Four Old School Principles of Success

1. Success depends upon your goals       

The Oxford Dictionary defines success as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”  Missing from this definition is the key to success—aiming for the right goal. What, then, should be our Goal?

There are many ideas today on being successful. Popular opinion, however, is not the best place to look for them. Setting goals of Popularity, Power, Pelf (ill-gotten gains), and Prestige can lead us into years of striving, stress, and even suffering.

In addition, all of these goals are uncontrollable, cannot be maintained by human ability and may be lost in a moment in our social media dominated world.

We should set our own life goals and aim high in areas of quality, character, and virtue.

Can everyone be successful? Can anyone achieve success? Again, it depends on what you are aiming for.

2. Success depends upon your relationships          

In our ever-shrinking world, no one is an island; we depend upon others in all areas of life. From the grocer to the child-care worker to the doctor to the bus driver, we rely on many people in our busy society.

Now stop and reflect upon how many people rely on you.

While the price of our product or service is important, relationships and customer service are more valuable in the marathon of building a business. Make sure your values include honesty, integrity, and mutual respect.

If you do, people who value the same will be attracted to you and your organization.

3. Success depends upon your self-discipline            

There are always the exceptions of Lottery winners, and get rich quick schemes, but the hard truth of success is that if we are setting our own life goals, we have no one to blame if we don’t achieve them.

The old school method of hard work, self-discipline, and faithfulness are never optional in success.

Setting some daily patterns of personal productivity will go a long way in achieving success.

Larry Alton at Entrepreneur.com has a great list of steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

4. Success depends upon your time           

Hard work, skills, intuitive ideas, and strong relationships take time to produce what is needed to be successful. As a well-nurtured garden needs water, so does the fruit of our efforts need time.

Patience, emotional energy, and vision must be combined together so that we can run the marathon of successful accomplishments.

For example, if you are starting a business short on cash, you might need to work at it part time until you can transition because good reputations don’t just happen!

They are built over time…

Download the Presention of this article given to a BNI business networking group.

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