Your life’s ultimate goal is happiness; your drive for happiness guides the course of your life, and you need to be happy regardless of the external circumstances in your life. The happier you are, the better jobs you will get and the more successful you will be in your career. In order to achieve happiness, turn away from externalities and instead focus on the happiness that is already inside of you. Your life is too important to be unhappy.
People all around you prey on common fantasies of wealth, jobs, health, and other things; the prospect of instant gratification is naturally appealing to people frustrated with life’s difficulties. The only proven route to success, however, is through personally taking actions and building momentum over time. The idea over instant change is an attractive fantasy, but only that; a fantasy perpetuated by others preying on your desires rather than helping you.
There is a tremendous amount of negativity, harm and hurt in the world. These forces are all around us and conspiring to bring us down and reduce us to less than we are capable of being. In order to reach our potential and be the people we are capable of becoming, we need to do everything we can to be positive in the face of overwhelming negativity. This will save us, make us strong and give us the lives we are entitled to and deserve.
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The most successful people are often obsessed with and are incredibly knowledgeable about the minutiae of their work. You must concentrate and develop an understanding of the details that others “gloss over” for true happiness and success in your job. When looking for a job, you will find greater success by looking for openings in places that others overlook. Focusing on the small details will, in aggregate, bring you much greater success than focusing on the bigger picture, so start by tending to one detail at a time.
Just as a Unique Selling Position (USP) is important to sell a product, your own USP is vital for marketing yourself to potential employers. You must define your USP before even creating your resume, as it comprises the basic product that you are trying to sell in your interview. Focus your USP on a specific niche, for which there is market demand, and make it thoroughly persuasive.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of investing in the backstage of everything you are doing. Nothing is more important than what you do behind-the-scenes, and the substance that goes into your job. Only with a good backstage can you achieve your full potential in anything. Most successful people and businesses always have a very strong operation behind-the-scenes. It is not what people see when they look at a storefront that matters; it is the “substance” of what is going behind-the-scenes. It is like this with you and your profession as well. The ultimate product that you produce will be more a product of what you do “behind-the-scenes” than of the actual service that you provide. It is important to understand the significance of this, because it can mean the difference between great success and failure. Only with a good backstage can you achieve full potential in anything.
Everyone seeks to imitate the people they look up to, and with transference they believe that they have an understanding of other peoples’ thoughts, motives, and beliefs. Transference, however, can blind yourself to the true nature of those around you and can lead you to make wrong judgments or assumptions. You will be much more successful with a better understanding of who you are and how your perceptions of the world help or hinder you.
Use your past, rather than some unattainable ideal, as the yardstick for measuring progress in your life and career. The most successful people are also often the most unhappy, because they measure themselves against impossible ideals, which causes a constant sense of inferiority. There will always be someone better than you, and there are ideals all around you against which it would be unrealistic and stupid to measure yourself. Instead, compare yourself only to the person you were before; measure yourself against your own progress, and forget about others.
Pursue your own dreams and become the person that you want to be, rather than what others might want. Living life according to the wishes of others is meaningless, and will bring you neither happiness nor success. Others do not understand your capabilities, goals, and interests as well as you do, hence their opinions should be your least concern. Have faith in your own potential greatness, and you will develop the confidence to act upon it and be the person that you really want to be, achieving true fulfillment.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
True self-esteem comes from within, not from the acceptance of others. When your sense of worth comes from within, you free yourself from comparisons with others and will enjoy a greater sense of internal security. You will no longer be bogged down by the experiences of others and can become much more self-reliant.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
Everyone tries to maintain a certain emotional state, and learning to control your own emotions will have a profound impact on your career. While everyone allows their emotional states to be influenced by outside events, there is no advantage in basing your own emotions on things that you cannot control. Allow yourself to discover happiness and fulfillment naturally, rather than making your emotions dependant on external circumstances. Your outlook will have a tremendous impact on your psychological health, as well as that of those around you.
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