Simon Paul Thurston

Our desire to succeed financially in life is a deeply ingrained human instinct.  We all want to be successful, rich, wealthy, and recognized as experts within our fields.  However, it’s important to keep in mind that true success in our personal development path comes from a well-rounded approach.

Financial success is important – it’s one of the top priorities we strive for, because many other forms of success stem from our initial financial goals that we meet.  However, an unbalanced approach that focuses on only financial success is doomed to failure.  There are other priorities that should always be considered equally alongside financial success. 

Health

If you find yourself sitting in front of a computer during all waking hours of the day so that you can develop your online business website, or conduct your various marketing plans – you might find that your life becomes unbalanced.  You will become unhealthy, overweight, more tired and irritated. 

It is important to your overall long-term success that you schedule in a block of time every single day to get some fitness into your life.  It can be an hour walk, or a hike in the park.  It can even be incorporated into your business needs.  If you need to send out correspondence every day, and the post office is within a couple of miles – pack the correspondence in a backpack and walk to the post office.  Or schedule a block of one hour, every single morning, to head over to the gym and use the treadmill or weight-lift for a full hour. 

Sticking to a regular fitness schedule, incorporated into your daily busy schedule, will pay off tremendously in the long run.  You will feel more energy, more motivated, and more passionate about the rest of your day…and your resulting business success will be astounding because of it.

Family

The last thing anyone should do is to sacrifice family time and family connections in preference for business.  We are all developing our business plan and working toward financial freedom for the good of our current families, or the family we may have in the future.  However, we should never fail to invest time today in spending time with those around us who provide us with support and encouragement.  If you dedicate enough of your time to keep in touch with those around you who make you feel important and needed – the resulting encouragement and motivation that they will, in turn, provide will be a driving force that will keep you moving forward into the monumental success that you’ll realize down the road.

Goodwill

Some people say that they will give to charity when they are rich.  However – giving to charity, or helping those who are less fortunate, isn’t something to be done only when we can afford it.  The fact that we are able to live a fairly comfortable life, under a roof and in a dry bed; the fact that we are able to properly feed ourselves and survive; is more than enough that’s required for us to help those who are less fortunate. 

We were not all born with the same family support systems, or income levels, or intelligence – and there are huge portions of every population in the world that have simply been handed a poor lot in life.  It is our responsibility as a member of the human race that we work collaboratively and as a community for the better good of mankind.

It doesn’t take a lot.  Sometimes just a few dollars dedicated to one small family in a third-world country might motivate a child in that family to work toward a better education.  You could be the driving force that changes the life of a child who might otherwise have gone down the same path of generations before her.  Sure – when we are wealthy – it would be far easier to help the less fortunate around us.  However, how much more generous and amazing would it be when people see you, as a highly successful business person, having already helped so many less fortunate succeed – even before you, yourself were ever so successful.

American author, Jack London, once wrote:

“A bone to the dog is not charity.  Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”

In many ways, this kind of charity will be a powerful driving force for your ultimate personal success.

Mental Health

Most importantly – in the process of developing your success, it’s important to exercise the mind.  Focusing on only one task, or one goal, is unhealthy.  It can deprive you of your natural human desire for a variety of information and ideas.  Keep an open mind, and read about topics that you never knew anything about.  Allow yourself time to dream and think creatively about abstract ideas – read novels about lands far away, or take a beginner’s art class that will help you to express your thoughts and emotions in more ways than you ever imagined.

You may think that successful men and women throughout history got there through hard work and sacrifice.  This is only partially true.  Men and women who have succeeded throughout history did so by succeeding in not only one aspect of their lives – but in a well-rounded all-encompassing success that came from a true balance within all parts of their lives.

This important balance is what gives birth to ultimate personal success.

There is one thing that success and failure have in common – they both come from courage. Courage to take the first step; courage to take the path less traveled; courage to do things differently than other people do.

Theodore Roosevelt once said:

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure…than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Those who succeed in everything – business, marriage, and life in general – are not invincible to failure. They are simply courageous enough to walk against the crowd. They are self-confident enough to choose not what others want them to do, but to choose what makes them feel passionate and motivated. And they simply do not fear failure.The silver bullet to fulfilling your potential is in first understanding what you want, what you are passionate about, and what the word “success” means to you.

What you want

For different people, this can be different things. It might be money, or it might be fame. It might simply be a cleaner environment or…while we’re reaching for the sky – even world peace. There are no limits when it comes to defining what it is we want for our lives. This is where dreaming comes in – and who ever said there should be limits on dreams?

“I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

What you are Passionate About

The most important ingredient to success is passion. A love of what you do. If you don’t have an interest in technology, then opening a computer business is not really going to drive you. However, if you have had a life-long love of pets, or a passion for writing, or an affinity for food – then your passion should direct your efforts. Once you are working for those things that you feel strongly about – you will feel driven, every single morning, to get out of bed and start accomplishing things.Dreams are based on passion, passion creates drive – and drive leads to overwhelming success.

What Success means to you

These will be your specific goals. You should be asking yourself – when I am successful, what will I be, where will I be, and what will I have? For some people, success means living in a home without a mortgage, or living without debt, or having a few million dollars. For others, success is measured differently – it might be to be recognized as a leader in their field, or to publish a novel.

Dream, Organize, Execute

Once you know what you want and what makes you feel driven – the final steps are to put together a plan to get there. Outline the steps you will take, every year and even every month, to reach that ultimate goal. Be honest and realistic, but don’t limit your dreams. Aim high.And finally, once your goals are set, and you have determined what you need to do to reach your full potential – then comes the fun part.

Every day, you will wake up and feel driven by those dreams, and by the love you have for what you do. And you will feel motivated to do the work that it takes to reach each individual goal, because you know, at the end of the road, the success and fulfillment that awaits you.

If you want to make more of your talents and live up to your full potential, and this applies to everything from business to sport to simply living a better life, you have to learn to change your habits.

Assessing the skills you currently have, and looking at the new skills, future objectives or overall goals that you want to achieve is a good starting point in terms of self analysis. You also need to believe that you can improve your performance, your productivity, and the quality of your whole life.

So what are the ingredients for being successful and what makes a high achiever? Is it luck, intelligence, talent, dedication or a combination of all four ? Well, it’s certainly right to point out that not all intelligent, talented and hard working people become successful, or would even consider themselves truely happy.

It is also fair to say that we know (of) people who are not exceptionally bright but seem to be very happy and successful. For example, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Tom Cruise and Sir Richard Branson all have something in common, apart from the fact that they were or are highly successful in their given area of expertise. The answer ….. they ‘ve all suffered with dyslexia.

So there must be something else, some other ’secret’ to success. Well, actually there are several ’secrets’ to fulfilling your potential, and they are largely to do with how you think and how you act and as a result of this, what you do.

Achieving success in business, friendship or love is largely determined by your own self-image, so in essence, what you think about yourself. Your unhappiness is something that you choose, so that would equally apply to your happiness and success too.

 Well, that’s it for Part 1, in Part 2 we’ll go into more detail of exactly how to go about starting your journey into improving yourself and fulfilling your potential.