No matter how easy it looks sometimes, winning isn’t easy. There’s a huge amount of work to build the foundation that allows winners or masters of their craft to make it look easy.
Having spoken to many successful people in our travels around the world we have come to the conclusion that there are six specific areas or principles winners follow:
1. Faith
Faith is belief in yourself and where you are going in life. Strong believers never carry the baggage of doubt with them. They are certain in their belief that their destiny lies in their own hands and minds. They believe that their goals and aspirations are theirs alone and not someone else’s. So why should they be seeking other people’s opinions? Having faith means a belief that what you aspire to will happen. That the expectations you hold about yourself for the future are positive and so give you hope, something to live for and something that will carry you through the times to come.
2. Trust
Stop worrying about how you will get there and just get moving! Never allow self-doubts or the negative opinions of others to dissuade you from the goals you have set or to think that you will not make it. Have confidence, that is trust in yourself and your ability to complete the journey. That you are the right person and that you can do whatever it is you are faced with. It is the realisation that you can do anything by bringing out your hidden and yet untried abilities and developing them to the fullest and that what you are doing will be accomplished.
3. Courage
Tell yourself that you are able for the journey. That you will make it and it will happen. Face challenges with the conviction that you will meet them head-on and not waiver. Courage is a deep-seated ability we all have and awaits your call.
4. Commitment
When you are well down the road and feeling perhaps a little weary or ever slightly disillusioned just remember why you started out on the journey in the first place.
What was your purpose and stay focused on that? Has that purpose changed? …. No? Then carry on. Have for your motto – “I will not quit”
5. Discipline
Discipline means taking control. Simply decide who is in control when you find excuses to ease up or even quit. Discipline requires you to take control of your mind. That is being careful what you tell yourself and what outside information you permit to enter. Control of the body means keeping your emotions under control and using the power of your mind.
6. Passion
Is the vital ingredient in the equation. Passion is what gives meaning to what you are undertaking and gives you that purpose. You need to be excited about what it is that you are undertaking.
I had been brought up believing that hard work is the secret to success. Yet over the years, I have seen so many people work hard without succeeding at anything and so many others succeed without looking like they’re working hard. I have now become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it is an ingredient.
The secret is not in what successful people do so much as what makes them do it. The main ingredient lies in the fact that they “form the habit of doing things, that failures don’t like to do”. That seems to be the thread that links them, the common denominator of success.
The question that immediately springs to mind is – what are the things that failures don’t like to do? It is those things, which do not come naturally to us, those things, which cannot be achieved by following our natural likes or dislikes. The list is endless. The most important one is developing good habits.
Success is a different thing for different people. You may have a different vision or idea of success and that’s OK. Think about what success means to you, apply the six principles and you will succeed no matter what.