The Path to Success and Personal Fulfilment

The Path to Success and Personal Fulfilment

Introduction

Success is deliberate. Success comes about when you decide to go after what you want by creating a plan and following through. A plan is a roadmap to the results. One thing most people overlook is that they decide what they want. You want success, go for it. There’s no other way around. This means that you get to determine your path to success because the decision primarily is on you. You are one decision away from being where you want to be. Now, having said that, what is success, really? How would you define it? Success primarily has no absolute definition. It is subjective. For instance, what constitutes a successful year? The answer for this, depends on your definition of success. Growing up, I equated success to the amount of money one has and the power that comes with it. That primarily framed my definition of success. However, as I grew older, my definition of success has changed. Success in my opinion is a very personal thing. You see, what drives you may not be the same as what drives your friend, or brother. You will therefore not be able to measure success using the same metrics as those of a friend, or brother because your definition is different.

Personally, success primarily is being able to spend majority of my time working on projects that gives me a sense of fulfilment, being able to leverage my zone of genius by maximizing my potential and helping other people in ways that I perceive as meaningful while at the same time enjoying the freedom, lifestyle and experience that come with it because it is my passion. Success is therefore not defined using monetary benefits that come with what I do. It is also not for others to give their thoughts to me on what it is. This is because it is not earned by accepting their definition. Instead, it is defined by what you do, what you get in return, which may not necessarily be monetary gain.

While I have put it such a way that one can easily assume success is solidly on one thing, success comes in many forms. It can be in ‘small’ accomplishments. However, someone once pointed out that, treat all your accomplishments equally. It doesn’t matter how small others may seem. In the present society, people always do comparison of each other’s success. However, you can only achieve whatever you set for yourself by working hard and persevering. Always be proud of your work, appreciate the little efforts that you put in place as you work towards your overall objective. It is the baby steps that count. Whenever I accomplish a new goal for instance, I show myself some gratitude because I understand that am one step closer to accomplishing my overall goal. We all want success, and we are all capable of succeeding in whatever we do. However, that is not often the case. So what is the problem?

The problem we have is the path we take. We fail to follow the simple steps that brings success and self-fulfillment.

Optimist

Building the right thoughts

Often many people consider the power to their improvement is from external help. On the contrary, this assertion is not true, personal improvement stems from our ability to look within ourselves and change what can be changed and accept those that we cannot. Inferring to this notion it comes to mind that the primary or pillar to achieving this is through the building of your thoughts. It is therefore imperative to achieve a positive mindset as a first step towards success and personal fulfilment. According to research, an average individual has approximately 70,000 thoughts each day. Consequently, these thoughts influence the choices we make and every emotion you make. While a person cannot always control all of the thoughts that come to mind, they can at least control how their handle their thoughts, especially if such thoughts are negative.

Typically, most people always react to such thoughts with emotions of sadness, regret, fear or contempt, all of which are similarly negative. In order for you to achieve a positive mindset, it is important that one learns how to handle and overcome such emotions. Accordingly the first step that one should undertake in order to achieve this goal is to start each and everyday with a positive affirmation. Akin to any form of success, the start or genesis of the events that lead to the final product is completely important. In this context, the way a person starts their mornings influences how the rest of the day turns out. Therefore it is important to have a positive affirmation every time one wakes up in the morning. To achieve this, you can practice a mantra or even read a simple encouraging quote before starting the day. Another simple thing is having a monologue by simply looking in the mirror and encouraging yourself directly through the image on the mirror.

Another way that you can build a positive mindset is through the focusing on the progressive things or events in ones mind, however small it is. This can be the joke that a colleague made at work or even a simple funny scene in a movie. Positivity can also be experienced through finding humor in bad situations. Personally, every time I am in a tight situation I always make a joke on my person and how screwed I actually am. After this the next step of solving the problem, then becomes a bit easy and the solution arrived at with a smile on my face. One more way that you can build the right thoughts is by taking lessons from failures instead of regretting and having negative self-talk. When you encourage yourself more one finds it easier to move from failure and disappointment.

