Friday, August 21, 2009

Fear of Success = Fear of Change


Nearly everyone wants to be successful in his or her life, I say nearly everyone because you can find people who actually have no desires to succeed in anything other than to just make it day to day. Sad really. So if this is the case, if people truly desire success and everything that comes with it such as: financial freedom, time freedom, house and car of their dreams, exotic vacations around the world, stay at the finest hotels, etc, why do people have a fear of success?For each person there will be a different reason or reasons, you can not lump everyone into one category and say this is why people fear success, or can you?
I have read many articles on this subject and they are usually dealing with one aspect of why people fear success or many different reasons why people have the fear of success.However there is one common denominator to each of the reasons given and that it all boils down to one thing: Fear of Change.It doesn’t matter what reason that is given for having this fear of success cause the things that are necessary for you to be successful are going to be different from what you have been doing in the past. Let’s look at some of the reasons I have seen or read about for people having the fear of success.
1. Comfort Zone. There is a reason why it’s called the comfort zone. People are comfortable being there. Everything is familiar to them there, there is nothing that is hardly unknown and when there is familiarity there is nothing scary to have to deal with. Nothing to be on edge or excited about.Well in order to become successful you are going to have to change. You are going to have to leave your comfort zone and do it on a repeated basis. That is the only way you can grow and learn as a person and your business. Having to do this just once for a lot of people is scary enough but the very thought of having to keep on doing it on a regular basis is just too much to handle for many people. Fear of change - having to leave your comfort zone.
2. Responsibility. You have to be responsible for yourself and the decisions you make along the way in growing your business. You are in charge, in the lead, and it’s up to you. Again there is change here. If you were already a leader by nature chances are you do not have a fear of success other wise you would not be a natural leader. So change must take place. You must do things that do not come naturally to you. You are leaving that comfort zone again. You must become a leader even if it’s just you who you are leading. No one else is going to make decisions for you. Fear of change, having to take responsibility.
3. Attention factor. Are you a private person? Again change is going to have to take place. Now I am not saying you are going to lose all your rights to privacy just because you wish to have success. What I am saying is that you can no longer just blend into the crowd and not be noticed. If you wish success you are going to have to stand out, get noticed and you will. With success comes attention, no matter what field you are in, more people will know who you are. Fear of change, having the attention now on you.
4. Higher Standards. When you are a success or climbing that ladder of success more will be demanded of you and you are going to be expected to perform at a higher level. And you should. You are going to have to go that extra mile. Just getting by, doing just enough and not meeting demands will not work. You will be expected to perform well and come through, meeting deadlines and being on time and do this on a regular basis. So again it is change we are talking about. Let’s face it, if you were already doing these things chances are you would already be a success at whatever you wish to do. Fear of change, having to raise your standards and what is expected of you.
5. Friends / Enemies. This will happen. Get ready. When you become successful people start viewing you differently. They may gain respect or have more respect for you because of what you have accomplished or they will become envious of your newfound success and no longer wish to speak to you or just talk behind your back. People who you thought were your friends or not really true friends and co-workers whom you may not even had any sort of previous contact with just despise you just because of your success. "Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy." AeschylusMany people’s fear of success stem from this one reason, they do not wish to take a chance in losing friends or co-workers.
These people are in their comfort zone. The thought of making new friends is just too much. This was one of my past fears. However what I found out once I was able to get through this block was that making new friends with like minded individuals was much more rewarding. I would rather have friends that celebrate me than tolerate me. Fear of change, may have to make new friends, be talked about by envious co-workers, accepting the idea that people who you thought they were are not who they really are.
6. Self Image. To me this is one of the major setbacks for the fear of success with people. They can not see themselves as being successful. They don’t feel they are worthy of any success that comes their way. Here again people do not wish to leave that comfort zone they have built around themselves. Before any success will come your way the very first thing that must change is you. You must change how you think, see and feel about yourself. You must think positive and believe you are a winner.
You must visualize yourself as successful. You have got to see yourself being a success before you can become a success. Also you must feel it within and know it to be true. Fear of change, having to accept the idea you are worthy of success.“Success will not lower its standard to us. We must raise our standard to success.” Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.No matter what category you fall under as your reason or reasons for your fear of success it all comes down to change. You must change in order to see change in your life. Nothing changes until you do...

