Principles of Success

By Jack Canfield

These are some of the key "Principles of Success" based on my research and experience.

* Success is whatever you want it to be. For me it is to love and be loved and to give and receive joy.
* Never give up. Keep playing till you win. ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ was rejected by 144 publishers over a 9 month period. Now it has sold over 100 mn copies in 39 countries.
* If one knows the combination of the lock of success it has to open.
* If one implemented the principles of success then one could double one’s income and free time in 2 years or less.
* You can’t hire other people to do push-ups for you. If it’s meant to be then it’s up to me.
* First principle is to take 100% responsibility for your life and results.
* Give up all blaming and excuse making. Give up blaming everything outside of us.
* Events + Responses = Outcomes.
* It’s the Response to the Event that produces the Outcome. One is responsible for the choice of how one reacts to the event. If you want a different outcome then change your response.
* One can influence responses in 3 areas viz. One’s behavior, thoughts and images.
* We need to realize that we are capable of doing almost anything. If we want to be successful then we need to eliminate ‘I can’t and ‘I have to’. Nobody can make anyone do anything. There are choices which one has to make. Given all the options one is constantly making choices.
* We affect one another with our energy fields. The mind extends beyond the physical brain. Every thought is like an email being sent out to the world.
* Colors too play a role. The color orange is a color which nobody wants to hang around. Whereas blue and green are soothing colors.
* Successful students take copious notes and review them that very night. Read fewer books and review what you have read. They also get 8 hours sleep. This is the time when the short-term memory gets locked into the long term memory.
* Got to pay yourself first. 10%-20% of everything one earns should be invested wisely so that one’s personal equity continuously increases. What is the use of earning $25000 per month and at the end of one’s career one has just $25000 left.
* If you are an average person with a negative attitude then you are half-way to the bottom. Whereas if you are an average person with a positive attitude then you are half way to the top.
* Another principle of success is to decide what you want. Don’t base this on what is possible but on what one really wants. Most often people have resigned themselves to their place in life.
* High Achievers have unusual clarity on Purpose and Mission, Vision and Goals and Objectives. If you don’t have goals then you end up working for someone who has.
* Each one has an innate purpose. Goals need to be aligned with one’s purpose. If they are not aligned then even though one may meet one’s goals one doesn’t experience any satisfaction. One remains unhappy.
* To discover one’s purpose, the first step is to think of the times when you feel that you are truly yourself. You feel completely at home with yourself. There is no effort required. Second step is to think of 2 ways through which you could as well as you would want to express these qualities. Third step is to think what according to you would the world be like if it has to work perfectly. What would it look like? Now take these 3 elements and string them together in the form of a statement which would express one’s purpose.
* Make an irritation list. Can do this every 3 months. This list contains all the various irritations like one’s table not being cleaned or one’s clothes being in a mess or any of a hundred other irritations one may have. Some irritations may take a day or two to clear up while others may take months. But this gives one a focus to clear up one’s cluttered space so that one feels free to do the many other things which one wants to do.
* One can have whatever one wants out of life. But here one needs to make a distinction between addiction and preference. One needs to avoid addiction but make a choice based on preference.
* Perception and Awareness are the most important tools for success.
* Make an ‘I Want’ List. Anything one wanted to do or achieve but haven’t done. There is no restriction on the number of goals. We keep putting off wanting to complete what we want to do and therefore have so many regrets. Therefore take up 3 goals a year.
* Give your child memories. May be the craziest things one does on a holiday becomes a lasting memory.
* We all have an inner GPS. Now a GPS system in a car keeps delivering instructions in small chunks not all at one go because one can digest and follow only that much at a time. Our brains have been designed to deliver the solution. But we must be committed to do what we want to do. The “how” will gradually show itself up. If we believe in the possibility that we can, then the ‘how’ will show up. But it will reveal itself gradually not all at once.
* Set a goal that is big enough so that in the process of achieving it one will become someone worth becoming. As a result of pursuing the goal one may learn many things one didn’t know. One becomes a master of life. This mastery can’t be taken away. Who one becomes as a result of achieving or pursuing the goal is more important than the goal. One needs to set goals which stretch oneself.
* Create a breakthrough goal. A goal which will break you to a new level. It doesn’t take any more effort to dream a big dream than to dream a small dream. Small dreams attract small people, and big dreams attract big people.
* Many people will tell you that your dream is impossible to achieve. Like Fred Smith was told about his proposal to deliver packages overnight anywhere. He went on to create Fedex. It is better to be a ‘dream maker’ than a ‘dream spoiler’.
* Use the ‘Rule of 5’ for one’s breakthrough goals. This means choosing 5 specific things to do every day which will help one in realizing the breakthrough goals.
* For drawing up one’s Vision divide one’s life into the following 7 areas viz. Financial, Business/Career, Fun Time, Health/Fitness, Relationships, Personal (Doing something just because one wants to do it), Contribution (What kind of contribution or legacy one would like to make or leave behind?)
* For each of these areas write down one’s goals to be achieved at the end of 2 years. Then one gets down to writing down one’s one-year master plan.
* Usually we come up with the objection of not knowing how to do whatever needs to be done. The answer to this is to see if there is anybody else who has done it. Ask them how they did it. Many people don’t like to ask. Success leaves clues.
