In order to become successful, you must set goals, commit yourself to achieving those goals and take consistent action towards that direction.

Continued self-development is absolutely necessary. You will be successful only if you can convince yourself that the temporary discomfort of discipline far outweighs the pain of procrastination.

Set your goals! What is it you want!

Develop your strategy. How are you going to get what you want?

Take action.

Keep yourself motivated! If you can harness the imagination you had as a child, you can tap into one of the most powerful motivational forces ever discovered.

Improve your time managment and organizational skills!

Overcome your fears.

Increase your self-confidence!

I was waiting for this one ;)

We obviously disagree with our definitions of success. I see success as being internal. You seem to (from how I read it) see it as external. Fulfilling of goals, exceeding expectations, extending your imagination.

Dunno, I guess I see it as the guy on the beach who does nothing can be just as succesful as Bill Gates. Even if the guy on the beach does nothing.

That said, I'm big into business, and business sucess is something else entirely. I agree with all of your points if we're talking business success, as opposed to life success (which is what most people are actually looking for).

I'd be interested to know how you perceive the guy on the beach who does nothing as being successful? Successful at what? Living? In that case we are all successful.

No, we aren't. Success is, to me, peace of mind, loving your life and having what you desire.

As I said, I think we're talking about 2 different kinds of success. Life, and business.

SUCCESS, WEALTH , HAPPINESS. IT'S ALL A STATE OF MIND. PERCEPTION IS REALITY. A STRONG BELIEF IN UNLIMITED ABUNDANCE TRANSLATES TO WEALTH. I GUESS EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN PERCEPTION OF WHAT SUCCESS, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS MEANS TO THEM. TO SOME, IT MAY BE INNER CONTENTMENT AND HAPPINESS. TO OTHERS, IT IS STATUS SYMBOLS.

Great post OneMore! Welcome to the forum bigman!!

I believe we are talking about the same thing, Jeremy, however, our examples differ.

In order to succeed at something, one must take action. Without action, there can be neither success or failure. If the guy on the beach is doing nothing, then, by the very nature of the definition of the words, he cannot be labeled as either a success or a failure.

If your goal was to "obtain peace of mind, love your life and have what you desire" and you have achieved that, then you were successful. If you have not achieved that then you have failed.

Success does not always equate to wealth, though it seems that the vast majority of people seem to correlate it to such. There is only one definition of success, but there are many ways to achieve it.

Perhaps if we changed the adjective to the word failure we might better understand the definition of success.

OneMore,

I totally agree with what you say about setting goals, taking action, overcoming fears and improving self confidence. It is a matter of developing good habits to achieve these things.

It has been my experience that when I make a positive change such as exercising regularly, it creates a snowball effect. The more positive changes, the more confidence I gain and want to keep doing good things to make improvements. It does take time to turn negative habits into positive habits, but the time and effort is well worth it.

Totally true, Scarlet, it does create a snowball effect. What once was a struggle, no longer is when self-defeating habits that die hard are successfully changed.

There are many sayings which immediately come to mind. "Old habits die hard." "Mind over matter." Cliche as these might sound, they ring with a truth that is difficult to deny and carry within them a message so simple, we often overlook it.

There is a comfort zone which surrounds us all. Improvement requires we step out of that comfort zone. It is something that is easier said than done. It also requires that we take a realistic look at our selves, our behaviors, our habits, and our dreams, if that is what you wish to call them. It is no small feat to look at these things through an unbiased mind, but that is what must be done if we are to succeed in what ever ventures we decide to undertake, irrespective of whether those ventures be on a physical, emotional or metaphysical plane.

The end effect will be the harnessing of a state of mind that generates more bliss than discomfort.

I guess part of it is distinguishing personal success vs. what others view as success.

If someone has the goal of traveling the world and visiting as many tropical islands as possible, then he is successful if he is actually doing that. Even if that means that he is working in hotels or on ships getting almost nothing for pay. In his life, he is living his dreams if he is laying on the beach doing absolutely nothing.

Now if someone has a goal to become a wealthy person, then he would be successful in his mind when he achieves that, and he has to do whatever it takes to get there.

Success is in the mind of the beholder. You may think that the person laying on the beach is not a successful person, but on the other hand, he probably thinks that you are not successful at living life since you are stuck in an office 5 days a week in some polluted city.

It's all perspective.