The Areas of Success – Ten (10) Ultimate Areas to Create Success and Achievement in Your Life

[ source: http://www.TheSuccessAdmiral.com/blog ] After reading thousands of pages in books, examining hundreds of articles and studies, and comparing many other pieces of excellent information on success, I was able to determine exactly what success is comprised of. I spent many countless months, weeks and hours of compiling data and information about success, and I noticed a lot of very similar ideas, topics and areas of success that successful people talked about (whether consciously or unconsciously). It’s interesting to note that sometimes people who are successful, or have achieved great accomplishments, may not able to recount the strategy they used to achieve success. For some, it takes years of trial and error to create the outcome they so desperately desire, and this may be the reason they cannot remember their “roadmap” for success. Through extensive research I have discovered that the following list is without a doubt, the ten (10) ultimate Areas of Success™. 1) Mental Programming This area of success is key, for it holds the way in which you view or perceive success. You can use your mental programming to create rules, expectations, self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as view situations with a positive or optimistic outcome. To change the way in which you use or create our mental programming, you can use certain tools such as education and learned behaviours, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Associative Conditioning (NAC), just to name a few. It’s important for you to develop a habit of continuous learning, to “sharpen the saw” as Stephen Covey says, as you move toward the growth of your mind and lifelong excellence. The way in which you think is dependent upon your mental programming, and your actions will create your personal brand and reputation for which you will become known by. 2) Decision Making Decision making is a major component to success – and your decisions are based on many factors such as:

• Morals;
• Beliefs;
• Ethics;
• Values;
• Identity;
• Critical Thinking;
• IQ (Convergence);
• IQ (Divergence);
• Principles and;
• Faith

Through accurate thinking and being congruent with your integrity, you will make decisions which reflect “who” you are, based on your mental programming. 3) Opportunities The next area of success deals with how you view your current environment, and the situations / events which are happening around you. While someone may view an event as being a road block, others may view it as being an opportunity. The more open-minded you are, the more creative, imaginative and innovative, the more opportunities you will create for yourself. Also, you need to be flexible in your approach on the road to achieve your goal, and be able to accept alte ative, or unique, routes until achievement. Being able to look at trends in your target area of success can assist you with optimal timing, however, forward thinking and “looking into the future” can be the greater asset. One key thing to remember is that the only constant is that of change, for no matter what is happening today, it will never truly be the same tomorrow. 4) People When it comes to success and people, I can’t stress enough how important this area is. If you can develop great relationships with people, you will have an area of wealth that money can’t buy. People can make or break you, for there is power in numbers. If you own a business, and you have customers that respect and trust you – and you under promise and over deliver on their expectations – you will be successful in business providing real value to their life. By targeting your niche market through appropriate sales and marketing techniques, you will be able to create a base of loyal clients. If you are leading people, knowing how to communicate effectively creating a synergy of teamwork and cooperation is invaluable. Also, if you know how to delegate effectively, this can provide a mutual benefit for both of you. If you need assistance from others, knowing the right people to help you is a great benefit. For you can then source their experience, expertise or contacts to provide value for you. The world is getting smaller and smaller with the Internet. I’d be interested to see a new study on how many degrees of separation the average person now has with the introduction of social networking groups such as Facebook and Twitter, among others. The Internet helps to break down cultural barriers and borders between countries, allowing you access to many more people all over the planet. A few of the most important aspects of dealing with others is knowing how to communicate for mutual understanding, conveying honesty and understanding differences in cultural communication styles and individual personality types. This is a very complex area of success, but when you can master this area, you will be able to persuade others to assist you in achieving your goals while they attain theirs. 5) Goals The area of goal setting is vast with much debate on how to achieve what you want. First and foremost, you need to know “clearly” what you want to achieve. This is your chief aim or end result. Remember, it’s ok or even encouraged to “think big”! Next you need to break your goal down into manageable targets, usually smaller goals that you can achieve on a daily or weekly basis. It’s important to prioritize what is important to achieve in the long term, and what is merely a distracting short term “to do”. Most people find it helpful to use a time management system to keep their focus and attention on what’s important by scheduling their goals into their day. This keeps them going in the right direction, and makes them more efficient. It’s also important to track and analyze the results you achieve or feedback you acquire – this can be the most valuable information you can obtain during the entire goal setting process. It’s a good habit to review the day’s targets before you start out. This will prepare you for what you need to do and it helps you to concentrate on what’s important (this can also help you make quick decisions if something unexpectedly arises.) A useful technique for helping you to achieve your goals even faster is that of visualization. This is where you create a vision of your ultimate goal, or dream, and seeing yourself actually living as “if it were your reality”. 6) Masteries™ Masteries™ are Master(ed) Strategies for achieving a specific outcome in your life. There are some who believe that it takes either 10,000 hours of practice to become a master, or expert, at your strategy, or that you need to practice your strategy 10,000 times. There are others who believe that you can learn to master a strategy within less time if you increase the intensity of each session you practice your area of mastery. Either belief requires you to take action through intervals of time while modifying your approach until you become a master. You can duplicate the results of anyone who has achieved a specific outcome if you know, in detail, their “recipe for success” using the following areas:

