By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group
Patterns of Excellence in Lifestyle
The Blueprint of Success Formula
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose – Bill Gates
KOLKATA: Okay, now that we get to understand that we all have the identical bio-hardware, the identical mental resources and it’s just a choice of our installing the appropriate programs…Let’s begin by treading in the footsteps of the winners, the people who produce extraordinary results… the people who have learned to direct their resources in an optimal way. If we can just model the patterns of excellence they exhibit, then certainly we can reproduce the same outstanding results they have! Is it that simple?
Well, a question that I have always asked myself is this: Is there a formula for success? Do all successful individuals follow a pattern that enable them to get what they want? After studying sufficient number of role models from books, interviews and seminars, I got convinced that although many successful individuals, in all fields of their endeavours, appear to make very different decisions given similar situations and they also use very different approaches and strategies, yet all of them have something in common. And it is just this. All of them take a series of distinctive steps to get to what they want. I call these series of steps the Blueprint of Success Formula.
Moreover, it does not really matter if you want to be a whiz inventor, successful marketer or a salesperson, inspiring trainer, pioneering entrepreneur, top-notch doctor or journalist. The universal steps remain identical. And from it emerges a pattern which necessarily involves six major steps. Follow this pattern or success formula, and you will be able to achieve anything you want. Miss any of these steps, and your dreams will never become the reality that you deserve.
Step 1. Be Very Specific about Your Goal
The first step to getting what you desire is to know exactly what it is that you want. This sounds simple and obvious enough. Yet, unfortunately, most people never seem to get what they want, simply because they are not clear with specificity about what it is they want in the first place! Most people say that they want to be successful in life, yet ask them what they want to achieve specifically and most would say, ‘I am not really sure’ or they will give vague answers such as, ‘I want to be happy’, ‘I want to have more money’, ‘I want a better job’, ’I want to have less worries‘- all of which are generic in nature and hence in reality nonspecific.
Well, know this. Unless you have a specific goal, there is nothing tangible you can focus your time and energy on. This is why most people find themselves going in all other directions, ending up nowhere. Unless you have a specific target, you cannot develop an effective strategy to get there. The strategy required to make Rs.200,000 is uniquely different from the strategy needed to make Rs.20 Crores in all obvious terms. The moment you can clarify your goals, you can see them in your mind’s-eye (it’s called creative visualization) & you will begin to have focus in your life. It will then become crystal clear to you what it is you must do to get there. Biographies of the most successful and legendary people, again in all pursuits, show time and again that their outstanding achievements are rarely outcomes of accident or chance. They did not have success thrust onto them. Their phenomenal successes are the results of clearly defined outcomes that they had predetermined, and worked towards unwaveringly, often at a very early stage of their life.
Rarely few successful experiences happen by chance… whether it is winning a position or a race. Most of all happen by design. Yet, the unfortunate fact is that most people do not have a plan for their lives, and hence they end up falling into somebody else’s plan. It’s only when we know what we want very specifically that we are able to focus all our talents and energy like a laser beam honing in on its target. And in moving unwaveringly towards it, we develop the resources necessary to make it happen. Wherever you are in your life right now, you must begin to set specific goals (instead of generic goals) on what you want to actually achieve in the different areas of your life. In subsequent articles we will focus on how you can design the ultimate destiny for yourself!
Step 2. Develop a Strategy
Everything is possible. It is only a question of the strategy used.
Goal → Strategy
The second step in the Blueprint of Success Formula is to develop a strategy that will move you towards your outcome. Again, the more specific your goal is, the easier it is to develop an appropriate strategy. You can have all the drive and energy, but without the right strategy, you will never get what you want. By the same token, every outcome is possible, given an effectivestrategy.
For example, imagine yourself as the small business owner of a fruit shop that makes Rs.10,000 in profits a month. Let’s say that you decided to set a goal of increasing profits to Rs.15,000 a month. Would that be possible? Probably. You could work a lot harder, raise prices, increase trading hours, sell on-line or create a loyalty program.
What if you set a goal of making Rs.3 crores a month from your fruit business? Would it be achievable? Most people would say, ‘Of course not, there is no way you can make that kind of money from a fruit business like that!’ True enough. Making Rs.3 crores a month from that fruit business is impossible, if the owner continues to use the same business strategy. Yet, if he were to completely change the way he now does his small localized fruit business, would it be possible?
For instance, the strategy he could use would start by his studying how to greatly expand his market: he would write a dynamic business plan, raise capital through investments, invest in R & D to develop a superior brand of fruit (for example, Organic Certified food products are seeing phenomenal growth everywhere as people become health conscious) and widen his range of fruit (e.g. offer sun dried fruit without sulphur, candied fruit using organic sugar, pureed fruit rolls for kids), support reliable new suppliers, build a franchise system and then license thousands of business owners around the world to sell his fruit. Would it then be possible for him to earn Rs.3 crores a month? Of course it would! With enough flexibility in our strategy, we can achieve just about anything. You still wonder how a local fruit shop can possibly expand and go global. Impossible?
Step 3. Take Consistent Action
Goal → Strategy → Action
The third step is to get yourself to take consistent action, using the strategy you have crafted. This will move you, step by step, towards your goal. Consistent action is what separates the thinkers or dreamers from the doers. Many highly educated people know what to do, they think they know how to do it, but they never do anything about it.
That is why many of them end up as professionals and consultants, working for successful entrepreneurs who had mediocre grades in school. Fine, if that’s what they want in life, there is nothing wrong as long as they are fulfilled. But if you are not satisfied with your status quo, then DO something about it. Do you know someone who may be less talented and intelligent than you are but is a lot more successful? Have you ever asked yourself, ‘I know I am better than they are, but why are they so much more successful?’ Well, you may be smarter, but they take a lot more action and that is why they get a lot more results! And one of the actions they take may well mean their learning rapport/social building skills and teamwork skills, all necessary tools for any kind of success.
So why do so many intelligent people fail to take consistent action towards their goals? Well, first understand that what drives our actions are the emotional states that we experience. Emotions like fear, inertia, anxiety and uncertainty paralyze us from taking action. On the other hand emotions like enthusiasm, motivation and confidence excite us and get us to make things happen. The ability to direct and manage your states for peak performance is what is called Personal Mastery.
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, I will conclude this article about ‘The Personal Mastery’ with the remaining steps and after that you will come to know in the following articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.
