Success Factors: Achieving Your Greatest Potential

But, you must also spend some of your thinking time at specific visualizations of the moves you need to make to accomplish your goals. Visualizations are important but actual physical practice of your skills is important, too. Practice the boring little skills that are necessary as well as the skills that you enjoy.

6 Ways To Reach Your Full Potential

Develop your limited potentials as well as those that you feel are your assets. Success comes more easily to those who have a pleasing personality. Be willing, even eager, to learn from others. Changing your opinion in light of more facts is a sign of strength of character, not weakness. Be willing to extend a helpful hand, be a team player. Develop a sense of humor. Be polite and caring — but be your own person. Learn to guard against emotional responses. You are susceptible to errors of judgment when you let your emotions get in the way.

Of course, everything we do is done based somewhat on our emotions, but strong emotions have little place in decision making. Hold your emotions in check. Try to delay decisions if you are in an emotional state. Learn to ignore your emotions and use reasoning to arrive at your decisions. Develop the habit of enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm works like a magnet — it draws people and success. It seems to be contagious — the people around you become enthusiastic, too, and become more cooperative.

Enthusiasm sparks initiative and singleness of purpose. Now we will talk of habits in a little different light — breaking them. First, assess your habits looking for the ones that may be displeasing to others. Offensive habits can hold you back from success — they are often a part of an unpleasing personality.

It will be very difficult to assess your habits accurately. After all, a habit is something that we do without thinking much about it. You will have to spend some time at this and be very conscious of yourself. Ask someone you trust to help you with this assessment. It may take a lot of work to break yourself of displeasing habits. Try substituting a different, more pleasing behavior for the habit you wish to break.

You have set definite goals, you have a definiteness of purpose, you have researched and know the specific steps to take to achieve the goals, you have resolved to be flexible and to develop a more pleasing personality. Well, just because you have a clear purpose, know what you want, are willing to work on developing your potential, and willing to be a nice person, success will not drop into your lap overnight. You will probably find that one of your first steps in achieving your goals will be to take a job somewhat below where you hope eventually to be.

However, you do want to advance and, of course, as quickly as possible. Since you are working on becoming a nice, enthusiastic person and a team player, you already have half the battle won. Always keep in mind that your job is a training field for you. You are getting paid as you learn the things you need to know to achieve your goals. Pretty good deal, right? If you view your job as a paid opportunity to advance toward your goals, you will be an asset to your boss.

You will also be a happier, more productive person. Viewing your job in this manner will allow you to view the difficult people you will inevitably need to deal with as an opportunity to grow. From them and the situations they create, you will learn to negotiate with, side-step around, and draw out the best in others without letting yourself become upset. Each time you successfully deal with one of these people you will gain confidence and probably friends to add to your support network.

The skill of negotiating with difficult people and the confidence you have gained from these encounters comes in handy when you are ready to ask for a promotion or raise — even if your boss happens to be a nice person. Successful negotiation is not a contest of wills — it is working together to solve a problem or come to an agreement. It is an opportunity to learn how others feel about the issue.

Know who you are talking with. Always know as much as possible about the person. The information may give you an understanding of the person. If you know the circumstances, you will more easily find the most effective way to get your point across. At the very least, the information will make the person seem more familiar which will give you more self-confidence. Know the issue — not just your opinions about it.

Be able to back up your opinions with reasons and research.

• The Aliens Touch.
• 9 Success Factors for Personal Growth: Moving Forward to Achieve Your Best Life!
• How to Live Up to Your Greatest Potential.

If you are asking for a promotion, know the demands of the job in question. Know and be honest about how much of the job you are already qualified to do and how much additional training you will need. If you may not be as qualified as someone else applying, be prepared to negotiate for a smaller-than-offered salary until you are fully trained — remember the training is worth a lot to you.

The strengths you cite can and should include specific job related skills, your present accomplishments on the job, your interest in the field not just this job , your enthusiasm, your ability to work as a team member, and other personal traits that will be an asset on the job. Always enter into negotiations with a calm and reasonable manner. You must be in control of yourself if you want to get your point across. People are more likely to listen to your views if you present them in a calm and reasonable manner. State your views simply, completely, and orderly.

When you do disagree, do so in a pleasant non-threatening way. Be courteous and leave them a chance to save face. Be prepared to face people who are not calm and reasonable. Remain calm and reasonable and even be a little sympathetic. Put yourself in his shoes. Try to find something you can agree and sympathize with.

It must be really difficult for you sometimes. It will probably take the wind out of his sails. If you remain calm, reasonable, and sympathetic, he will calm down.

