Success in life

UNDERSTANDING SUCCESS IN LIFE

WINFRED JONES(+2567749972985)
NOVEMBER, 2013
© Deus Taremwa 2013 Series

Success in Life
What Is Success?
• Success is about getting all that you
wanted to have. It's finding that you have
achieved your goals or fulfilled your plans
and it's waking up in the morning feeling
victorious rather than feeling defeated.
• The feelings success brings will make you
walk proudly in the streets with your head
up high while being happy and satisfied.

How to Be Successful in Life
• Contrary to common beliefs, there are no
successful or unsuccessful people but
instead there are people who have the
potential to succeed and who do things
that help them realize this potential and
there are people with the same potential
who don‟t do those things.
• The only thing you need to do to
succeed is to do exactly what successful
people did. When we go through all the
slides below, you will acquire the
mentality of a successful person and this
will help you reach success.

What Makes Me Unsuccessful?
If you really want to be successful then you should have a solid
understanding of certain concepts that can limit your potential
and that can make you unsuccessful. Successful people avoid
these harmful concepts and so should you:
• False Beliefs: False beliefs are incorrect ideas you hold about
something or about yourself. An example of a false belief
could be “I can never find a job in such a country” . False
beliefs act as limiters to your true potential and so to your
success. Getting rid of false beliefs and knowing more about
them is the most important task that you should do if you are
serious about success. False beliefs can not only limit your
success potential but they can even ruin your life. Some
people stay broken for years after a breakup just because
they have some false beliefs about love that they acquired
from the media. This happens because the mind refuses to
recover if it believed that it will never find a replacement for
the person you broke up with.


What Makes Me Unsuccessful? Cont’d
• External Locus of Control: This is the way of thinking
that makes a person assume that everything that
happens to him is the result of external factors. For
example: saying that an exam was too hard when
you don't do well or claiming that high
unemployment rate is the reason you can't find a
job are examples of external locus of control. The
flip side to that way of thinking is Internal Locus of
Control which is the way of thinking that makes you
believe that you are in charge and in control of
everything that happens to you. None of the
successful people have an external locus of control
so if you are serious about success you should learn
how to change your way of thinking from being
based on external locus of control to being based
on internal locus of control.

• Lack of Persistence: What is good about having
many qualities and skills if you lost hope in
succeeding after failing once or twice? The only
people who succeed in life are the persistent ones.
Those who continue working right to the end until
they get what they want even if everything was
against them and even if they failed many times. If
you want to be successful then, learn how to stand
up again even if you failed hundreds of times.
• Lack of Flexibility: Flexibility is the ability to adapt to
external conditions. It's the ability to try something
else or another method when your current method
fails. The more flexible you are, the more you will
adapt to changes and the higher your chances of
success will be. Learn how to be flexible and how to
change your methods when they don't work.

• Lack of Planning: If you don‟t have goals or plans then
you are going to be part of other people's plans. If you
don‟t plan to be the team leader at your work then
someone else in your team will do so and if you don't
plan to get that high paying job then someone else who
planned and worked for it will take it from you. If you
don‟t plan you will get swept away by the people who
do. They will fill the positions, make the money and get
the fame while you'll just be a spectator.
• Lack of Self-confidence: If you don't have a high selfconfidence then most probably you will be too shy of
presenting your ideas and you may give up your dreams
as soon as someone tells you that they are not possible.
You may fear taking any risks and so ignore many
opportunities that could have made you successful. If
you want to increase your chances of being a successful
person, then you must build your self-confidence.

• Thinking that you lack resources: In his book ‟How i did
it’, Farouk Radwan explains how he managed to make a
website that generates thousands of dollars/month in
less than 2 years with an initial investment that is less than
50 dollars!! Don't fool yourself by thinking that you lack
resources because if you are serious about success you
will do it without having any resources. This website is one
of the examples of successful businesses that required no
resources at the start up.
• Success related Fears: The types of fears that can affect
your ability to succeed are the fear of failure and the
fear of success. While they both seem to be complete
opposites still they can have the same effect on you
which is preventing you from trying and so leading you
to failure.


The Road to Success
• After going through the previous slides then it's time to
know how the road to success looks like, so that you
don't find unexpected surprises.
• The road to success will probably be full of
rejection, pain, hard work, disappointment as well as
many other discouraging things but when you reach its
end you will feel really happy and victorious.
• You will feel proud of yourself for overcoming all of these
obstacles and for reaching your goals in spite of the
many things that stood in your way. You will be
tremendously happy and satisfied. In short, you will
receive the reward of being successful.
• Farouk is not only holding several degrees in psychology
but he is also an MBA holder, a stock market investor
and an entrepreneur. The information we are sharing
now can dramatically increase your chance of
increasing your wealth and becoming rich.

