Set Yourself Up For Success by Leslie Fieger

I receive several emails every week asking me about how to become successful. It is tempting to just refer people to my books and articles. I have, after all, written thousands of pages specifically about success and how to go about getting it. I usually, however, provide a personalized answer to those who do write.

Each answer I provide, no matter how individual it may seem, is based on a very simple formula. It is this: circumstances /opportunity + individual beingness and doingness = results.

Most people, when dissatisfied with their results, run around trying to find or change the first part of the equation; i.e. the circumstances or opportunity they are presented with. This may sometimes result in changed results. But, it is the hit and miss way to achieve the results they desire. They may or may not find or create the perfect circumstances/opportunities. There are a lot of variables in the world.

There is, however, one aspect of that formula that it is possible to have control over and to change to effect different results. That is the second part of the equation: individual beingness and doingness.

Each of us humans can choose how to be in this world and what to do in each moment. It is the individual choices we each make in each and every moment about how to be and what to do that determine our results.

Many are in denial about this. Yet it is as plain as can be. If you and I have the same opportunity and you create success with this opportunity and I do not, then the only variable that can possibly be deficient and needs to be changed is me. Opportunity + me = results. If 100 people are given the same opportunity and only 1 succeeds; most people would jump to the conclusion that the opportunity is not good enough. But, I say that if even one person can create success, then the real variable that needs to be changed is the beingness of the 99 people who are failing.

Most people want to change the world rather than themselves, even if it is just their little corner of the world. But, they stubbornly refuse to change themselves. There is one major thing they overlook. They jump from one opportunity to the next, hoping to find success, never realizing that they must change who or how they are being; or else the next opportunity will seem just as deficient as the current one.

In order to change your world, you must change. As Gandhi said, "you must be the change you wish to see in the world." If you want more out of life, you must first become more. Beingness plus doingness = havingness.

It is inescapable. You are the one who determines the degree of success you will have in life. No one else and no thing else is responsible. Do not depend upon or blame others. Some may support your success and some may detract from it; but it is you alone that determines whether or not you attain the success you define and desire.

If others are throwing stones at you, use them to shore up your foundations. I am always amazed at how many people allow the criticisms of others or the negative actions of others or the resistance of others to delay or even belay their success.

If you want (I mean really, really want) success in life, you will have to learn to set yourself up for success. Yes, there are specific techniques, tools and information that is necessary for success; but, for the most part, success is determined by a person's prevailing attitude about one's self and one's right to certain things in life.

You must adopt a high level of self-esteem. You must know in your heart that you deserve success...that it is your right. You must come to expect that, despite any apparent negative circumstances or outright negative feedback from others, you will prevail and the ideals that you have set for yourself are yours simply because you claim them and that they will show up no matter what happens along the way.

How do you get to know that you truly deserve the success your imagine and aspire to? Get to know the real you. Your real essence is divine. You are at one with the all that is all. Therefore you deserve all that you can imagine you do. The universe is all set up to support you. It, in fact, conspires with you to supply all that you ask for.

You just have to be careful about how and what you are asking. Your beliefs, thoughts and emotions are creative. They produce results. What exactly are you thinking? Why? To what end do you hold those repetitive predominant thoughts? To what intent do you hold those beliefs? Does your beliefs support your ideals? Why do you choose to feel the way you feel about yourself and your world?

You can choose your beliefs. You can choose your thoughts. You can choose your emotions. You can choose your overall attitude to life. Those choices determine how you are being. How you are being determines your results. Want different results? Be different than you are being now. Pretty simple stuff really.

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

"Think and grow rich."

"With our thoughts, we make our world."

Be --> Do --> Have.

So, if you ever decide to write me about how to achieve success, you can know in advance that I will tell you, in one way or another, that you must begin to work on you before bothering to work on or at anything else. To merit and achieve success, you must first set yourself up for success. Become more in order to have more.