In order to succeed at anything, you need to see that you have the potential to reach your goals. For example, if you want to be a recording artist but have no singing ability, having success in this field is not likely. However, if you love working on cars and have a real talent for fixing engines and transmissions, and to you, success would mean working for NASCAR, you have potential to learn and achieve that success.

2. Don’t Look Back

Everyone has failures or mistakes from the past. To have success, you need to learn from your past and value those difficult lessons but do not every dwell on the past. Simply move forward and make better, more educated decisions from the lessons learned.

3. Dare to Dream

To succeed, you need to have dreams and aspirations. Be honest with yourself as to what you want out of life and what you want to give of your life. Allow your mind to dream and think big.

4. Business Plan

Create a Business Plan as your very first step if you are planning to build a business. Whether you will be searching for investors or not, this plan will be the blueprint to your success. The Business Plan will consist of market trends, financial planning, competitive analysis, exit strategies, marketing and promotional options, everything about your goal. When going before an investor, you will be required to have a Business Plan. This is by far the most important document of all. If your success were something personal, you would not need to create a Business Plan although a project plan would be a good option to allow you to keep track of everything involving your goal.

5. Don’t Give Up

To reach success, you have to persevere. Even Thomas Edison had to learn this. When he was creating the incandescent light bulb, it took him more than 10,000 times to get it right. Keep striving even when it becomes challenging.

6. Have an Unstoppable Attitude

You need to have determination. With good intentions, there may be a close friend or family member that feels it would be better if you focused your attention in another direction. Uphold your unstoppable attitude, determined to succeed.

7. Stop the Complaining

You might think there is no correlation between complaining and success when in fact there is a connection. When you are spending time complaining about the obstacles you are facing, you are wasting so much time being negative that you are actually loosing chances to move forward. Instead of thinking of challenges as problems, think of them as opportunities.

8. Accept Responsibility

You need to accept responsibility if you make a bad decision or fall behind in your plan. Let us say that you have set some firm milestones that need to be accomplished in order for you to move to the next step. However, you got tired of working hard and took some time to play, which is fine as long as it does not affect your goals. Now months have passed and you are way behind schedule. This delay has closed several doors of opportunities. Who is to blame?

9. No Shortcuts

An old cliché states, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” This should be your motto. When you want to succeed, you cannot afford to take shortcuts. Taking shortcuts leads to imperfection and inadequacies. Always strive for the best, even if it requires a little more time and effort.

10. Be Excited to Learn

Referring back to the analogy of Edison, when asked about his failures by a young boy, Edison commented, “Young man, I didn’t fail 9,999 times, I discovered 9,999 ways not to invent the light bulb.” As you work toward your specific success, always enjoy opportunities to learn, even if it takes longer than you think it should.

11. Be a Good Listener

To succeed, you need to learn how to listen first. Pay attention to other people who have enjoyed successes in their life, attend seminars given by people that can motivate and encourage, or be open to hearing that a particular idea is not a good one. Good listening takes time to learn but in the end, it will be your greatest tool.

12. Birds of a Feather

If you have a goal of being a best-selling author, find friends and mentors who either have achieved that same goal or are also pursuing a successful writing career. It is important to surround yourself with people that can associate with your goal and passion, people who understand the burning desire to succeed and can encourage when you meet with disappointments.

13. Be Proactive

While it may take time to learn how to identify ways to avoid obstacles or failures, get into the habit of tackling problems before they arise. This will help you avoid wasting precious time on your road to success.

14. Stay Motivated

When striving for the big goal of success, it is critical to stay motivated. Find inspiring and motivational tapes, seminars, books, movies; whatever you are able to get your hands on. When you start to feel a little down and out and doubt starts to creep in, turn to these motivational tools to help you keep on track. A few excellent motivators include Tony Robbins, Norman Vincent Peale, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Les Brown.

15. No Excuses

Many famous actors, music artists, inventors, etc., had special challenges ranging from learning disabilities to physical disabilities. Take Beethoven for example. He was born deaf yet he went on to be one of the world’s greatest composers or Joni Erickson who was paralyzed from the neck down yet she learned to paint with her mouth. Today, her paintings are famous around the world and worth millions. If you are faced with a special challenge of your own, while you may have to adjust things from time to time, do not use excuses. If you want something bad enough, there is a way!

16. Patience and Dues

Succeeding takes time. A goal worth setting will take time to achieve. Be patient with yourself, the people around you, and the process it takes to become successful, also referred to as “paying your dues.” Just like the chef scenario, it takes time to be a master chef. Pay your dues by learning and working your way up the ladder to success.

