Essential Steps for Success in Life

Each person has unique talents and potential to live a life filled with purpose and abundance. Nevertheless, very often we don't even try to look for our strengths throughout our whole existence. But the significant truth is that it's never late to make changes happen, it's never late to look at each circumstance from a brighter perspective. We are the captains of our wonderful journeys in life. Opportunities are all around us. We only have to seize them and be open for accepting the amazing gifts of life.

The steps below will help you go forward to your greatest dreams and feel the glory of true success.

Purpose is your guiding star in life

Find your mission in life. Reveal that unique sense of purpose within you, which will make you get up each morning with motivation and enthusiasm. Think about what are your inner values and aspirations, what are the things you are truly passionate about. Then start doing it. That is when you will suddenly feel the warm light shining within you. That is when you will experience the empowerment you were always searching for. When making decisions, think about whether they are in accordance with your beliefs and values. This is the key to inner harmony.

Miracles happen right outside the comfort zone

Sometimes we hesitate stepping out of our comfort zone, but the truth is that the significant miracles start to happen right outside it.

As soon as you have the courage to discover new horizons, you will see that challenges are a part of the wonderful journey of life, which is filled with value and happiness. Don't be afraid. Say yes to new chances, say yes to new peaks of mountains. You will see that you have incredible abilities you haven't even wondered about. You will see that so many things you thought were impossible will become your achievements as soon as you do one extra step forward. You are the one who shapes your reality. Make sure that it's full of adventures and excitement.

There is no such thing as failure- only opportunities and lessons learned

Remember, the fear exists only in your mind. You can transform the fear into determination and aspiration for excellence. The only thing required from you is that bold decision to do so. Obstacles are opportunities to grow and excel your own expectations. Nothing is impossible, if you have a strong desire, faith and persistence.

Don't be afraid of failing. Be afraid of never doing anything valuable in your life. You were born to try until it's done. Not everything in life is achieved easily. But your greatest goals are worth your hard work and persistence. Fight for your dreams and you will succeed. There is no other way.

Each choice opens a new door in life

You have the right to choose your reality. But you have to take full responsibility for creating your life. Don't depend on circumstances and opinion of others. Pursue your deepest desires and make choices based on your inner motives and values. You fully deserve to have prosperity, harmony and joy in life. Make the choice of feeding the positive thoughts in your mind. Make the choice of accepting the wonderful gifts of the universe. Make the choice of succeeding. Make the choice of being brilliant!

How To Stop Approval Seeking Behavior

When you are constantly seeking the approval of others you lose sight of what is really important to you. This cannot be the case if you wish to accomplish great things! When you are seeking the approval of others, you lower you standards and possibly do things you wish you hadn't. You are giving away your power and as much as you dislike doing it, others hate you doing it as well. It shows that you are willing to give up on your standards and morals just for the O.K. of another individual, which is an awfully unattractive trait.

If you find yourself...

Being sad when you are not accepted by others.

Constantly comparing yourself to others.

Going out of your way just to please someone else.

Afraid of judgment.

Then you have the approval seeking behaviors! I know because I used to have the same problem, I was constantly going out of my way to please others. This is not helping you move on with your life, the sooner you realize this, the better. If others don't appreciate you for who you are as a person than they just aren't worth being around! People love to be around other genuine individuals who remain true to their morals and stand up for their beliefs. This is a list of some ways you can work this behavior out of your system daily.

1. Develop Self-Worth!

Think of all the things that you are great at and focus your attention on those things. Keeping a positive attitude about yourself will always allow you to get past things that don't work out how you want them to.

2. Find Your Image

Who are you as a person? What are your ambitions? What makes you special? Work on a list of all of your goals and go after them. Don't ask for permission or wait for someone to come along and do it for you, go out and achieve! Stay true to yourself every step of the way. If you don't have deep down confidence in where you are going than subtly others will pick up on this, you will give it away in your body language and it is a repelling behavior.

3. Does It Really Matter Anyway?

Think about it, how much does another person's approval mean to you? What does it do for you? Nothing at all, in the long run it won't make the slightest bit of difference whether someone is giving approving or not. If you want to do something go out and do it. Others may laugh and judge but that is their loss while you're out doing the things you want, they are wasting their time with judgments.

4. Re-evaluate

Know that this type of thinking will only waste your energy. Time worrying about the opinions of how others will accept you can be better spent thinking of productive solutions. Put this type of thought process out of your mind and you will ultimately accomplish more of the things that matter to you.

5. Picture Yourself From A Third-Person Perspective

This goes along with 1 & 2 but helps you develop more of just what kind of person you would like to be. See yourself in the room you're in, or in a future situation handling things how you would ideally want to. This helps put it in your brain that you can handle any situation that you want to, and makes it easier the next time you have to. The deeper the details you can imagine the better it sticks in your brain for the future. Whatever the situation you can handle it with confidence and poise!

Finally, remember that ultimately others do not want you giving your power away; they just don't want to see it. Other people hate even being around approval seeking behavior; do them and yourself a favor by getting rid of this unattractive quality. Just be your better self, move forward and stay great!

