5 Powerful Things You Must Do if You Want to Succeed at Anything

Whether you want to start a business, have a family, lose weight, study, or speak in public, these 5 things WILL improve your chances of success.

1. Know what you want to HAVE — Creating a clear vision

Before you can do anything there must first be a vision for the outcome. You must first SEE what you want to have, in your mind’s eye.

Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life… Unknown

Before you can embark any journey, whether that is the journey of a romantic relationship, the journey into business, the journey into raising a family, the journey to better your health, you MUST create a clear vision of exactly what you hope to achieve.

Without a vision, people cast off restraint — proverbs 29:18

People without a vision don’t know what to do and what not to do. They tend to be tossed around by every opportunity or situation and are not focused on the things that will help them to achieve what they want to HAVE.

An example of having a vision and casting off restraint is a start-up entrepreneur who spends more time out with friends than working on their business, or someone who wants to have great family relationships but spends more time on gaming or at work than building strong healthy relationships.

“Having a vision helps you to say no today, so you can say yes for tomorrow”

Now a vision isn’t just an idea. An idea is ‘I’d like to go into business as a real estate agent, or I’d like to lose weight, or it would be great if my family got along better’.

A vision, on the other hand, is a mental movie, yes movie, not an image, of what it is you are aiming to achieve. Let me explain exactly what I mean.

An image is simply a still picture, a mental movie is like watching the future vision of your life playing out in your mind. It is made up of what you would SEE, HEAR and FEEL.

SEE — what is happening in your mental movie?

What would you or others be doing?

How are you acting?

What is happening around you?

How are others responding to you?

HEAR — What sounds do you hear?

What are you saying to yourself as you live out this vision?

What are others saying about you or what you are doing?

FEEL — How do you feel emotionally and physically?

What does your body feel like?

What emotions do you want to feel?

What emotions do you want others to feel?

Why are these three things important?

Just as the quote says “Whatever you hold in your mind, tends to occur in your life”

This is because when you play this vision over and over again your brain creates neural connections and your brain finds a way to for you to make it a reality.

Check out this video to see how your brain makes these connections.

Let me give you one example then I will give you a practical tool to use.

How to create a powerful mind vision

Let’s suppose you want to start a business as a corporate keynote speaker.

SEE — See yourself as a confident person speaking fluently and with ease, you would see a crowd of people smiling, nodding and writing notes, you may see how you move your body and interact with others. (if you are not sure what a confident keynote speaker looks like, go and watch a few good speeches)

HEAR — You may say to yourself, “I am an influential person who has something of value and worth to say that will inspire people to take action.”

You may hear from your audience clapping, the words “well done”, “that was amazing”, “you have changed my life”.

FEEL — You would shift your body so that you are standing with your head up, shoulders back, chest high. You may feel clear-headed, confident and at ease.

Help! It’s hard creating a vision!

Sometimes creating a vision is easier said than done. We often have what is called “Boundary Conditions” that stop our minds from being creative, they are:

1. I might fail
2. No one will support me
3. I have not money

Here are three POWERFUL counter QUESTIONS you can ask that will help your creative brain juicy to flow:

1. What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?
2. What would I do if everyone supported me?
3. What would I do if money was not an issue?

Going through the process

1. Find somewhere quiet and where you will not be interrupted
2. Take some big deep breathes and relax, ask yourself the power questions and let your mind get creative
3. Shift your body to feel what you are experiencing
4. Journal what you SEE, HEAR, FEEL
5. Do this twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing before going to be. This is because your brain is more receptive.
6. Repeat for up to 30 days

Repetition is good for a growing brain — Jimmy Neutron

Do you have a vision for the success you want?

2. What do you have to BE?

If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted… Unknown

Why is it that most people who win the lottery are generally broke again within 3–5 years?

So often we hear of people who dreamed of winning the lottery, having this amazing vision of what life would be like, the luxury life, all the toys, etc, only to lose it all and more. But why, what happened?

My answer, they did not Become who they needed to be to keep the money.

People who create wealth and keep it have Become investors, they learnt to make their money grow. They Behave differently when it comes to spending money, and they Believe something different in regards to money.

Those three things again:

1. BEcome
2. BEhave
3. BElieve

BECOME — For everything you want to achieve in life, you must become someone to have it. For example, I really wanted a husband and a family. the problem was I wasn’t the person I needed to be to HAVE it. I had a low-self esteem so I subconsciously sabotaged my relationships by being jealous and hard to get along with. I have to Become a loving and trusting wife to Have a loving and trusting relationship.

BEHAVE — There are different behaviours we need for certain things we want. For example, I wanted to positively influence teenagers and help them discover their true potential. That meant, for me, no drinking alcohol. Most kids came from drug and alcohol abusive homes, seeing me do this would liken me to their family and I would lose respect.