Surrounding Yourself with Upbeat People

Like the adage goes, “show me your friends and I will know who you are”. True to this gem, the company one keeps often influence and defines one’s character. The people that your surround yourself whether socially or professionally often have significant influence over the decisions that you make, and consequently over your actions and the subsequent events that follow. According to the dictionary, upbeat means cheerful or optimistic. Therefore the more your have optimistic friends the more that they will rub their cheer on you and you will reflect that merriment. Optimism allows an individual to allows have a positive attitude and a regard for others which are exceptionally important in the road to success.

I used to be low and hollow most of my campus freshman year and had little to no optimistic friends. To us or me back then it was important for a person to be realistic and focused in achieving academic success then use translate that to a good life. Even though this was right and life moved on just fine, I felt hollow most of the time. I felt empty. Eventually I got around to reading stuff on positivity and the consequent need to surround oneself with positive and optimistic people. Soon enough I started hanging out more with upbeat classmates and flat mates and in the end, the emptiness that I had earlier felt receded and completely faded away. In the same way you can start socializing with upbeat people and learn and let them rub their cheerfulness on you. The importance of this being that optimism often leads to personal fulfilment compared to pessimism regardless of the amount of success that one has achieved in terms of wealth, career or reputation. It is for this reason that often, the less fortunate people in the society are happy and content with their lives irrespective of their social status. See, for most of such people their personal fulfilment may depend on completely different things compared to the individuals on the higher social scale. After all, success is variable depending on the perspective of a person. On the other hand personal fulfillment may or may not depend on the average standard of success. Achieving contentment depends solely on the ambitions, goals, passion or dreams of a person. Thus, it is important to focus on these things in order to achieve personal fulfilment. While challenging to achieve for most people, personal fulfillment is indeed achievable.

Appreciate Setbacks

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1: 5).

Even though you may not be religious or belong to a different faith, one has to appreciate the bible and the vast amount that the scripture holds. Being a believer, I have always appreciated this Bible verse. From it I always have the strength to move in times of darkness. According to the verse, through my interpretation, I believe that John intended for us to understand that for light to shine, there must be darkness. Moreover, in the end the darkness will always overcome the darkness. It is for this reason that it is always important to appreciate the importance of the setbacks and difficulties we experience in life. For believers, the essence of darkness is for people to overcome them through their obedience to God and the words of the bible.

Aside from religion, there are several reasons from the experiences of notable individuals who overcame their failures and attest to them being important influence that resulted in their success later. One of this people for example, is

Plan- Understand Your Goal- Prioritize Your Goals

Numerous individuals feel as though they’re adrift on the planet. They buckle down, yet they don’t appear to go anyplace beneficial. A key explanation that they feel along these lines is that they haven’t invested enough energy considering what they need from life, and haven’t set themselves formal objectives. All things considered, okay set out on a significant excursion with no genuine thought of your goal? Presumably not! First consider what you need to accomplish, and afterward focus on it. Set SMART (explicit, quantifiable, achievable, significant and time-bound) objectives that inspire you and record them to cause them to feel unmistakable. At that point plan the means you should take to understand your objective, and check off every one as you work through them. Objective setting is an amazing procedure for pondering your optimal future, and for persuading yourself to transform your vision of this future into the real world. The way toward defining objectives encourages you pick where you need to go throughout everyday life.

By knowing definitely what you need to accomplish, you know where you need to focus your endeavors. You’ll additionally rapidly recognize the interruptions that can, so effectively, lead you adrift. Top-level competitors, effective agents and achievers in all fields every set objective. Defining objectives gives you long haul vision and momentary inspiration . It centers your securing of information, and causes you to sort out your time and your assets so you can benefit as much as possible from your life. By setting sharp, obviously characterized objectives, you can quantify and invest wholeheartedly in the accomplishment of those objectives, and you’ll see forward improvement in what may beforehand have appeared to be a long futile granulate. You will likewise raise your fearlessness , as you perceive your own capacity and fitness in accomplishing the objectives that you’ve set.

