12 simple Tricks to Success – Part 1

This is the first blog of a series, “12 Simple tricks to Success” from Findamentror.com. We’ll reveal one trick each month for you to complete and/or practice so that in 12 months you’ll have developed some habits that can expedite your success. Enjoy!

Just like every trade and profession has its’, “tricks of the trade”, all very successful people have 12 tricks they do, no matter what industry or institution they work in. They do those things consistently. They are important processes that great and successful people follow.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” …Lao- Tse

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First things first: Write or type your goals or have your smart phone do it for you — just do it . . . even the little ones!

All very successful people have written goals. Write your goals down and have it done in the next 30 days before you read the next blog. Why?

A mid nineteen hundred graduating class from Yale met at a 20 year reunion. Researchers asked how many of the former students had achieved written life goals. Five per cent said they had. Seventy per cent of the class had never set meaningful goals. Twenty-five per cent had New Year’s resolution type objectives or goals they could articulate, but they were not written down. Only five per cent had written goals. The ones who wrote their goals all achieved them or variations thereof.

The researchers had each person complete a financial asset work sheet. The five per cent of the class that had written goals controlled ninety-six per cent of the group’s net worth.

Five per cent is better than average. Only three per cent of the general public writes down goals. Ninety-seven per cent do not have a clear, written idea of where they’d like to be in six months, five years or fifty. Why? They have never been taught the simple rules of success, the first one being to record your goals. Every successful business person records their goals in the form of business plans, operational plans and projections. Banks won’t lend them money if they don’t.

It’s been the way of people for thousands of years. 5 % learn the rules of success and follow them. Most others don’t learn them or have a hard time disciplining themselves to follow them once they know them. Some give up. I wonder why we don’t teach this in school. It’s so important, but there are many important life processes that they don’t, and could, teach us in school.

It’s time to change. Everyone deserves success and deserves to know the secrets of success. It’s time to increase the numbers of successful people on the planet. I was angry when I learned that these simple rules were not taught to me, and to all our children, in school. It‘s time to spread the wealth. Together we can do it.

Writing down and recording our goals — small ones, big ones, personality ones, business ones, and relationship ones — gives us an inventory of our desire and is the beginning of knowing our purpose in life.

Desire is like the starter on a car. It sets everything else in motion. But without a key in the ignition, we can sit behind the wheel all we want — we won’t be going anywhere. A full list of written goals puts the key in the ignition and creates the spark in the starter that fires the engine. With today’s technology, we can speak our goals into our smart phone and it types them for us. One of the best ways to fire the engine of careers is to begin a ‘To Do’ list.

Start with small lists, things you can achieve in a relatively short period. You might, for example, want to call someone you have been meaning to contact for a long time. Maybe there are small projects to do around the home. Maybe you just want to relax all weekend instead of running errands. Whatever your small goals are, write them down and do them.

Soon, you will find yourself regularly crossing goals off lists. The biggest benefit to crossing goals off a list is that our confidence and gratitude build. Positive emotions are key to success. Any action that can build our positive emotions is good to do.

When we become more certain of our ability to achieve what we put our mind to, we find ourselves setting bigger, longer term goals, and our self-esteem continues to grow.

Almost every success coach will tell you to feel and see yourself in possession of your desire. Imagine you already have it. Successful leaders have done this for millenniums. Do it every day with important goals.

There is no absolute time frame for accomplishing recorded goals. We don’t have to tell anyone about them. They are ours and we are allowed to keep things to ourselves. We can review our lists and adjust them, and time frames, as often as we want.

We are the ones who determine what short-term and long-term mean. We are the ones who decide what pace works best for us. Our really big goals, some call them dreams, may take 20 or 30 years to cross off the list — maybe even a lifetime — but recording and acknowledging them will keep us moving in the direction we want. It keeps us working towards purpose in life, which is a great thing.

Eventually, with determination and confidence, all our goals get crossed off, either because we achieved them or because they no longer matter.

In the movie, ‘The Ten Commandments’, the Pharaoh often said, “So it shall be written, so it shall be done.” For thousands of years humans have achieved what they have written down, recorded and committed too. Join the achievers! Record your goals!

The following offers you a simple guide for keeping track of your goals — all of them, even the little ones. Take the next month to record all your goals. You can make lists on your smart phone and in your calendar on your computer.

Personal Inventory of My Desires (Goals)

DREAM LIST

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

GOAL LIST (DAILY)

CAREER

___________________ ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

PERSONAL

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

GOAL LIST (SHORT TERM (6 months -Year)

CAREER

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

PERSONAL

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

GOAL LIST (LONG TERM)

CAREER

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

PERSONAL

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

PERSONALITY GOALS (THINGS ABOUT ME THAT I WANT TO CHANGE)

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

GRATITUDE LIST (EVERYTHING FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL)

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

___________________, ___________________, ___________________, ______________________________________,

Read other parts of this series here.

8 thoughts on “12 simple Tricks to Success – Part 1”

  1. We hear this advice all the time, and as you noted most never heed or take any steps toward following this advice, myself included. While I am mildly successful I still struggle with getting the things I want to accomplish. And it always points back to not writing an action list down and checking things off. I will start by writing things down and then once I get on a roll I forget to do it and never develop the habit. I intend to develop the habit.

    Great post series – I’m looking forward to the rest of them.

    Pete

  2. Hi

    Was wondering how I get to part 2 of 12 simple tricks to success?

    Look forward to hear back from you

    Kind Regards,
    Ni

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