Posts Tagged ‘Burning Desire’
Steps to Success 2: How does our self belief affect our chances of success?
If you have a burning desire to be, do or have something and you’re not working towards it, chances are you’re being held back by a lack of self belief.
Most successful people acknowledge that self belief plays a big part in their achievements. At a very superficial level this makes a lot of sense for why would anyone attempt something if they didn’t think they could succeed?
However, if this thought is carried to its logical conclusion it would mean that successful people never take any risks and this is clearly not the case.
Some of the most successful people I’ve met are those who, at some point in their lives, lost everything. They put their success down to the fact that they already know that if things go wrong, they will cope and come back to fight another day.
And yet, through lack of self belief, most people consistently choose unhappiness over uncertainty. You can prove this for yourself. Just ask everyone you know (including yourself)
“What would you do if you knew without doubt that you could not fail?”
Then ask, “So why aren’t you doing it?” The answer is always, “Because it MIGHT fail”
We do less than we could because what we fear most is our imagined failure.
People who have experienced real failure don’t fear it anymore. They know it won’t kill them.
There’s a lot of talk about what we learn from failure, but the real lesson, the most important lesson, is self belief. When there’s nothing else left – we learn to believe in ourselves.
If we only get confidence and self belief from our successes, we are out of luck when we fail. We need to get resilience and confidence from both success and failure.
The worst thing is letting this fear get the best of us and not even giving something a good shot and then ending up in between – not achieving what we want yet not completely failing, as we didn’t really try.
“We’re hoping to succeed; we’re okay with failure. We just don’t want to land in between.”
–David Chang
Go back to your own definition of success: When you are successful how will you ‘be’? What will you do? What will you have?
What is stopping you from being, doing and having what you want? Whatever it is, imagine for a moment that you’ve been given the wrong information; that the messages that imply that your endeavours will result in failure were really meant for someone else and that you should have got the one that said, “It doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail, what matters is that you try. No harm will come to you from trying.”
Now go and make a start.
Whether you prefer the ubiquitous slogan “Just do it” or the more esoteric quote sometimes attributed to Goethe “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”, please know that self belief grows from experiencing both success and failure and, safe in this knowledge, you can now go and build your self belief, your self confidence, your self esteem and your chances of success.
This is part two of our Steps to Success Series. A discussion on the subject can be found on LinkedIn here: http://lnkd.in/CpFtke Details of all the 12 Steps to Success can be found here
Posted in 12 Steps to Success | 
Tags: Burning Desire, Confidence, Doubt, Fear, Logical Conclusion, Lot, People, Plays, Resilience, Self Belief, Steps To Success, Success And Failure, Successes, Superficial Level, Uncertainty, Unhappiness | 
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Are you Dreamer or an Achiever?
In the 1920′s and 30′s, a young journalist called Napoleon Hill, interviewed 500 of the most successful people in America. He found that people who create success have many things in common. These are some of them as described in his best-selling book, “Think and Grow Rich”
- Decide what you want. Desire is the starting point of all achievement. Desire is a crazy mad emotion that you absolutely have to satisfy, not a rational reasoned argument for doing something.
- Believe that you can get what you want. Self doubt will prevent you from taking action. No-one is born with a sense of what they can’t do. Limiting beliefs are learned and they can and must be unlearned. It is usually easier to overcome other people’s judgements than our own.
- You don’t have to do it all yourself. As Mother Teresa famously told Bob Geldof, “I can’t do what you do and you can’t do what I do but together we can change the world.” Surround yourself with people who can do what you can’t and who respect you for what you can do. Start or join a MasterMind Group with like minded people.
- Make practical use your imagination. Work out how to turn your dreams into reality. Everything, everything, starts out as an idea. Ideas are the beginning point of all achievement but they need to be harnessed into practical action.
- Create a plan, organise your ideas and take continuous action. Most people put more effort into planning a holiday than planning their life. Successful people don’t just react to things that happen to them, they question whether something will take them closer to their goal before acting on it or rejecting it.
- Avoid procrastination and make decisions. The ability to make decisions comes back to understanding exactly what it is that you want, to the burning desire and definite purpose that underpins all achievement. Successful people in all walks of life decide quickly and firmly and the world has a habit of making room for the person who knows where they are going and why.
- Persist. Things will go wrong, people will let you down. If your desire is strong enough you will find a way through all difficulties to achieve your desire. Don’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results. Find different ways to achieve your goals. Paulo Coelho was committed to a mental asylum by his parents three times and subjected to electro-convulsive therapy because they thought he must be mad to want to become a writer instead of a lawyer. He persisted and his book, The Alchemist, sold over 40 million copies.