When you know your objectives and needs, you can set up a make way to contacting them. Intending to meet your objectives includes composing the means that you can take to contact them. Set up from three to five stages that you can take to achieve every objective. For certain objectives, this isn’t sufficient advances. The more point by point and explicit you can be in setting up your arrangements, the less difficult it will be to follow each progression to arrive at your objectives. In the event that your means are excessively expansive, you should rethink them all the more explicitly later at any rate, so doing it right the first run through disposes of additional means later on.

When defining objectives and deciding how you are going to contact them, guarantee that you set objectives that are practical and that you can meet by making concrete and all around characterized strides. It is OK to have grand objectives, however on the off chance that you do, set middle of the road ones that you can reach en route. Continuously record your objectives and the means you will take to meet them. Along these lines, you can cross them out or confirm them of your rundown as you go. This furnishes you with a feeling of achievement as you push ahead.

Detail on How to Get there

It’s an ideal opportunity to organize your objectives! By this point, you ought to have a considerable rundown of the considerable number of objectives you’ve conceptualized on paper. In the event that you haven’t yet done this, you should survey the initial step of how to set objectives. Clearly, the entirety of your thoughts and objectives are critical to you here and there, or you wouldn’t have kept in touch with them down. Do you feel somewhat dissipated now, and maybe somewhat energized? Do you ever stall out on which objectives you should concentrate your vitality on?

You’ve most likely heard previously, that the more brilliant you plan, the more fruitful you will become – and obviously the more your life will stream, and the more joyful you will be! Your activity, is to make sense of where to start now. Which objectives get you the most energized at the present time? How about we go make sense of this! We should discover 3 unique objectives for you to concentrate on. The initial phase right now the prioritization of your objectives, you have to “Organize Your Goals Now !!”

Stage 1: Prioritize your objectives by rating every one of them on a size of 1 to 10, with 1 symbolizing the objective is critical to you right now right now of your life, and 10 symbolizing that it’s anything but a need at okay at this point. As you go all through your rundown, you’ll end up likewise making examinations as far as which objectives are increasingly significant comparative with the others. Stage 2: Another approach to organize your objectives is by utilizing a period conjecture for every objective. Record adjacent to every objective the time by which you truly might want to have achieved your objective. This may give you a thought of what should be begun at the present time.

Build on Your Skills

Aptitudes advancement is the way toward distinguishing your ability holes, and creating and sharpening these aptitudes. It is significant on the grounds that your aptitudes decide your capacity to execute your arrangements with progress. In objective accomplishment, your abilities are your apparatuses. The house is your objective. Similarly as you need the correct devices to construct a house, you need the correct abilities to fabricate your objective. Without the correct aptitudes, you will just baffle yourself, burn through your time, and invest a great deal of energy managing simple issues brought about by the absence of information or absence of abilities, rather than advancing in your objective. While trouble and battle is an integral part of any objective interest, without the correct aptitudes, you end up battling more than should be expected. More awful still, this battle is unconstructive and doesn’t assist you with pushing ahead.

In case you’re beginning from ground zero, for example, getting the hang of programming when you know nothing about coding, it tends to be scary as there are a large number of things to learn. Start with center aptitudes first. Center aptitudes are abilities you totally need to prevail in your objective. They directly affect your prosperity. Optional abilities are of lower significance versus the center abilities. While they highlight your prosperity, your skill in them don’t represent the moment of truth your objective. For instance, when I began my business, there were numerous aptitudes I needed to get. I began with the center abilities that I felt would be instrumental to my prosperity: composing, instructing, preparing, and web advertising. These aptitudes had a represent the deciding moment impact on my objective. Then again, Pinterest, Facebook promoting, Twitter, and extravagant website architecture, while supportive, were not instrumental to my prosperity. These were subsequently my optional abilities. While I set aside some effort to get familiar with the auxiliary abilities, I committed the greater part of my opportunity to acing my center aptitudes.

