Setting the Bar for Personal Success

Although I’m a firm believer that success is a journey and not an end result, we all have goals that are based on our own definition of success, and success itself is often defined in terms of things that must be achieved. We all use different standards for ourselves when defining success.

Here’s a question: What makes us set the bar high or low when we decide on our goals and what we will accept as a success? And I don’t mean high or low in comparison to everyone else here, because everyone has their own reference system when in comes to standards in personal achievement. Rather, why don’t we always set goals to our own personal best standard? Why is our definition of success not always based on our ultimate potential or our biggest dreams and ambitions, our best abilities, our highest standards? Why don’t we always aim for the best possible outcomes with reference to our own definition of success or real potential?

When we define success for ourselves, around any particular outcome or goal, we have a choice between big success and small success. The path to success for each of those options may be quite different as each success or goal represents different challenges. These can be real or just perceived, so we may think that achieving huge success requires huge effort. In my illustration, see that the big mountain represents big success with higher challenges, and that the small mountain represents a smaller success which is likely to be easier to achieve.

When we set our goals, there are many thoughts (conscious or unconscious) affecting how we set the bar. There are many factors that can influence our standards for personal success and how we set our goals. Here are the main ones:

Fear of failure or fear of success

Fear has a paralyzing effect in itself, but when we nurture the belief that we can fail at something, or that we’re not qualified or deserving to be successful, it becomes really tempting to stop pursuing it, or to modify the goal in order to reduces that fear. If you didn’t have fear of success or fear of failure, if you believed that you can succeed at your highest ambitions and if you believed that you either have what it takes or can get what it takes to succeed, if you believed that you can be successful, and really deserve to be successful at your highest standard, how different would your goals be?

Faith and Expectation

When we set goals and we define success for ourselves, we’re very likely to set goals that we expect to achieve. Why set goals that we expect we won’t achieve? This really affects how we carry ourselves in the process, how we take action and how we also impact of our environment. Faith has a huge impact on perseverance, tenacity, patience and determination. Expectation is so powerful because it opens us to receive, and it also causes us to act as if we’ve already received what we want! And when you enter a situation or even a challenge with that mindset, then you’re half way there! So having faith and expecting success will create your thoughts, feelings, behaviours and the universe to align to create that success.

Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs are conscious or unconscious beliefs that conflict with our goals and dreams. They can prevent us from achieving our goals because of the discrepancy between what we want to achieve, and what we think we should achieve, what we think we deserve to achieve, or what we think we can achieve. There can also be a conflict with our goals and our own values or integrity. The key here is to review your goals and find out whether you have any beliefs that conflict with your values or your expectation of success. So ask yourself whether you have lowered your standards for success or made your goals smaller to avoid that conflict and stay in line with your existing beliefs.

Realism

Most of us have been told or have even thought to ourselves that we were unrealistic about some of our goals and dreams. When you adjust your goal to what is actually realistically possible based on your personal attributes and resources, and not based on your past achievements or what your limiting beliefs or others are telling you, then that goal can be set a lot higher. When we think we’re being realistic, it’s not always true, because the reality of what’s possible and what we can achieve may be better than we and others think, realistically!

Desire, Purpose and Integrity

We sometimes set goals that may not be in line with our real desires, our sense of purpose and our integrity. For example we might say we want to be rich, but deep down it may not be what really drives us. So it’s really important when we set goals to match them to our own authentic self, to our most significant and meaningful desires, to our greater sense of purpose, and to our own personal mission. Because as I’ve mentioned earlier, when there’s a conflict between our goals and our internal dialogue, we’re unlikely to really pursue that goal and succeed at achieving it.

Perception of Challenge

A challenge can be perceived as 2 things: an opportunity for growth, or an obstacle. And depending on the mindset that we adopt before going into the challenge, we will either embrace the process or feel hindered and frustrated. And when we set our goals, we make an assessment of what will be required for us to achieve that goal. When facing challenges, you might think that the obstacle or challenge is not worth taking up, or is too daunting. And that attitude may lead you to choose the smaller mountain. And sometimes, just because of our mindset, we overestimate challenges. We see the mountain bigger than it actually is. And we also forget that if we start climbing it, there may be some things that happen along the way that help us get to the top. As a result, we might make choices that take away some opportunities.

Everyone has 2 mountains. This is not 2 mountains for 2 different groups of people. When you look at your 2 mountains, the level of success you want for yourself in relation to your own aspirations and dreams, and your own abilities – and when you weight up the challenges – which mountain will you choose?

Success really is a process and not just an end result. So once you’ve decided on your mountain to climb and on what you expect to find when you reach to top – even if you don’t know the path and what kind of challenges you’ll come across on the way – then enjoying the journey and embracing what it throws at you is a goal in itself, because you know that you’re moving forward towards achieving your most meaningful and ambitious goals, in your online business and personal life.

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