GS Article 6

DESTINATION: SUCCESS!

by Rajen Devadason

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein

Deep inside, each of us is aware of a slumbering giant. We know we are destined to be, and to become, so much more than we are today.

Our only real problem is that we don't know how to awaken the giant inside so we begin to, at least, come close to realising our true potential... our awesome God-given capacity for greatness. Too many of us are like confused eagles scratching the ground with friendly but uninspired chickens!

Be warned: This article contains NO quick fixes, but if you're committed to paying the true, high price of success, here's a six-step blueprint that will work:

1. Take Einstein's advice and don't bother pursuing success for success's sake. Instead focus on becoming a person of value;

2. You begin to do that by waking up to the truth that the greatest investment you can make in life is in yourself;

3. Therefore, resolve today to do the two things that will most quickly accelerate you up the path of value - invest in yourself and set lofty goals;

4. Begin to invest in yourself by taking a long hard look at your budget and asking yourself if you value your life enough to stop paying everyone else ahead of yourself;

5. Then add a single new line item to your revised budget that should also include savings and investment targets. This addition should be a self-education allocation;

6. Finally, start a journal in which you list your current ambitions and in which you can constantly add fresh dreams and work out the exact wording of what it is that you want out of life.

Let's take a deeper look at each of those six steps...

1. Take Einstein's advice and don't bother pursuing success for success's sake. Instead focus on becoming a person of value - if you choose this path to greatness, you stand the best chance of not falling into the trap of achieving high-class emptiness. Success, like happiness, is not something that lends itself to being grasped by greedy fingers. Instead it sneaks up on those who live life to the full, with a view to contributing as much as possible to making life better for others.

2. You begin to do that by waking up to the truth that the greatest investment you can make in life is in yourself - this means that if the only investments you make are into savings accounts and stock portfolios, you are doing better than many people who never even do that, but you are still in danger of missing the boat... make that the yacht! In our knowledge economy, it is really only applied knowledge that enriches us. But unless we make the effort to fill up the storehouse between our ears with information, knowledge, wisdom and ideas, we won't succeed in reaching our real potential.

3. Therefore, resolve today to do the two things that will most quickly accelerate you up the path of value - invest in yourself and set lofty goals - you invest in yourself by setting aside a fraction of your regular weekly or monthly income for self-improvement. To make progress, you should aim to reinvest between 3% and 10% of your regular net income on books, ebooks, seminars, workshops, audio programmes and mentorship arrangements that will allow you to grow beyond your current 'borders'. Remember also to set goals that inspire you. Goals that fill your heart with passion and your belly with fire.

4. Begin to invest in yourself by taking a long hard look at your budget and asking yourself if you value your life enough to stop paying everyone else ahead of yourself - it isn't hard to realise that without having a strategy to set money aside for yourself first (or at the very least second if you understand the profound power of tithing), there isn't going to be anything left over for you at the end of the month.

5. Then add a single new line item to your revised budget that should also include savings and investment targets. This addition should be a self-education allocation - even though many personal finance books say we should set aside 10% of our income, I believe that is insufficient. I shock some of my life planning mentoring clients when I challenge them to set a 12-year target to get their personal savings rate up to 50%. You don't need to be so extreme to enjoy the fruits of your own labour. But you do need to begin to take action by paying yourself first (or second). Remember point 3 and do also invest in yourself by using a small portion of what is leftover after savings and investing to improve your brain.

6. Finally, start a journal in which you list your current ambitions and in which you can constantly add fresh dreams and work out the exact wording of what it is that you want out of life - if you learn the fine art of writing down your thoughts, you will discover very quickly that the universe cooperates with you as though it were a blank canvas simply waiting for you, the artist, to impress your will upon it.

Try any of the steps for immediate improvement.

Or, better yet, try all six of them for an unbelievable turbo charging of your personal propulsion engine that will propel you toward becoming a person of value... and therefore eventually becoming a genuine success.
 

© Rajen Devadason