• Knowledge (step-by-step :: how to)
• Environment
• Rules & Regulations
• Quality, Quantity, Order of action items
• Timing (Start, Stop), Duration, Speed of each action item

Most of the greats like Michael Jordan, Tony Robbins, and Donald Trump, believe that you need to learn every detail of the strategy but most of all the “basics”. If you can master the basics, you will become greater than almost anyone else in your field. Once you have mastered the basics of a strategy, you will be considered to have a talent, where people will begin to take notice. If there is no clear cut strategy available for you to follow, you can always create you own. Most people do this through trail & error (or experimentation), taking calculated or blind action and then learning from their failure or mistakes, or they use their creativity and innovate their way by improving through redesigning a current system. Whichever way you take to achieve your outcome, one thing is for certain, only those who persist will achieve. 7) Motivation There is a time when we’ve all felt the lack of motivation – and times when we’ve felt so motivated – but we don’t have the skills or strategy to accomplish what we want to change. Has this ever happened to you? The first area of motivation is the presence or absence of this ambitious emotion. Some people are strong willed enough to use self-discipline to force themselves to keep moving toward their goal, their motto is “Never Give Up”, even if they don’t enjoy the process. For most people, this will eventually fail, for they do not enjoy the activities they force themselves to do in order to succeed. What a lot of people do not realize is that most of the time it is our thoughts that cause this lack to persist. If you change your thinking, you can absolutely create the passion, enthusiasm, desire, ambition or drive to change your life. The key is to look at your problem or opportunity in a different mindset, or from a different perception. Without the right tools, this is not easy. I have found it very important to create “social goals”, where I will have to display my results in public on a specific date. This will give me the push to achieve (in order to avoid social criticism) and the pull to accomplish the goal I have set for myself (to align with my identity). This may work for some, and for others they may need to take the next step of complete integration. One of the best ways to create motivation, through passionate determination, is to have a purpose which you feel aligns with your life’s purpose in some way. This will create congruence and integrity with your internal beliefs system, and it will create instant commitment to achieve your goal. People who can do this will achieve their goals faster, and will enjoy every step of the way toward their ultimate outcome. 8) Action None of the above areas of success matter if you don’t take action toward achieving your goals. You could have the best mindset, motivation, excellent contacts and people skills, phenomenal mastery of a subject, but if you don’t use any of them, then they are being wasted. What keeps most people from taking action? At the top of the list is fear. Fear of failure, and sometimes the fear of success. The key is to act (even in the face of fear), don’t delay – accept the risk and, like Nike says, “Just Do It!” Courageous action is one of the best ways you can choose to overcome your fear – and it takes little outside effort to do so. The next key is when you are working to learn to work smarter by maximizing your effect with the smallest amount of effort possible. This is not laziness, this is being efficient. You always want to do your best and sometimes that will require you to go the extra mile. My favorite way to go the extra mile is to take extraordinary action, for if I’m going to assume a risk anyway, why not make the chance of success all the more great? You will need to make a choice to pro-actively execute on your goals, and perform actions that will take you closer to your end result. 9) Consistent Excellence™ What happens when you achieve your goal – do you need to maintain or continue to improve on it? For example, if you were to lose 10 lbs of unwanted body fat would you be able to keep the weight off without any conscious effort? Most people would say they would definitely need to work at keeping the weight off – and depending on your goal after you’ve achieved your first goal, you will want to work on one of the two following strategies:

• Continuous Success
• Progressive Results

Continuous Success is a strategy you use when you want to keep the results you have achieved and repeat the successful outcome again and again. Progressive Results is s a strategy you use when you want to continue to achieve results and consistently increase the successful results, one after another. Either way, you are consistently striving for excellence through Peak Performance after you have already achieved a specific goal successfully. 10) Success Evolutions™

• Results
• Success
• Excellence
• Mastery
• Greatness
• Teaching
• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Leading
• Heroism

With every attempt of success you first achieve results. Once you have tweaked your results to create your desired outcome you have achieved your intended success. When you can consistently repeat/maintain this success you have created excellence. Then when you have the ability to unconsciously perform your master skill to achieve success you have accomplished mastery. Once you have mastered a specific area of success, others will recognize your unique skill and you will become known for that mastery, whether locally or globally, you will obtain a level of greatness in your area of mastery/expertise. When you become great, people will automatically migrate to you for teaching them your mastery. You can then guide people to achieve results using the mastery in their life using different types of coaching. You may be asked, or you may offer, mentoring services. Here you would allow someone to watch you, or follow you, perform your mastery and you may even give them hands-on assistance while they perform the mastery themselves. The next level requires you to help others achieve success, most of the time a group of individuals, where you are leading people because you are the master of what the others are trying to achieve. The last level is that of heroism. This is where you use your mastery, without the expectation or intent to receive anything in return, with the intent to help others completely unselfishly and for the pure benefit of another. May You Live With Success & Happiness! Adam Aulenback The Success Admiral™ www.TheSuccessAdmiral.com Helping Achievers Create Success & Happiness