Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. -Earl Nightingale
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Did you ever think about what differentiates successful people from failures?
If we search through history, we would find that the major difference between successful people and failures was their way of thinking.
The failure type people don’t learn to organize their thoughts and feelings, they let their environment control their thoughts and feelings which produce the same results of failure over and over again. Successful people, on the other hand, learn to organize and direct their thoughts, feelings, and actions towards a definite purpose.
There are some common qualities that can be found in almost all successful people in the world. So, let’s explore some of those qualities-
#1 Strong Sense of Purpose
Every successful person always has a definite goal in their mind to work for. They know what they are working for; they woke up enthusiastic every day because they have a purpose to live for.
According to Earl Nightingale, the definition of success is that “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” If you have a worthy goal in your mind, you have internalized it in your body emotionally, and you are taking actions every day for the fulfillment of your goal, you are a Successful person.
Now, understand this- there is an invisible field of energy and information all around you, where infinite potential of ‘you’ exists as a wave of probability. When you set your mind on a definite goal, you are connected to that future potential of you, and if you stay focused, that future will begin to move towards you according to the law of attraction.
It means if you keep your thoughts, feelings, and actions focused on your goal, that future potential will sooner or later become your physical reality.
When your thoughts and feelings are focused on your goal, your energy is a vibrational match to your goal, and as like energy attracts like energy, you will attract every necessary means for the manifestation of your goal.
#2 Have role models and Mentors
Every successful person seeks out role models and mentors who instill in them a sense of possibility.
The first thing they do is they make a committed decision that they are going to achieve their desired goal no matter how hard or long is the path.
Once they have a definite goal in their mind, they ask themselves the obvious question- who in history I can study who had the same challenges as I have? Then they study their lives and how did they overcome the obstacles in their path. This study gives them a sense of the path that they have to travel. When they have a role model and the path that they have to follow, then they look for the mentor that can guide them on how to do what they desired to do.
Now, think about this- if somebody is studying and teaching how to achieve your goal for a long time, then it is obvious that they know and understand how one can achieve what they truly desire, and why most people fail to achieve their true desires.
Nobody has ever achieved something valuable without help, there would always be things and obstacles that you cannot overcome yourself. Mentors help their students to find an easy and approachable path to overcome those obstacles, and their students get the benefits of their experiences.
#3 Visualization
The third and the most important quality of successful people is the strength to visualize their goals. Visualization plays a very important role in the fulfillment of any desired goal.
In her amazing book “Your Invisible Power” author Genevieve Behrend wrote something incredible about visualization. She said “when your understanding grasps the power to visualize your heart’s desire and hold it with your will, it attracts to you all things requisite to the fulfillment of that picture by the harmonious vibrations of the law of attraction. You realize that since Order is Heaven’s first law, and visualization places things in their natural order, then it must be a heavenly thing to visualize.”
Now, you must understand that you are a spiritual being who is living in a physical body and to set order between the physical and spiritual side of your personality, you have been given intellect. Your visualization faculty lies in your intellect which is commonly known as Imagination.
Your mind has two parts, both parts operate with a different set of rules. You have a conscious mind through which you think, create, understand, imagine, and reason. You also have a subconscious mind which is a habitual mind. Through the subconscious mind, you perform all of your daily tasks. The subconscious mind is very powerful; it can perform a huge number of tasks simultaneously.
Understand this- 95% of the time we operate with our subconscious mind, only 5% of the time we operate from our conscious mind. For example- when you wake up and get ready for the work and leave for office. You don’t have to consciously command your body to do all things it has to do, it would do everything exactly according to your habits, and while your conscious mind would be busy thinking about the work you have to do in office. When you would be driving, you may be speaking to somebody on phone or thinking about the problems in your office, your subconscious mind would be driving the car for you, and you won’t even realize the passing of time before you reach your office.
The subconscious mind is like a recorder, it records all of your activities and habitual behaviors, and when you don’t pay conscious attention, it plays them back to do what needs to be done.
The subconscious mind is very powerful and it has many great abilities but it cannot differentiate between a real event and an event you are creating in your mind by thoughts alone, to the subconscious both events are as real. For example- when you have a nightmare, you wake up scared, your heartbeat is increased, your body is sweaty, etc. while in reality, you weren’t in any danger, but your subconscious mind doesn’t understand that it’s just happening in a dream, it takes the threat as real and change the vibration of the body to react accordingly.
