Success is available to anyone who wants to pay the price for it;
it’s available to anyone who can afford its costly rate. Which begs the
questions: do you want it, and can you afford it?
The 9 Ingredients to Success:
1. Luck
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the
swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or
wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. – Ecclesiastes 9:11
…If you are born the son of Earl Woods, teacher and golf fanatic, you
have a much better chance at becoming Tiger Woods. This is indeed
self-evident; if you were born the child of actor Jerry and actress Anne
Stiller, your chances of becoming Ben Stiller (American actor) increase
significantly.
In some ways, we are all lucky: it may be where you were born, when
you were born, or a million other possibilities, but in some way, you
are lucky.
2. The Right Physical Attributes, or the Right Genetics
… but time and chance happen to them all. – Ecclesiastes 9:11
Once again, some things related to success are out of your hands. If
you’re 6 foot 6 inches tall, you have a much better chance of becoming
Michael Jordan. If you’re 6 foot 6 inches tall, you have virtually no
chance of becoming a gymnast. If you were born with vocal cords like
Celine Dion, you have a good chance of becoming a singer, if you were
born with vocal cords like mine, then, well, not so much.
3. Hard Work
All life demands struggle. The very striving and hard work that
we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person
we are today. –Pope Paul VI
Guess what? Even with all the luck in the world, and all the right
physical attributes, if you’re not willing to work extremely hard, it’s
all for naught. You don’t become a Michael Jordan, a Celine Dion, a
Tiger Woods, or a Ben Stiller without hard work, discipline and
dedication.
4. Faith
Act Like A King to be Treated Like One – Title of a Chapter in the book “The 48 Laws of Power.”
If you don’t believe your worthy of success and greatness, you will
never achieve it. You must crown yourself king long before anyone else
proclaims your kingship.
You can’t tell a fireplace, give me some heat,
and then I’ll put in some wood; you must first put in the wood. You
must have faith in your greatness – before becoming great.
It’s also important to note that you will never feel “fully ready” to
be king, you just have to be it, you just have to believe it, you just
have to become it.
5. Proper Practice
Proper practice prevents poor performance. – Not Sure Who Said This
What really separates the elite from the average is “proper
practice.” Most of us go to work every day, but most of us aren’t
focused on becoming better at our jobs every day.
Proper practice is practice that actually makes you better than you
were the day before. It is practice focused on your weak spots; it is
practice that challenges you daily; this kind of practice pulls you from
your comfort zone, it pulls you from the mundane to the majestic.
Imagine if every day you “practiced” for hours at being better at
your job (when you weren’t at work); if you focused on your weak spots.
In time, you would not only be good at your job, you would be great.
That’s what the top chess players, top athletes, and the top business
men and women have in common; “proper practice.”
6. Time
If the average age for a gymnast is 17, and I start practicing at age
4, and you start practicing at age 16, I have a much better chance of
becoming a gymnast in comparison to you (ceteris paribus – all things
considered equal).
In some careers: unless you start very early (when you are a child,
and you have lots of time to dedicate), it will be very difficult, if
not impossible, to achieve success.
If you wait until your “20’s” to
begin in certain careers, when most people are starting their lives,
getting married, having kids, et cetera, you may not have time to
dedicate the necessary hours to “proper practice” every day.
It takes
about 10,000 hours of “proper practice” to succeed, so be sure to do the
math before you begin, to ensure you can finish the race you start.
7. Patience
Julius Caesar said, “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”
Because it takes time to succeed, you’re going to need patience!
Greatness doesn’t happen overnight, if it did…then, yes, everyone would
be great. Patience is a prerequisite.
8. The Right Attitude
If you don’t have a positive attitude, you won’t have “the fight” to
push through the pain to get to the promise.
Thomas Jefferson said,
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving
his goal, and nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental
attitude;” and it’s true. Success requires a successful attitude.
Your
attitude is the barometer that your life is set at; you can set it
positively or negatively. The choice is yours.
9. Intense Desire
There’s a great price to success…
Which once again begs the question, is success even worth the price? Should I even bother trying to succeed?
Well that depends on… ‘How bad do you want it?’ Do you have an
intense desire to be a success? Do you have an intense desire to
fulfill your dreams?
Do you have an intense desire to be CEO? Your
desire has to be so intense that it allows you to sacrifice your time,
sacrifice certain relationships, and sacrifice portions of your life.
That’s the kind of desire that’s necessary for great success.
So the question still remains, “Is it worth it?” ….but that’s not a
question that I can answer, it’s not a question that anyone can
answer…except you.
Thank you for reading one naira advice where every article expands your mind, increases your faith, and changes your life.
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