-Confidence for Dummies” is a section called “The
Parts of Tens.” This is a feature of all the guides where authors create action
check-lists for the reader. In our case we came up with 10 great questions, 10
daily habits, and 10 keys to effective affirmations. Take a look if you haven’t
used it before, it’s fun and it’s a useful summary.
Imagine my delight then, when I found Jack Canfield’s recent book in my local
library. It’s a lavish paperback, bright red with golden raised lettering, and
it’s called “How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.” It features
what he calls “the 25 Success Principles” in well over 300 pages of collected
wisdom. Here is my “Parts of 25” check-list summary. You might want to pin it on
your bathroom mirror:
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Take total responsibility for your life
– no matter what has happened to you, realise that the only way things are
going to improve is if you take ownership of what needs to change.
-
Be clear why you are here – without a
purpose in life it’s easy to get side-tracked. Acting consistently “on purpose”
will usually take you to your goals in life. You are free to choose what you
want.
-
Decide what you want – you have to
make that choice though. This is the indispensable first step to success and
achievement. Without making the choice you are rudderless, adrift on the ocean
of life.
-
Believe it is possible – fear of
failure is probably what limits your choosing. Statistically you don’t usually
get what you want, you are much more likely to get what you confidently
expect whether that’s good or bad. This is what you need to handle.
-
Believe in yourself
– getting
harder? Self-belief is the drive to achieving the life you want. But where
does it come from? How do you turn it on at will? How do you find it when you
feel alone and small?
-
Become an inverse paranoid
–
we all know people who think the world is against them, right? Well,
you need to become the opposite of them. Believe the world is conspiring to
ensure your success. How though?
-
Unleash the power of goal-setting
– my tennis/life coach used to say if you aren’t keeping score you are only
practicing. If you live without goals how can you score? You’re everywhere and
nowhere baby.
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Chunk it down – if you need to achieve
something big or complicated, or something that will take a long time simply
break it into smaller pieces and use these as staging posts to your final
result.
-
Success leaves clues – there is
almost nothing you could want to achieve in life that many other people
haven’t already done. So study them, work out what they did to be successful
and copy it. It’s allowed!
-
Release the brakes – have you
ever driven your car with the handbrake on and wondered what is wrong? You
always checked after that, didn’t you. Many people live their lives with the
handbrake on. Check yours now.
-
See what you want, get what you see
– Albert Einstein said that imagination is the preview of life’s coming
attractions. Getting what you want starts with imagining what you want, in
gold embossed bright red if necessary.
-
Act as if – Have you ever done
something you thought you’d never do and then found it soon became easy and
commonplace for you? Don’t wait. If you act as if you’ve already achieved your
goal it will become easy for you much quicker.
-
Take action – all of Jack’s book, and
all of every self-help book is about giving you new ways to get yourself into
action. The living is in the action not the dreaming. Dreaming helps, but only
if it gets you into action.
-
Feel the fear and do it anyway – fear
has survival value, but it can be a barrier to fun and achievement. Don’t be
afraid of feeling fearful, learn to love it. It directs you to your edge of
growth. High achievers know this and use it.
-
Ask! Ask! Ask! – Ask for directions, ask
for help, ask for love. Ask for anything and everything you need whether
that’s advice, support, information, instruction, even money. Only make sure
you ask someone who can give you what you’re asking for.
-
Reject rejection – Rejection
is a myth, a concept in your head; it isn’t real but some people manage to
experience it as crushing. There’s plenty in our book on how to avoid feeling
this way.
-
Use feedback to your advantage –
Quick and efficient achievement comes from taking action, checking the results,
taking corrective action, checking the results, etc. Asking for feedback
equals checking the results.
-
Commit to constant and never-ending improvement
– at the heart of the 1980s Japanese manufacturing miracle was something they
called Kaizen, or continuous improvement. It transformed the world and it will
transform you.
-
Practice persistence – you can
never fail if you never give up. The more you want something the less likely
you are to give up so make your goals and desires big ones. Make sure others
also benefit when you achieve your goals.
-
Practice the rule of five – if you
simply took five actions a day towards achieving your goal you would make
certain and relentless progress towards achieving it. Do five a day, every day,
to achieve your heart’s desire.
-
Surround yourself with successful people
– that is, your measure of successful people. The people you want to
understand, emulate, model. Pretty soon you’ll end up just like them, it’s
inevitable. So choose wisely.
-
Clean up your messes and your incompletes
– if something is worth doing, do it. If it isn’t, don’t even start it. If you
start something and it becomes irrelevant, stop it. Life is too short to allow
yourself to become surrounded in half-baked, half-finished, clutter on your
desk, in your mind, in your diary. Clean it up!
-
Develop four new success habits a year
– are you habitually successful, or does it take a lot of concerted attention
and effort? Effortless success comes from developing habits that support you
in your endeavours. Change them a few at a time and habituate.
-
Stay focused on your core genius – it’s
a universal truth and we become good at what we enjoy and do a lot of. That’s
why being a good snooker player used to be a sign of a miss-spent youth. But
now there are snooker millionaires even that doesn’t hold true anymore. Search
for ways of doing more of what you love.
-
Start now!... Just do it! – You’ve
heard the slogans. My favourite is from Scottish mountaineer and poet W. H.
Murray (probably quoting Goethe): "Whatever you can or think you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius and magic in it." Or more prosaically, “well begun is half
done.” Just do it!
Even the list turns into a marathon doesn’t it. But it’s a thorough summary of
the collected wisdom of the last 100 years of self-help classics. Take it on
board one principle a day and your current experience of life will inevitably
start to shift in a positive direction. Try it this month and let us know how
you get on.
Best
wishes
Brinley and Kate
brinley.platts@btinternet.com
See the extra chapter "Ultimate Confidence: The Power To Get Any Result You
Want" available exclusively through
www.yourmostconfidentself.com.
This
Confidence newsletter is sent each month to subscribers of
www.yourmostconfidentself.com from Kate Burton and Brinley Platts,
the authors of "Building
Self-Confidence for Dummies" and creators of the Your Most Confident Self
website.
Building Self-Confidence for Dummies by Kate Burton
and Brinley Platts
Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies by
Romilla Ready and Kate Burton
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