What decides a center or optional ability? It relies upon your objective. For whatever length of time that the expertise critically affects your objective, it is viewed as a center aptitude. On the off chance that you will probably be a holistic mentor with a group of sub-mentors, at that point life instructing, initiative, group the board, and preparing will be your center aptitudes. On the off chance that you will probably be a holistic mentor with an online arrangement, at that point life training, web promoting, content composition, and great specialized abilities will be your center aptitudes. Courses and workshops are incredible approaches to rapidly create abilities. Consider it a concentrated wellspring of data that has been sorted out into an organized program for your learning. Contingent upon the workshop, a few workshops with a great deal of exercises take into consideration experiential realizing, which implies you get hands-on training as opposed to learning through hypothesis by means of perusing. At the point when you go to a preparation, you are in the organization of like-personalities, which gives you included inspiration and social help in your objective. When searching for a preparation, be mindful so as to search for one with real substance and instructed by a sound mentor. Request a breakdown of the course educational program. There are numerous courses today that are loaded up with lighten and instructed by individuals who are more inspired by benefits than in the educating, and you need to avoid these.

Values

Self-Reflection (Awareness)

Regardless of what the world accepts individual satisfaction implies, the main thing that issues is the thing that the thought intends to you. Accomplishing this objective is not one or the other, terrible, nor great, since this assumption of individual satisfaction is bogus. I accept individual satisfaction is translated, arranged and achieved by you, the person. Thusly, you as a person, alongside the impacts of society, can arrive at a protected resolution on how you will accomplish individual satisfaction. A protected end would be one you verify that will just profit you later on, not a choice that may guide you away from accomplishing your objective. The world depicts individual satisfaction as a particular way of life that one should live. Individual satisfaction is only that, individual. By intently inspecting your life, seeing what society expects of you, and settling on the correct choices, you will accomplish your concept of individual satisfaction.

The most significant part of deciding your concept of individual satisfaction is you. You should ask yourself, “What am I doing here?” What do you accept is your motivation throughout everyday life? Numerous individuals live quite a long while and settle on many wrong choices before they genuinely acknowledge what is directly for them. Others may never understand their actual potential. A person’s most noteworthy wants are false close to home satisfaction. Owning a house and driving a Rolls Royce in the wake of turning into a big name is close to home satisfaction as depicted by society and the media. Be that as it may, this isn’t your concept of individual satisfaction. You should acknowledge the way that these materialistic things have nothing to do with being content throughout everyday life. By evaluating your abilities, acquisitions, and potential, you will have the option to accomplish your individual objective.

Honesty

Practically, people rely upon these major standards on what’s up and right. Regardless of whether one knows about it or not, various arrangements of individual basic beliefs change upon every individual. Such qualities incorporate respectability, genuineness, sympathy, fortitude, and honesty to give some examples. Your qualities characterize what your identity is. Now and again, there is an enormous hole between how individuals become mindful of their qualities and the manner in which they live their lives. We can defeat our most troublesome convictions, propensities, and difficulties by saving them and supplanting them with the genuine qualities that comply with our lives. Everybody is continually attempting to be fruitful. This isn’t an analysis since I think this is something worth being thankful for. I, as well, am continually attempting to prevail with regards to all that I do. We ought to consistently endeavor to arrive at our objectives and make progress for the duration of our lives. Where individuals miss the mark, be that as it may, is realizing that how generally will be fruitful. Achievement is actually very basic, and the appropriate response has been directly before you your entire life: genuineness.

I comprehend what you’re thinking. In what capacity would honesty be able to assist me with being effective? Indeed, I’ve been straightforward my entire life since that is the means by which I was raised, and I would state that I’m quite effective. Genuineness can assist you with prevailing in essentially everything: work, connections, companionships, school, and life. At the point when you’re straightforward, individuals have more regard for you, and that will get you far. I’ve grown up with trustworthiness as a fundamental belief my entire life, and I empower the children I work with to be straightforward consistently. Trustworthiness is something beyond

coming clean; it’s likewise about being genuine with yourself. Here are a couple of ways that genuineness can enable you to succeed.