- Aquire power and learn how to use it. The ability to lead others in a spirit of harmony to achieve a definite objective is a major source of success but successful people say that personal power and self mastery are most important.
- Understand that sex is the most powerful of human desires. When this desire is harnessed into a creative process it can be the source of genius. It can also be a huge temptation and has destroyed many great people. Successful people say that they are able to transmute its power into a creative force that helps them to produce and action ideas that in many instances makes their fortunes.
- Learn to use the power of the subconscious mind. Everything we have ever experienced is kept in the vast storehouse of our sub-conscious. It can work for or against us but when we learn how to harness this power it makes us unstoppable. What we think of the world and ourselves makes us not only who we are but who we can be.
- Develop and learn to trust the ‘sixth sense’. Intuition can help us to avoid dangers and grasp opportunities. Intuition is part of our nature and many successful people admit that intuition is a big part of their success including Donald Trump, Oprah, Richard Branson and even Bill Gates. Einstein and Edison described their creative process as having original ideas that didn’t come from the rational foundation of the mind. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, says, ‘The intuitive mind tells the logical mind where to look next.’
- Deal with fear, the major obstacle to achievement. Almost every feeling of fear we experience is as the result of an IMAGINED situation, not a real one. In almost every case, the imagined situation that we most fear never happens. When a situation that we had feared actually materialised, most of us deal with it without any real consequences. The only thing holding most people back is their own imagination!
Is it ever too late to do the things you once dreamed of doing?
Mary Wesley, best-selling author, took up writing at 70
Charles Darwin’s first book wasn’t published until he was in his 50’s
Colonel Sanders was in this 60’s when he franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken
Ray Kroc was in his 50’s when he launched McDonalds
Agatha Christie was 62 when she wrote The Mousetrap
Julia Child was 50 before she took up cooking professionally
Benjamin Franklin was 78 when he invented bifocals.
Life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years. There is no longer an official retirement age. If you go to college at 40 and qualify at 45 you could still have half your life left to work at what you love. It’s never too late to become an achiever instead of a dreamer!
Posted in Inspiration | Tags: Best Selling Book, Bob Geldof, Burning Desire, Continuous Action, Decisions, Definite Purpose, Dreamer, Emotion, Habit, Journalist, Judgements, Like Minded People, Many Things, Mastermind Group, Mother Teresa, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Nbsp, Procrastination, Self Doubt, Use Your Imagination, Walks Of Life | No Comments »
Do big goals lead to big success?
"No Hands" by Adam Hawkins http://anodizeproductions.com
Should you set big fat hairy audacious goals or stick to the reasonable, more easily achieved variety?
Many interviews with highly successful people reveal that they set themselves huge goals, fired by a burning desire to achieve something specific and that these goals determine their direction and purpose in life and colour all their decisions and actions.
They also freely admit that when they set these goals it’s usually without any clear idea of how to achieve them.
What they do have however, is an unwavering belief that they CAN.
What happens is that when a goal excites you enough, you start to live every day in a way that makes it possible to achieve it and obstacles don’t seem so daunting. Setting reasonable goals rarely leads to that sense of excitement so there isn’t the same incentive to overcome obstacles and the goals just becomes another “so what?”
All great achievements begin with an idea, a want, a longing, a desire.
While she was still Posh Spice, Victoria Adams said she wanted to be “more famous than Persil”. As Mrs Victoria Beckham she got her desire but many of our wants and longings never get past the wishing and dreaming stage.
If you’ve ever had your dream laughed at, if you’ve been told to ‘get real’, keep your feet on the floor, your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone (ouch!) you’ve probably let go of that dream and it may now be just a vague longing.
How would you feel if you re-ignited that flame? What’s stopping you from blowing on the coals of your burning desire and setting off on an adventure of achievement?
My guess is, that interfering with your thinking, your determination and your belief is a very small word called FEAR. It may be fear of failure, fear of success or simply a series of “what if’s?”
Fear is a tricky emotion. Most of the people who have achieved big fat hairy audacious goals say that the magnitude of what they were trying to achieve scared them – but they did it anyway.
If you knew that you could not possibly fail, what would you attempt?
Posted in 12 Steps to Success | Tags: Burning Desire, Coals, Desire, Emotion, Fear Of Failure, Fear Of Success, Flame, Guess, Hairy Audacious Goals, Longing, Longings, Magnitude, Many Things, Mrs Victoria, Nose To The Grindstone, Obstacles, Persil, Posh Spice, Purpose In Life, Shoulder To The Wheel, Spice, Unwavering Belief, Victoria, Victoria Adams, Victoria Beckham | No Comments »
How to master procrastination and make decisions
Why making decisions is crucial to success
The procrastination I’m talking about is not about putting things off but rather about not making decisions. Until a decision is taken no action is possible and it is the lack of action that causes most failures. Procrastination is a complex psychological behavior that affects everyone to some degree or other. While it can be a minor irritation for some people it is a source of considerable stress and anxiety for others.