* Get an accountability partner. Report every week what one has accomplished. We have proven that we are undependable in various areas of our lives and therefore we need Accountability Partners.
* The next step is to set measurable objectives for every part of one’s master plan. How much by When? An objective is something I want which is measurable in time and space. Be specific.
* Transcend your limiting beliefs.
* Believe it’s possible. Laura Schultz a 65 year old lady lifted the back of a car alone so that her grandson could free his leg. She refused to give any interviews regarding this incident and the reason she gave was that the incident made her ask herself a very painful question viz. ‘What was I capable of doing but haven’t done?’
* Believe in yourself. To change a belief, first identify it. Write down the opposite and then say it to oneself everyday.
* We think 50,000 thoughts a day. Follow the law of replacement. Replace a negative thought with a positive thought.
* Thoughts communicate. It’s like an ‘Innernet’. Masaru Emoto has shown that when thoughts are communicated to a glass of water one can see the effect on the water. For instance when one sends out thoughts like love and gratitude to a glass of water then if one examines a drop under a microscope one can see beautiful crystal formations.
* Whereas when one sends out thoughts of ‘you fool’ to a glass of water then on examination of a droplet one will find just a blob of an outline. 70% of our bodies are made up of water. We need to be conscious of what kind of thoughts we send out to ourselves and others.
* Do the following exercise. Ask oneself the following 3 questions viz. What is an area of your life or work that is not working right now? What belief of yours is keeping you stuck at your current level of results? What belief you would need to have in order for you to move up to the next level?
* Release the brakes. We are walking around with the brakes on. In order to release the brakes we need to use affirmations.
* An affirmation is always stated in the present tense and has a verb and feeling. One sees with the mind’s eye the goal being already achieved. For instance “I am enjoying looking at my physically fit 185 pound body in the mirror.” “I am calmly watching the sunset from my Malibu bungalow”. The repetition and image of having already achieved this is important.
* See what you want and get what you see. The power of visualization. There was an experiment conducted among 3 basketball groups viz. the first group was told not to practice at all. They showed no improvement. The next group was told to practice for 30 days. They showed an improvement of 24 %. 3rd group was told only to visualize their shooting capability improving and experience it as if it were already achieved. At the end of doing this for 30 days they showed an improvement of 23%.
* The brain is designed to put into reality whatever we put in there as an image. But we need to do this for a minimum of 30 days. Whenever we want to initiate a new behavior we need to practice it for a minimum of 30 days. By thinking positive thoughts the brain creates new neural pathways. Visualize your goals and results as already completed twice a day.
* Vision doesn’t match reality. We need to focus on Vision so that Structural Tension is built up deliberately because then motivation arises. This structural tension creates a shift in perception, expands creativity and increases motivation.
* We see what we believe. And, therefore, we need to look at the beliefs we have about ourselves.
* Once we see it we will never know how not to see it. It becomes obvious.
* Like an iceberg, the conscious mind is just 1/6th and is seen above the water. While the unconscious mind is 5/6th and is not seen and needs to be reprogrammed.
* Act as if. Rehearse in your mind as if it was a reality. By doing this one attracts whatever is needed into one’s life to help in the achievement of what one is acting out.
* The one thing that separates winners from losers is ‘Action’. Winners always take action. One is willing to do whatever it takes.
* What stops us from taking action? Fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Fear is a cautionary sign not a ‘don’t do it’ sign. Fear stands for Fantasize the Experiences that appear real. The Body can’t tell the difference between the real and the imaginary. There are 2 ways of dealing with the imaginary. Either one stops imagining and comes back to the present moment or One focuses on imagining the positive.
* Ask, Ask, Ask. Continually even to the same person. Get interaction. Create relationship. Chad Pregracke a 19 year old student just went ahead and asked for money from Corporations to clean up the Mississippi. The Corporations were impressed by the boy’s sincerity and gave him the money.
* Reject rejection. Rejection is a myth in one’s mind. When you asked and got rejected you are no worse than when you were before you asked because you didn’t have it in the first place before you asked. So go ahead and ‘ask’. What’s there in feeling foolish. SWSWSWSW (some will, some won’t, so what, someone’s waiting). It’s a numbers game. Go on asking. The average sale is made after 6 calls. Therefore keep going back. When people say ‘No’ say ‘Next’. Ask the person concerned ‘What would have to happen if I wanted…..’
* Exceed expectations. Consistently exceed expectations. The principle followed by Walt Disney was that one needs to do whatever one is doing so well that people will bring others back to see it.
* Transform yourself for success. To do this one needs to complete the Past to embrace the future. To complete the past one needs to—
a. Acknowledge your successes.
b. Acknowledge others’ successes. To acknowledge others’ successes one needs to resort to ‘auditory’ viz. telling them about your appreciation, or showing them your appreciation, or touching them in the form of embracing them.
c. Learn from your failures.
d. Let go of your resentments.
e. Total Truth Process. Forgive others.
f. Practice meditation.
g. Practice releasing techniques.
h. Clean up physical messes and other incomplete areas.
* Practice uncommon appreciation. Everyone has a sign ‘Appreciate me’. Everybody wants to be noticed, listened to or touched. In a survey done among Supervisors and Employees on 10 ways to motivate an employee the results showed that as far as the supervisors’ responses were concerned ‘Appreciation’ was at the very bottom of the list.
* Whereas for the employees ‘appreciation’ was at the very top.
* Ask for something small first. Appreciate it. Then ask for something big. One will hardly be refused.
* Practice strength bombardment. Get three to four people to bombard you with the good they see in you.