8 Steps to Personal Empowerment Step one to success is cultivating your ability to recognize opportunities most people can't see.

How can you, as an individual, live the most empowered life possible? By working. Work to make a significant difference in this world. Focus on what you can control, which is your hope, your attitude, your drive, your willingness to hustle, your commitment to keeping an objective and empowered mindset. If you're individual life is empowered, it can only have an empowering impact on all those who surround you.

1. Open to possibilities.

There is no such thing as Doom's Day unless you believe in it. You have the power and the responsibility to find that place inside of yourself where everything is possible. The more open you are to possibility, the more creative you become and the more expansive of a world you create for yourself to succeed in. If you live with a hopeless, angry or defeated attitude, then that will be what you live. Negative minds are closed minds. Closed minds simply refuse to see what is available. They over focus on what isn't right, what isn't happening and on the lack of opportunity. Why would you choose to live this way? Life is a direct reflection of your beliefs. If you want a better outcome, then create it. Your opportunities for new hope and change are boundless, and it all starts within you.

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2. Focus on who you are.

Things are going happen that you don't like. Life and success are built around the unfair. There is much that you will encounter that is not right, unjust and incorrect. Focus on who you want to be in response to these challenges. People get into high positions without the right to be there, but you are totally capable of rising up to those things which defy logic. Without the things that defy logic you would never come to know so deeply what you stand for, what you value or how powerful you truly are. When you shift your focus onto yourself and wholeheartedly and non-violently live your answers, it is then that you are living a life of true authenticity and significance. How much money did Martin Luther King Junior have in his pocket when he died? How much money did Mother Teresa have in her pocket when she died? Work quietly and let your success do the talking.

3. Run your own race.

Another person's success does not equate as your failure. It's your life, so focus on your race. Instead of worrying about the competition, focus on the ball that is directly in front of you. If you worry about the competition, what they are and aren't doing, then you lose track of the importance of what you're doing. Empowerment has nothing to do with competition, it has everything to do with contribution. There is not a better example of this then the most recent summer Olympics with the Phelps beating out the South African swimmer who so focused on beating Phelps and slamming Phelps in the media. The South African swimmer wasn't focused enough on his own race. Phelps beat him because Phelps was focused on winning his own race.

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4. Trust yourself.

Trust that you have what it takes to get the job done. Trust empowers you to move aggressively towards your goals. If you spend your time doubting your skills, the only thing you will be actively perfecting is your ability to doubt yourself. Your actions follow your thoughts. Shift all that time focusing on doubting yourself to believing in yourself. If you can dream something up, then it is in the realm of your possibility to make it happen. You must show yourself that you have what it takes to be resourceful when going for your goals. You will learn to trust yourself the most deeply through taking calculated action-driven risks. The more successful you become in taking risks, the easier it becomes and the more able you are to discern when your instincts are on and when they're not. This empowers you to make better decisions.

5. Network.

To empower yourself, collaborate don't compete. Success is never a one man job. One of the smartest ways to move your mission forward is to network. Gather a team of people who have strengths to fill in where you have weaknesses. This allows you to delegate out to those who can best help you reach your goals. Collaboration is about inclusion. In collaborative environments, success is shared. It is people empowering other people. There is nothing more bonding to a team of people then the team effort that produced the successful result. It's bonding, and bonding is empowering. When you compete you create division, hatred, jealousy, and anger; none one of which help you build long standing relationships designed to make you more successful.

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6. Love what you do.

Passion trumps failure. Love is the most powerful of all the emotions, which is why truly empowered people work in careers they love. Most will do almost anything for love. There is nothing that can get in your way when you want something badly enough that you are willing do anything to get it. Unexpected circumstances may knock you back or redirect you a bit along your path, but it will not have the power to take you from your goal. When you are deeply passionate about what you want, work doesn't feel like work, it's more personal. When you love what you do, fears you may have of not succeeding will be outdone by the passion you have to never let failing be an option.

7. Hold yourself with grace.

Success of any type will attract haters. What are you going to do with this? Use grace. If they go low, you go high or remain silent. Give grace, not to them, but because acting with grace says something empowering about you. Anger doesn't inspire change in anyone. Empowered and right action is the only thing which is inspires change. Have the self-discipline to have composure when face-to-face with haters. The one sure thing about haters is they hate you only until they want to be part of what you're doing, so they can say they knew you. Let them say whatever they want. You stay the course on the road less traveled.

8. Embrace imperfect moments.

The most empowered path to success comes through your experiences of failure. The late Mary Tyler Moore famously said, "You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you." Empowerment is most deeply cultivated during times of challenge. Failure and uncertainty are necessary structures for you to bump up against for the development of your own refinement. Without failure you would have nothing to improve upon. Choose to evolve rather than dissolve under pressure. Your imperfect moments provide the perfect trajectory for your growth up the mountain of success you're climbing.

To live an empowered life of great significance be open to possibility, cooperation, education, success and understanding that success is not a one man job. Love what you do so deeply that you are abel to include others in your dream and empower them in their success. Love what you do so deeply that there will be no roadblock or hardship that will take you from your desired direction. Empowerment means that you don't crumble under failure. You make the conscious choice to grow from the pressure to evolve yourself to that next level.