Thursday thought of the day! We all want to achieve success right? What are you doing to contribute to your success?

I've found success to be a function of two (2) things:
1. Your personal initiative and drive.
2. Having a good mentor - and that means somebody willing to campaign for you in those closed-door meetings where you're not present

If you can get those two horses to pull in the same direction, absolutely nothing can stop you

What is success? Different meaning to everyone, I believe. Money, title, family, happiness, job, travel, house, car? I think success was serving 22 years of active duty and attaining retirement with some promotions along the way. I think success was enlisting without a diploma and ultimately attaining a college degree. I could go on about personal successes, but ultimately each and every personal success was the result of hard work, effort, study time, sacrifice, sticking to it, perseverance, making tough decisions along the way, and picking myself up after getting knocked down. And there was plenty of second guessing....right decision, right move? I know I made mistakes & you will. But I think the ultimate success is looking back & feeling you did your best with what you had at the time. I try to contribute to my success every day....be there, show up, give it your all.

Strategically:
1. Be clear on what you want. Constantly review and refine this.
2. Push outside your comfort zone. Try. Try as hard as you can. Give it a shot.
3. Review what you are doing. What have you learned? Are your actions contributing to your ultimate goals? If not, find ways to restrict how much you do these things or how they effect what you are doing. Be ruthless in ensuring that you focus your efforts on the things that bring the greatest value. These things are identified when you review #1, above.

Tactically:
1. Write down your goals. WRITE THEM DOWN. Read them everyday. Backplan how you will achieve them. I like to do this in 90 day chunks. Longer than that, and it's too hard to figure out how to get there. Shorter than that, and you don't have enough time to achieve significant enough chunks to satisfy your drive.
2. Remind yourself every day what you are grateful for. Even if you haven't achieved your goals, yet, this will give you comfort in what you have and have done. This will give you the confidence to do more.
3. Seek out those who have accomplished what you want to do. Ask them what you should do. Don't be shy. Be persistent.
4. Find peers that are working towards similar goals. You are the average of the 5 people you associate the most with (Zig Zigler said something like that). Surround yourself with high achievers, and you will inevitably take on some of their traits and be motivated to be like them.
5. Be patient. Adjust your plan as necessary, but don't regret if it doesn't come to fruition exactly as you imagined. You can get to your destination in more than one way.