What is success? Enormous amounts of energy go into following the lives of people who are "successful", and yet for most of us the sort of success of, say, a Brendan Fevola or a Paris Hilton, isn't what we'd want for ourselves.
Success for us might mean getting that job, hitting our ideal weight, finding that boyfriend - or being the boyfriend everyone wants to find, increasing our financial assets to a particular point, whether that be longed-for comfort or serious wealth...
Or that favourite of mine: the freedom and joy that comes from being fully at ease with yourself.
So what's your own personal mountain, the one you want to climb and enjoy the view from? Once we have a clear idea of What success would mean to us, it's time to look at the How.
It's a much-loved slogan that it's 80% (or 95% or or...
) about mindset and 20% skill set, and although I think that's wildly exaggerated, it's true that without mindset you're likely to get nowhere in any area of your life.
The first, and I think non-negotiable, aspect of this is the belief that you will succeed, and this needs to be there not only on a conscious level, but also - and especially - on an unconscious level.
If we don't believe we can succeed, there will always be fear, indecision, the search for Plan B, "Yes, but...
" and "What if it all goes wrong?" That takes up so much energy and focus - why would you ever put yourself through it?! The second thing is a willingness to take "risks".
Now, we all have different thresholds, and it's important to bear that in mind.
However, staying in our "comfort" zone means, essentially, staying where we are now, and for many of us there comes a time when that doesn't look like something we want to be looking back on 20 years, or even 6 months, down the track.
So risks, here we come! Start small, and work your way up! Thirdly, what messages are you sending yourself? Yes, you can write your affirmations and gratitudes and put stickers on the fridge or bathroom mirror! Even more important than this are the messages you send yourself with your actions.
Three days before I started my training as a coach I hung up my board pens and walked (literally) out of the office and away from my teaching career.
In my circumstances not actually a risk (I could easily go back), but I was sending myself a message: I'm not a teacher; I'm a coach.
Coaching is "what I do".
There's a lot more that could be written about this - many books have been, in fact.
But the most important questions you need to ask yourself are: Do I want more success in any area of my life? And am I interested in doing what it takes to achieve that? 1.
A well-known Bad Boy in Melbourne; he's good at kicking pieces of leather between wooden sticks, apparently.
2.
I've still not worked out what she's good at...