We are continually instructing kids that they should be straightforward constantly, yet we should be straightforward constantly, as well. Beside everything else I’ve referenced, we should be straightforward in our day by day lives. In particular, we should be straightforward with ourselves. It may appear as though it’s difficult to be unscrupulous with yourself since you know your own musings, however actually it’s anything but difficult to push away negative contemplations to save ourselves the agony of confronting them. You should be straightforward with yourself about the amount you can deal with, regardless of whether it’s in school, grinding away, or seeing someone. When you make sense of that, it will be a lot of simple to speak with others about it in a legitimate manner. Furthermore, individuals appreciate genuineness, with the goal that helps, as well. Trustworthiness is an honorable quality, and it gets a great deal of regard and graciousness from others. Be that as it may, it is likewise a significant piece of accomplishment, so it is critical frankly. Be straightforward with everyone around you, and be straightforward with yourself. You’ll be a lot more joyful and likely significantly progressively sure.

Proactivity

Being proactive methods assuming liability for your life and activities as opposed to simply observing how things occur. Being proactive requires significant investment, since you need to think about your choices, gauge choices and settle on your own choices so as to accomplish your objectives. A receptive conduct is affected by the earth and outside powers. Being proactive methods foreseeing issues, looking for new arrangements and putting forth a valiant effort. Being responsive, in actuality, implies tackling issues when they turn up, not needing changes and doing the base exertion.

The main propensity is being proactive. Being proactive is acceptable on the grounds that one could assume responsibility for their activity and decide how precisely life will be treating them. For instance, if you somehow managed to accomplish something terrible you would get an outcome. If you somehow managed to accomplish something great, at that point life would treat you reasonable and give you something reasonable, yet everything relies upon your activity. Being proactive could prompt achievement later on. There is likewise an inverse of proactive, which is called receptive. Being responsive is an awful thing since you flaunt a disposition that could speak to your character, which is terrible. For instance, in the event that you were grinding away and state if your supervisor wasn’t such a snap things could’ve been unique. Consider it like proactive is acceptable, and receptive is terrible.

Since proactivity is concerned with the act of one taking responsibility for their actions, it is important for a person to recognize the things that they have control over and those that they cannot. In this way, they will be able to know how to react in the event that a negative outcome comes out of something that they were responsible for. Once one has identified the things that are in their control then they have the power to manipulate the events in their day to day life. In brief being proactive in your own becoming is a mix of hustle and solution of problems. For starters it is your own prerogative to get you where you reach in life and what you want to achieve as well. Regardless of the fact that everyone always needs the support of their kin, confidants or friends as a support system, the bottom line is that one has to take ownership of their challenges and find their personal ways of dealing with them. Apart from taking responsibility for your actions it is also important to have a focused mind and an excellent composure in the art of problem solving. Here the point of identifying the things that one can and cannot change, comes to mind. Being focused on the things that one cannot change is a total waste of time. A focused person should instead concentrate on fixing those problems. Once you have done all the above and found the solutions to your problems it is always imperative as well for an individual to be accountable for getting their stuff done.

Passion

Self-Motivated

The ability to do whatever it takes to get things done regardless of the influence of people around you or the situations that one is in is called self-motivation. Consequently, a self motivated individual is a person who is able to get the job done despite the circumstances they are in. Self-motivated people require no push from a superior or anyone else to complete what they have set their eyes on. Often, it is the prerogative of a self-motivated person to be open to those around them. Openness to ones friends or associates about your goal orientation will make it easy for one to achieve their objectives without rubbing others in the wrong way. For example, there was an acquaintance of mine who after I knew, I thought he was proud, full of himself and basically a bottom line douche bag. But after getting to know the guy better coupled with my realization of what counted in the achievement of personal success I realized that the man was just focused on the things he wanted to achieve and would never be altered from his course by a friend who was inviting him out for beers in the evening. After readjusting my perception of my friend I came to learn a lot from him and even made a few of my older friends alienated from me due to the change that was now taking root in my life.

