What
does it really mean to be successful? Amazingly, that definition is different
for everyone. To some, success is having a pile of money and a big house. To
others, success is finding a loving partner and creating a family. Even more
interesting are the people who have or the other and still feel unsuccessful.
Journalist
Christopher Morley defined success best when he wrote, “There is only one
success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.” One cannot be
successful without being organized, prepared, or well-educated. Likewise,
success cannot be attained unless you know how to take initiative, negotiate
and network. Generally, success does not come to those who have low
self-confidence or negative attitude. Therefore, developing successful habits
is the accomplishment from which all other successes flow. In the book of Jerry
Porras, “Success Built to Last,” the real definition of success is a life and
work that brings personal fulfillment and lasting relationships and makes a
difference in the world they live.
True
success begins with a state of mind. But it takes specific actions and behaviors
to move from intentions into action and get results. Although success can
easily be defined as the achievement of goals, there’s a difference between
temporary and lasting success. I can’t tell you the number of people I have met
who have been very successful in the pursuit of wealth, but late in the day
began to sense that they didn’t really succeed. As aptly said by Ralph Waldo
Emerson, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be
honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have
lived and lived well.”
Wealth,
fame and power are not actually goals or success for some people. Money and
recognition are external factors – they are outcomes of passionately working
often on an entirely different objective that is often a personal cause or
calling, such as that person chose a way of life that embodied his passions,
making a difference to him and the world. He eventually enjoys many of the
traditional measures of success, too, such as becoming wealthy, but these
measures weren’t his focus.
Here
is one meaning of success by best-selling author, Brian Tracy, he wrote that:
“Success is goals and all else is commentary. This
is the great discovery throughout all of human history. Your life only begins
to become a great life when you clearly identify what it is that you want, make
a plan to achieve it and then work on that plan every single day. “The primary
reason for failure is that people do not develop new plans to replace those
plans that didn’t work.” (Napoleon Hill)
The three turning points in my life were these: First, I discovered that I was
responsible for my life, and for everything that happened to me. I learned that
this life is not a rehearsal for something else. This is the real thing. In every study of successful people, the
acceptance of personal responsibility seems to be the starting point.
Before that, nothing happens. After you accept complete responsibility, your
whole life begins to change. The second
turning point for me, which came when I was 24 years old, was my discovery of
goals. Without really knowing what I was doing, I sat down and made a list of
10 things I wanted to accomplish in the foreseeable future. I promptly lost the
list. But 30 days later, my whole life had changed. Almost every goal on my
list had already been achieved or partially achieved. The third turning point in my life came when I discovered that “You can
learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal you can set for
yourself.” No one is smarter than you and no one is better than you. All
business skills, sales skills and moneymaking skills are learnable. Everyone
who is good in any area today was once poor in that area. The top people in
every field were at one time not even in that field and didn’t even know that
field existed. And what hundreds of thousands of other people have done, you
can do as well.”
Becoming
a highly successful person is a long-term goal that will take time, patience,
and discipline. However, too many people at some point in their lives set goals
and go on to achieve them, often brilliantly, only to find that they are
disappointed, empty, and unhappy. To avoid this, be careful what you wish for.
When achievement for you comes without meaning, then it doesn’t last. A lasting
success has three essential elements according to Jerry Porras, in his book, “Success
Built to Last, Creating a Life that Matters.” These are:
- Meaning. What you do must matter deeply to you in way that you as an individual define meaning. It’s something that you’re so passionate about that you lose all track of time when you do it.
- ThoughtStyle. A highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion, and responsible optimism.
- ActionStyle. Enduringly successful people find effective ways to take action. Most people had a clear sense of meaning for their success, but found it almost impossible to make things happen – to turn meaning and thought into action. So get moving and get on with what you really care about doing.
In our
journey toward success that last, we discovered that the above elements, when
you have them in alignment, form the foundation on which you build and sustain
the experience of success. Become consciously aware of what matters to you and
then rally your thought and action to support your definition of meaning. That is what Jerry Porras
calls alignment.