Personal Performance: Success

Speech No. 2 – Personal Performance

What I would like to talk with you about today is success and what you are willing to do to get the things you want in life?

But firstly success can be defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. I look at purpose as the yearning to do something that is in the service of and to gain something that is larger than me. The desire to get better and better at something that matters.

When it comes to the pursuit of success I refer back to this quote: ‘If you want to succeed as much as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful’. Now I want you to think about this: have you ever lost the ability to breathe? Have you tried swimming the length of the pool under water or even been close to drowning for lack of air. There’s a panic, a burning desperation to breathe. It leaves you striving for that one breath to relieve you self of that panic for the thought of dying! But what it creates is a will to live. In a situation of drowning it’s easy, it’s life or death. You have to breathe or you’ll die! You’ll do whatever it takes. You’ll fight, you’ll scrap, and you’ll crawl your way to get that one last breath. Now relate that to a process of attaining or achieving your goals. How do we create that desperation and use it to our advantage to strengthen our resolve, straighten our backs and make the changes we want?

Sun Tzu (the author of 2500-year text ‘The Art of War’ ) states that personal success arises from knowing who we really are. From this self-awareness we can learn and understand about our strengths and weaknesses so we can create a road map to where we want to go. You can create a tailor made life designed by you. Your goals. Your uniqueness, and finding your values. This is an opportunity to create a specific set of designs laid out by you for the path you want to take. I view this as a process of self-investment.

So the question is how do we make the changes needed to succeed? What does it take to be successful? And how do you turn that desperation to breathe into a day-to-day process for success?
I don’t have the answers to those questions and I don’t think there is a one formula that fits all when it comes to personal success. Anyone would be making a bold statement if they suggested they had the answer or a fail proof plan to success. But what I’d like to share with you are three areas that if are applied, I believe can help you on the road to success.

Firstly having a greater understanding of who you are sets you up for success. Having an accurate self-perception allows you to start making clear and more decisive decisions. Sun Tzu identifies the importance of knowing who we really are. This greater self-awareness gives us knowledge of our strengths and weakness giving rise to a greater confidence in your own self.
However, Identifying your personality could be a quest of a lifetime but one great tool for this is the Myers Briggs personality test. This helps to identify what preferences an individual have and thus identifying a personality type. By identifying your true self a better understanding of how you act with people and within situations gives you the power to control your surroundings and so your destiny.

Secondly I feel desire and discipline are an essential part of success. Desire being the longing for the obtainment of an object or an outcome, the wanting to take action to obtain a goal.
Discipline looks at the course of action necessary to achieve the greater goal or a way of life used to follow a particular path. Another way to look at discipline is the consistency during life needed to make the difference to your world. Again: If you want to succeed as much as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.
Here I refer to a word ‘kaizen’ which was employed after WWII by the Japanese: Its defined as the work process and ethic that’s involved in continuous search for improvement, constantly taking measures to improve the working mechanism (and in working mechanism I mean one’s self). This process of taking a closer look and observing how we live day by day is asking ‘what can I do today to improve on yesterday? How do I make today better? An example I use with my clients is that I ask them to put in 2% more effort with each repetition. Over 5 reps they’ve increased intensity by 10%!!
Constantly striving to do better.

Thirdly, and what I feel is the most important part needed for success is belief. Belief is about how much you believe in yourself and what you are and more importantly it’s how much you believe in who you are. I believe belief to be the fundamental driving force needed by anyone or anything to succeed.
It’s defined as the psychological state in which an individual holds something important to them, to be true.
It’s a process that takes an idea and uses ones inner belief to make the thought into active actions that are required to achieve it. With a strong belief system you have the power to move mountains and the confidence to walk tall in any situation.

In summary having an understanding of what is needed to succeed and how much breath it will take, one can look within themselves to start the journey to find out who they really are. This journey of self-discovery is a road map to success and will unfold with the discipline created based on the belief of who you truly are. This will help you take the steps, maintain the daily actions and achieve anything – if you believe in it.
Success is finding your true desire, holding that tight to your heart through the daily discipline and fighting for the achievement with every last breathe.