An analysis of over 25,000 people who had experienced some kind of failure revealed that the inability to make decisions was near the top of the list of reasons. (Napoleon Hill ‘Think and Grow Rich’)
Henry Ford was renowned for attributing his success to his ability to make decisions quickly and stick to them, often despite fierce opposition from his advisors.
Are you easily swayed by others?
If you find you are easily swayed by the opinions of others and constantly change your mind because you are afraid of what others might say or think about you, procrastination will cripple you and stop you from making a decision and more importantly, from taking action. The ability to make decisions comes back to understanding exactly what it is that you want, to the burning desire and definite purpose that underpins all achievement.
Leaders in all walks of life decide quickly and firmly and the world has a habit of making room for the person who knows where they are going and why.
Have you worked out how you make decisions?
Do you work from logic, from gut instinct or do you take advice from others? Recent studies have shown that decision making can be affected by our prejudices, our past experience and even our surroundings.
However, the reason that most people put off making a decision is the fear of getting it WRONG.
Procrastination leads to inaction. Inaction leads to failure. Failure leads to loss of confidence which make it hard to make decisions. The only way out of this loop is to have courage, make a decision in the full knowledge that whatever happens you will deal with it and remember that most fears are about things that never happen.
Steps to Success
(Inspired by Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”)
1. Decide what you want. Desire is the starting point of all achievement.
2. Believe that you can get what you want. Self doubt will prevent you from taking action.
3. You don’t have to do it all yourself. Surround yourself with people who know what you don’t know and who can do what you can’t do.
4. Make practical use your imagination. Work out how to turn your dreams into reality.
5. Create a plan, organise your ideas and take continuous action.
6. Avoid procrastination and make decisions. Use information and knowledge from others but let the decisions be your own.
7. Persist. Things will go wrong, people will let you down. If your desire is strong enough you will find a way through all difficulties to achieve your desire.
8. Aquire power and learn how to use it. The ability to lead others in a spirit of harmony to achieve a definite objective is a major source of success.
9. Understand that sex is the most powerful of human desires. When this desire is harnessed into a creative process it can be the source of genius.
10. Learn to use the power of the subconscious mind which can work for or against you but which can be controlled.
11. Develop and learn to trust the ‘sixth sense’. Intuition can help us to avoid dangers and grasp opportunities.
12. Deal with fear, the major obstacle to achievement.
Join us at our next event for more Inspirational Ideas
Posted in 12 Steps to Success | Tags: Burning Desire, Decision Making, Definite Purpose, Gut Instinct, Habit, Henry Ford, Inability To Make Decisions, Inaction, Making Decisions, Minor Irritation, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Opposition, Prejudices, Procrastination, Stress And Anxiety, Stress Anxiety, Surroundings, Time Management, Walks Of Life | No Comments »
How do you decide what you want?
If desire is the starting point of all achievement,
the first obstacle that many people face is finding out what it is they want in their lives.
There are lots of reasons for this: the most common is that as soon as you have the thought about what you want , another part of you will simultaneously be telling you that it is impossible or that it is a selfish goal or an unworthy one.
For as long as you do battle with yourself you will find it hard to decide on a Definite Major Purpose and will never really believe that you can have what you want.
Most plans are doomed to failure because we are creatures of habit and it is our habits that have got us to where we are now, wishing and hoping for things to change - doing the same things and expecting different results.
The system outlined in ‘Your Best Year Yet’ by Jinny Ditzler has been working well for over 30 years and is based on ten questions around which are woven many insights into how we can change our thinking and behaviour in order to consistently improve our lives, year on year.
These ten questions are the starting point of a three hour process of discovery, reflection and planning in which you can start to design your best year yet. If you like this approach there are many more insights in the book but this is a good way to get started – with a few prompts from me.
This is also the start of our 12 Steps to Success Programme – why not join us?
1. What did you accomplish last year?
Brag like no-one is listening! Don’t hide your light, you’re allowed to celebrate. Don’t compare your achievements with anyone else’s! What is small for you might be HUGE for someone else and vice-versa. This is not a contest it’s just about YOU! If you are finding it hard to give yourself a pat on the back take a minute to wonder why.
2. What were your biggest disappointments last year?
When did you disappoint yourself? When did others disappoint you? What happened that was not in your control? You don’t have to show this to anyone so be honest with yourself. It’s not about beating yourself up but about looking at how you handled things. If you find it easier to criticise than to praise yourself, ask why. Are you hanging on to any resentment or anger or have you let it go?
