How bad do you want success? Being content with your life or where it's going might be a measure of success, unfortunately, I truly believe it's that same content feeling that holds people back from their true potential.
When I began to write this article, I looked for a quotation that would embody those remarks.
What I found, is that there are many quotes that allude to theme of, a person is a success in life if he or she is happy with themselves and circumstances.
The flip side to this ideology is that success is obtained through a series of failures.
As in life, I think it boils down to a balance between the two.
I truly believe that if you have good situational awareness of what your goals are in life, and you make daily strides in life towards those goals you can in effect, work through a series of small successes and still have enough balance and well being, to be happy where you are at just long enough to smell the roses as they say.
I think the danger, in becoming content in where you are at in life (staying too long to smell the roses), is that if you have not reached your goals, that feeling of contentment slowly erodes your final destination.
To me it's akin of planning a cross country trip, but because of poor planning and lack of direction, you run out of fuel.
Once that happens, you decide, that the place where you have become stranded in, isn't so bad, and that is where you pitch your tent for the night.
The next morning you decide that maybe you'll stay a while, and your residence in that particular place should take on a more permanent aspect.
A couple of months later you've built a house, and it makes no sense to uproot what you've created in this accidental destination, and you become content in just settling in for the long haul just where you are at...
But what happened to your original final destination? It's not like that place moved.
It's still there, but now it seems like this mythical place that you never will get to, but in fact it's not.
It's always been there, it's just that along the way, the methods that you used were not adequate to get you to where you needed to go.
I think life for most people fall into this category, you start out with the intent to get from point A to point Z, but you settle at point M.
And once you settle at point M, the reasons to get to point Z start to erode and wither away.
Intent alone will not get you anywhere, you need a plan.
Now, if you had a plan, that included a series of steps to get from A to B, and then from B to C, and so on that would be a start.
If your plan had contingency plans so that when things go wrong (and they will), they can be addressed, then you can stay on course.
If your plan recognizes that not all the steps in between might be as equally hard or simple (for instance if point M was a mountain top and that might take a bit more effort to get to and across), then you begin to have the framework of a proper plan.
Your plan in my humble opinion, should also include the association of like minded people.
People that want to get to point Z more then you do, but folks that can temper that zeal with a dose of reality.
It makes no sense to get in a proverbial trip with someone to point Z and when their final destination is point B.
To me, this is part chicken and egg, sometimes you have to start the journey and others will join, that's what is, being a leader.
However, if you are out in front being a leader and no one is following, then you are simply going for a walk.
One way or another though with your plan in hand you have to start, there may be course corrections along the way, but with that in mind, you'll be better prepared to recognize the difference between point M and point Z.
Here's the beautiful thing, you can always reassess where you are at in life, and then do something about it.
If you haven't arrived at point Z, why not come up with realistic plans to get there from where you are? Put a series of steps into place to get to those life goals, find a few others to take the journey with you, add in a bit of persistence and consistency, understand that there maybe a few detours to navigate, put yourself in the mindset of enjoying the journey that will have both ups and downs, and you just might get to point Z.
(c) 2011 Chip K