Creating a Mindset That Will Help You Succeed Radically successful and happy people immerse themselves in self-development. Use these tips to start your own self-development journey.
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The following excerpt is from Napoleon Hill's Success Masters. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | IndieBound
The most fulfilling path to success and personal fulfillment often comes through the pursuit of your own self-development. The radically successful and happy immerse themselves in self-development and a deep interest in life and relationships. Through self-exploration, they remain openly curious and passionate about their self-education and improvement.
Through life's experiences, good and bad, you become able and ready to be proactive in all your efforts, challenges, and successes. You choose to no longer wait for success or happiness; you go out and make it happen. Making a commitment to your own personal development is the first step on the path to living your personal legend. Here are some important elements of a self-development mindset.
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Sense of self
Self-improvement begins with a keen awareness of who you are, your values, your beliefs, and the larger purpose you wish to pursue. True satisfaction can only manifest from chasing your own dreams. Life, people, and business can be hard and insensitive, so remind yourself that you're more than the sum total of other people's opinions and continue pursuing what's meaningful to you.
The experiences you have in life can only have true meaning when you seek to understand them. To become a pristine student of life is to always remain teachable-ready. Examine how each experience life brings can be used for greater self-knowledge and better decisions going forward. As you gain a more solid sense of who you are, you become ready to start planning, designing, and pursuing your goals and objectives.
Sense of curiosity
To live successfully, be endlessly curious about all the possibilities your future holds. It's important to have an unquenchable thirst for your advancement and for adventure. Curiosity inspires you to push through the unusually painful trials and errors in your life and business. This type of resiliency is an acquired self-discipline that teaches you to cast your fears aside, bringing you the fullest experience of the adventures that success can bring.
Curiosity inspires the energy that makes it possible to see all situations as opportunities for your advancement. When you approach life and business with a sense of adventure, there's no situation, however limiting, physically or economically, which can't be filled to the brim with the interest and curiosity of how it will all work out.
Without a sense of curiosity, it's impossible to grow.
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Sense of direction
The more you develop yourself, the more effective you become in achieving what you want. This clarity makes decision making easier because having a direction improves your ability to prioritize. You know which objectives are important in the short term and which are necessary for your long term. With a sense of direction, you become focused and effective.
There's nothing more organizing to an effort than being focused. Direction provides commitment. It's difficult to commit to something that has no foreseeable future or path. If you're filled with doubt and a lack of clarity, there's no way to launch your ideas. Self-development gives you direction, and thereby, the commitment to achieve your ends.
Sense of follow-through
Knowing what you want to achieve makes it easier for you to see the benefits of taking action. Even when the tasks at hand aren't enjoyable, seeing the benefit of following through on them will make it easier to motivate yourself into taking the necessary actions to achieve your goals. There's a lot of truth in the saying "Where there's a will, there's a way."
When you're committed to personal development, you always find a way to develop the necessary will. Your idea of success and the vision of what that will look like is where you grab your incentive to always follow through.
Sense of urgency
A sense of urgency drives inspiration. Urgency creates the mindset to work as if your life depends on it, especially if you have fewer resources than others. When you're the underdog, you'll dig deep inside yourself for the advances you need to thrive.
Urgency causes you to activate quickly when making decisions -- you get out of your routine and do something different. It motivates you to get results quickly and efficiently, but it doesn't eliminate assessment. If you want to produce results faster, you must assess what is and what isn't working, then eliminate the efforts you've identified as wasteful. Keep in mind, it's easier to steer a moving object, so if you realize you've made a poor decision, a sense of urgency allows you to adjust. If you wait too long, you miss opportunities and chances.
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Sense of resiliency
There will be tough times in life and business. When tough times occur, you need the skills and attributes to deal effectively with them. Personal development can't prevent all bad things from occurring, but it helps you deal with obstacles as they surface.
Resiliency teaches you never to view any challenge as the end of the world. Resiliency allows you the patience, awareness, and fortitude to continue moving forward, even if that means completely changing course.
Self-development deepens your maturity to trust that everything happens for reasons that can only be in line with your best interest. With this type of mindset, there's no obstacle that will hold you back. You'll have greater confidence, pliability, and the personal and interpersonal skills to cope with any obstacle you face.
Sense of connectedness
Relationships can be double-edged swords -- they either lift you up or drag you down. They either bring you closer to your goals or push you further away. When you improve your personal development, you're better able to see which relationships and partnerships are worth investing in and which you need to cut loose. This type of self-awareness gives you the skills to make the best of the relationships that have a positive impact on your life, your business, and your overall success.
If you aren't learning, then you aren't living. Make the commitment to invest in your greatest resource -- you.
