Think of ten persons you have known over the years. Pick a couple down–and –outers, a few mediocre ones, a couple of success stories and one plain lucky so–and–so.
Now, think about each group in relation to the following questions:
• Which ones are successful? Why? Do they work at it? How?
• Which ones are not successful? Why? Do they try to be? How?
• Which group appears happy?
• Which group feels they are successful?
Why are the success stories successful? Simply, they always knew what they wanted to be.
Now let me tell you about the persons I thought of and see how they match up with yours. These are all actual people.
The Success Stories
The success stories are a friend from high school, now a doctor; a coworker at my first job who built a beauty care empire with offices in three countries; a family member who built a very profitable machinery company and owned a couple hundred real estate properties.
My doctor friend from first year of high school knew she wanted to be a pediatrician (not just a doctor, but a special kind of doctor) because no one in her family had been a doctor before and the only person who made her pain stop when she was a sickly child was her doctor.
My supervisor at work knew she wanted to develop products that would make skin beautiful like her Nana’s who had the softest, smoothest skin she ever felt.
My brother, he wanted to achieve greatness because he grew up poor and was sick and tired of being told he couldn’t because he was different; he knew within himself he was just as good as the next man, maybe better. So he achieved, turned around and extended a hand to many behind him, and left a legacy for his family.
Do the successful ones work at success? You bet they do. They have focus. They dream, they think, they plan, they act, and they achieve.
The Down–and–Outers
The down–and–outers are a childhood neighbour who hasn’t amounted to anything because the whole world conspires against him; a family member, almost fully grey, and still trying to find himself; a coworker who was in a low level job when I joined the company and was still holding the same position when I last saw him twenty years later.
I can’t recall the down–and–outers having any specific goal they wanted to achieve.
The guy down the road was too busy putting down other’s dreams and blaming life, he didn’t seem to have time to make any of his own.
My uncle has big dreams but just goes from one thing to the next and never gets anything done.
The coworker’s grand goal was to beat the poker machine.
The Mediocre Ones
The mediocre ones are so many, almost everyone else I know except the one lucky so–and–so, a self–professed Romeo from down the road who won a lotto and is now a Lothario with cash on a fast track back to poverty.
The mediocre masses are programmed to achieve the basic, the norm. They are so busy with daily living they have no time to make a successful life. They are so afraid of failure, looking bad, the unknown, they play it safe. They want what everyone else wants, wear what everyone else wears, do what everyone else does, and they have what everyone else has—a basic empty life.
Everyone else starts off the same. They dream, a lot. They think, a little, when they have the time. Plan …what’s that? No planning—>no action—>no success. The biggest excuse—too busy. Too busy working at the wrong things.
Too busy wasting time.
Guess who is happy, has few regrets. The guys who are doing what they have to do in order to be what they want to be; the guys who are successful.
What is success?
So then, what is success? And, what does that have to do with Life Planning?
Being successful is getting what you set out to achieve. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with money. If you want to help people and you set up a home for children of drug addicts, you are successful. If you want to climb mountains and you climb the Himalayas, you’re being successful. If you want to help people to achieve what they want in life and you write self–help programmes that work, you are a success.
Being successful is getting what you set out to achieve.
LifeTime Planning is just taking this success thing a bit further. LifeTime Planning is looking at five key areas of your life, deciding what you want to achieve in each area, and making plans to ensure that you use your time effectively to achieve goals that impact your entire life.
The philosophy behind LifeTime Planning is:
• each person desires something from life, and the paths through which these desires can be achieved are different and numerous;
• a person’s goals and values have to be in sync in order for their success to be meaningful. To an onlooker they may appear to be successful, but to themselves they are not because their goals and achievements are not in keeping with the values they hold;
• each person can achieve his/her desires and dreams; but it takes knowledge of what these goals are, a plan for achieving them, the ability to face challenges and handle change, and a willingness to work towards achieving these desires and dreams.
Our LifeTime Planning System will help you clarify what success means to you. LifeTime Planning will guide you in defining your dreams, values and goals, and the specific actions needed to achieve them. It will give you an understanding of your desires and motivations, and will help you determine the importance of your goals in the full scheme of your life.
LifeTime Planning is a way of life that ensures that you will have success after success.
