Our pursuit for happiness, well being, empowerment can be determined on our individual contributions to society and how we perceive being successful. Some of us rate individual levels of success by the private islands, jets, houses, income we have while others feel that sense of belonging, having great relationships with family and love ones.

Imagine a skyscraper, before any bricks and mortar are laid for the foundation, there must be a building and floor plan, documents to approve, finances and loan to manage, people and resources to allocate, even before the go ahead has been given. So as in being successful, you need to dig deep within yourself to understand your identity, plan and have a clear vision, plus having emotional intelligence to deal with people. Even having all success figured out, we tend to forget life throws curve balls our way, as that anyone that has experience success will have in earlier parts of their lives experience hardship, financial difficulty, perceived failure and constant frustration.

Here are some ways to become successful today.

1. Find out who you are

Consider the pando tree. Above ground Pando looks to be a normal collection of trees, however underground the roots and trees are interconnected by a vast root system. During floods, fires, natural disasters, when resources become limited the trees receives nutrients and support from its vast networks of roots.

At the root, a question is asked. Who are you really? Do you have family and friends to support during tough times, can people rely on you, are you trustworthy. Consider the journey whether you need support from network or whether you want to go at it alone. Identifying what you want, where you want to go, and your identity can limit babbling around on things not important.

In my book I delved deeper into how to identify who you are, by realistically asking yourself some questions, secondly how to be careful in criticising others, how to fully enjoy life, and many other talents. You can access both my books here about being successful: AMAZON

2.  Successful people have priorities

What is your plan for today? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years? Have you shot the moon and end up among the stars? Have you started your new years resolution or 1st Feb 2019 was your restart? Successful people avoid procrastination, have very good at time management and discipline to pursue their dreams.

If there are conflicting priorities for example the other day I had 4 stakeholders in the room and they all wanted their items delivered last week. I let them talk, agree and disagree with each other and let them prioritize. Thats useful skill and technique to know and implement at the right time. Secondly, after they have calmed down, I asked them which are top 3 priorities you want done next week that will be my focus.

Look at successful people and replicate what they do, who they interact with, how they eat, and what they do. Conversely, look at unsuccessful people, observe what they do, and do ot do any of that. Give it all you got.

3. Establish a strong vision and stick with it

Any initiative for change must begin with a vision. Without a vision, there is no goal, and without a goal, the team have no direction to follow. A vision can go hand in hand with a mission statement. The difference being a mission statement sets to achieve the vision for the company or inidividual.

NASA I believe nails it home with vision, mission and the core values for the organisation.

NASA vision explains they want to explore the universe and provide information to humanity to make informed decisions on the path forward. The mission statemenet clearly outlines that NASA is in the forefront in technology and they use those tools to find more information about the universe i.e. the mission statement links to the vision statement. The core values statement interates that people as resource is important in achieving vision statement.

4. Be driven by your talent, skill or passion

You may ask but I don’t have any of these. I can assure you everyone was born with either a talent, skill or develop passion for something. A talent is something someone is borned with i.e. great at running, swimming, singing etc.., a skill is something anyone can pickup or learn e.g. how to write code, how to write a book. The ability to write a book is not a passion but a skill thats only manifested when we’re born. Freeman Thomas once said “I’m driven by passion”. Carol Colletta once said “I would pay someone to do what I do”. Therefore combing both ideas represent what the world already knows. You do what you love/passionate about, someone will pay you for that, therefore be more successful.

In this Ted Talk video in 3 minutes it explans some quick tips on how to be successful.

Summary

In a few sentence being successful means: have clear vision on what you want and see yourself in few years time,  prioritise, put your head down and do the work,  finally get feedback to find other ways to improve.