Creating Your Success

Clarity of purpose and direction is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  To develop your personal clarity or purpose you need to do three things.  First, define what success means to you.  Second, create a vivid mental image of you as a success.  Third, clarify your personal values.  Once you define what success means to you personally, I suggest that you develop a clear mental picture of you as a success.  This image should be as vivid as you can you make it.

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to share the cover of a book called Speaking of Success with Stephen Covey and Brian Tracy.  Brian has some interesting things to say about clarity…

“Clarity accounts for probably 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor…You could even say that the three keys to high achievement are, ‘Clarity, Clarity, Clarity.’ Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what you really, really want.”

The other day, I received an email from Robin Harpe.  Robin is a well known coach, and a good friend. It seems that Robin has been thinking and writing about success too.  She shared with me two acronyms she has created – one for success, one for failure. 

Creating your own success acronym can help you develop clarity around success means to you personally.  Here are Robin’s success and failure acronyms…

S U C C E S S

S = Self forgiveness
U = Uniqueness
C = Courage
C = Confidence
E = Essence of Self
S = Strategy for Prosperity
S = Spirit and Soul

F A I L U R E

F = Fretfulness
A = Anxiety
I = Insignificant and Idle
L = Loss
U = Unfulfilled
R = Reverse and Ruined
E = Escape

Robins says, “Look at these words and see where you fall the most in your day.  Are you falling more into the failure thought and action patterns or the successful ones?”

That’s good advice from Robin.  If you’re spending more time in the success actions, you’re on your way to personal and professional success.  If you’re spending more time in the failure actions, I suggest you do whatever it takes to break that pattern.

Robin has defined success for herself in the following way — Self Forgiveness; Uniqueness; Courage; Confidence; Essence of Self; Strategy for Prosperity; Spirit and Soul.

I was inspired by Robin’s ideas that I decided to create my own success acronym…

S = Self Confidence is where it all begins.
U = Understanding yourself is a key to building strong relationships.
C = Communicate well – in conversation, writing and presentations.
C = Create positive personal impact.
E = Etiquette is important.  People pay attention to how your conduct yourself.
S = Surround yourself with positive people.
S = Set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.

I suggest you take a few minutes and create a success acronym for yourself and post it as a comment on this blog.  If you do, I will send you a set of my mem-cards that highlight the most important points in my book Straight Talk for Success.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people develop a clarity of purpose and direction for their lives.  As Brian Tracy says, “The three keys to high achievement are, ‘Clarity, Clarity, Clarity.’ Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what you really, really want.”  If you haven’t already done so, I suggest you spend some time thinking about what you want out of your life and career.  Keep this clarity of purpose in mind as you go about your daily life.  A couple of times a day stop and ask you, “Is what I’m doing right now helping me achieve my life’s purpose?”  If it is, great.  If not, do something to get you back to your purpose.

That’s my take on clarity of purpose and success.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  Don’t forget – I’ll send a set of Straight Talk for Success mem-cards to everyone who comes up with a success acronym and posts it as a comment on this blog.  As always, thanks for reading.
Bud