How to be more successful
Well, this is certainly a broad topic, and we'll try to treat it both broadly and specifically. As you've no doubt heard, successful athletes, artists, businessmen, politicians, cooks, stay at home moms, stay at home dads, musicians, weight lifters, dog trainers, doctors, scientists, inventors, soldiers, generals, religious leaders, poets, novelists, scholars, comic book artist, gardeners, movie stars, antique dealers, and so forth, usually have something in common, something that they all share that had a great deal to do with their success. Let's look at a few examples.
1. Most successful people, on the top rung to the bottom, are self-motivated. That is, their motivation comes from inside, it's a flame that they've stoked into a bonfire. They don't rely on self-help books, pop psychology, weepy daytime television, and so forth, to do what they do day in and out. Now-it's true that any of the above things could provide a spur for the initial motivation. But once you're motivated, you've got to keep going. Let me explain.
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2. Let's say that you're a trail guide and you want to get in better shape over your next break in order to take responsibility for some of the harder hikes. But you just can't seem to find the will, you can't seem to find the idea that sparks your imagination and your heart into activity. This, of course, is no reason to not work out, to not reach, even halfheartedly, the goal you've set for yourself. But most successful people found that that spark, that fire, eventually came. When it does come, whether it's through a story you read in a magazine, an interview you watched on TV, a inspiring movie, song, whatever, you've got to grab it and hang on.
3. In other words, let's say you want to be more successful, and such and such a book provided you with that spark. But you let it sit for a few days, and picked up the book again, and felt the spark again, but it was milder this time and you had so much to do etc. etc. What's going to happen next? Well, you're likely to become a chronic reader of the sort of book that gave you that initial excitement, rather than using that initial excitement (even the memory) of it, to take you to new, higher, better, more fulfilling excitements.
4. The psychology of success is interesting thing. Successful people are as different as they come (think of Al Gore versus Jim Carrey), and yet there are one or two underlying qualities that get them to the top. A poem by Longfellow goes something like this: "The heights by great men reached and kept/Were not obtained by sudden flight/But they, while their companions slept/Were toiling upwards in the night.
5. In other words, success takes hard work. Jim Carrey spent a lot of time living in a van when younger. He went from job to job. Al Gore was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, as it were, but no one can deny he was one of the hardest workers Washington has ever beheld.
6. Now, right at the start the idea of that hard work makes some of us crawl under beds and not come out until the end of the world. Here's the thing, though. Human beings are very complicated. It's as if we're hardwired to be successful. That is, the moment we experience some success, those juices start flowing in our brain that lead us to new success. For example, an extremely overweight person of my acquaintance got inspired, went downstairs to the gym, ran twenty minutes, and came crawling up the stairs, and was glowing with happiness and confidence. It was is if he was already in shape. And it just got better from there. Every time he succeeded in this minimal goal he felt as though he had climbed Everest. You can, too.
