8 Things Every Young Person Needs To Know About Success

Think it.

Everything begins in your heart and mind. Every achievement, great or small,

began in someone’s thoughts and came from their desires.

What if you were allowed to have anything, regardless of time, money or resources?

What would that be? Be a dreamer of all the possibilities for yourself, your family, and

your business.

Believe it.

You can dream big, but your dream for yourself must be believable. You

must be able to believe that if certain things take place, if certain criteria are met, it can

be accomplished.

Visualize it.

A great achiever has the ability to see his desired end result in his mind’s

eye. He pictures himself right in the thick of whatever it is he wants—sitting at his desk

as the CEO of his new corporate headquarters even if he’s sitting on a plastic garden

chair in his garage ‘headquarters’.

What you rehearse in your mind is the imprint your subconscious will believe is real

because it doesn’t know the difference between what actually happened and what you

tell it has happened.

So what pictures are you playing in your mind?

Share it.

Many people like to keep their visions and dreams a secret. They believe that

telling others about their plans will put a jinx on them or that someone will steal their

ideas. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Plan it.

A dream without a plan is just a fantasy. Things rarely ‘just happen’. Most things

that ‘just happened’ were the product of much planning and preparation and thought.

Honing your plans is something you’ll need to do on a regular basis, thinking through

details, writing them down, and breaking them into manageable tasks.

Set a timeframe for achieving each portion of your plan. If you hit a snag or miss your

deadline, simply adjust your plan, find any flaws, and recalculate your timeframe. Pick a date to accomplish your goals, and be specific. Never say, “I will accomplish xyz soon.”

Soon is not on the calendar. As my husband, Steve, has always said, there is no such

thing as Soon 15 th . Pick a date and keep moving.

Research it.

As you start out to accomplish each task or milestone in your plan, you will

inevitably be doing research, seeking out books, classes, tutorials, and mentors along

the way.

Information and insight can come from the most unlikely places. Even the most

seemingly insignificant conversation can lead you to a gem of knowledge that can help

you reach your goals.

Many years ago, I had a conversation with an elderly lady who asked me why I wasn’t

married yet. I told her that the guy I was dating at the time was a great guy and that I

wouldn’t be surprised if we got married one day. She asked me if he was everything I’d

ever hoped for. My answer was ”not really, but no one is perfect and he is a good

person”. She encouraged me to go home and write down every detail of my ideal mate.

She told me after I put it on paper to put it in my Bible and pray over it and read it every

day.

The more I read it, the more I realized that I was not with the person of my dreams. I

realized that you can be with a great person, but that doesn’t mean they’re great for

you. I am so thankful that an impromptu meeting with a lady I had never met before that

day led me to not settle or rush because I was getting older and my friends were getting

married and having kids.

A little less than a year after that conversation, I met my husband. I couldn’t believe that

he was everything on my list and more. I always thought that I was asking and hoping

for too much in a relationship. That talk led me to the man of my dreams and four

amazing kids.

Don’t discount what others have to offer to your game plan, but in the end you are the

one who will make any final decisions regarding how to proceed. This applies in

business and your personal life.

Work on it.

We would all like to sit at the beach and let the world come to us. But

successful people are generally the hardest workers, not surprisingly.

Successful people consistently work on their goals. If you work every day on what you

want to achieve, even in small degrees, you will get there in the end. At some point, you

will pick up steam and your work will have what’s known as a snowball effect. Results

will just keep getting bigger.

The more you see things happen in the right direction, the more you will want to put

energy into achieving your goals.

Keep your vision up front in your mind. You are that CEO. You have that beautiful

home. You have lost all that weight.

Enjoy it.

Don’t forget to balance your life with the joy of living. Enjoy the process of

planning, working toward, and building your vision into reality. Knowing where it will lead

is what will keep you going.

You will need to apply self-discipline, lots of it. A good strategy is to reward yourself

along the way, perhaps at certain milestones in your plan. This could take the form of

treating yourself to dinner at a luxury restaurant, taking the weekend to go camping, or

doing something else you enjoy.