How To Be Successful By Mastering These Simple But Powerful Principles

We’re all after success of one type or another. Success in life, success in business, success in relationships, success in staying healthy, success in being all that we can be, success in accomplishing the goals that we have set for ourselves, and many more things. We all want success, however while we all want success most do very little about bringing about success in their own lives. They have a vague idea of what success might look like and what it might require but don’t go much further than that.

And so they end up staying unfulfilled and unsuccessful in the things that they do. They were never taught certain facts and principles that the successful either picked up over time from watching others, after all success leaves clues, or were taught by other successful people. There are a handful of these principles that I see pop up time and time again. Principles that people suffering and struggling through life never get.

And therefore they never live up to their full potential. I’m not saying that what we’re about to go over is all the success principles that there are, because no one list could cover all of that. The principles of success are many and varied. However there are a few core ones that trip many people up and may be tripping you up right now. The first thing we need to do is identify these principles and then work on adapting them into our own lives.

So let’s get started.

Where Does Your Focus Lie?

Do you believe that your fate is controlled by circumstances outside of your control or do you believe that you are the creator of your own destiny? Do you believe that your life is or isn’t how you want because of luck, fate, chance, or others or because of your own work or lack of? Do believe that others, including circumstances, control how you think and fell or that you are in charge of your own mind? Not granted I don’t think any one thinks either one of these ways one hundred percent.

But what do you feel is the bigger contributor to where someone ends up? External forces or internal forces? We’ll call it eighty/twenty. Do you believe that where someone ends up is eighty percent determined by external forces and twenty percent internal or vice versa? Successful people have what is called an internal focus or locus of control. Meaning that they believe that they are the master of their own fate and while others and circumstances can buffer them and make things easier or harder, ultimately where they end up is up to them.

They believe that life is eighty percent what you do and twenty percent what happens to you. Whereas unsuccessful people believe that they are victims of fate, chance, others, circumstance, etc. and that their life is out of their hands. They have a victim mindset. And since life often follows the mind they end up staying unsuccessful in their pursuits. Adopt the healthy successful attitude that life is eighty percent up to internal forces and only twenty percent up to external. That is a big first step to becoming successful.

The Fear Of Failure Is Foolish

Next we come to another big road block to success, and that is the fear of failure. Here’s the thing the road to success is paved with failure. Every time you see someone success, doing something at a high level, understand that they’ve likely failed at that thing a great many times. Failing and failure is how you get better. Without failure you’d never get better and you’d never accomplish anything. If anything you should be courting failure in the right way, by daring greatly and going for things, taking calculated risks.

Like a famous MMA coach says you either win or you learn. The road to success is paved with failure say it with me. How good you are at something is often correlated with how many times you have failed at that thing. You can’t be afraid of failure it is a natural, and essential, part of the success process. Of achieving anything, of getting good at anything, the life of the successful is filled with failure.

They have a higher tolerance for failure and failing. Also note that failing does not make you a failure. The only thing that makes you a failure is not trying, is giving up. Ironically failures are those that are afraid to fail and so never venture out, never take risks, never do things that they can fail at. You should also be doing things that you can and often will fail out. So that you may learn, become better, and fail at a higher level next time.

Again the road to success is paved with failure.

Who’s Responsible For This?

Responsibility, its a word that many fear. We often grow up fearing this word or associating it with negative things, and that’s a shame because proper understanding of this word and its role in our lives is one of the biggest principles of success. Again we can roughly divide the unsuccessful and the successful into two groups when it comes to responsibility. We have the unsuccessful that are always looking to pass the buck, to blame others, to make excuses, and to do everything possible to avoid taking responsibility for themselves, for their actions, and for where they are in life.

Then we have the successful that look down the barrel and take responsibility for those things. They take responsibility for where their at in life, for themselves and their actions, and this produces success. This ties into with the believing you have control over circumstances mentioned before. People who make excuses and blame others for where they are, their actions, and the results they’re getting from life are people who will never succeed. They think that its the world/others/societies or whoever’s fault for where they’re at in life.

When the fact of the matter is we are responsible for where we end up in life, not others, not circumstances, not any outside forces. We are responsible for who and where we are. Let me say that one more time we are responsible for who, what, and where we are. Not anything else, not any external factor, it’s us. Taking responsibility for yourself and things that happen to you is a big step towards success. Don’t blame others or make excuses for yourself. Take responsibility for yourself and your life and reap success.

The buck stops with you.

The Importance Of Setting Goals

Earl Nightingale says that success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Without goals we can’t be successful. Goals orient our minds and actions so that we’re going somewhere that we want to go. Without goals we are ships adrift on the ocean and will end up beaches or sunk. With goals we give ourselves a destination to go towards, a direction to head in. Goals give your subconscious, your conscious mind, and your actions a direction to head in and set them to work to accomplish something worthy and worthwhile.

If you don’t have a grand idea of life that you’re working towards each and every day then you’ll end up wherever the tides take you, which is not what you want at all. Start thinking about what you want out of life. Use a goal system that works for you. Some people set long, medium, and short terms goals. Other set goals for habits. And others set goals physically, mentally, and spiritually, one each, working on them all at the same time. Mix and match and do what works for you.

One thing I do recommend is having a big overarching goal of what you want your life to look like, this is beyond a long term goal, it’s a life term goal, pardon the cheesiness. And then see what daily habits are going to be required to get you to achievement of that goal. See what development will be required physically, mentally, and spiritually. And look at what needs to be accomplished, this month, this year, and five years from now. And so on and so forth.

Set goals and stick to them, they’re an essential part of both success and purpose.

The Role Of Passion In One’s Life

By passion I’m referring more to dreams than I am having big strong feelings for something. We are all unique and we all have unique songs that our souls want to express. For some people art is an obsession that they can’t get out of their minds. Maybe its composing music, maybe its poetry, maybe it sculpting. For others working on cars may inspire the same thing, for another rock climbing, and yet another riding horses. It really depends on the person.

Many people feel that they must tamp down on their passion until they’ve forgotten all about it, which is impossible, but people still try, and tie themselves in all sorts of strange knots because of it. Where your passion lies says something about you, something that should not be ignored. And while not all of us can make a living from our passion or should try, you should still try to find a way to incorporate passion into your life. Not doing so leads to the those knots we want to avoid.

It might just be something you work on on the weekends or during a class during the week or at night, or whatever else. But don’t neglect your passions or think they’re superfluous. They’re not, not at all, they’re deep expressions of who you are and were meant to be. Ignore them at your own peril. Passions, hobbies, whatever you want to call them are an essential part of life. Pay attention to where your passion lies, try to understand more about yourself through it, and use your passions to help ennoble yourself.

The Multi-Faceted Nature Of Success

Like man, success is also a multi-faceted thing. There is no one thing that is a gurantee of success in life, even no one collection of things. These are just parts of the path to success, often neglected parts that I felt were worth mentioning and bringing up. Tools that’ll help you greatly on your quest to become and embody the warrior poet. Not all-encompassing of course, but a decent start. And one that’ll get you headed in the right direction.

If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!

-Charles Sledge