Growth in Life: Skyrocket Yourself to Success

Are you successful?

Most regular people are likely to say ‘no’ or ‘only somewhat’ when asked to measure their success, but these are both wrong answers.

We are much more successful than we think.  We just don’t give ourselves the appropriate credit.

Failing to recognize our true level of success is very detrimental to our growth in life.  The more successful we believe ourselves to be, the more likely we are to experience future success.

Success creates positive thoughts and motivates us toward even greater heights.  Embracing our past successes can literally skyrocket us toward what we want in life.

The Reason We Need to Measure Our Success Accurately

Believing we are successful builds our self-esteem.  Self-esteem gives us the confidence to assertively take action to accomplish our goals.  This concerted effort is what will get us what we want.  Therefore, we need to count up our successes as accurately as possible.

Imagine for a moment that your self-esteem is like a stack of poker chips.  Then imagine that you and I are playing a game of poker and you have 10 chips and I have 200 chips.  Who do you think is going to play more conservatively in this game of poker?  Yes, you are.  If you lose two bets of 5 chips, you’re out of the game.  I can lose 5 chips 40 times before I’m out of the game, so I am going to take more risks because I can afford to take the losses.  Your level of self-esteem works the same way.  The more self-esteem you have, the more risks you are willing to take.
~ Jack Canfield, The Success Principles

You need to build your stack of poker chips by acknowledging your success.  Unfortunately, we generally have a much greater tendency to remember our failures.  Why is this?  Well, there is usually a lot more emotional significance placed on failures.

Here’s a simple example.  A child brings home a good report card.  We pat them on the back and go on with life.  What would happen if the same child brought home a bad report card?  We would talk intensely to the child about what went wrong.  We might even punish the child for not fully applying themselves.  Which circumstance is going to stick out in the child’s mind?  That’s right , the failure.

The same thing happens at work, in our relationships and in our finances.  Even though we have fewer failures than we do successes, we tend to remember the failures more vividly giving them greater significance in our minds.  This is exactly what we need to counteract by measuring our successes more accurately so we believe we are successful.

Growth in Life Comes When We Count Our Successes

Again, we need to consciously and clearly bring to mind where we have triumphed to give ourselves that boost of self-esteem and confidence needed to move to the next level.

Doing this is a very powerful way to elevate your thinking.  Accurately counting up your past successes is like pouring rocket fuel in your engine.  It will give you a tremendous boost toward your goals.

Here are a couple of techniques you can use to count up your successes:

1.  Create a List of 100 or More Successes

Get out a sheet of paper and start making a list of successes in your life.  Your goal is to get to 100.  In order to do this, you are going to need to dig deep.  We often set the bar too high for what we think of as a success.  You need to give yourself credit for all the things you’ve accomplished in your life. 

You may have to include things like getting your first job, learning to ride a bike, getting your baby to sleep through the night, catching a touchdown pass in high school, getting an article published, making an A in math, getting married, having children, surviving basic training and completing a drawing course.  These are all successes.  We just take them for granted.  We forget about them.  This exercise is designed to help you recall and acknowledge how much success you’ve already achieved.  Work on it until you get to 100!

2.  Keep a Victory Log

A great way to increase the emotional significance of your successes so they add to your stack of poker chips is to maintain a victory log.  In other words, keep an ongoing list of all your accomplishments.  You can do this on your computer or in a spiral notebook.  It doesn’t matter.  You just need to log your successes to make them more memorable.  You can include things like paid cash for a car, cleaned up my office and closed the deal we needed at work.  The point is to write it all down.

Reviewing this log of successes is a very powerful way to give yourself a boost of confidence when you need it.  Before you walk in to ask your boss for a raise, take out your victory log and recall all the success you have produced in the past.  This will bolster your confidence and soon you’ll have another victory to add to the list!

This Will Produce the Growth in Life You Want

You’ve been a lot more successful over the years than you’ve realized.  It is vitally important that you acknowledge all your past success so you can experience even greater levels of success in the future.  This is truly a confidence-boosting way to live.  It will also help you maintain a more positive attitude.  All of which will skyrocket you to greater heights in your life.  Success breeds success!

Photo by jurvetson

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