Introduction
The main idea from the book is that the size of your success is determined by the size of your beliefs and dreams. How successful you become is determined by the size of your own thinking. Have big goals and dreams and you will start moving towards them. If you have small goals and small ambitions then expect small results. This book shares advice on how to reach ones goals in life, what actions to take, the attitude and mindset to have and how to behave around and treat other people.
1. Believe You Can Succeed and You Will
No matter what your goal is, the first step is to believe in yourself that you can succeed. What you focus on determines the type of thoughts you will have. Your mind will start to seek out solutions to your problems when you believe you can solve them. You will start seeing more opportunities around you and also feel more motivated to take action when you believe in yourself.
If you want positive and good relationships then you must first believe that you can have them. Ask yourself the question “Do I believe I will have positive relationships in the future?”. If your answer is no, then you are letting you belief system limit and negatively affect your success.
Develop the power of belief in 3 steps:
- Focus on success, not failure. Your mind will look for opportunities and solutions and your view on life will be more positive when you focus on why you will succeed. You will be in a negative state and start looking for excuses and obstacles if you focus on why you will fail.
- Don’t underestimate and look down on yourself. Remind yourself that you are better than you think you are. Remind yourself that successful people are just ordinary people who believed in themselves and took action.
- How successful you become is determined by the size of your thinking. So think big and believe big.
2. Cure Yourself of Excuses, The Failure Disease
Definition of excuses: It’s the reasons people come up with to explain why they can’t succeed , why they can’t take action and why now is not the right time.
Most successful people don’t make excuses. The more successful a person is the less likely they are to make excuses.
The four most common excuses that people make are: bad health, age (too young or too old), not smart enough (lack of intelligence) and bad luck (good luck is usually the result of a lot of hard work and planning). Understand that your attitude is more important than your intelligence.
3. Build Confidence and Destroy Fear
Not having enough confidence and give in to fear is one of the most common reasons why people don’t succeed.
Ways to build more confidence and destroy fear:
- Ask yourself what exactly you are afraid of. Isolate the fear and be clear what it is. Then take action, even though there is fear.
- Action is the best cure for fear because it proves that even though you are scared you are willing to act which leads to more confidence. On the other hand, inaction leads to over thinking and fear which results in destroying your confidence.
- To build more confidence, You should also stop using negative language and negative self talk. Stop saying things like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do it”. Instead replace it with positive thoughts and positive self talk. This can for example be “I’m capable”, “even thou I failed I learned a lot” or “I can get through this”.
- Success comes from well-managed thinking.
- Act with integrity and stop doing things that you know are wrong.
- Fear of other people can be fixed by reminding yourself that they are just normal people with their own problems.
- Small tips to build more confidence: speak up your opinions, sit in the front row, get comfortable making eye contact and smile more.
4. How to Think Big
Don’t get lost and pay too much attention to the small unimportant activates and situations. Remind yourself of what is important, and ask yourself “Is this important?” “Is this important enough for me to get worked up?” or “Am I focusing on what really matters?”.
One big obstacle on the road to success is that major achievements and goals are impossible for us. This kind of self doubt has to be avoided.
Take 10 minutes everyday and to plan out the day and reflect how you can improve yourself. Ask yourself questions like:
- How can I improve my efficiency?
- How can I do a better job?
- How can I do better today?
- How can I be a better friend, partner, parent or coworker?
5. How to Think and Dream Creatively
Creative thinking means to find new or improved ways to do something. If you can find new and improved ways in doing things which will bring people value, you are sure to become successful.
Ways to develop your creative thinking:
- Believe that it can be done and that it is possible. Your mind will start to look for solutions once you believe something.
- Just because something has been done the same way for a long time does not mean it can be improved and changed.
- Dig deep and commit into learning a topic or skill. The more we know about something, the more interested will we be in it.
- Focus on improving yourself. Ask yourself for example “how can I improve?”, “how can I be better?” or “how can i contribute more / bring more value?”
- Learn to listen better and ask better questions. Listen with the intention of understanding and not to reply.
- Make friends with people who challenge you and improve your thinking.
- Have somewhere to write down your ideas so you don’t forget about them. Then review them every now and then.
6. You Are What You Think You Are
Other people will see you the way you see yourself. The person who feels he is not important isn’t. If you want other to think you are important you must first think you are important. If you want other peoples respect you must first think that you deserve other peoples respect.
Some ways to show and feel more important:
- Dress more nicely and take care of your health. Appearance is important. You will look more professional and important.
- Think that the work you do is important and remind yourself that you are an important person and have what it takes to succeed.
- When making decision, ask yourself “is this what an important person would do?”.
7. Manage Your Environment: Go First Class
Our environment influences how we become. We become like the people spend most time with. You will feel more happy and energetic if you are around positive people a lot. Make friends with people that are better than you, that improves your life and you are happy to be around. Avoid negative people. Your environment should work for towards your success and not against you. Also be around people that think differently than you.