In as much as one can be self motivated and possess the endurance and determination to achieve their goals without giving up it is always important to identify and set goals that one is confident of achieving them. Commitment in this case will be achieved before one sets a goal thus reducing the chances of giving up on projects halfway through with it. In life there are many cases of projects or undertakings that are stalling or once stalled since the initiators lacked the commitment to see them through. Giving up is not a new thing and even the most determined and committed among us always has an experience of the same regarding one thing or the other whether on small or big undertakings. To answer the question whether you are committed to something or not, there are several signs that can help one identify their dedication. One of the things is the amount of time that one spends in the activity. If for example you spend a great amount of time reading about history and historical accounts intrigue your person and makes you spend a lot of time doing things of associating with the same, then maybe you should pursue a career in the field. In the long run, even if one fails to achieve the success their desired, they would have remained fulfilled through the entire process.

After all is said and done in the anticipation of self-encouragement and picking the right goals, then follows the process of implementation. Here you will need to ask yourself whether you are willing to take the action and make it happen. You have complete confidence in yourself and possess the ability to persist and also believe that you are committed to the task at hand, then finally comes the question whether you are willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

Determination

While many people may think that dedication is the same thing as determination, the two are in fact autonomous. While dedication is the same as commitment as explained in the previous section, determination is the firmness of purpose. It is the ability of staying with a single purpose and aligning all of ones resources and availabilities in this direction. According to many successful people, determination is one of the imperative virtues that one should possess in order to achieve not only success, but statures of legend. In modern times there have been several people some who made some of the leaders that the world will never forget. One of the best examples to illustrate determination at its best is the former anti-apartheid South African leader, Nelson Mandela. After a total of 27 years in prison, the first South African leader established a statement that will always be remembered by Africans and the World at large. According to an article on the Huffingtonpost, the man who would later be the first South African president was conscious of his impending greatness. In fact the online newspaper asserts of an account where young Mandela at the age of 21 told his peers that he would one day be the president of South Africa. Regardless of his sentence in the now famous Robben Island, Mandela persisted and remained determined to see his destiny to fruition. During the time he spent in prison, Mandela used the time he had to study other leaders. Inferring to this lack of relent, the revolutionary was determined that there was a destiny awaiting him and all he needed to do was survive. And indeed true to his spirit and endurance Mandela was able to thrive through struggle because he was determined.

Away from Mandela and other famous people, there are many regular folk who have persisted through determination. They have transformed their difficulties and struggles and used their determination and endurance to fulfill their purpose in life. Nevertheless, determination alone cannot always help a person achieve their purpose. It is only a few individuals like Mandela who can attest to the fact that they once dreamed of being president and saw their dreams bear fruit. It is important for you to gauge your competencies first before setting a course to achieving a goal. After clear evaluation and upon confidence in oneself, what follows is for you to network with the right people to help you fulfill the said purpose. For Mandela to achieve his destiny, he had to align his strengths, his allies and all the resources at his disposal to fulfill the dream. Accordingly, he joined the freedom revolution and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He surrounded himself with the right people; individuals who shared the same goals and purposes as him. It was even through the effort of these people that Mandela was released from prison and overwhelmingly on the election to become the country’s first president.

Open-Mindedness

Similar to the virtues and qualities discussed in the earlier sections of the book, open-mindedness is equally an essential ingredient to success and personal fulfilment. The ability or versatility to be receptive to new ideas is a great virtue since it allows an individual to try out new ideas or engage in new activities. The relevance of open-mindedness is the fact that it allows one to have the freedom of choice. Vast experience allows one the possibility of perceiving things through several perspectives. It allows you to be diverse and the more diverse and individual is, then the easier it is for them to achieve personal fulfilment and even success. But before that, it is essential that you should ask yourself what you know and what not. In this context you will be informed on which ideas you can try or the ideas that are to risky or boring to exchange. So knowing your likes, interests should be a pillar to the decisions you arrive at when trying out new ideas or engaging in new activities.

