When growing up, we receive lots of advice – in school, at home, from mentors and friends – but we all know that much of it turns out to be useless. The things we are taught in school, while useful for developing learning and study skills – and hopefully personal discipline – are rarely of use in the ‘real’ world.

We all realize this as soon as we get out of the cocoon of school and into the world of adults and employment, but somehow no one ever manages to change the system that causes this ignorance. Imagine a world in which all kids, as a matter of course, learned skills in subjects such as:

• Interpersonal relations
• Goal and priority setting
• Time/task management
• Thinking from different perspectives, including others’
• Debating any subject with empathy
• Money 101 – how it works and how to make it work for you, financial planning
• Considering consequences and outcomes
• How to handle a job interview
• Public speaking
• Using your strengths
• Effective negotiation (win/win)
• Confidence and self-esteem building
• How to persevere through challenges
• Learning from mistakes attempts

You get the idea! The very skills we need as adults are sorely lacking in most of us – not because we are incapable, but because we have never been exposed to the skillsets and mindsets involved. This is why personal and professional development ‘gurus’ do so well: they show people how to feel better, perform better, and get the results they are looking for.

While this is a vast subject and can be discussed at length (and studied and applied for a lifetime), here are our top 10 tips for creating an unstoppable, success-oriented mindset, which we feel everyone would benefit from.

1. Immerse yourself – Subscribe to empowering, success-oriented magazines such as the new Success and Attitude Digest
2. Read - and read more! Your local bookstore and libraries are full of books to assist you in developing an empowering, unstoppable mindset. Feed your mind with powerful thoughts, learn from the stories of others, and get inspired to feel like you, too, are capable of achieving your goals and dreams – because you ARE! If you’re ready for a kick-butt appraoch, try books by Larry Winget and Randy Gage.
3. Mentors – Successful people not only leave clues, they also very often wish to share their success secrets with others. This is a symptom of success – to become successful, you must develop certain character traits, such as empathy, generosity, the power of thinking big, etc.. In turn, these personality traits lead most very successful people to want to help others achieve their dreams also. Shorten your learning curve and be inspired by reading the works of mentors you admire. Some suggestion include: Jim Rohn and Anthony Robbins.
4. Make commuting count - Last century’s pioneers in the field of personal development came up with the concept of the ‘university in your car,’ encouraging ambitious people to turn brain-dead time into productive time by listening to tapes (or more recently CD’s and mp3′s). Josh Kaufmancalls it getting a personal mba, and many, many successful people will agree that they learned more by doing this than by attending university. You can learn another language, receive inspiring messages or take lessons in any desired subject by listening to audios instead of your car radio. The same trick can be applied to any commute, of course, or even your daily outdoor walk or treadmill run. Try the many empowering and intelligent audios by internationally renowned business mentor personal Brian Tracy.
5. Bounce – This is a little-shared secret which works wonders for your attitude on a down-and-dirty, daily basis. It helps you in the thick of things, when your ‘normal’ reactions would usually take over. The principle is, decide ahead of time to bounce, not break.This means that you make a conscious decision that when things get tough – meaning you experience disappointment, setbacks or other challenges – you will roll with it. You HAVE DECIDED that you will always bounce back, no matter what. This gives you a feeling of strength and resiliency to rely on in the moment, and an overall sense of your ability and commitment to persist and be flexible in the face of daily challenges, big and small.
6. Know what you want - As the saying goes, you can’t hit your target if you haven’t defined it. The older you grow, the more you realize that life is indeed short, and that every moment counts. If your moments are not spent doing things you love and/or working towards things and circumstances you want, then they can be better utilized. If you want to develop the the sense of urgency required to motivate you to define and go after your dreams, you may enjoy reading the article Patience: Virtue or Trap? You may also enjoy books such as The Power of Focusby Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt.
7. Fail and fail some more – then keep moving. IBM founder Thomas Watson is credited with saying “If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.”What brilliant advice! That kids are taught in school to avoid rather than encourage ‘mistakes’ is a travesty. Humans learn best by doing, and attempting things to see what works and what doesn’t is the very foundation of success. It is those who shed the fear of trying things and failing who rise above the everyday and acheive phenomenal success. Picture yourself as a scientist or explorer, trying new things, keeping what works in your lab/repertoire, and forging on in search of new discoveries. Step outside your comfort zone and embrace failure – and you’ll discover there is no such thing! View your life as a big, fun test, and keep trying things out, and on, until you find that special, magic combination of things which feels ‘just right’ for you. The faster you ‘fail,’ the faster you will succeed!
8. Focus on what’s working – This means do not dwell on frustrations or what you feel isn’t working in your life. This will only attract more of the same – frustration and things seeming not to work. Instead, always, always focus on how you want things to be, so your mind can come up with ways to make it so. This is the Law of Attraction in action – we get what we think about, and what we focus on expands. Ask yourself questions and your subconscious mind/the Universe/your higher self will always attempt to give you answers. Ask ‘Why do things never work out for me?’ – get an answer. Ask ‘How can I do an even better job at this and make my customers even happier so they’ll pass my name along in excitement?’ and get an entirely different answer! The choice is yours.
9. Use your strengths – Another concept learned in most modern school systems which does nothing to empower children to future success is the ‘work on your weaknesses’ philosophy. Instead of defining and refining our strengths (ask any successful entrepreneur how well this works), every class is homogenized – easier for teachers, no doubt, but not helpful in empowering individuals. As business guru Marcus Buckingham tells us, you cannot hope to achieve remarkable results in your life by working on your perceived weaknesses. Instead, take a hard look at your unique, special strengths, and start thinking about how you can deliver those to the world.
10. Never give up and be flexible – This is a two-parter, but really is part of the same concept, that of continuously reaching for your goal no matter what obstacles you are faced with. The reason for the flexibility part is that you should never blindly push on, taking no note of the feedback you are receiving from your actions. Choose instead to roll with and learn from the results you achieve, thus cultivating the ability to alter course as necessary as you learn and grow. Whether this means altering your goals as you come to know yourself better, or simply applying newly learned techniques or skills, the bottom line is still to NEVER GIVE UP. We all know this, we’ve all heard it, yet statistics show that most people do not attempt something even once, let alone the several or may times necessary to achieve something of value. History and legend are rife with stories about people who stopped unknowingly just steps/days/inches from their dream…so take this lesson to heart and keep on keeping on!

Tags: success achievement persistence goals focus law of attraction personal development