6 STEPPING STONES TO SUCCESS

How many times have you caught yourself thinking?

·         They wouldn’t be interested in seeing me?

·         Who do I think I am going for something so big?

·         I am not in their league.

·         I do not have enough credibility/experience/knowledge.

·         What happens if I fail?

·         I could never do………because………would be so jealous of me.

·         That’s too hard and I would show myself up as a fraud.

·         I must do ………. before I make those sales calls (or something
          else you fear doing)

Feel free to add some of your fearful thoughts to this list.  The more you identify the more you can rid yourself of them. 

Fear paralyses. It stops you taking action and moving towards success. It allows you to discount valuable opportunities and can even stop you seeing them altogether. Fear of failure can hold back and even destroy success if you let it.

The first time I ever felt a massive failure in life was when I had to close my first business. After seven years of putting my heart and soul into my designer knitwear business I had to make the very difficult decision to close it down.  The bottom has fallen out of the market and I had no other option.

I was devastated. My dreams were shattered and I felt such a failure.  It did not help having some family and friends tell me that I was not cut out to be in business. Then a true friend came along and told me to sit down and write a detailed list of all the things I had learnt over the seven years. Four sheets of paper later she had me read it out load to her. That was powerful enough but what she then said changed my life – “So having read that out, how can you think you are a failure? Life is about learning from adversity and moving on.”

I also learnt that the more we see failure as a negative experience, the more likely we are to allow our fears to hold us back from success.  So here are six steps you can take towards success:

6 Stepping Stones to Success

1.       Remember that fear holds back or even destroys success, if you
          allow it to. Identify the fear and change your mind-set by taking   
          positive action to move forward.

2.        Look past the fear by rejecting it from your mind so that you can
          see the opportunities life brings to your door and take action on
          them.

3.       Refuse to listen to people who are negative and put you down   
          when things are going badly.

4.       Surround yourself with supportive people who challenge you in
          positive ways.

5.       Whenever you fail at anything, big or small, write down a list of
          what you have learnt, read it out load and see how many stepping
          stones you have created to move forward.

6.      Take positive action now!