Develop a Success Mentality

Dear loving people,

In order to break barriers and to achieve in life, you need to adopt the correct state of mind. Everything starts in the mind; an athlete for example cannot win a gold medal until they have won it in their mind, a boxer cannot win a fight until they have won in their mind, and an actor cannot be an actor until they are an actor in their mind. Whatever it is regarding, in order to be successful, we must first succeed in our mind. Positive thinking enables us to have a positive attitude and allows our imaginations to envisage positive scenarios. Our imagination is a visualization process which is much more powerful than we tend to acknowledge.

What we imagine is what we think; as we think our thoughts, we are creating images in our mind. These images could be of things that we want or things that we do not want. Remember, our most dominant thoughts are what form our beliefs and our beliefs are the main drivers of our behavior. Therefore, as we imagine ourselves being successful, our behavior will reflect this positive mentality; this is what a Success mentality is. So, the images that we hold inside our mind can ultimately become our experience; our mind will endeavor to create the images that we hold persistently. In other words, the thoughts that are constantly running through our mind, consciously and unconsciously, are ultimately making up our experiences.

A success mentality is what I believe separates winners from losers; it is an important tool for those who want to break any kind of sustained challenge to the top. I am not sure that football is my passion but I do know that when a football team is in a relegation battle, they would play the next match as if their lives depended on it; this is exactly what should happen to the person who wants to succeed in an important task especially when that task will contribute in some way to the attainment of his supreme goal.

Start any task aggressively from the very beginning. A football team begins a crucial match aggressively; they don’t need to spend the first 45 minutes to decide or to wait for a team talk in the dresser. The entire team needs to take responsibility on the field of play for the manner in which they approach games, especially against their arch rivals! This hold same for anybody in the quest for great achievements against the arch rival - failure.

There are some fundamental elements of a success mentality that an achiever needs to develop and use systematically as they go about their daily business…

1.      Grace under Pressure: The ability to focus under pressure is a key characteristic of an achiever. In a football match for example, a good player will not get pulled off their game despite outside pressure or stimulus. They remain calm, cool, and collected. Such a player rather objectively strategizes without getting emotional. This means knowing when to attack and when to hold back. Players never quit a match even if it is not going the way they planned, this holds true for any achieve. Don’t over-pace and burn out, attempting to move on beyond your ability. You should have a deliberate strategy planned out. Know your milestones, threshold, and ability, and proceed accordingly. Stick to your path of growth and do not get pulled off your quest for any reason. Focus on the process of reaching your goal and what is going on in you and around you, not the outcome.

2.    Learn From Mistakes: To footballers, a bad match remains bad if they do not learn from it. Keep track of the failures you register as you move on with your quest for success, this is why it is important to never quit. The team watches their past matches carefully and adapts and modifies their training to rectify their weaknesses. You must do same as an achiever. You should not be discouraged but seek the right questions and answers about your past failure. Don’t make or accept excuses. Was your poor performance due to bad decisions, wrong budgeting? Or was it right on target? In business sometimes, your decisions are correct but your rival is simply better than you at that moment in time. If that is the case all you can do is review your strategy maybe pricing, service quality etc. in order to outsmart them next time.

3.    Precision: Footballers know that winning a match involves precision. The right and timely passes, timely positioning etc. Achievers must do same. Be at the sales meeting on time, put the icing on the cake on time, serve the wine on time, plant the maize on time, have the right staff in time etc. The more guess work you take out of your system, the more performance you will gain. Do not leave anything about your quest for greatness to chance.

 

4.    Get Technical: haphazard decision making produces haphazard results just like random training by football teams produces random results but when the team maintains specific training, they obtain specific results. Do not expect to achieve success faster by simply putting the time in. Achievers plan with purpose and specificity. They seek outside assistance and employ the latest methodologies. They go for the best training in leadership for example and keep pace with evolving technology. If you really want to get fast outcomes, you need to define your limiters and come up with a corresponding growth plan. Use performance indicators to regularly track progress. 

 I strongly maintain that an achiever is anyone who has clearly visualized success in the mind, accepts the challenge of developing to their own true potential. An achiever’s mentality does not just end with moving on but extends to many areas of life. It is pride and confidence in utilizing your creative ability.