How do you define SUCCESS? One defnition is success is achieving your financial goals through your online coachinfg or consulting business.
Not a Destination
The problem is, success isn’t a destination. Success is a journey with stops along the way. Being successful is moving toward your goals, this the way to achieve it is to be constantly moving forward with the goals in the distance. Your happiness isn’t dependent upon actually reaching that goal, however. Your success is based on the sense of accomplishment you derived from having closed the distance and achieved that goal.
The bottom line is that your definition of success is on the path to get the things that you want, one at a time, and to continue to improve yourself and to inspire yourself to reach the next level.
That brings us to the framework for those goals that you want to achieve – your habits for success. The practices that you cultivate will result in the success you desire. Habits for success are clearly defined, well thought out and designed to take you to the goals that you have set for yourself. To understand what a pattern for success is, set some goals first. But for demonstration purposes, here are three different examples because it can be difficult to know how to identify the successful habit.
The reason that people have problems becoming successful is that they have not figured out exactly what it means to be a success! Defining it for yourself is the first step in achieving it. AT ACPI, we have varied goals for reaching our audience as well as monthly financial goals to tell us we are on target.
Defining Success
The problem is...success isn’t really a destination. Success is a journey with stops along the way. Those stops are the destinations where you want to arrive, but there is no final destination. Being successful and happy is moving toward your goals, and the only way to achieve it is to be constantly moving forward.
You are going to want more, and that’s okay. You set another goal – a higher purpose – of being able to attend charity dinners where the price of a plate is over $1000 for example. Your happiness isn’t dependent upon the actual goal achievement. It is based upon your hard work and your sense of accomplishment derived from having achieved that goal
The bottom line is that your definition of success is never a specific destination. Preferably, your destiny is being on the path to get the things that you want and continue to improve yourself and inspire yourself to reach more and more goals.
That brings us to the framework for those goals that you want to achieve – your habits for success. The practices that you will be teaching yourself result in the success you desire. Habits for success are clearly defined, well thought out and designed to take you to the goals that you have set for yourself. To understand what a pattern for success is complete, you set some goals first.
Five Lessons from Warren Buffet
You might be wondering what super-investor Warren Buffett can teach you about life. You might be thinking that he knows a lot about money, but that has little to do with being an expert on life. You might be surprised. Warren is famous for his simple lifestyle and love of his work. Let these lessons in life be a guide for contentment in your own life:
1. Focus on what you love. Warren has a beautiful, modest home, and drives a $40,000 car. He could own the most expensive house and vehicles in the world, but he doesn’t. He drinks Coke, buys what he likes, and enjoys a relatively simple life.
Enjoy your life and the things you have. Avoid being concerned about what everyone else has or about what you could have. It’s more satisfying to own one perfect painting than to own ten that don’t thrill you. Seek out the things you love and avoid wasting your time on the rest.
2. Quality is more important than quantity. You only need to make a few right decisions to be incredibly successful. Warren Buffett has hundreds of billions of dollars to invest for himself and others, yet he frequently only owns 20 or so stocks. Be picky. Be happy with a smaller quantity.
Warren has a very famous line that states, “Your financial wealth would be much greater if you could only make 20 investments in your lifetime. You would make sure they were great if you had only 20 chances.”
3. Do what you love. Warren has said that the essential part of success and contentment is doing what you love every day. That’s why he’s never stopped investing and making money. If you’re spending your time doing what you love, you continue doing the same thing regardless of how much money you have.
You might not enjoy the career you have right now. But are you doing anything to change that? Do you have a plan? Imagine how much more content you would be if you enjoyed going into work each day.
4. Mind your own business. You needn’t be concerned with what the competition is doing. Avoid being influenced by everyone else. If you do what everyone else is doing, you’ll simply be average. Avoid comparing yourself to everyone else. Follow your intuition. Most of us are overly concerned with others. We’re worried about how we compare. We’re concerned about their opinions of us. They’re probably thinking the same things. Get yourself out of that loop and do your job.
5. Stick to your talents. Warren is famous for shunning high-tech investments, even when they were practically a sure thing. He has stated that he doesn’t understand them well enough to invest in them. Stay in your areas of strength. You don’t need to do everything. Focus on what you know well.
We usually enjoy doing the things that showcase our strengths. That’s human nature. It also makes life easier. Work on your weaknesses, but leverage your strengths.
You might be thinking, “Yeah, anyone could be content with $50 billion.” But that’s not true. Studies have shown that happiness and income correlate to $75,000. Above that income level, happiness does not increase.
Super wealthy people became wealthy mainly because they were comfortable living a particular way and kept moving forward to those goals or achievements they had scheduled into life. You can be just as content, even if you never amass a mega-fortune. Aim to increase the amount of contentment in your life. It might not be an issue of money, possessions, or the other things that most people think to lead to happiness.
