The Third Power 'P' of Enduring Success

by Preston Squire

This is a continuation of The Power P's of Enduring Success - Patience
and
The Second Power P of Enduring Success - Persistence

Positivity

The difference between people who live their dreams and people who only wish they did, isn't that the former had it any easier, it's that they managed to hold on longer through the challenging times. 

One of the key ingredients necessary to hold on longer than the masses is the ability to consistantly maintain a positive mental attitude.  Inevitably, something will happen to piss you off or frustrate you.  We're not perfect.  It happens to me.  Bob Proctor has mentioned mutliple times it happens to him.  Anthony Robbins too.  But I do not dwell in negativity long.  I spot negative thinking early on and immediately set my mind back to focusing on the positives.

A lot of people like to be 'realists' but really that's just another word for 'pessimist'.  The only difference is realists are looking at what is and using that to determine what will be.   Actually, that's not a difference at all, except they like to think it's different because they are not painting it to be worse than what the current reality is.

But the Law of Attraction teaches us that whatever you focus on, you attract into your life.  If you are focused on what is, you are attracting more of the same.   If you are focused on what you want, you are attracting that.

In more concrete terms, if you look at the current results and use that as your guide then you automatically limit what you can accomplish.  You cannot envision achieving higher heights than what you're seeing.  Since you cannot envision it, you will not strive continuously to accomplish it and therefore will inevitable prove yourself right.   Effectively you are attracting more of the same into your life.

I mentioned my friend and web guru before and this was exactly where he was at when he e-mailed me.  He was feeling like he had plateaued.  That he just couldn't achieve more than what he had achieved before.  That was his current reality.  He was being realistic.  And if he stayed in that mindset, he'd prove himself right.

"Whether you believe you can, or you can't; you are right."  Henry Ford

Fortunately my friend is like me and does not allow those thoughts to linger very long.  After a few hours he was back to his old indomitable self.  He is one person who continually inspires me as he always shoots for more than he can chew, and often gets it.   I don't doubt he'll be surprising me by scoring some position I would never have thought he was capable of getting, again, sometime soon.

By focusing your mind on what is good about any situation and on the results you want, you start to see how the current reality is not taking you away from your goals but conversely, how they are bring you closer.  To begin with, you'll be grateful for the lessons learned, and any little good you gain from the situation.  Gratitude brings you into alignment with God/Source.  Being resentful about life, pulls you away from your connection to your higher power.    Being grateful and positive also allows you to see and be prepared for oppurtunities that you would miss if you are limiting your mindset to only the realistic results.

Once my friend regained his positive mental attitude, he immediately made some calls, and managed to salvage a contract opportunity he was written off as dead.  If he had allowed himself to have remained in his former state he'd have never made those calls, as he'd still be bitching about how unfair life was instead.

This poem sums it up beautifully.

MY WAGE

By Jessie B. Rittenhouse


I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;


For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.

People who look at the present results and allow that to shape their expectations of life are asking for a penny. Why else would you ask for a penny? Only because based on your previous experiences, you feel that's what you are worth and capable of. You ask for a penny because you think it's a just wage for your services, even while you rail at the injustice of how you're suffering through life while others seem to be better off.
If you develop and maintain a positive mental attitude you expect and demand more from life. Why can't you have more? You're as good as anyone else in life. God made us all equally, if differently. And the wage you ask for, consistantly, is the wage you'll earn.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

Being positive is a choice, an attitude and a habit.   If you are not a positive person by nature you need to habitualize the behavour until you are.  A positive mental attitude will allow you to continue carrying on long after a 'realistic' person would have thrown in the towel.

The Second Power 'P' of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

Continued from The Power P's of Enduring Success

Persistence

Nothing in life is more important than persistence when it comes to achieving one's goals.  It's more important than education, skill, talent or money.  Most people give up when things get really hard, when the end is still out of sight, and there's no sign of a breakthrough.  If only they knew that just around the very next corner was the breakthough they were looking for.   If they had known that, 90% would have had the strength to endure that little bit longer but because they can't see it, they despair, tire and allow themselves to lose focus.

Recently I've began regularly going to the gym and working out.   One of the things I like best about it is that it's a very physical and easy to identify reminder of how to live life.   If I want to gain muscle mass, then I have to continually push myself past the point where I want to give up.   It's those last few reps, the ones you don't want to do, the ones your mind is telling you are too hard and should be skipped, that make the difference.   It's not until your body is pushed beyond it's limit that it grows.   This has to be exercised with reasonable precaution of course, injuring yourself isn't going to produce desired results but it's the mental game involved.

After a while you learn that it's at the point where your mind is telling you no, that you start getting excited, because that means you're now producing results. At least you will be if you don't listen to it and do a few more reps anyway.  If I'm aching and sore after, I'm happy because I know I'll be liking what I see in the mirror, and in my girlfriend's eyes, the next day.

Success in any other area of life is pretty much the same story.  Without the persistence to continue when you feel like your totally tapped out, you won't experience growth.   Without growth, you're not going to be playing at the level needed to achieve.

How long do you need to endure beyond when you feel like given it all up?   Surprisingly, usually not nearly as long as you'd think.    The reason being, because so few people do.   95% of people get to that point and give up.  So you only need to hold on a little longer than the 95% to achieve the type of results only the top 5% see.