5 Fundamentals for Success in Life


1. Be Proactive
• Viktor Frankl said that between stimulus and
response there is a gap, and within this gap lies all
our freedom. Even as he was suffering immense
privations in a Nazi concentration camp, he
realized that he was responsible for his thoughts
and actions and was not simply a bundle of
conditioned responses.
• Like Frankl, we should strive to be the creators of
our own destiny, orchestrating our experience of
life. Everything starts in the mind and ripples
out, so what happens around us is a reflection of
our own inner world. Whether we allow our inner
world to grow wild, whether we let weeds spring
up and take hold or whether we cultivate a
green and pleasant garden – it is all our choice:
this is what it means to be proactive.

2. Take Responsibility
• Since we have the power to choose our
experience, we also need to accept responsibility
for this. Perhaps not that everything that comes
our way is a direct result of our own thinking
(though some might say it is) but what we attract
into our life, is largely, a reflection of our thinking.
Much of this occurs on a subconscious level, but
the subconscious takes its lead from the thinking
mind, so changing our thoughts will change our
world, and we are responsible for this.
• Our behavior is a natural outcome of our mental
images, and so we are responsible for our
behavior too, and also for the behavior we
tolerate in others. If we allow others to ride
roughshod over us, then we have ourselves to
blame.

3. Be a Good Leader
• We cannot be effective in any area of life unless we
have good leadership skills. Leadership is an art and
each of us needs to find our own approach to it.
Primarily, we need to understand how to lead
ourselves, and this means having a compass, a direction
which guides all our actions. This compass often takes
the form of a personal mission statement, a document
spelling out the values we live by.
• As we lead others, whether as parents, bosses, in families
or organizations of which we are a part, we need first
and foremost to lead by example, making it clear what
our values are and that we live by them. Any
inconsistency in our professed values and our behavior
will be spotted, seen through and will ruin our
effectiveness. Personal complicity and double standards
are the nails in the coffin of our ability to lead.
• A good leader will lead quietly and subtly, from the
rear, without fuss, without fanfare. In the words of the Tao
Te Ching, as described below;

3. Be a Good Leader Cont’d
• ‘A good soldier does not inspire fear;
A good fighter does not display aggression;
A good conqueror does not engage in battle;
A good leader does not exercise authority.
• This is the value of unimportance;
This is how to win the cooperation of others;
This to how to build the same harmony that is
in nature.’


4. Don’t Let Fear Stop You
• The film “The Village” by M Night Shyamalan is about facing
the fears that haunt us and realizing that, when we do so, they
disappear – nothing is as it seems. The most commonly given
assurance in the Bible is ‘do not be afraid for am with you.’
• Whenever we grow, there is fear. Whenever we do something
new, there is fear. Whenever we push ourselves to new heights
or expand our comfort zone, there is fear. This is the nature of
life. Life is always moving – either we are moving
forward, growing, or we are moving back, dying. We have a
choice – we can either grow or we can die. Growth and fear
go hand in hand. It‟s part of a package, and if we fail to
embrace the whole package, we will die.
• Don‟t fear failure – failure is inevitable and necessary. Look at
the life of any successful person and you will see a litany of
failure. This failure is the foundation of success, so long as we
learn from it.
• Don‟t fear other people. They are as vulnerable and as
beautiful as you are – only sometimes they lash out in various
ways to protect themselves. Everyone is doing their best, so be
gentle on other people and don‟t be scared of them.
• When you face your fears, they will vanish like smoke.

5. Never Stop Learning
• I have come to the conclusion that learning is the
fundamental activity in a successful and
purposeful life. If we fail to learn, we fail to grow,
and this means that we die. Life gives us endless
opportunities to learn, and the more difficult the
situation, the more we are likely to learn.
• We can learn from other people, especially
difficult ones – they are like angels sent from
heaven to teach us about ourselves. We can
learn from the things happening around us. And
most of all, we can learn by watching ourselves,
seeing how we react and reflecting deeply on
what moves us.
These five activities, if they can become habits, will
lead to success in all areas of life. They are not a
quick fix, but are the foundation of a life lived well.

10 Commandments for Success in Life
Here are ten points gleaned from the writings of Sri Swami Sivananda,
which can lead any individual towards success in their chosen path in
life. These guidelines have the power to benefit you - physically,
mentally and spiritually.
1. Have a simple and unassuming manner of life.
2. Live not to eat, but eat to live.
3. Bear no envy. Commit no slander. Speak no falsehood. Practice no
deceit. Harbor no malice. You will be ever joyful, happy and peaceful.
4. Righteousness is the rule of life. Lead a virtuous life. Human life is not
human without virtues. Study the lives of saints and draw inspiration from
them.
5. Cultivate a melting heart, the giving hand, the kindly speech, the life
of service, equal vision, and impartial attitude. Your life will, indeed, be
blessed.
6. Lead a regulated life. Take hold of each day as if it were the last day,
and utilize every second in prayer, meditation and service. Let your life
become a continuous sacrifice to God.
7. Live in the present. Forget the past. Give up hopes of the future.
8. Understand well the meaning of life, and then start the quest.
9. Life is thy greatest gift. Utilize every second profitably.
10. Success often comes to those who dare and act. It seldom comes to
the timid.

