Success is deeply a personal thing. You may think you know exactly what you want to work towards, when in reality it’s someone else’s dream not yours. When it comes to setting goals and achieving them, you need to start thinking about what success means to you, not your peers, family or society. What will make you feel fulfilled?

Focus on Rewards

List the goals you want to work towards, then think about the rewards you hope they will bring. Forcing yourself to be honest about your motivations may change how you feel about the goal. You’ll be able to remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing when things get tough. If you figure that you are paying too high a price to get there, you can reassess your motivations and change your goals.

Make SMART Goals

Specific – What exactly do you want to achieve?

Measurable – Every goal should be quantifiable, so that you’ll know when you have achieved it.

Achievable – Break your goals down into manageable steps. Set deadlines as without them many ideas will disappear into the ether. If you reach a stumbling block, smaller steps will enable you to see ways of negotiating the obstacle.

Realistic – Your goals need to be within your current skills, competencies and motivation to achieve.

You can set higher goals once you have reached intermediate goals that may lead to setting new and more challenging success goals.

Tangible – You can visualise yourself reaching the goal and the reward for its achievement. The goal has to be personal and important to you so that you can feel the inner energy and drive it motivates you to advance each day to reach the finishing line.

The Keys to Motivation and Success

Success and motivation go hand in hand. They are both goal directed action. Here are some secrets to success:

Passion – Love what you do and the rewards it brings to you.

Work – Always work very hard. No one gets things handed to them on a plate. And if they do, they don’t usually get any satisfaction from them.

Improve – Be good at what you do. Practise, ask for help, learn, and hone your skills.

Focus – If you really want something, concentrate on it. What you focus on will usually give you success eventually.

Push – You’re going to come up against obstacles, problems and fear. You have to have personal drive and push your way through them.

Serve – Provide others with something of value and you will always be successful.

Persist – Keep going in the face of failure, criticism, rejection and pressure. Winners never quit and quitters never win!