When it comes to being successful, most of us have an image of what that means. Nice car in the driveway, big house, lots of toys, vacation packages, loads of money in the bank, etc. etc.

But is that really what success is? The best definition I heard on success was from Earl Nightingale, the grandfather of talk radio. He said it this way, “success is the progressive realization of a worthy idea.” So, the person who acquires these things/toys/homes etc, is most likely doing so by progressively realizing his/her ideals. He’s also someone that embodies wealth and abundance and doesn’t put any restraints on what he can receive or where it will come from.

Here are four tips for Attracting Success:

1. To add more of those feelings of success to your life, begin by loving yourself unconditionally. This will take some work on your part. It’s not like you can just wake up one day and everything is fine. But I can say this, once you do decide to feel good about yourself, people, circumstances, etc will come out of the woodwork and reflect back how you are feeling about yourself!

2. Have a clear, mental image of the life you want to be living. Include everything in it that makes you feel good and that you feel you can ‘embody.’

3. Surround yourself with people who support you in your new image of yourself. Don’t ever listen to the people that are unsupportive or tell you that you are a ‘dreamer.’ In fact, you can always tell those people they are right, and dreamers are what make the world go round!

4. Never let doubt, fear, upset, depressive thoughts, anger or judgment get in the way of your goals and of your image of success. Remember you were born to create the life you want.

Go forth and prosper!

Very early in my career, I had a boss and mentor who loved to use ‘one-liners’ to make his points. One in particular always stuck with me and I’m certain many of you have heard it too. Simply put, ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. He could have said ‘Joan, you need to set measurable goals, develop specific strategies and tasks to help you get there and track your progress along the way’ but those nine little words made a much bigger impact. After all, none of us plan to fail, we just fail to plan!

There is a lot of research and many books written on the power of written goals. We all know that goals are important and provide clarity and focus to keep us on track and moving forward. But you need to plan for your success and take action (do) to make it happen.

Tips To Plan For Your Success

Plan Annually and Review Quarterly. You need an annual plan and goals with the tasks and strategies you need to do to achieve them. But don’t let your plan collect dust on the shelf — review your plan at least every 90 days so you can make adjustments. Assumptions you made earlier may no longer be valid. Competitors and suppliers make adjustments. Economic conditions change. Staff and customers’ needs may change. Your plans need to reflect this.

An Action Plan vs. A Business Plan. While a business plan has its purposes (bank financing among them), a concise action-oriented plan will serve most business owner’s needs. It is for your use – your road map to success. Keep it simple and short (5-7 pages at most). Don’t strive for perfection. Lay out your goals and the actions (tasks) you need to do along with time-frames for completion. Don’t forget to incorporate ownership for critical tasks and measurements to evaluate success. When it comes to planning, consider the words of General George Patton, ‘A weak plan that is executed will deliver better results than a great plan never executed.’ Sometimes simple is sophisticated.

Look Back Before You Plan Ahead. Know where you are today before you start planning where you want to go. Look at your numbers. How do they compare against your last year goals and your industry? Then take a few minutes to write down your accomplishments (big and small) for the previous twelve months or last quarter. It’s important that you recognize the things you also did well. Finally, make a short list of the things you didn’t accomplish and ask yourself what held you back and what lessons did you learn. Don’t dwell on these, but apply lessons learned as you move forward.

Chunk, Chunk, Chunk. Big goals are nothing more than a series of much smaller ones. If a goal you want appears too big to conquer or takes a long time to accomplish, chunk it up into smaller ones over shorter time periods. For example, a business sets a goal to reduce employee turnover by a certain percentage within twelve months. To accomplish this, they may have 5-10 tactics they will employ, including communicating business goals, implementing monthly team meetings, creating effective job descriptions, developing a team incentive or performance bonus program, creating a strong recruiting and hiring process, etc. These smaller ‘tasks’ are much easier to handle and together will move them to the bigger goal. Remember, ‘By the yard, goals are hard; but by the inch, they’re a cinch’.

Think Big. It pays to think big when setting goals. The old saying ’shoot for the stars and if you fall short you will hit the moon’ explains why. Often we set ’safe’ goals because we fear failure or simply can’t figure out how we can get there. Sure it’s safe to set a 5% growth or improvement goal — but what if you chose instead a 30% improvement and asked for advice on how. Employees, alliances, suppliers, other business owners and yes a business coach are all great sources for new ideas, but you need to ask. What if you fall a little short and only grow 20%? You are still better off than you would have been with a 5% improvement! So think big and believe you can.

Measure, Measure, Measure. Would you ever play a round of golf and not keep score? Not likely, because you want to know if you improved or beat your previous best. The same is true in business. If we don’t link measurements to our goals, we have no way to evaluate how we are doing. What we measure, we can improve. So what types of things should you measure and track? Revenue, gross profit margins, fixed expenses and net profit are obvious and most owners track these. Most businesses have other factors that drive their success. Depending on your goals, industry and type of business, these will vary. Here are a few examples of some common Key Performance Indicators: # of leads, sales conversion rate, average $ sale, A/R days outstanding, on-time delivery, customer and employee satisfaction ratings and labor as a % of sales.

So now you have the recipe. Start taking the steps you need to plan and achieve the success you want – in business and in life.