Have you ever wondered why so many people are fascinated with success in life? And just as important, even though many are chasing success how come so few find it?

There are so many definitions of success, as obviously ‘success’ means different things to different people. And furthermore, success in one field doesn’t necessarily negate complete failures in others. If you are a successful business person yet your family don’t know you and your relationships are cold and distant – are you truly a success? And what if you’re a tremendous giver, a person who cares and gives much to charity but your health suffers and you don’t have the vitality to do your work can you class yourself as successful?

One of the best `definitions os success can be be found in earl Nightingale’s seminal classic ‘The Strangest Secret’.

In it he defines success as ‘the gradual realisation of a worthy goal.’

Initially this definition may surprise people, as it did me, as it seems to put more emphasis on the ‘gradual realisation’ than the worthy goal.

And one key myth about success is that once you find it you’ll be happy. (Ultimately isn’t that why we all want to be successful?)

Often success driven people are driven by goals but I have personally learnt that much of life’s happiness, much of our feelings of fulfilment comes from the realisation that we are ‘walking the path’ rather than reaching our destination.

It’s who we become on the way to getting what we want.

Let me put it another way, no matter the prize and no matter how big the goal, reaching our goals only accounts for a small percentage of our total happiness. When we win the prize, when we get the body we dream about, or when we’re standing on the podium, triumphant, that feeling cannot last. At most, that feeling may last a couple of hours, days or even weeks. But not forever. That feeling of success is only 5% of our happiness.

Success must be found each day, in the small accomplishments. We must find success in the little prizes of keeping our word and developing positive habits, of getting past our own self-imposed limitations and mile-stones. That feeling of success is 90 – 95% of our success.

The Truth About Success People

Who do you admire? I admire people like Nelson Mandela, Sir Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs and even Will Smith!

The truth about success is that we all perceive successful people as people of value.

We admire and look up to successful people whether they’re in sports, business or life (or any other field for that matter.) They are perceived as having control over their life and can command the respect of others. They are constantly improving and growing and setting new benchmarks for themselves.

In effect, they are what we wish for ourselves.

If you are reading this blog then I’ll assume one thing: you have goals and dreams that you want to turn them into reality.

Maybe you want to start a business from home, or make it to the top of your company, perhaps you want to lose weight and get fit, or even write a book or speak from stage. It doesn’t matter what your dream is, what is important is that you have one.

While success by its own nature is not something the majority of people realise I want you to realise that there is good news about success as well.

Success is a skill, and its something you can learn.

1. Success leaves footprints. This means that whatever you want to be successful in, there’s an extremely high chance that somebody has already found success in that field. And truly successful people have an innate need to share and help others do the same. Even if if you have no one to teach you, often if you simply model your actions after your idol (following their footsteps) you will be half way there.

However, a word of warning. Simply following a persons footsteps does not guarantee you of success, rather it just provides your actions with a scaffold to build upon. Just like you cannot be your idol and vice versa, ultimately, you must follow your own way and define success on your terms.

2. Becoming successful is not a matter of blind luck or occasional chance. Success is a skill, and its a skill anyone can learn. If you desire to be successful you have no choice but to learn the skills of positive habits and internal motivation, you must develop the skill of productive actions and you must develop the skill of creating powerful habits. All of which should and must be learnt if you want to find true success.

By learning and mastering the skill of becoming successful you will achieve several wonderful side benefits:

• You will grow in confidence. Confidence is the secret sauce of all successful people.
• You will inspire others to follow their dreams. By simply following and steadily realising your dreams you give people implicit permission to follow theirs.
• You will become an interesting person attracting other interesting people which provides your life with richness as well as purpose meaning and direction.
• You will feel like you have control over your life.
• You will be able to achieve any goal you want simply through the confidence and belief of achieving previous goals.
• You will be able to design a life rather than just live one.
• You will have the power to let go of past negative experience and destructive thinking.

In my next post I am going to talk about the key to success

But thanks for reading and I applaud you for seeking to achieve something better for yourself that you’re seeking to grow and improve. I admire your determination to create a vision of a better future and I hope I can play a small part in helping that become a reality for you.

Remember this:

It doesn’t matter what your dream is, what is important that you have one.

Do This:

Find someone you admire and who has the success you want, look at what they did to get there.

Know This:

Success is a skill you can, and must learn if you want to achieve success.

I would love to read your thoughts and comments below.