- Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life and Business.
Only one person is 100% responsible for your life and that person is you. This is the first principle of success. If we want to be successful in life, we first have to take complete responsibility for our lives. We are responsible for all our successes and failures, health, relationships, financial situation, feelings, and everything else.
If we do not take full responsibility, we cannot achieve things important to us and we cannot re-make our lives. To really take 100% responsibility for our lives, we must stop blaming others for our problems and failures. We have created our current situations through our thoughts and activities so there is no reason to blame anybody else. We can blame only ourselves, but that is also useless because the past is in the past; we cannot change it BUT we can now create our future. We have always had the power to do it, but for different reasons we have not. Now we can do things differently and get the results we want. This is because of the rule: E+R=O (Event + Response = Outcome). This rule states that every outcome we experience in life (good or bad) is the result of how we respond to the previous events in our lives.
People react differently to situations. Some are successful, some are not. We can see that, by responding in a different way, we can get different results. That is why blaming events for our failures is pointless. We must change our responses to the events to get the results we want. We do not have control over many events in our lives, but we have control over our responses to them. We can change our thinking, our behavior, and our communication. We can also change our old habits into new, better ones.
Jack Canfield states that “Everything you experience in life – both internally and externally – is the result of how you have responded to a previous event”. Everything we experience today is the result of the choices we have made in the past. We have control over three things in our lives: our thoughts, our visualizations, and our actions. So to change our lives, we need to change our thoughts, our visualizations, and our actions to positive ones. If we keep our negative responses from the past we will keep getting the same negative results, so now is the time to stop complaining and blaming others for our bad results and take full responsibility for our own lives.
This principle is the prerequisite to a successful life. It is the basic principle and without this principle, it would not be possible to implement the other principles.
2. Believe it is possible.
We are able to achieve whatever our minds can conceive and believe. The important conclusion for us is that we must replace all our negative expectations with positive ones, and then our minds will start working to accomplish the outcome we want.
People often do not reach their goals, not because they lack the required skills, but because they do not believe they can reach them.
3. Believe In Yourself.
This principle is connected with the previous one. We are able to achieve whatever our minds can conceive and believe, so we must believe in ourselves. If we want to create the great and successful lives we desire, we must believe that we can make it happen. We have to believe that we have all the abilities, skills, and inner resources to do it. We need to choose to believe that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to. If we think something is impossible to achieve, we will not do everything necessary to achieve it. If we believe it is possible for us to achieve something, we will do everything necessary to achieve it. To be successful, we need to give up “I can’t”. Our brains are able to solve any problems we give them and reach any goals we set, but our negative words and thoughts have negative and limiting influences on our minds.
Jack Canfield gives some examples which prove that belief in ourselves is more important than knowledge, training, or schooling.
4. Release the Brakes.
Most people drive through life with their psychological brakes on. The brakes are negative images about themselves, inaccurate beliefs about reality, guilt, and self-doubt. These brakes cancel out people’s good intentions, no matter how hard they try.
Successful people release the brakes. All our unfounded beliefs are like a prison. They don’t allow us to go out and reach our goals, so first, we must get out of our self-imposed prisons. The author presents three methods for doing it. They are a) affirmations and positive self-talk b) creating powerful and compelling new internal images of having, doing, and creating what we want c) changing our behavior.
5. See What You Want, Get What You See.
Visualization is the act of creating compelling and vivid pictures in your mind. Visualization simply makes the brain achieve more. When we visualize our goals as already achieved, our subconscious mind will work to turn our visualizations into reality. The process is quite simple. We need to close our eyes and see our goals as already achieved. To make the process more powerful we should add sounds, feelings, and emotions to the pictures. Emotions are the most important ingredient of visualization. We must enjoy the visualization. It should not be a chore. By doing visualizations properly, we will create a happy future.
6. Take Action.
Many people spend time analyzing, planning, and organizing but they fail to take action. Successful people also do these things, but they always take action. They are very eager to take action. When we take action, things start happening. To be successful, you have to do what successful people do, and successful people are highly action-oriented. There is no point in being too cautious, because even if we make some mistakes, we can learn from them, and can still achieve our goals. If we do not take action because we are too careful or afraid, we will not reach our goals anyway. Taking action brings satisfaction, too.
7. Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement.
If we want to be successful, we must always try to do things better. We must always try to improve, so we need to look at our goals, and we need to find out what we need to improve to achieve them better and faster.
Canfield advises making small, achievable steps we can easily improve. This way, we will not become overwhelmed and discouraged when something seems too difficult to achieve or do. It takes time to improve. It does not happen overnight, but if we improve and learn a little bit every day, one day our skills and knowledge will be very useful in our lives.
8. Practice Persistence.
Persistence is one of the most important qualities of successful people. There are always a lot of obstacles in life, so without persistence, it is impossible to achieve much.
People often quit just before reaching their goals, because they lack persistence but if you hang in there long enough, you will eventually reach your goal.
9. Learn More to Earn More.
The more we learn and the more knowledge we acquire, the more successful we can be.
Canfield recommends reducing the time we spend watching television and using this time for reading. He suggests reading inspirational books, books on psychology, finance, sales, health, etc. He also recommends reading biographies of great people.
Another way to learn is to attend success rallies, conferences, and retreats. To learn from other people, we must be teachable. That means that when we have the opportunity to listen or learn something from people who know more than we do, we should listen and try to learn from them and not try to impress them. Some humility is required.
10. Start Now! Just Do It!
There is no perfect time to start so start now. As Canfield says, “Once you start moving and producing results, all manner of things begin to happen that will take you further and faster than you ever imagined”.
Authentic Entrepreneur 