Success comes at a price. It can be measured in many forms. It has several identities. Success appears, disappears and may re-appear again. It begins as an idea and grows through hard work, determination, compromise, luck and guts. It ends where we decide it ends, not where someone, something or some event determines its fate.
Measure it with your own ruler and at no point in time, measure it by someone else's definition or calculation. Take a minute to reflect on your achievements and acknowledge them, to yourself, no one else and silently applaud. You earned it!! Plan for success in steps not leaps. Unfortunately, we sometimes lose site of our successes because we seek to "measure" them. Try feeling your successes. Dress in that favorite suit or your best pair of shoes and "feel" successful. If you dress for success, think about your goals, imagine them happening and capture that feeling, you will have "felt" success. You will not forget that feeling because as you continue to grow as a person and in your profession, that feeling will follow.
It's never a mountain that trips us up, it's always the bumps along the way. It is important to remember this and enjoy the moment. Successful people do successful things every day. This does not occur by accident, it occurs because we think it and we act. Don't take it for granted. Know that you gained success because you went and took it, it did not come to you. Yes, some will say, that your success came because you were lucky or in the right place at the right time. That may be true but even if it was in front of you, you still had to reach out and take hold of it, nurture it, build it but most if all, you have to sustain it..
Continue learning and expanding your knowledge about anything and everything. Knowledge is a powerful tool. It costs nothing to listen to others. You do not have to take advice from everyone but just listen. If you are "open" you will have the ability to process others thoughts and implement them into ideas and concepts that work for you.
Provide others with respect and kindness even if they do not deserve it. God gave us two ears and one mouth because we should listen more than we speak. Surround yourself with people who contribute and are not contaminators.. Take into consideration what people around you are saying about you, look in the mirror and decide if they are right or wrong. If a change is warranted, then make it, quietly.. Do not let others "get" an impression of you. "Giving" an impression is a much more powerful expression of yourself. As you lay your head on your pillow at night, only take to heart what people you love and respect are thinking about you, that's what matters.
I will end, not with a wish of good luck but a challenge to think. Think before you act, think about success, act on it, feel it and embrace it.