Reader Interactions

When he is calmer, discuss with him the reasons you are a valuable asset to him. When you consider the expense of finding and training another individual, giving you a raise is a bargain for your boss. If you are willing to gracefully make some concessions, you will be more likely to arrive at a satisfactory deal. After all, a negotiation has at least two opposing sides. This means someone else has something they want, too — even if that something is simply to leave things as they are.

Arrive at a compromise that everyone can live with. Remember, you are working at long-range goals, and you may be negotiating with them again. Developing your potential more fully is a key to happiness and fulfillment. Although we have primarily discussed this in terms of a job, these same concepts can be used in many other areas of your life. You will note that most effective, successful people seem to accomplish a great deal.

The first barrier to efficiency is procrastination — putting off getting started. Sometimes you know you are procrastinating. You may not want to do the task at hand so you keep putting it off until tomorrow. The thing to do is to look at it from a different angle. On your back dragging you down. Putting things off makes everything harder to do. This affects everything you do try to do. You may keep yourself extremely busy doing things of little importance to unconsciously give yourself excuses for doing the things you really should be doing. It soon bogs you down.

The first step in beating procrastination is to admit to yourself how often you do it and assessing your methods of doing it. Not very difficult, really, when you become aware of the tactics some of us use to hide from ourselves what we are doing. The key in overcoming procrastination and becoming more efficient is organization. Know what you want to accomplish today, this week, and in the long haul. The lists for today will probably be more detailed than the longer-term lists. Now look over the lists and rank the tasks in order of importance. Make three or four groupings based on importance.

Achieving Your Greatest Potential - Kathy Caprino

Within each group, star the things you least like to do. Tackle the tasks that are most important first. When you have accomplished a task, check it off. What a sense of accomplishment! When you have completed the tasks in the first grouping, begin on the list of next importance. Again do the starred items in that group first. Keep on checking things off as you get them done.

6 Easy Ways To Reach Your Full Potential

Do you see what is happening? You get the most pressing, least liked tasks out of the way early in the day when you are fresh and rested. As the day goes on you will feel less and less pressure. You have reserved the less important tasks for the end of the day when you will be more tired. With this system you will have not only increased your efficiency but also reduced some of the stress in your day. Stress can get in the way of efficiency.

Achieving Your Greatest Potential

Your new efficiency will help you develop your potential. It is, in fact, a part of living up to your potential.

Another important part of efficiency is in delegating work. If you are in a position where you have assistants or designated people under your supervision, you need to learn to delegate. Delegating work is difficult for many people.

Some find it hard to ask others to do things for them — others find it hard not to demand that others do tasks. Delegating is an art. Seldom, if ever, should you demand — that takes away self-respect. In order to achieve a happy and co-operative crew, you need to help them build self-respect and self-confidence.

You can end up spinning your wheels and losing months and years of your time by the very fact that you have no choice but to accept whatever is being handed to you. The fifth of the success factors that enables you to get far more done in a shorter period of time is simply good work habits. Developing good work habits requires that you think before acting. You make a list and set priorities on the list before you begin. Good work habits require that you consider the likely consequences, positive or negative of what you are doing.

The sixth success factor for your career and life is to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals is by developing a positive mental attitude. A positive mental attitude is very much a decision that you make. Remember, you become what you do. If you engage in the same activities that positive, confident, optimistic people engage in, you will eventually become one of them and live your best life possible.

Anyone can remain positive when things are going well. It is your ability to look for the good in every situation that you see positive and start moving forward in life. The seventh of the success factors you can incorporate into your lifestyle, and one that can help you achieve the best life for yourself, is the development of a positive image. People judge you by the way you look on the outside, by the way you appear.

The fact is that you judge everyone else by the way they look on the outside, as well. Taking time to present an attractive image in your person, your clothing, your grooming and your accessories can have an inordinate impact on the doors that open for you and the people who are willing to help you start moving forward in your life. Creativity is another wonderful way to start moving forward in life and to increase the speed at which you achieve your goals. Creativity is something that requires that you continually look for better, faster, easier, cheaper ways to get the job done.

Remember, one good idea is all you need to start a fortune. Trust is the foundation of all relationships. When people know you and believe in you and are convinced that they can trust you to keep your word and do what you say you will do, they will feel that they are far more likely to get the things they want through you, to get the things they want, faster, sooner, easier and with greater certainty. Thank you for reading this article on moving forward and living the best life possible. Do you know of any other factors that can help you become successful and accelerate your career?

Please share your thoughts and comment below! To learn how to form great habits that will lead you to success, check out my recent post 7 Goal Oriented Habits Of Successful People. About Brian Tracy — Brian is recognized as the top sales training and personal success authority in the world today. He has authored more than 60 books and has produced more than audio and video learning programs on sales, management, business success and personal development, including worldwide bestseller The Psychology of Achievement.