8. Make Your Attitudes Your Allies
If you want to understand what a person is thinking and feeling, just watch their attitude. Some bad signs are: low energy, no enthusiasm, no initiative, complaining and making excuses .
Your attitude is very important if you want to succeed. In general, you should have a positive attitude towards life, challenges and working.
Tips to improve your attitude:
- Develop your enthusiasm towards everything you do. Have the mindset that how you do one thing is how you do everything. To get other people enthusiastic, you must first be enthusiastic. Act more alive
- Start to appreciate other people and their work more and make them feel more important. People will do more when you make them feel important.
- Focus on serving others. Give more than they expect.
9. Think Right Toward People
To become successful, you need to be a person that other people like and enjoy being around. Success depends a lot on the support from other people. Other people will more likely support you if they like you.
Tips to become more likeable:
- Remember other peoples names.
- Become a person that is relaxed and easy going so it’s comfortable being around you.
- Support and encourage others when they talk and in achieving their goals. Give people time to fully express themselves.
- Be interested in other people. If you are now interested, then act interested until you become genuinely interested. Ask them to talk about themselves, their goals in life, their background, their job and how they spend their time.
- Congratulate others when they succeed.
- Take initiative in your current friendships and when building new one. Be the one to set up plans and maintain contact. Introduce yourself to others and don’t wait for them to come to you.
- Ask yourself what traits people like about others and then copy and implement them into your life.
- Accept people for who they are. No one is perfect and everyone has flaws. Look for the good in other people. Don’t try to change a person who is not willing to change.
10. Get the Action Habit
Everything that has be created was the result of someone that took action. Without action there are no results. You need to take action if you want to become successful.
Tips to become better at taking action:
- Don’t waste time and don’t hesitate to get things done. Don’t make excuses. Don’t procrastinate. Just take action and get things done. Sometimes the difficult thing is to just get started.
- Understand that difficulties and problems will appear along the way so be ready and expect them.
- Don’t wait for conditions to be perfect because there are no perfect conditions. There will always be other things to do.
- If you are scared of something then just keep doing it. Eventually the fear till disappear.
- Ideas are only good if you take action on them.
- Don’t wait and look for motivation. Instead develop discipline. Learn to take action even when you don’t feel like doing it.
- Say to yourself “I will start right now” instead of “I will start someday”.
11. How to Turn Defeat Into Victory
There will be a lot mistakes and setbacks along the way towards your goals. Failure is part of the process. What separates successful people from unsuccessful people is how they deal with failure.
How to deal with failure better:
- View failure as a learning opportunity and a chance to improve yourself.
- Don’t repeat the same mistake multiple times. Learn from your mistakes and don’t ignore them. Research why it failed.
- Be self-critical, meaning that you should not be afraid to criticise yourself. Look for your flaws and areas where you can improve.
- Don’t blame bad luck for you failures. Don’t blame others for your failures. Take responsibility for the results you have and the life you have. Understand that the failure was caused because you acted in the wrong way and that you were not prepared enough.
- Try to find the positive in every failure.
12. Use Goals to Help You Grow
You need goals and a plan on how to achieve those goals if you want to succeed in life. A goal is something you work towards. Know what you want before you start. Your goals should be big but also rational. Goal setting and wishful thinking are not the same.
Write you goals down and be as specific as possible. Don’t leave things out to chance. Ask yourself where you want to be in life in ten years. Set goals for all areas in life, such as career, your financial situation, relationships, traveling, hobbies and health. Have daily goals, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. We get things done when we have a plan and we accomplish only what we plan to accomplish. Let your goals guide you and ask yourself often if the things you are doing are moving you closer towards your goals. Be patient and take it one step at a time. Don’t forget to keep focusing on improving yourself / invest in yourself.
4 common areas of excuses for not following your dreams:
- No confidence and negative self-talk. “I can’t do it.” “I’m not intelligent enough.” or “I don’t have enough education.”
- Too much security and no risk taking. “I don’t like my job but at least I’ve got security where I am.”
- Competition: “The field is already overcrowded and there are too many people in it.”
- Parents or family. “I must to this because my parents want me to do this.” or “It’s too late now to change career or start something new because I’ve got too many responsibilities”.
13. How to Think Like A Leader
It’s always good if you know how to be a good leader. Leadership is very important because at some point you will most likely have to work with and lead other people.
Tips to become a better leader:
- See things from other peoples point of view. Have empathy for other people / understand how other people are feeling.
- Be kind and treat others with respect. Treat other people well, you will both benefit from it.
- Make progress a priority. Make sure that progress is being made but also be patient.
- Spend time alone for thinking, reviewing, and planning.