Now, when you have a definite goal, and you sit in a relaxed state, close your eyes, and see yourself (visualize) in your mind achieving your goal and accomplishing your heart’s desire. The subconscious mind would take it as you are really experiencing this reality, and it would prepare your body to react and behave accordingly which would put you in the harmonious vibration of your inner experience and, according to the law of attraction, you would attract that experience in your life.
When you would visualize the accomplishment of your goal over and over again every day, this experience would be installed in the subconscious mind as an automatic program and it would become your natural state of being, which means then you won’t have to pay your goal much conscious attention because now 95% of your day you would be subconsciously moving towards your goal, then in a relatively short period of time, your inner experience would become your physical reality.
All the successful people understand the power of the visualization, and they never missed a day where they don’t visualize the accomplishment of their heart’s desire.
#4 Positive Sensory Orientation
Successful people always have a perception through which they look at the good aspects of everything, even the worst situation. They dwell on past success instead of failure or shortcomings.
There is a universal law called ‘the Law of Polarity’ which dictates that everything has two equal but opposite sides and one cannot exist without the other, For example – up and down, in and out, hot and cold, light and dark, etc. (Read the article “7 Universal Laws” to understand it in greater details)
Now, in your life, there might be many problems, which would cause you to think about all the things that are wrong with your life, but if you understand the law of polarity then you would understand that a problem cannot exist without a solution. In order to find that solution, you have to look for it, because if your attention is on the problem you won’t attract the solution.
When you focus on a problem, you switch the polarity of your mind to a side where it attracts more thoughts that confirm your problem, when those thoughts impressed upon the subconscious mind it puts your body into a negative vibration which then causes you to act in a way which would attract more problems.
However, when you analyze your problem with an understanding, then the first thing that would happen is that the problem wouldn’t seem too big, which then would cause you to think thoughts that would give you faith in yourself, when those thoughts would be impressed upon the subconscious mind it would put your body into a positive vibration which then would cause you to act in certain ways which would remove those problems and you would find answers to all your questions.
Successful people don’t let their failures control their actions, instead, they take failure as part of the process which would ultimately bring the desired success.
# 5 Strong and positive self-image
Every successful person carries within them a very strong and positive image of themselves, they have faith in themselves, they love themselves, and they know in their hearts that they can succeed in anything their heart desires. Self-Image is the base of your personality, it is the cause of every experience that you had and every experience you are going to have in your life.
Self-Image is what sets the boundaries of your performance, and always remember this – You cannot outperform your self-image. The thing to understand here is that the self-image is an idea fixed in your subconscious mind which can be changed or improved by following the principle of repetition.
Once the self-image is changed, your whole personality will change, your performance will improve, and you will have new experiences that you thought were never possible for you.
In his marvelous book “Psycho-Cybernetics”, ‘Dr. Maxwell Maltz’ wrote in the introduction part – “The “self-image” is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior. But more than this, the “self-image” sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment. It defines what you can and cannot do. Expand the self-image and you expand the “area of the possible.” The development of an adequate, realistic self-image will seem to imbue the individual with new capabilities, new talents, and literally turn failure into success.”
In order to understand the self-image read this book, you can also read some important information about self-image in my previous articles, especially an article by the title “3 Types of People” where you would also learn how to create a better and improved self-image.
For the simple understanding of the self-image, it can be defined as- “Your self-image is your own conception of yourself.” How you see yourself, what you have chosen to believe about your capabilities, what you think of the possibilities of your life are all parts of your self-image.
Every great achiever of history had a very strong and positive self-image in their mind, and that self-image was the base upon which the great work they did was built on.
#6 Plan, Organize and Prioritize
Successful people plan their actions, organize their activities, and put their tasks in priority order. They break their goals into workable parts. You don’t have to look at your task from a point where you look at all the things that needs to be done at once, instead break it down into small parts where it doesn’t feel that big anymore.
The best thing you can do is – first, have a clear picture of your goal in your mind, then visualize yourself, every morning, as someone who has already achieved his goal.
Then write down six goal-achieving activities you are going to do that day, and start your day with working on first activity, and don’t move on to second until the first is done, and don’t worry if you can’t do all six on that day.
Complete as many as you can, and then the next day you already have some goal achieving activities from the previous day, just add some more to them to make them six activities.
#7 Acquire Necessary skills
The other quality of successful people is that when they have a clear goal in their mind then they identify their weakness and strength, understand what skills they need, and then they work out to acquire those necessary skills. They understand that they cannot do everything on their own, there are some things that they can’t be good at, so they hire people who have those skills that they need.
