SuccessSHIFT

Do you want to be successful? No matter how many people I have asked this question, the answer is always – “yes.” I have never met a single person that doesn’t want to be successful.  

However, the answer is not as straightforward when I ask: “What does success look like to you?” Everyone has a different answer. 

If you look up the definition of success in any dictionary, it’s clear that wealth accumulation is used as the primary gauge for success. However, as you explore the stories of many successful people and mentors, wealth accumulation is never the singular driving force for those who’ve achieved great successes. Don't get me wrong, financial stability and prosperity are also important. In fact, I truly believe that money provides 3 things:

1. Conveniences to live beyond survival mode
2. Freedom to live up to your dreams
3. Opportunities to lead others towards living up to their dreams

The point here is that personal and business successes come by shifting focus away from the money. In other words, the shift required for success requires shifting from goal-driven success to purpose-driven success.

Goal-driven success is generally short-lived, superficial, and impacts small groups of people. Whereas, purpose-driven success starts from within, goes outward to impact many for generations to come, and is in harmony with God’s laws. Once we shift the focus from making money to living a life with the purpose to serving others, great riches will follow.

  “Success is not to be pursued, it is to be attracted by the person you become.” Jim Rohn

What I’ve come to experience in life and observed from the lives of my mentors is that when we become dedicated to the growth and adding value to others, horizons expand beyond what our physical eye can see. 

So let’s take a look at the SuccessSHIFT model:

• Significance
• Harmony
• Introspection
• Failing forward
• Tenacity      

SIGNIFICANCE

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Mark Twain

Far too many of us focus on accumulating material possessions instead of living a life of purpose and positively influencing people around us. A goal-driven success mindset focuses on building a business and making money for ME – it’s a win-lose mentality. 

A purpose-driven success mindset focuses on positively impacting the lives of others and leaving a legacy that is resultant of a WE attitude – it’s a win-win mentality. The reality is that we’ll never be able to take the business we built and the assets we accumulated with us when we die’ they’ll all lose value sooner than later.

However, the positive impact we make in the lives of those we touch will multiply and grow for generations to come. Once we’re able to grow and understand how to positively influence others we lead, our business will blossom and the money will chase the business. 

My purpose in life is to positively influence everyone I interact with by:

•   Elevating them to be more than what they ever believed 

•   Empowering them with confidence building skills and tools

•   Enriching their lives through opportunities to excel

HARMONY

“Only when our beliefs, thoughts and actions are in harmony with each other and we live in harmony with God’s laws we can find a balance in life.” Lillit L. Cholakian

It took years on this journey in life and plenty of mistakes for me to really understand that I was approaching this important factor in life from the wrong end. Our beliefs define our thoughts and our thoughts drive our behavior. Until we change our beliefs we’ll never achieve a sustainable change in our actions. 

Until we revisit our beliefs and change the ones that don’t serve us, everything we do will be like a band-aid approach, a temporary cover-up of the wound. The reality is that we will never outperform our own beliefs about ourselves, which leads to success in life-based on goal-driven ambitions. In other words, short-term successes. 

The reality is that God created us completely and fully resourced. Yet, way too many of us go through life’s circumstances that birth a self-image of incompleteness and undeserving, which takes us further away from an image of who God created us to be. 

When we forget God’s purpose and laws in our lives, we start relying on our strengths only, living with fear-driven worries and looking for happiness in things outside of ourselves. Adopting a mindset that’s purpose-driven yields happiness.

INTROSPECTION

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” James Allen

The third aspect of the SHIFT is introspection. If we don’t go within we’ll l go without! Self-examination is one of the most important ingredients to success because it creates self-awareness, without which intentional growth is impossible.

Without growth success isn’t possible. However, this very important factor is often overlooked because many think that they’re growing as they pass the years of their lives. But what they define as growth is inertia. This is the growth of our physical bodies that we most of the time have no control over. Inner evolution is what guarantees purpose-driven success. It involves examination and changing of one's own beliefs and thoughts, mental and emotional processes, mindset and attitude, spiritual and social aspects, skills required, and many other aspects. 

Why do I believe that self-awareness is so important? Because if we don’t know our starting point how will we know how far it is to get to our destination? This requires shifting away from a scarcity mindset, which many in our society are trained to have; and yielding towards an abundance mindset. 

FAILING FORWARD

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

In our society, success is overrated while failure is avoided at all costs. In actuality, today's success is tomorrow's enemy. Way too often we become complaisant in our current success and stop growing or even worse, become paralyzed by our failures. The fact is that our failures and mistakes teach us more than all our successes combined do. We must be willing to evaluate and learn. The truth is failing growth doesn’t happen because it means you have not tried something new.

I love this definition of fail: First Attempt Is Learning. Being a perfectionist by nature, I used to wait until I felt ready to go out there and make a difference. Guess what? There comes a time when you realize that you’ll not succeed if you don’t do it. So the SHIFT required is to have a purpose-driven success by:

•   Learning to embrace failures

•   Acting according to the potential instead of obvious limitations, and

•   Enjoying paying the price for success, instead of dreading it

 This is easier when you have a clear purpose fueled by a life of significance rather than a life without any failure mentality. 

TENACITY

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas A. Edison

As previously mentioned, our society trains us to dread failure, which in turn leads us to quit at the first sign of defeat. This mentality leads many towards cultivating an attitude of:

•   Starting fast, quitting fast, and quickly moving on to the next “best” thing

•   Craving instant gratification and

•    Worrying constantly about work habits

 But when we shift our focus towards one that is purpose-driven, success with clear purpose fueled by a life of significance, it’s easier to persevere despite the challenges because we are aiming for sustainable impact with a lifestyle we live. And this shift from goal-driven success to purpose-driven success in significance, real and sustainable success will follow. Life is a journey, just trust the process. It takes many baby steps and consistency to be successful. Never underestimate the cumulative value of taking small actions on a daily basis. They have a powerful compounding effect, especially IF you have the tenacity to keep working towards them.

So I challenge you to ask yourself these questions:

• Do you know your purpose in life?
• Is your purpose bigger than you are?
• What is your personal definition of success?
• Is your definition of success goal-driven or purpose-driven? 

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you’re right.”

Spend some time reflecting on this topic and develop a clear mental picture of what success means to you, as you look at it through a purpose-driven prism. Because without of a shadow of a doubt, you’ll achieve your purpose-driven success if you practice this SHIFT!

#Awarness

#FailingForward

#Harmony

#Introspection

#Significance

#Success

#SuccessShift

#Tenacity