The personal development point I’m looking at in this article is a key foundation…
Are you expecting to succeed?
No picture behind this one – no crashing waves, no soaring sunrise, no sweeping fields. No fancy fonts either.
That’s because I wanted to go back to a basic point, a point that it too often overlooked, too often taken for granted.
It’s often said that the first step along the path to success is to define what success means to you. That makes sense, because ‘success’ is a concept, so it will naturally mean different things to different people. So, the logic goes, before you can have success, even if you define ‘success’ as the process of doing something rather than a finish line to get over, you need to be able to state a clear definition of what success means to *you*.
That’s all well and good – it’s sound advice, because the logic is clear, and it’s a step that most people never properly complete, which is why the vast majority of people lead a life they would say is not as successful as it could be.
It could be argued though, and it’s the argument I’m suggesting here, that in fact the first step is that you have to *expect* to succeed!
This comes down to one of what I call the 4 magic words beginning with ‘A’, in this case, ‘attitude.’
If you have the attitude that goal achievement, self improvement, personal development are things that only apply to ‘other people’, then you most certainly won’t be expecting to succeed! Even worse, you’ll be expecting to fail.
You have to believe that your success is not only possible, but crucially that you are worthy of it. You might have been told for as long as you can remember, that you *aren’t* worthy of it, that you will never amount to anything, that you’re just not good enough.
If that’s the case, you may well find that your subconscious simply doesn’t believe, which means that *you* simply don’t believe.
That’s ok.
Once we get on top of how and why this has happened, we can get to work on changing that belief – and it most definitely *can* be changed!
It can be changed, by researching how other people in the same situation moved forwards (which they did), and then you can start surrounding yourself with people who do believe in themselves, and also believe in you.
Those crowds of people are out there, the information is out there, and the simple act of doing the research will start to change the direction of your belief, from can’t to can, from not good enough to good enough, from failure to success.
Powerful, powerful.
That can be described as success in itself, and if you recognise that, then you’re ready to believe you can achieve other successes too.
Now, at this point, I’m going to make an important suggestion which may seem counter to all I’ve just covered, and here it is…
You might not succeed.
There, I said it.
Believing you will succeed is essential, clearly that’s the point of this article, because without belief, you won’t take the steps to succeed, you won’t plough through any struggles or obstacles that come your way.
You might not succeed though.
There, I’ve said it again.
It’s just the way it is, in the big old thing we call ‘life’. Life isn’t always rainbows and sequins, and sometimes, things just go wrong, they don’t work.
I make this point not to be a deliberate downer, of course not! I make it because the success belief you must have, must not be cocky nor arrogant, and it must have realism to it.
For example, I don’t believe I’m going to get to the moon, nor do I believe I’ll break the world record for the marathon. Both of those things need particular body types, that I don’t have.
All the belief in the world won’t change that. The key is, once I start doing that research I mentioned, it wouldn’t take long for me to find this kind of thing out, and my belief would have to be tempered with realism, so I’m not expecting to succeed in either of those two goals anytime soon.
It’s fine balance though, it’s important that our beliefs are based on facts, not just assumptions. We mustn’t slip back into that belief of ‘oh, we’re not good enough after all then, everyone was right, so I should expect to fail’.
Oh no, no, no, I’m not saying that, in fact I’m saying the opposite. Long time readers of mine will know that I choose (and it is a choice) to take the positive angles!
I choose to accept the possibility of failure, but to focus on the soaring possibilities of success!
Define your success, yes, take the steps towards your success, yes, but beforehand, make sure you *expect* to succeed!
I’d love to hear what you think – do leave a comment!
‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. Don’t forget to grab my free 8 Step Goal Achievement Formula – it has this idea of belief firmly in there, plus the steps you need to take next once you’ve got that belief!