Of course, you could be one of those early quitters, which means you will have a longer journey as you have to build up your mental muscles.   The only way to do that is practise and repetition.   Keep pushing yourself.  The more often you push past your comfort level the broader your comfort level will become.  You will keep breaking through to higher and higher levels until you achieve that success your looking for.  And by looking for, I mean the one you're willing to settle for, not the one you may be envisioning.    In the end the success we achieve is the success we are willing to achieve.   You may want 25 million but when you arrive at 2.5 million, you may decide that's enough to make you happy and you don't really want to bust your ass enough to earn 22.5 million more. Or it may just whet your appetite for even greater goals.  Either way, what's okay.  Follow your bliss.   Goals are there to serve you not torment you.  Just don't give up and settle for less than what makes you truly happy.

The Power P's of Enduring Success

By Preston Squire

On our journey to success there will inevitably be a lot of stumbling blocks.   Adversity is guaranteed, and is in fact, a necessary ingredient to success.   Without adversity to overcome, mentally, spiritually and emotionally, (possibly physically too) there is little to no growth and without growth we cannot expect to accomplish more than we are at this moment. 

However life can sometimes just kick you right in the balls.  There will be times when success seems to be within reach only to be snatched away again.  Or you could be at the top of your game, thinking everything is going smoothly, only to have your whole deck of cards collapse on you.

For myself this happened early on.   I had recently discovered Anthony Robbin's Awaken the Giant Within, and was using it to great effect.  I went from being an average sales person to the top sales person in the company I was working at.  I developed a sales technique so successful they had me teach it to the entire division.   I was married to a beautiful woman I loved very much.  Just had my second child, a beautiful baby girl.  I was being prepped for a promotion.  I had also started a writting career and had just finished my first published project.  Everything was wonderful.  I was charged!

Then my wife left me. I don't blame her, but at the time it was a low blow to the balls.  It caught me completely off-guard.   I hadn't seen any signs, I didn't know how to react.   I went from being on top of the world to sinking into the depth of dispair.   Not only did my personal life suffer, but my proffessional life as well.   My sales numbers plummeted with my attitude.  I was passed over for promotion and eventually moved off that program.  I lost my lust for life and blamed God for the injustices.

More recently, my friend and web guru who has been working from sporatic contract to contract finally landed a major deal, a six month contract with a major financial institution.   Assured he would be given the position he passed over a permanent position elsewhere that was offered just days later.   Then disaster.  The contract fell through and permanent position was otherwise filled, leaving him with nothing. 

He was feeling pretty frustrated and irate at life, like his best days were now behind him when he e-mailed me to tell me about it.

I gave him these three P's I'm about to share with you as they were top of mind, based on recent readings (I'm always studying success) and appropriate to the situation.    These types of disasters befall all of us from Donald Trump to Anthony Robbins to you and I.   No one is exempt.  When they happen we tend to ask 'Why me?'   Well, why not you?  Who are you to be exempted?  Welcome to the club.   Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start looking for how you can use this to your advantage.    That's easier said than done, granted.  And sometimes the only thing to gain is the lessons learned.   But those lessons are the most important ones.  We learn little from success, we learn a lot from our mistakes.  But unless we learn from them, unless we find the seed of opportunity, we cannot grow.

At these times it's often hard to see how they could ever benefit our lives.   Often it's only with the passing of time that we can look back and confidently say, 'Thank God that happened to me!  If that hadn't happened I never would have..."   So while you're in the midsts of recovering from the a low blow, remember these P's.

The Eleven Power P's of Enduring Success

Patience

Just accept it.   God does not work according to our schedule.  But God's delays are not God's denials either.   Any success guru will advise you to set a date for when you want to complete your goal.  That's absolutely necessary.  Without one you're prone to procrastinate.  However what do you do when you get to that date and the goal hasn't reach fruitation?   Set another date and keep going!

Now that's easy advice to give but I'll be honest.  This is one 'P' that I personally struggle with the most.  And I have messed myself up more than once by not exercising it.  God grant me a lot of great attributes but the kind of patience to patiently wait while nothing seems to be happening isn't one of them.  I'm the type of guy who would rather walk for 20 minutes than wait 10 for a bus.   Not because I want the exercise (although that's a nice way to justify it) but because I need to see progress.

I'm in a great relationship now with a truly fantastic woman but already I'm struggling with this P.   She just got out of a marriage with a guy who showed terrific promise but proved to be all smoke and mirrors once they actually got hitched.   It was a disaster.  She's understandably slow, and in no rush, to trust and really allow herself to love someone else now.   I know I'm the real deal and one hundred percent confident she will see that too but I have to keep reeling myself in and asking God for grace and patience because I can't see progress in the relationship most of the time.  I want to push things and while she may need some slight prodding and encouragement, pushing the matter will ultimately only drive her away.    I learned that the hard way with my last love.   By being patient and knowing, accepting and being grateful for that I have already recieved, I'm continually surprised and blessed by her.

Same thing when it comes to job hunting or waiting for a promotion.   Often we get frustrated or discouraged and want to either push things forward or give up.  Patience, patience.  Good things come to those who wait.   I'm not saying to sit idle waiting for something to happen but do stick with your plan, and then let go and let God.   Even when everything seems to be going wrong, like it is for my friend right now, triumph can be just around the corner.  Have faith, remain confident, learn from your mistakes and always stay focused on the end result you want, never on the current results that you don't want.

UPDATE:  Just wanted to note that my friend ended up getting the best job of his life soon after this was written.  The highest pay and the least amount of stress, but before he could be ready to recieve, he needed to turn his 'poor me' attitude around.  Fortunately he was and was blessed for his continued optomism.