Success Mythology Can Sabotage Your Efforts

"Success" is something for which you are expected to strive in most of your life - and certainly is considered to be inherent in your goals. By "success" most of us mean "achieving something desired, planned, or attempted," such as fame, prosperity, superiority, or victory. As you know, striving for and achieving success is not always easy.

There are obstacles in your path. But these obstacles are not just factors outside yourself. Your beliefs and attitude, too often based on myths, about success and how it operates can sabotage you, making your achieving success nearly impossible.

Here are a few of the Success Myths of which you need to be aware:

*Success is universal - Success is really whatever you individually define it to be and dependent upon how you structure your goal, what resources you use to achieve it, and how you measure it.

*Success is what others define it to be - Success is your definition alone, from feeling satisfied to having all the high-status accessories that some feel symbolize "having made it."

*Only some people can be successful because they have the right background, connections, or education - Success comes to those who want something badly enough to do whatever it takes (within their value system) to get it.

*Success results from working an excess of 40 hours per week - Achieving what you want comes from doing what's necessary and doing it right. Working 60 hours a week doing the wrong things doesn't create success; it creates stress, fatgue, and frustration. Management guru Peter Drucker says, "Being efficient is doing the job right, but being effective is doing the right job."

*Successful people amange to avoid mistakes - There's a saying that an executive who makes only 50 percent of his/her decisions correctly is still an effective, successful leader. Everyone makes mistakes. Most of your learning is trial and error. The primary difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful people don't keep repeating their mistakes. Moreover, they may make as many mistakes as soon as possible in order to achieve their goal faster.

*Successful people are those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps all by themselves - No one becomes a success without some assistance along the way. Getting assistance does not detract from your personal achievement. In fact, getting and using assistance effectively is the mark of a smart and successful person.

*Success is merely a matter of luck - While chance may play a part in your achieving your goals, most of what you achieve is the result of knowledge, application, and hard work - blood, sweat, and tears. It's Edison's prescription of 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration. Success doesn't just fall into your lap. It results from being prepared for it, having a plan, and actively seeking it out.

*There's only one way to achieve success - While there are no specific rules for achieving any particular success, there may be methods which are more useful to attaining your goals. But each situation requires an approach appropriate to it and one with which you are comfortable. Precisely how you achieve is going to be different for each person and each circumstance.

*Being successful makes life trouble-free - Life is never "trouble-free" no matter what you achieve. There are always external and internal issues with which to deal. You will always have good and bad moments, ups and downs. things which don't work out as you want, people who disappoint you. Success gets you what you want in one area of your life for some period of time, but it's not (alas) all-encompassing ... or forever.

It's essential to recognize and enjoy each success (large or small) as it comes - for what it says about you and what it gives you. You need to see how you're responsible for your achievements and feel good about yourself for what you've done. This creates your realistic self-confidence which you can build upon for achieving your next goal.

You need to de-mythologize success for yourself so you can cast aside those internal roadblocks and create plans to accomplish what you desire.