How To Experience More Personal Success

A dear friend of mine asked me a question recently, “Pastor WD, what is it about you that you enjoy the most?” It was a beautiful question…so beautiful. I reflected on it for a while because I don’t like to jump to answers, even when I think I know. However, unknown to her, I’d been reflecting on the answer to that question all week!

My answer to her was simple and straightforward, “I love and enjoy the fact that I think my own thoughts, reach my own conclusions, and don’t care about other people’s opinion of me.” I decided to not let others do my thinking for me at the age of 20. I believe that was when life began for me. You see, I don’t think you are free until you can choose what to believe and discard whatever does not resonate with your spirit.

Life’s greatest gift to you is the right to take possession of your own mind and think your own thoughts. It’s up to you to accept that gift and enjoy it.

Success

One thing I’ve pondered on for as long as I can remember, is the concept of success, and particularly, personal success. What does it really mean to be successful?

I don’t think it’s possible to experience enduring personal success if you don’t know what the term means. I also believe that it is up to you to determine, or discover, what success means to you personally.

If you allow others to define success for you, you’ll forever be pursuing an elusive ideal. Success becomes a very elusive and unattainable experience when you let others define it for you.

I wrote this post to guide you on how to experience more personal success, and below are 4 of my best ideas on the matter.

 

#1. Understand the true nature of personal success

Success is a spiritual experience; it’s a certain state of heart or being. It’ not a matter of tangible indices – like amount of money in the bank, or how many cars one owns – but rather an inner experience or ‘knowing’ of fulfillment and relevance.

When you have that experience, you know it and at that moment it really doesn’t matter what you have or what you don’t have in terms material stuff.

Personal success is that inner feeling of satisfaction that an artist feels after creating a piece of art, knowing that money or no money, he has translated his inner vision into reality.

It is that tingling of the heart with pleasure that the charity worker feels when she beholds the smile of satisfaction on the face of another child salvaged from hunger.

It is that internal sense of happiness and fulfillment that a lawyer feels after winning a case and knowing that justice has been done.

It’s that inner joy that an author must be feeling as he sees his book in another hand, knowing that his thoughts and expressions are other minds.

In short, success is an inner feeling of fulfillment that you have as a result of doing things that you enjoy and which add value to the lives of other people.

I’m persuaded that this sort of awareness will inevitably empower you to experience more personal success, one way or another.

#2. Create valuable products and effective solutions for others and see yourself as a giver

It is impossible to experience personal success if you do not give something of value to others. We are designed that way by our Maker! Reflect on my descriptions of the nature of success given in #1 above and you’ll realize upon deeper reflection that the human soul can only find lasting fulfillment and happiness by adding value to the lives of other people.

What values and effective solutions have you created for others? Personal success comes to you in direct proportion to the problems that you solve for other people.

Some people have created and are now distributing effective health solutions, business and career solutions, marriage solutions, and so on. Others have developed and are distributing valuable tangible and intangible products such as relevant information, entertainment, and so on. What valuable products and effective solutions have you created for the greater good of mankind?

Here’s an excerpt from something I wrote in another post, “Make More Money Fast”

“What is your product?
Notice that I didn’t ask “what is your talent?” This is because a talent (capacity/ability) without corresponding products (manufactured goods, items for consumption, results) will not take you very far. You can sing? Wonderful. But that will not get you far. Where are your songs? Where are your CDs, VCDs, and DVDs? A singer without a song is no different from a non-singer.
You have information? That’s nice! But where are your articles? Your magazines? Your books?
Singing is a talent. Songs are products.
Ability without performance, services, and products, is nothing.
You can preach. Great! But where are your books? Where are your tapes? Where are your seminars and conferences?
What tangible and ’seeable’ results have you created from your abilities?
Your product is anything you’ve created or made, anything you possess, tangible or intangible, that solves problems for others. Food solves hunger problems, information solves knowledge needs …songs solve emotional and entertainment needs, etc.
It is impossible to create wealth or make more money without a product or service.
This is because money is simply the reward you receive for solving problems. It is what people exchange for a problem that you solve for them.”

So, what valuable products, effective solutions, and services have you created out of your innate potentials and God-given resources? See those solutions and products as your gift to the world; see yourself as a giver.

To experience more personal success, you must see yourself as a giver. Such paradigm is key to attracting and manifesting abundance in your life.

#3. Make your giving consistent

You must establish consistency in the availability and distribution of your products. It’s not just enough to create or develop valuable products and effective solutions for others, you must ensure that these gifts and services are available on a consistent basis.

One powerful and very effective way to do this is to put it into permanent forms and use distribution channels that make them available round the clock to those who need them. For instance, a person who has created and developed effective information solutions on the subject of, say, health, should move that information out of his brains into the pages of a book! This book could then be put in bookstores, or better still on websites so that they will be available to others on a consistent basis.

If your products, gifts, and services are available on an erratic basis, your personal experience of success will become erratic and unpredictable.

But you must also establish consistency in the quality of your products. Marketing gurus have long taught about the importance of satisfying the expectations of your users in a consistent manner. If the quality of your products, gifts, and services fluctuates with time, you’ll come across as an unserious person and pretty soon will lose the patronage of those needing your offerings.

You must learn the power of rhythm, routine, and consistency. It is important to make your giving consistent if you want to experience more personal success.

#4. Let your giving cost you

Nothing goes for nothing. If it costs you nothing, it will fetch you nothing.

When you create valuable products and effective solutions for others, distribute them at rates and volumes that would involve personal sacrifice.

Many don’t know this, but the element of personal cost and sacrifice triggers the mystery of exponential increase to operate in your favor. Sometimes, you may need to give your products freely to others. This could be done at great personal cost and sacrifice, yet in the end, it will bring you blessings in more ways than you could possibly imagine.

To create valuable products and effective solutions, distribute these consistently, and maintain them at top quality, would demand a great deal of personal sacrifice. You must be willing to do this, and actually do so, if you want to experience more personal success.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, it is up to you to determine what success means to you. However, bear in mind that regardless of whatever definitions you come up with, personal success is tied to the impact of your life on others, to the relevance of your life to your world.

Tags: personal success, happiness, discover yourself, give, heart