Thursday, August 20, 2009

8 Life Changing Choices That Contribute to Personal Success

"The history of free men is never written by chance, but by their choice." Dwight D. Eisenhower The direction of our lives is determined by the choices we make every day. As a consequence of our daily choices they will "change the course of your life". Choices accumulate and add up to our ultimate destiny. Here are eight choices you can make that will create for you a life of abundance and prosperity in all areas of your life. These choices will contribute to personal success along with the ability to "achieve financial freedom".
1. Choose to grow personally.
This sounds simple but many people only wish to grow personally. They never CHOOSE to grow by taking action, such as actually exercising, saving more money, investing in their education, or reading personal development books. This would also be a good time to get involved in a home-based business because that industry is all about personal development which contributes to personal success. Therefore, you will want to make a decision today to be a person who is on the never-ending journey of personal growth.
2. Choose to always treat others right.
We come across all sorts of people and many of them will treat us poorly. However, we can still choose to treat them with integrity although their behavior towards us is less than cordial. When they lie; we can choose to tell the truth. When they cheat; we choose to play by the rules. We may get cheated at times by these people, but in the long run, we will win. It’s important to remember that the energy we give out is always coming back around to us. "What goes around—comes around". More importantly we will always have a clear conscience and; therefore, not carry around any negative feeling such as guilt because we treated someone badly.
3. Choose to break a bad habit. Start with one bad habit and only focus on one at a time. If you do not know what your bad habits are your friends and family can always tell you. Then spend every effort you can to break that habit. Some bad habits could be that you decide to work on getting out of debt, start an exercise program, stay away from sweets, learn how to use self-control and not interrupt somebody when they’re speaking. Or you might want to work on a character trait such as learning to be more patient everyday. It is important that you use some kind of behavior modification program that can help you. Use your power to choose to break a bad habit and always replace it with a new positive one.
4. Choose to work smarter. Many people feel like their lives are out of balance and they don’t have enough time to do everything they want to. This could be someone that has a job or someone that has a home-based business. First of all you need to be aware of the time that you might be wasting by doing activities that are not creating results. Therefore, learning some good time management techniques, setting up a schedule, and sticking to your schedule will make your life flow better and easier. You want to create a life that is peaceful and not chaotic. Getting your work done by diligently working in the time you have allocated will work extraordinarily well, so, that you can focus on doing the things that are meaningful for you and your family.
5. Choose to see your work as a way of purpose.
When you live your life by helping, motivating, and inspiring other people not only will your life be more meaningful; but it will be way to make more money. If you put your heart and your efforts into helping others-- then the financial part of it takes care of itself. Spend your time helping others grow and your finances will grow with it.
6. Choose to live a balanced life.
When you learn to live a balanced life spiritually, emotionally and physically; you will feel better when all three are balanced. Spend some time cultivating your spirituality, becoming emotionally healthy, and physically fit. However, there are times when realistically, you life will not be balanced. For example: If you are writing a book and have a deadline; you may have to invest more time into this area temporarily.
7. Choose to sow more than you reap.
There are many takers in this world, but our lives will be better as we become givers and serve the world as givers. You want to learn to become generous with yourself and learn to give of your time, your money, and, of course, your love. However, it is also important that you set boundaries with people and literally not give away so much that there is nothing left for yourself. We must always take care of ourselves before we can take care of anybody else.
8. Choose to spend time with your family, especially if you have children.
It is important to be there for dinner because your family is the most important group of people you will ever belong to. Make a decision today to grow in your relationship with your parents, siblings, spouse, and children. This is one choice you will never regret. Anytime you change a negative habit and replace it with a more constructive behavior it is going to affect everybody in your circle of friends and family. When I was a school counselor I used to tell my students that our behavior affects other people.
Therefore, HOW we are "being" is so important. This is something we always have a choice in. We must always take personal responsibility for our behavior and choices. All of these choices contribute to experiencing "personal success" and with personal success come more abundance and prosperity...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

What Is Success And How Can You Achieve It?


In order to be successful, you will first have to be clear about what success truly is. Only then you will get to figure out exactly what will be your stepping stone to achieving the desirable success. As you are asking yourself what is success and how you can achieve it, look around you first. Do you see successful people? If you are shaking your head in disagreement, then you have yet to understand the true meaning of Success.Everyone, yes everyone, including YOU has gone through the success phase at least once throughout your entire life breathing in this world. Success does not have to be something that you have achieved through a milestone. Even your first baby steps are considered as success.
Some people might want to define success as a major achievement, while some would define it as meeting their goals, regardless of the quality of goals. Even robbing a bank is a kind of success! So, if it is your goal and you managed to achieve it, then it IS a considered as a success after all.There is always to sides to a coin. When there is success, there will also be failure. These 2 are always linked together and that is simply the reason why, if you do not get to achieve what you want to achieve, you will end up falling behind and failing.Make a plan and follow it like you are walking on a taut rope - steadily but yet surely.
To make a plan and follow is will lead you to success, whereas to make a plan but to NOT follow it will just lead you to failure, with a capital F, mind you.Everyday can be a successful day. No one can tell us whether our day is a success or otherwise. We create our own destiny and to do this, live each day with an aim or motive. Live up to it and adhere to it like it is your religion. It is amazing that it is estimated that only 85% of the human race always end up doing what they wanted to do.Success is intangible, as such, we do not have a meter ruler not weighing machines to measure the amount of success we have. As such, this makes the road to success even more challenging.
You can however choose to note down your achievements and success. To some, they believed that people with clear written goals tend to achieve more over a shorter period of time. While you might think that scribbling down goals and what nots are a mere waste of time, then think again.Consciously, you might consider this all thrash. But did you know that just by jotting your goals on a piece of paper, your mind will work such that it keeps you reminded of the things that you should do and subconsciously, you will work towards the goals that you have always wanted.All these of course take a little bit of discipline too.
As aforementioned, to plan but not to take any actions will leave you nowhere from where you started. Do it right, and you will get to improve your life beyond leaps and bounds.Success is There; it is just waiting for the right time for you to land your hands on it...