Lead your charge!

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no life coach. More than anything, I’ve simply followed my passions and lived my life accordingly. What’s the recipe for success?   …I really have no idea?  From what I have observed in those who are successful (“success” being defined as living up to one’s full potential) is that they have a few underlying principles in common:

Find Your Beat – No matter what your definition is of success, if you are not happy doing what you do all else seems immaterial. Follow your passions. Do what you love. There is no higher calling. As Thoreau famously put it: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer.” Find your beat and dance to it.  And dance with reckless abandon!

Focus – My grandmother once told me, “You can have anything you want, you just can’t have everything you want.” To me, this speaks to focus and perseverance. Set goals and stay the course. Will it be easy? Hell no! Undoubtedly there will be hurdles to overcome and obstructions to conquer. Highly accomplished people remain focused on getting the job done despite the blockades. “Obstacles are those frightful things we see when we take our eyes off our goal,” Henry Ford once said. Keep your eyes on your goals and never, ever give up.

Fail Spectacularly – The grander the challenge the higher the potential for catastrophe. The history books are filled with stories of successful people risking everything. Sometimes the outcome is a celebrated success, other times it’s not so pretty. The main lesson here is to have the courage to try. Failure can lead to incredible discovery. Embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. Shake it off, pick up the pieces, and move on. As I encouragingly say to myself, “It’s not how many times you fall down that matters, it’s how many times you get back up.”

Never Stop Exploring – Show me someone who is content and I will show you an underachiever. Be restless. Search, endeavor, wander.  Push your limits and step beyond your comfort zone.  The familiar breeds contentment and complacency.  True growth only occurs when you journey into unchartered territory and tackle the unknown.

May 2010 be YOUR year for attempting great challenges to be better!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 7:00 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.