3. What did you learn?
What worked and why? What didn’t work and why? What would you keep doing? What would you stop doing? What would you add that you’re not doing now? Pretend you’re someone else – what advice would you give you – without judgement?
4. How do you limit yourself and how can you stop doing it?
Fear is the biggest limiting factor in most people’s lives. Most fears are about events we imagine that never come true. What is it that you are most afraid of? What stories do you habitually tell yourself? What kind of self-image do you have? What would happen if you told yourself a different story and believed it?
5. What are your personal values?
Imagine you are an observer at your own funeral. What would you like people to say about you? How do you want to be remembered? How can you make your life be about living to these values? Authenticity and integrity are essential elements in creating a happy and successful life according to your values.
6. What roles do you play in your life?
We hear a lot about work/life balance but what does this really mean to you? Everyone has many roles and they change as circumstances change. List all the roles you currently play – in no particular order – and then note the ones you’d like to drop and the ones you’d like to add.
7. Which role is your major focus for next year?
Imagine you are in a helicopter looking down at everything you do in your life spread out beneath you. There will be some things that dominate the picture and some things that are in the background. Using the section on your personal values as your guide, decide where you would like or need to put more attention next year. Acknowledge that you have only so many hours in a day and that your first priority must be to taking care of yourself. This is not a selfish decision but equivalent to the airline notice that says “put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others”. If you are not taking care of yourself you become a liability. Note any conflicts and then decide which role will be your major focus for next year, thinking how this will fit into a long term life plan.
8. What are your goals for each role?
At this stage you may be thinking “I’ve set goals before and not achieved them so what’s the point?” There are many systems and methods of goal setting and many myths and legends too. The only sure thing about goal setting is that goals need to be seen in the context of your whole life. If you start with the end in mind and align your actions with your values you are more likely to succeed. Do you have a life plan and long term goals or are you in ‘let’s see how things turn out” mode? When you set the goals for each role check for conflicts and make adjustments where necessary.
9. What are your top ten goals for 2012?
What you are looking for here are the things that will make 2012 the best year of your life so far – not your best year ever. What you don’t do this year can go on the list for next year so that each year becomes the best year so far. Choose from the goals for each role the ones that will make the most difference to your life. Keep checking back and revising the list until you have a list that thrills and excites you. If your list causes you doubts and worries dig up the reasons. Be honest with yourself and if you really can’t see yourself achieving a particular goal cross it out and replace it. There is no ‘should’ about this list. It’s about what you truly ‘want’ and no-one’s judgement is involved except your own.
10. How can you make sure you achieve your top ten goals?
Just writing down goals will not get results. Just making a plan will not get results. Just thinking positive thoughts will not get results. Consistent action coupled with a firm belief is most likely to get the results you want but even then, circumstances outside of your control may influence what happens. You can’t control what happens but you can control how you react to it. Your plan to achieve your goals needs to be a living breathing part of every second of your life. Every decision you make will take you nearer or further away from achieving your goals. Achieving your goals is not something you do as well as doing everything else in your life. Achieving your goals is about the way you live every moment. If your goals are consistent with your values and the roles you play in your life the changes you make will lead naturally to the end you have in mind.
If you’d like to explore any of this in greater depth just get in touch with me. I’ll be happy to help.
Posted in 12 Steps to Success, Inspiration | Tags: 12 Steps, Biggest Disappointments, Brag, Burning Desire, Consequences, Control, Creatures Of Habit, Desire, Discovery, Failure, Insights, Jinny Ditzler, Obstacle, Purpose In Life, Reflection, Sacrifice, Suffering | No Comments »
Missed opportunities
Edwin C Barnes was a penniless salesman who had a DESIRE to go into partnership with the inventor Thomas Edison.
He had the chance to be one of Edison’s salesmen but that wasn’t what he wanted. He waited until the opportunity came and Edison’s other salesmen decided that they couldn’t sell the latest invention – a dictating machine.
Barnes showed Edison that he could market and distribute the machine in partnership with Edison and made a fortune.
When his opportunity came, it was in a different form and in a different way to what Barnes was expecting.
Barnes knew what he wanted and had the determination to stand by his desire. Opportunity has a habit of slipping in the back door and can sometimes come disguised as misfortune or temporary defeat. Perhaps that is why opportunities are sometimes not recognised and missed.
What is it that you have a burning desire to be, do or have?
Posted in Inspiration | Tags: Amp, Back Door, Barnes, Burning Desire, Desire, Dictating Machine, Edwin C, Fortune, Habit, Inventor Thomas Edison, Latest Invention, Misfortune, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Partnership, Salesmen | No Comments »
