The Secret to Success

Have you fallen into the trap of chasing after “success”? Success as defined by other people - by the media, society, business colleagues, your partner, family , or friends? If you have then you’re not alone. Many of us have adopted the “we can have it all” mantra without really considering what this means to us as a woman, a wife, mother, daughter, or business owner.

This is a subject dear to my heart as I see so many women fall victim to this trap of chasing an undefined dream or impossible perfection without consciously realising that’s what they’re doing. The only thing they know for sure is that they’re shattered, not achieving the success they’d imagined, and feeling like a failure, or like there’s something wrong with them. It happened to me 12 years ago (before I gave up working full-time for someone else), and it happened again more recently (before I changed my business focus and re-energised my business and my life.)

So what can you do if you recognise that you’ve fallen into this trap yourself?

1.Well first of all you can go easy on yourself. It’s my firm belief that we do the best we possibly can for ourselves given the skills, experience, and knowledge we have at that time; so recognise this and congratulate yourself on evolving and on becoming more personally aware. Don’t berate yourself for taking so long as this is counterproductive to you achieving real success.

2.Get personal and get real - decide to define ‘success’ on your own terms based on who you are now, who you want to be, and how you want your life and business to be.

3.Be specific and be true to yourself. Don’t analyse or judge at this stage – just dream, imagine and capture your thoughts, words, and feelings about your successful business, your successful life, the Successful You – the You who is the Star of your own Show!

4.And don’t worry if you find this difficult at first – take your time, and remember – this is where a good coach or mentor can help.

So the secret to success is for you to define success on your own terms – to get personal, to start from where you are now, and to take an integrated approach – to consider you as a person, your business, and your life as a whole, because although each is important, you will not want your business success to be at the expense of happiness in your personal life.

When you define success for yourself you get clear, and clarity is your start point for making true and meaningful success happen for you.