BELIEVE — This is the big one. If you do not believe the right things about yourself, others, God, life, money, business, health etc you will sabotage your vision, and ultimately your success.

The problem with some of these beliefs that stop you from having what you want is that they are held in your subconscious.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus, once pondered “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” — Romans 7:15.

Deep seeded, sub-conscious, beliefs can either make you or break you, depending if what you believe is empowering or sabotaging.

What do you really believe?

3 Keys to changing self-sabotaging beliefs?

How do you find out what is going on deep inside your mind that is holding you back and sabotaging your life?

1. AWARE— start to notice what you are thinking, how you are behaving, what you are saying. Begin to think about what you are thinking about and start to journal. What do you SEE, HEAR and FEEL?
2. ASSESS— where did these beliefs come from? Are they 100% true? What do these beliefs or behaviour stop me from doing or having?
3. ACTIONS — we will talk about this more next. But in short, take new action. You can sit down and challenge your beliefs. Ask yourself some simple questions like:

An example from my life — I was going to be an entrepreneur and I attempted to start a business. I knew what I wanted to have, I even had the list of all that the things that needed to happen to make it work, I even started to do some.

However,

Become — I lacked confidence, so I had to Become confident

Behave — I wasn’t following through on the list of things I needed to do, so I change how I behaved and started to complete tasks.

Believe — I didn’t believe people would buy anything because I didn’t believe I was good enough so I didn’t market my business well. I had to change my belief system or some might call it “Mind Set”

What about you?

Ask yourself now:

1. Who do I need to become to have what you want?

2. How do I need to start behaving?

3. What do I have to believe?

All actions results from thought, so it is thought that matters

3. What do you have to DO?

If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. — Unknown

Don’t just take any action, take intentional action — Narelle Fleming

Why do I say this? Why not just say take any action, every little thing will get you there?

I know what I want to achieve in my life. I want to develop and create a Youth Leadership College that helps young people become entrepreneurs.

Why do I share this with you? Because everything I DO leads me to this vision. It helps me to make decisions about where I work, what I study, how I behave, what I believe and who I need to become.

Since I created this vision over 10 years ago I have formally studied:

• Christian Ministry
• Life / Business Coaching
• Project Management
• Business and Small Business Management
• Youth Work
• Training and Accessing
• I am currently studying Leadership Coaching.

Where I decided to work mattered too. I took jobs as a high school chaplain, a youth worker, I trained Diploma of Youth Work, I training Business Administration, I ran a health business, I worked as an Office Manager and I worked as a campus director for a Ministry School.

I read books on personal development, business, marketing, leadership and I read the Bible.

I don’t tell you this to impress, but to illustrate the concept of knowing what actions to take to achieve your vision.

Everything I choose to do gives me the skills, knowledge and experience I need to move me closer to this vision.

You see, I could not just wake up as a stay at home mum, with grade 10 schooling and self-esteem issues and start developing a Youth Leadership College. It wouldn’t work.

What about you, what must you DO?

What action steps do you need to take to get you moving towards your vision, toward the successful life you want for you, your family and the world?

A great activity to help you with this is to grab some huge paper, whiteboard or some other large space to write on and just start brainstorming ideas. From what to study, who to talk to, where to live, who to listen to, what practical steps you could take etc.

The trick is to not over think…just write, even if it is crazy, this helps the brain be creative and come up with ideas you would never have thought of.

4. Pain and Pleasure

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction — John F. Kennedy

Lastly, in order to really accomplish what you want in life, you have to know what it will cost you.

There is always a cost to taking action or not taking action.

Most human behaviourist will agree we are motivated by either PAIN or PLEASURE.

We can use this Pain / Pleasure concept to move us forward into action or stop us from doing things that will hinder us.

We can use the Pain of things staying the same or getting worse to kick us into gear to change or take action, or we can use the Pleasure of our hope-filled vision to make the changes we need.

How do you use Pain / Pleasure?

For you ask yourself these two questions:

1. What will happen if I DON’T take action or make the changes I need?

• How will not do this affect my relationships, my finances, my health, my career?

2. What will happen if I DO take action and make the changes I need?

• How will doing this affect my relationships, my finance, my health, my career?

Conclusion

HAVE . BE . DO . PAIN . PLEASURE

HAVE: Know what you want to have. Create a movie in your mind and practice it twice a day for up to 30 days.

Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture…Do not build up obstacles in your imagination

BE: Know what you have to BEcome, how you must BEhave, and what you must BElieve in order to have your life vision

DO: Make a list of all the things you could do that will help you achieve your life vision

PAIN / PLEASURE: Action and inaction will cost something. It will positively or negatively cost your family, your health, your finances, your business, your career. Your Success.

The end of the quote I have been sharing is this:

If you want different results in your life, all you have to do is …CHANGE YOUR MIND