Measuring success
• As discussed earlier, everybody has their own definition
of success. For some, success is earning a 7-digit
salary, whereas for others, success is having a fulfilling
marriage with a beautiful wife and 4 children; 2 boys
and 2 girls. Traditionally, success for a man is synonymous
with having a multitude of wives, dozens of
children, large pieces of land, several herds of cattle
and a generously sized stomach.
• In the contemporary society, success is benchmarked
against material wealth. If you have a conglomerate of
businesses, a spectacular mansion for a home, a fleet of
the world‟s latest models of cars and a whooping
income that can guarantee you overseas holidays every
once in a while, you are successful by world standards.
• For others, success is measured by one‟s level of
academic achievement. Excelling with straight
A‟s, attaining a First Class Degree, a Masters Degree and
ultimately a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) is the
epitome of success inDeus Taremwa 2013 Series world.
today‟s elite
©

Measuring success cont‟d
• Irrespective of the various definitions
and attributes of success, the constant
factor in all the definitions is
achievement. Whether it is wealth,
marriage or knowledge, it is your level
of
achievement
that
ultimately
determines your degree of success.
• The
following
parameters
can
therefore be used to measure success;

a) Goal Setting
• In order for us to attain success, we need to set
goals. You can not achieve what you don‟t
envision.
• Goals help us to streamline our efforts and
channel them towards a particular aim. Once
you have a goal, you can then develop a
strategy on how to achieve your goal.
• In order to set workable strategies, you need to
workout a Strength-Weaknesses-Opportunitiesand-Threats (SWOT) analysis of yourself, so that
you can customize your strategy to suite your
character and personality.


b) Mindset
• Your mindset is vital in as far as determining
success is concerned. If you are wealthy,
highly educated and have the perfect family
but you are not contented because you have
set the bar sky-high, you will not be successful
by your standards regardless of how other
people perceive your accomplishments.
• Success is a personal choice. Nature has
gifted us with ample resources for us to
achieve success. Not all of us will have the
same opportunity to utilize these resources.
The most successful people are those who
acknowledge their circumstances and make
the most of what they have however little it is.

c) Value of Time
• Successful people appreciate the value of
time. They are conversant with the fact that
time is an indispensable and scarce resource.
They constantly work around the clock to
reach their targets. It is therefore our task to
ensure that we make the most of the
resources and opportunities that God has put
before us.
• It is also important for us to recognize and
reward ourselves for even the paltry
achievements. It is only when we learn to
appreciate our every effort that we can
advance our energies and direct them
towards even greater achievement.

d) Overcoming Failure
• Success, however, does not go without deterrents.
Among the most profound deterrents of success is
failure. Although failure is a huge setback, it should not
derail us from the path of accomplishment. Everybody
encounters failure at some point in their life.
• Faced with failure, students will, many a time, blame
their lecturer for availing them inadequate learning
material. Others might occasionally blame a friend for
consuming their precious reading time or for leading
them astray. Employees will sometimes blame their
employers or colleagues, for not adequately supporting
them. Although sometimes other people are indeed to
blame for our mishaps, we can not afford to lay blame
entirely on a third party. We need to take responsibility
for our actions at all times and in all circumstances.


Overcoming Failure Cont‟d
• Successful people are not those who excel at whatever
they do. Successful people are ambitious people who
encounter failure but do not let failure hold them back.
They do not „sweat the small stuff‟. They perceive failure
as a chance for them to discover their faults, learn from
them and improve. They acknowledge that failure is part
of the game and therefore perceive failure as a wakeup
call to harness their potential and streamline their efforts
to their goals.
• We therefore need to change the way we approach
failure instead of wallowing in self pity and regret. One
of the best ways to approach failure is to acknowledge
that you have fallen short of the mark. The mistake that
most of us make is to play the blame game. Most of us
are so quick to look for the nearest victim on whom to
apportion blame for our faults that we lose focus on the
most pertinent issue.

e) Creativity
• Being successful involves being creative.
Successful people always find solutions to their
challenges. If your lecturer gives you
insufficient material, take the initiative to find
supplementary material.
• If your upkeep is not enough to finance your
requirements, find ways to make ends meet.
Our minds are pregnant with ideas on how to
generate income but we are so complacent
that we do not realize how much potential we
have.
Bottom line, we need to develop proactive
minds that seek solutions rather than apportion
blame.

Conclusion
• Scholars have written countless books on success.
Preachers and teachers have preached the
success gospel the world over. Why then can we
not reach our goals? Are we dwelling on our
weaknesses instead of capitalizing on our
strengths? Are we drowning in pools of self pity
over our inequities? Are we waylaid by failure?
Are we setting the bar too high that we can not
even lift a foot to reach the threshold?
• Whatever is holding you back, you need to get
rid of it. You will then discover that the secret of
success is not wealth, education, or a huge chunk
of land, but yourself. You are the greatest asset
you have! Take time to discover yourself . You will
be amazed at the wealth of potential that you
have.

May you all attain success in life!
Thank You

Success in life

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