1.0: Five Questions to Ask Yourself When Thinking About Your Own Personal Success

Success is not an accident. It takes planning, effort and discipline.

One way for you to seek your own personal success is to ask the right questions. When you ask the right questions you have a better chance to get the right answers.

The kinds of questions I refer to are not mathematical equations or esoteric inquiries about the origin of the universe. I’m referring to questions about how you live your daily life. About what you think about, how you view your life, how you think and speak about yourself and your situation.

I had a visit recently with a lady who has lots of problems. She has health issues that spring mainly from the fact she is substantially overweight, she has serious problems with her 17-year-old son who, if he doesn’t get his act together will spend many years in jail, and many other problems too numerous to mention.

While giving me a list of all her troubles, I finally stopped her mid-sentence and said, “You know what I think? I think you need to change your language.”

She said, “What do you mean?”

I answered, “So far you’ve given me a litany of all the things that are wrong. You’re son’s always in trouble, your diabetes is bothering you, and all the other things you’ve listed.”

“It’s all true!” she nearly screamed.

“Perhaps it is,” I said, “But what else is true?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You mentioned earlier that you are going to Zumba fitness training. Tell me about that.”

And she did. She got all excited about how it was helping her lose weight and feel much better about herself. She talked about the new role models the class gave her and how she wanted to look like a couple of the other ladies in her class.

When she finally paused I asked, “You said your son finally has a job. Tell be about his job.”

And she went on and on about how he works just part-time but that he is learning the responsibility that goes with work and she has some hope it will help him fix the broken things in his life.”

Then I said, “See what I mean?”

She said, “No, See what?”

“See the difference in your voice and attitude when you think about the solutions to your problems rather than the problems?”

Because of over 40 years of practice seeing her world through the sad eyes of defeat and desperation, it will take her awhile to fully change herself from a negative world-view to a more positive one.

But it makes my point, ask the right questions and you’ll get the right answers. So over the next five weeks I will present the five questions to ask yourself when thinking about your own personal success.

Each week the current column will be posted on RonRossToday.com. Read them all! Your future success is too important to leave to chance!