You cannot achieve anything in life by just thinking about it; you must get out there and consistently do work that brings you closer to your goals. There are no short-cuts, so you will need long-term discipline to realize and measure of success. The most important thing you can do for your success is to have and apply long-term discipline to your life and work.
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.
Make sure that your life, dreams, and goals are your own rather than somebody else’s. Most people grow and expand in the direction that they receive encouragement. Such encouragement, however, might often be in someone else’s interest rather than your own. Question why you have received praise and approval for some things and not others, and you will ensure that your dreams and aspirations are truly yours.
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The answers to these seven questions are essentially the same as your response to “Tell me about yourself.” You need to see yourself and your answer to every question from the employer’s point of view. Interviewers are looking for the best long-term fit for each job. Anything you say that supports this is likely to get you hired and anything that does not is likely to mean you will still be looking for a job.
If you are very good at something, you should improve on it (try to stay inspired) and continue doing it. The biggest mistake you can make is abandoning something that is working. Do what you are good at.
In this article Harrison discusses the choices that life offers us. We can choose to be average, very much like the people around us and doing just what society wants us to do. Or, we could be radically different. We could defy the trend, choosing not to play by the rules and simply doing things in a way that makes sense to us. The same philosophy can also be applied to your job search. Any innovation and deviation from the accepted norm, especially in a challenging economic environment, could prove to be a tremendously successful strategy. When you follow your heart and do what you want to do, everything changes. People who stepped out of the rat race and did exactly what they wanted to do with their lives found not only happiness, but great success.
You must establish strong, well-maintained fences around everything in your life, and be aware of who is within them. To maintain fences with friends, for example, maintain constant contact with them and demonstrate interest in your lives; you must maintain fences with employers in a similar manner in order to remain in their good books. Staying within your fences will enable you to do your best in your life and career.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
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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