Consideration and moderation in this sense is also essential, before trying any ideas you should think about whether or not you have considered other alternatives contrary to the new ideas that you want to engage in. For example, if you are used to having a juice or ice cream over a movie and a friend suggests you go out to the bar then during the time there he sneaks you to a corner and offers you a joint. While maybe the fun of having a drink was not enough coupling it with marijuana is totally too extreme. Since you have never engaged in drugs before it is better to convince your friend to return to the bar with you so that you binge drink a little more before calling a taxi. In this, context, you would have avoided using marijuana since you never tried it and moreover, a little more alcohol is better for first timers compared to mixing both alcohol and marijuana. Additionally, you have to also consider the biases that may influence the chances of you engaging in a new idea. For example, you have to consider your gender, sexuality or racial biases before accepting to go to party hosted by your workmate who is an African American woman belonging to the LGBTQ community.

Discipline

Baby Steps

Discipline just like the other values discussed in the book is an important factor to possess if you are going to be successful. It helps one live by a set of rules or a particular code of life.

Disciplined person is hardly ever a victim of their impulses or the influence of others. if something is not allowable according to their principles, then a disciplined person will not be led astray whatever the reason or circumstance. Generally, it takes time for one to achieve such a level of discipline. It takes years of patience to achieve discipline. Nonetheless, if you are supposed to be successful, you will have to practice the art of living by a code. It is through the patience and endurance that one gets to learn how to strengthen or eliminate their weaknesses, of course if they can be changed. Through patience, and practice

Routine Behavior

The basic foundation of discipline involves adhering to a strict code of conduct and in practice, this usually involves routines. For many people, habits usually take root and one assumes a fixed or somewhat same activity schedule. For many of us this usually involves waking up in the morning, then taking a shower before having break fast before heading out to work till the evening only breaking for lunch. Upon the end of day, most people use the time between 5-9 pm engaging in their passions or leisure activities with having dinner therein as well. After dinner most people go to sleep and the same cycle continues, thus resulting in a routine.

While such a routine is in itself average, it does not result in success of for the people abide by it. For one to succeed and achieve personal fulfilment more than a regular routine is required. For example, instead of waking up at 6/7 in the morning, you can wake up at 4:30 in the morning, then engage in some form of exercise after which you shower then engage in a passion for example reading before having breakfast. Personally, I take most of this time after exercise in the morning to answer work emails and any other work related messages before having my breakfast and then go to work as I familiarize myself with the days news on the go. During lunch break, I engage myself with a blog or two about interesting and current news as I eat. Then after five I head back home and engage in one or two of my side hustles, one of which is writing. Thereafter I have dinner and go to bed by ten.

Inferring to my example and to the many routines of great people, the most important parts of a routine are the morning

Practice Self-Denial

The discipline of self denial is one that once mastered can help you overcome the temptations of short time fulfilments thus helping you achieve success in the long run. For individuals who seek to achieve greatness and personal fulfilment, the practice of self-denial is an imperative discipline. Once an individual is able to control their impulses, then they can be able to withstand any type of temptation or distraction that may derail or divert them from their main purpose in life. In this regard, it is important for one to practice self denial. Save for later after completing the task at hand. At first, it may be hard for one to deny themselves the things that they have gotten used to, but in the long run the patience and endurance always pays off. Moreover, the art of self-denial always helps one achieve their goals in almost every aspect of life. For example, to stay healthy and live wholesome life, it is imperative for you to engage in exercise, observe a healthy diet and avoid engaging in destructive activities. Currently, among the most adored and respected people in the world are athletes. Many people wish to fill their shoes, but lack the tenacity and endurance to deny themselves the sleep, the long hours of lounging around and instead put in the hard work and gain from the pain of the process.

