Almost everyone I know wants to succeed. And genuinely so. Their efforts are sincere and their intentions, noble. They even try hard. Why is it that some people succeed at most things they undertake while many others fail at anything they try? It is not uncommon to see that some people get really lucky. They end up at the right place at the right time and success just happens to them, or so it seems.

When you are serious about success, it is serious about you too. When you keep chiseling away at your goal, you learn to identify opportunities and make use of them. Today, I bring to you five principles of success. When we follow these principles, our chances of being at the right place at the right time go up significantly. These five golden principles will help you stay motivated right till the end.

1. Positivity

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Being positive is a habit. It’s a matter of choice. It doesn’t mean that one let goes of actions and wait for things to happen. Positivity is about chasing your dreams with a heart for any fate. It is reminding yourself that your world has not come to an end and that there’s plenty more you can do. Positivity makes you proactive and sharpens your intellect. Being positive is not about false reassurance or vain affirmations, it is about action.

2. Patience

This is the most common roadblock on the journey to success. Patience is knowing that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Your habits were not formed overnight, you did not gain weight in a matter of days, similarly, you cannot break old habits or change yourself in jiffy. Think of an artist, a sculptor or a builder. They keep working on their project, one stroke, one brick at a time. If you are serious about gaining body mass or losing weight, improving your skills at tennis or boosting your memory, you must not forego patience. When you stay course, taking one step at a time, you will finish a journey of thousand miles before long.

3. Persistence

“It’s not that I’m smarter, I just stay with problems longer.” ~ Albert Einstein

When you are persistent, results certainly show through. And with positive results, it becomes easier to be motivated. Patience thrives in the persistent mind. Imagine a tennis match between two champions. The one who can patiently and consistently play one good shot after the other, staying persistent, will eventually win over the other opponent. One common trait among the most successful across the globe has been their persistence. When you are persistent, new ideas spring up automatically.

4. Discipline

We are often motivated by the results, by the joy of reaching at the destination. The primary difference between an elusive dream and a real goal is that the latter has discipline and action. Discipline is sticking to your mental and physical routine, it’s going by the plan, it’s about following your course of action. The best way to follow any discipline is to ignore your heart. For example, you committed yourself to hit the gym four times a week. Today, you are feeling lazy and don’t want to go to the gym. All you’ve got to do is not listen to your mind. Just get to the gym. Once there, you will find it easy to do your workout.

5. Visualization

“Thoughts become things.” ~ Buddha

This one is less shared by the successful people. When you are patient, persistent, positive and disciplined, your thoughts become really powerful. That is the view shared by many yogic texts as well. Your will-power and calmness in the mind gets a massive boost. You can then carry out your visualizations with much greater success. Visualization can have amazing, if not miraculous, effect in keeping you motivated and helping you realize your goals. With a wavering mind and weak resolve, law of attraction will remain a mythical concept. 

Go on! Take life by the horns and dictate your own terms. Succeeding is a habit too. It’s the one worth cultivating.

• The Art of the Small Goal

• Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. - Robert Collier
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