Better By Mistake

"Mistake" is a bad word in a lot of people's minds. A lot of people seem to think they are meant to do everything perfectly all of the time and get very angry with themselves and others when they make mistakes. When I was younger, I had no patience for anyone's mistakes, even my own.

However, mistakes happen. We all make them. No matter how perfect we each think we are or how perfectly we believe we are doing things, there are times when we will make mistakes. It's just part of life. In fact, the word "mistake" by its very definition means an unintentional error.

The real question is whether we learn from our mistakes. Do you find yourself making the same mistake over and over again? If so, that is because you have yet to learn the lesson from that mistake. Whenever I make a mistake now, I take time to analyze it. To figure out exactly what happened and what the lesson I needed to learn from it was. More often than not, the lesson I have learned is usually a very good one and/or causes me to change directions in something I am working on that leads to a much better, yet unexpected result.

My personal rule is that I only get upset with my mistakes if I repeat them. That simply means I have not taken the time to figure out exactly where I went wrong to begin with. We all make mistakes, it's whether we learn from our mistakes or not that determines our own success. Remember, the more aware you become, the more successful you become.

1) The next time you make a mistake, stop for a moment. If you are the type of person who beats yourself up over your mistakes, pause. Breathe and remind yourself that mistakes happen. If you are the type of person who does not give one thought to your own mistakes and who keeps moving at a million miles per second, pause as well. Breathe and fully take in the mistake you have made just for a moment.

2) Regardless of your personality, take a minute and write down the mistake you just made, preferably in your journal. If you have the time at the very moment, write down the circumstances and what you may have done in error to cause that mistake. If you do not have the time, go back to this page in your journal that same evening and write about the mistake. Analyze what you could have done better, where your mistake was and what you are meant to learn from it. Did the mistake cause you to realize something you would not have otherwise? Did it show you something you had been overlooking? Every mistake has a message. Find it.

3) Now that you know the lesson from your mistake, let yourself off the hook. Realize that blame is not a helpful emotion. Instead, work on your awareness so that you do not repeat your same mistake.

Difficult Situations Not Difficult People

Having to deal with a 'difficult' person can be a major challenge. It can be quite an anxiety-provoking experience to have to manage a situation in which someone is being 'difficult' in some way. This can be very relevant to training and development in two ways. First, such difficulties can arise in a training session. Fortunately, it is relatively rare for such situations to arise, although they can be quite distressing when they do. Second, people involved in training and development may well be called upon at some time to provide training on such matters.

There is, of course, no simple formula solution for dealing with 'difficult' people (if there were, we would not regard dealing with such situations as 'difficult'!). However, an important basic guideline to recognise is that there are no 'difficult people', only difficult situations. While some people may be more likely than others to contribute to difficulties arising, we should be wary of making the mistake of assuming that some people are difficult 'by nature'.

The reasons for difficult situations arising are many and varied, and so it is a gross oversimplification to put things down to a 'difficult' person. Some of the factors that can lead to difficulties include:

• A mismatch of expectations - for example, someone arrives for what they believe to be an advanced-level course only to find that it is an introductory course and therefore too basic for their needs. Clarifying and negotiating expectations can be useful here, but if someone feels they have been misled and thereby treated disrespectfully, they may well react badly.

• Feeling threatened - If someone feels they are under threat in any way (they only have to feel they are under threat, even if there is no actual threat intended), then they may react in a way that raises tensions. For example, if someone feels their values are being undermined, they may challenge this - and may not have the skills or patience to challenge constructively.

• Not being listened to - if someone feels they are not being listened to, they may say what they have to say more forcefully, and that can lead to an escalation. If people feel uncomfortable with something being said quite forcefully, their discomfort may be interpreted by the person concerned as not being listened to, and he or she may then communicate even more forcefully in response.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it should be enough to show that 'difficult' situations are very complex, with a combination of factors leading to the problems that are being experienced. Simply attaching a label of 'difficult person' to someone is a far from adequate response - and can make the situation worse. Perhaps the person concerned is doing things we would prefer them not to do, but that is not the whole story. We need to ask ourselves:

• Are they acting reasonably from their own point of view? For example, if someone feels they are being treated disrespectfully, is their response reasonable?. If so, don't tackle their response, tackle the underlying issue of: what has led this person to feel they have been treated badly and how can we remedy that situation?

• Have we considered the wider situation rather than just the individual's behaviour? Perhaps other people involved (including ourselves) are fuelling the fire in some way, albeit unwittingly.

This is not to say that no-one ever behaves irresponsibly and that there is always a good reason to justify someone's actions - that would be naïve. However, even where someone is behaving inappropriately, attaching a label doesn't necessarily help - it can, in fact encourage the behaviour we are unhappy with. It is certainly the case that some people don't always help themselves, that they may make a bad situation worse by their reaction to it, but recognising that is still a long way from the simplistic practice of putting people into a 'difficult person' box, rather than consider the situation carefully and try and understand what is happening.