More Success Stories in Your Life
You have the power to accumulate more and more success stories in your life, so do it.
By Leland E Pulley
A success story occurs when you do something right, good, or beneficial for yourself and/or others. There is learning, growth, accomplishment, and achievement. You put in the effort and produce worthwhile results. Success stories can occur in all types of endeavors including activities, projects, responsibilities, investments, and relationships. This can happen at any time in your life. Everyone should have many successful events in their lives.
Here are some illustrations of success stories.
You find someone to marry and establish a strong marital relationship.
You started college but did not finish. A few years later you return to college and get your degree.
You have been trying to lose weight but have not succeeded. Now through many months of evaluation and effort, you have finally found a way to lose weight and keep it off.
You have had a certain bad habit for many years and finally decided to get rid of it. It has taken months, but now you can say the habit is gone.
You have a special needs child who produces stress in your life. Interacting with other parents in a similar situation, you join a support group. You check all the available information on how to deal with your child's special needs. Now many years later the stress is gone, and you have done a good job of dealing with this situation.
It is hard for you to live within a budget. You have never kept good financial records. You decide to act. A tentative budget is worked out. As time goes by, it is slightly modified and adjusted. Now you have a realistic budget that you can live on.
You have a job but are not satisfied with it in the long run. After checking around with other types of work, you decide to make a career change. Some classes and training are required. But now after a year in a new type of work, you are much happier.
To be happy and content over the years of your life you need to have enough success stories. This will sustain a positive attitude and a good amount of optimism. Both are essential for good mental health.
Here are some general types of success stories. These include better relationships, profitable business, solving a problem, overcoming obstacles, skill development, making a new friend, getting out of debt, addressing a health issue, getting an answer to prayer, school graduation, and helping someone else to do something.
The secret to a successful life is to accumulate success stories of all shapes and sizes consistently over the years. These can be little success stories and big ones. Even small things, which do not seem significant at the time, can contribute to bigger things in the future. All these stories contribute to who you are and who you become.
Evaluate what makes something a success story for you. It may not be a success story for someone else. Why do you want a particular success story? What is your motive? Be selective in what you seek at this time in your life. Just because something is good does not mean you should pursue it. Have some priorities to guide your selection.
Remember, different levels of effort are required for different success stories. Currently, are you willing and able to put forth this effort? Do not overload yourself. Do not take on more than you can manage or handle at this time.
Remember, success stories can and usually reinforce one another. For example, getting additional job training helps you to be promoted at work, and this leads to higher income. Reinforcement can come through the utilization of the same skills. These skills lead to achievement or progress in a variety of activities and projects. As similar goals are achieved, they reinforce one another. Different types of reinforcement make it easier to have more success stories.
Another important factor is resources like your time, skills, finances, health, and other useful things. Do you have the resources for the success stories you desire? Check out the feasibility for what you want based on your current situation. Strive to build up and maintain a large supply of resources that you can utilize when needed.
Be alert and informed so when opportunities arise, you will recognize them and strive to take advantage of them.
You will not be able to have some types of success stories to the degree that you want. Also, as an individual you have limitations. Therefore, make good choices in selecting the types of success stories you will seek and obtain. Without this realistic approach, you will have more failures than necessary.
What happens if a success story you seek does not occur as you want? There is some failure and perhaps a goal is dropped. Can this be considered a success story? It all depends. If you learned in the process and became a stronger individual, you can salvage some success even after a failed activity or endeavor. The important thing is to not lose hope nor confidence in yourself or life because of failures along the way. I have certainly had some failures in my life, but they were never as important as the various things I did that were good and right. Strive to have the same positive attitude in your life.
Sometimes success versus failure can be influenced by compromise. This is especially true in personal relationships, lawsuits, business dealings, and even government affairs. You do not get everything you want, but you do not lose everything either. Compromises can be success stories at the time because you gain more than you lose. Many times, we simply cannot get everything our way. The concerns and priorities of others must be considered also. Learning to make appropriate compromises will help you to make friends and keep them.
Another important area dealing with success stories is competitive activities. There are always winners and losers. Examples include athletic events, political campaigns, business competitions, lawsuits, and so forth. Remember, in such activities not everyone can win. In some cases, coming in 5th place can really be a success story for you. Examine your abilities and determine where you can be competitive. Do not place idealistic expectations on yourself. How you play the game, or how you compete, is just as important at times as the final score.
Develop a support group for yourself. This could include family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. These individuals have knowledge and skills that you may not have. They can offer encouragement and advice, especially in areas where they have more experience than you. Some of these individuals will assist you and work with you to solve a problem, deal with a dilemma, or handle some negative circumstances. Do not be too proud to share some of your problems, challenges, and burdens. Let others help you and in the process both of you will benefit.
Do not fall into the trap of being too comfortable in life. Avoid mediocracy. Do not use too many excuses for your performance and behavior. This will put you in an unprepared and weaker position. It is then harder to sustain good efforts over time. It is easy to be caught off guard and have additional failures where failures were not even necessary.
Remember, success stories should be controlled by you more than others or your environment. This is difficult for some situations and circumstances, especially things beyond your control. But over time what affects you the most is not the natural disaster or job loss or early death of a loved one. It is whether your track record shows far more success stories than failures. And the longer your track record shows this, the more able and confident and happy you become as an adult.
They say it is important to love others and yes love God. But to do this well, love must begin with yourself. You will never love yourself as much as you can without a track record of success in all types of things in your life. So, strive to make the best choices you can as things occur in your life. Be patient and tolerant and put forth the best effort you can. This is all that anyone could expect from you. And in doing this overtime, you will be a successful individual.
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