When you have a clear goal in your mind, you don’t need to know everything about how you can achieve it, but when you would start working on one thing at a time the ways will be shown to you and you will attract people that would help you to acquire the necessary skills.
We all have weaknesses and we all have something that we are really good at. Your job is to understand what is that you are really good at, and then improve it on a daily basis. What you are not good at, you will eventually meet the people that would help you sort that out.
#8 Patience
Patience is one of the very strong commodities, being patient when things don’t go the way you intended them to be is one of the qualities of successful people that makes them different. When they meet resistance they don’t force things to happen, they understand that what they want will come to them at the right time. They stay patient and knows that their time will come.
Patience is one of the hardest things to acquire, understand that patience is the key to success, but it is in our nature to be impatient. Patience is a skill that can only be learned by being patient. Generally, when we don’t get the results right away we become impatient, to make it happen faster we try to force it, and that’s where everything goes wrong because if you try to force it, it won’t happen for you. Forcing does not make achievements happen but trusting does.
Trust the power that is flowing to and through you and let it happen for you. Don’t think the thoughts of how it will happen, just know that it will happen, and at the right time, it will happen for you.
The importance of ‘Patience’ should be realized by every individual. Patience in life can make you achieve anything you truly desire. With patience, you can avoid making hasty decisions.
Life is not about worrying about the future or dwelling in the past, life is about learning the lessons that must be learned in order to accomplish your goal, and you cannot learn those lessons in a state of mental hurry.
#9 Persistence
Persistence is an essential state of mind for a person to be successful. In order to be persistent, you need to exercise the power of your will. In his legendary book “Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill wrote how important persistence is to achieve any goal, at the beginning of the chapter Persistence he said- “Will-power and desire, when properly combined, make an irresistible pair. Men who accumulate great fortunes are generally known as cold-blooded, and sometimes ruthless. Often they are misunderstood. What they have is will-power, which they mix with persistence, and place back of their desires to insure the attainment of their objectives.”
You must read this chapter a few times and understand how important persistence is.
The major problem with most of us is that when we meet temporary failures a couple of times, we tend to give up our heart’s desire and go for something that is comfortable.
When you meet resistance or temporary failures you must understand that there is no other way except persistence. You must understand that the universe is designed to assist the person in his work if he has the quality of persistence.
You cannot achieve anything without going through resistance and failures.
Think about this -when Edison was working on the idea of an electric bulb, he failed thousands of times but he was persistent, he never thought that it can’t be done, and he eventually achieved what he desired.
Napoleon hill further wrote – “There may be no heroic connotation to the word “persistence,” but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PERSISTENCE! It cannot be supplanted by any other quality! Remember this, and it will hearten you, in the beginning, when the going may seem difficult and slow. Those who have cultivated the HABIT of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against failure. No matter how many times they are defeated, they finally arrive up toward the top of the ladder.”
Understand this- You are not a failure until you stop trying. As long as you are trying and moving forward even a little bit, you are successful.
#10 Love what they do
The main reason for the success of those people is that they do what they have fallen in love with. They love what they do, and they do what they love. The reason why most people are miserable at their work and waiting for weekends is that they are not doing what they love to do, they are doing what they think they have to do in order to survive. Now, if you are doing something that you don’t love, you won’t be able to give it your best, because it is really hard to work for something that you don’t actually love doing. My mentor Bob Proctor says that “you are not made for work, work is made for you.”
Now, before I finish I want to remind you that there is a great power within you and all around you, this is a universal power which is 100% evenly present in all places at the same time, and everything you see is an expression of this great power. This power is always seeking higher and fuller expression through you.
This power has a universal consciousness and you are an individual consciousness through which this power is expressing itself as an individual being. Your heart’s true desire is a potential that this great power put in you, and it already has given you all the mental tools to achieve this desire of yours. This desire is what this power is seeking to express through you.
When you make a definite decision that you are going to work for and achieve your heart’s true desire, you are giving a broader channel for this power to express itself through you in your life.
In order to achieve this desire, you should sit in a quiet place in a relaxed state of mind and body, then close your eyes and see yourself in your mind as the person who has achieved what he desires. See yourself already in possession of everything you want, see yourself living the life of your dreams and working on what you love to do.
Then feel the emotion of it, feel as you would feel when you would actually be living that life, and when you would do so, you would change your vibration into the harmonious vibration of that reality. Once this happened this great universal power will bring every necessary means to you in order for you to manifest that potential reality in your physical reality, but you have to do this exercise every day until you achieve what you truly desire.
These 10 qualities are the blueprint for success, and if you follow them you will be successful.
Thank you very much.