What does success look like to you? And what are the main keys to success?

Earlier this week I attended an event run by leadership and executive coach, Karen Carpenter. I have been to a number of her events before and always end up with lots of valuable notes and, quite often, new connections too. This week was no exception, and I would like to share 3 of my ‘takeaways’ from the event because I think you will find then useful too.

Karen began with the question what does success look like to you? which is an incredibly important one to answer as without a vision or idea of what success does mean then how do we know when we have achieved it?

For me, success means doing something I love which involves helping others, but also gives me money in the bank. As Karen’s events always include discussion time, it was interesting to hear other perspectives on this question. How about you? What does success look like to you? I would love to read your comments on this question.

Karen considers there to be 9 main keys to success which she divided up into 3 sections: Thoughts, Words and Deeds. I want to take just one example from each of these sections and explore that with you in this blog post.

Thoughts: Focus on what you want, not what you don’t

How often do we find ourselves thinking about what could happen negatively in a situation rather than imagining the great outcome we can get? If you are like me, you will know that our self-talk can really let us down sometimes. For example, when we need to give a presentation at work and we are saying to ourselves ‘don’t mess up, don’t mess up’ and then we either forget what we were going to say or stumble over our words. Why didn’t we say something like ‘this is going to be a success’ or ‘I’m going to nail this presentation’? It would have changed our whole approach as our sub-conscious mind would be focussing on success rather than messing up!

Words: Write it down

By actually writing something down, whether that is on paper in a journal or using a notes app on our phones, we are getting our ideas and goals out of just our heads. As soon as that idea is out of our head then it becomes less of just a dream and much more real. The act of writing is a declaration of intent and enormously powerful as we can look at what we have written and know where we want to go or what we want to achieve.  I have really important goals written down and pinned to the wall. I see them as a constant reminder and know with every day that passes and every action I take, I am one step nearer to that success.

Deeds: Be consistent

This is so tricky, isn’t it! I do struggle with being consistent in some things that I do. To be consistent we really need to build a habit around what we are wanting to achieve.

Robin Sharma, in his book The 5am Club, talks about how it takes 66 days to develop a strong habit and so many people give up on something just as they are about to make a breakthrough. In James Clear’s Atomic Habits, he explains how tiny changes don’t appear to make a difference until a critical threshold is reached and then we can achieve amazing results.

So being consistent is not just doing a small thing every day to acquire a new habit, it is being patient because, contrary to popular belief, powerful outcomes don’t happen overnight.

Karen ended her event with another question: What could you do today that your future self will thank you for? I would also like to end with this same question which helps us to focus more clearly and encompasses all our hopes for the success, which is within reach, if we are focussed, clear on what we want, patient, and above all, never give up.

You can find out more about Karen Carpenter’s future events here:  https://www.karencarpenterevents.com/upcoming-events

Photo by Anna Zakharova on Unsplash