In this context, it is important for one to recognize that compromises and sacrifices need to be made towards the goal of achieving success. For instance if the pursuit of a great body encompasses the success that you seek, then you will have to give up the junk food that you may be used to and instead replace it with a balanced diet that often contains a lot of salads and greens, a food category that the majority of people tend to dislike. Additionally, you will have to give up the couch and instead replace it with the track or the gym, adding more hours as you progress and more intensity in order to achieve a healthy and fit body. Consequently, it becomes evident that for every step one makes towards their goal, another more challenging one succeeds it and so forth. Therefore, one may feel the urge to give up but the more you practice self denial, the easier it becomes to overcome impulses. Subsequently, one becomes more relaxed, and more resilient in their endeavors.

Realistic

Do you remember the example of Nelson Mandela and his dream during his early years to lead South Africa as its president? Mandela had a goal an achievement, a dream that he wished to fulfil as his purpose in life. In this same respect most people have things they want to achieve in life. Some of them may be great while some may not be so much. Nonetheless, each and everyone of us dream of achieving something in their lives. However only a small number of us get to really achieve their true desires. For these people, they used all they had at their disposal and the connections they had coupled with their determination and extra work to achieve their dreams. On the other hand, the majority of us tend to focus on ourselves setting unrealistic dreams and then fail to put in the work to achieve even half of the result we expect. For example, when children are asked what their dreams are during their early years, it is common to hear something like “I want to be a doctor, an astronaut or an engineer”. But if you go by the numbers of such professionals compared to the populations the message is clear. Only a small percentage of these dreams came true. Therefore, in order to be successful one has to gauge their abilities, the resources available to them and the people surrounding them before setting their goals.

It is only after one acknowledges these factors that they can really set their goals. After gauging these and one’s own abilities including weaknesses then one can set an achievable goal. One more thing to note in this context is the getting the time right regarding the period of time that one expects to finish or arrive at their destination. It is not surprising therefore that the greatest things in life take time to achieve. Nelson Mandela had to spend 27 years in prison to leave a leadership legacy that will live for generations. The catholic church exists today in every corner of the planet because of the numerous crusades and the blood shed to conquer new lands and convert more people to Christian faith. Conclusively, it is always better to be realistic, to realize that the world surrounding us is dynamic characterized by variables, most of which are out of our control. In principle, it is your prerogative to be realistic, after all, realism at its worst conflates the improbable with the impossible, since the world has both evidence of the incredible or unlikely cases of success.

Credible

The path to success and personal fulfillment can indeed be challenging or even impossible for many people. Nevertheless, achieving success as illustrated in the different sections of this article is completely possible, only if the values, virtues and character discussed are applied towards this cause. After application of all these values, it is still necessary for you to always remain authentic and credible in all that one endeavors. One should make sure that the success they pursue is in line with their passions, their faith and belief. It is only after you fulfill this factors that one can really derive personal fulfilment from your success. Credibility as well stems from trust, therefore, one needs to ask themselves the question on whether they can be consistent with their goals and commitments, can you truly remain true to your words? To answer this question, comes the virtue of integrity and truthfulness. Generally, evidence from regular experiences show that there is nothing more than honesty you can offer to achieve success. It builds trust and it allows for one to create loyalty among friends. In order to deeply understand the relevance of truthfulness, you need to ask, even yourself, if what anyone can gain from dishonesty and betrayal. Often, there is little to gain from dishonesty since it destroys a person’s reputation, and once that is destroyed the people that were once allies will shun you and even plot for your destruction behind closed doors.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them. (Robert Green)

In the book, 48 laws of power, Green discusses the importance of reputation in the pursuit of power. And while this book might not be relevant to the coffers of power, one can argue that success, to some degree will translate to power. Therefore it is always important to remain credible, yet not naïve in all the undertakings that one pursues in life. A great reputation can be the oil and grease that lubricate the gears of your engine to success. A good reputation can help ease the way for a person in pursuit of success and personal fulfillment, and a reputation of credibility, is among those that can help you reach the summit of success in any aspect of life that you may choose.