17. Good Time / Resource Management

Being successful also means keeping to a schedule. In addition, you need to learn how much is too much. Good time and resource management will help you ensure that you use your time wisely and that you are not adding third portions onto a plate still overflowing with seconds.

18. Make Opportunities

Rather than wait for opportunity to find you, you need to find opportunities. This might be watching for business opportunities in the paper regarding small businesses being sold, great real estate opportunities, and investments with stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, taking a talent and turning it into an entrepreneurial adventure. People that have reached financial status will tell you that they look for ways to seize opportunities, not wait for opportunities to come knocking on their door because it will not happen that way.

19. Attitude

Putting yourself in the right attitude for success should be at the top of your list. Staying positive and surrounding yourself with friends, that share a positive attitude will help you succeed. Do not allow negative thoughts to slip into your mind. Attend motivational seminars and find ways to enjoy life. A good attitude will allow you to turn any bad situation into a learning experience. You have heard the saying, “The glass is either half-full or half-empty.” You need to adopt the attitude that life is half-full. The result is that you will feel better, have more energy, and have a much higher opportunity for success.

20. Keep a Journal

As you work hard to reach success, regardless of what you consider that success to be, you need to be able to see your accomplishments. Start a journal and track every thing you have conquered. When you feel discouraged or frustrated, reflect on what you have achieved, and rejuvenate yourself.

21. Set Daily Goals

In order to visualize your accomplishments and stay encouraged, you need to set daily goals. These goals can be as simply as a follow up phone call or a written letter to an investor. Whatever the task is, get it done. In addition to keeping the process for your success on track, it will help you to feel like you are making accomplishments, pushing you closer and closer to the success.

22. Collaborate with Others

More than likely, you will reach various times when you do not have the appropriate expertise to accomplish something. This is the time collaboration and/or networking is valuable. These relationships can help you answer questions, provide guidance, and provide the ongoing support and encouragement you will need.

23. Repositioning and Reflection

On occasion, reflect on what you have accomplished as well as your open milestones and ensure you are still heading in the right direction. Repositioning along the way to success is perfectly normal and to be expected. You may have been struggling with something specific. Rather than continue battling this issue, reflect on what has not been working, and reposition yourself so you do not have to keep battling the same things repeatedly.

24. Record Keeping

Always keep your records up to date. This would include contact information, investor information, Business Plans, attorney information, accounting, everything you touch regarding your goal. In addition, keep your files on your computer backed up and current. First, you never know when you are going to be asked for a specific document and need to provide quick turn-around. Second, computers do crash and it would be a disaster if all of your information were suddenly gone.

25. Get out of Debt

Take time to get any debts paid off, especially credit card debts that will cost you a fortune in interest. This is especially important if you will be seeking funding as a part of your particular success. You want to ensure that your records and credit are clean if you need to make a presentation before an investor, asking for money.

26. Read

Stay current on the industry news that your goal falls in. Learn about current trends, company failures or successes, new ideas; whatever information you can find. For example, if you have decided to open a retail store and have a great idea and a real passion for your goal, read about that specific type of store, location, potential revenue, downfalls, everything. This information will be a part of your business plan and is crucial.

27. Take Notes

How many times have you had an idea either through a dream, while doing the dishes, or sitting at your desk, and have thought that as soon as you have time, you will make a note of it. When that free time rolls around, you have forgotten some or all of that great idea. Keep a journal or notepad handy at all times. When you have an idea, write it down immediately.

28. Participate

If attending seminars or lectures that will help you get ahead, if there is the opportunity, participate by asking questions or making valid points. Participation is a great way to remember what is being taught.

29. Take Good Notes

Whether you are at a seminar, a casual meeting, or notice something special in the news, take good, comprehensive notes. This is not always a natural skill but something that has to be acquired. You want to pay attention to the emphasis being made capture it. Even if there are materials being handed out, if there is something that you feel you should capture separately, do it. Good notes will help you learn better and provide additional reference points.

30. Study Time

No matter what your goal for success, you should set aside some time to study. If you want to be a successful hair stylist, study different styles, colors, and trends. If you want to be a veterinarian, study animals. Whatever your success, take time to read, research, and ask many questions. You should also consider volunteering at the local beauty school or hair salon or your veterinarian’s office. Ask if you can follow them around for a day or two and without getting in the way, observe, and ask questions.

31. Set Realistic Goals

People wanting to be successful often want overnight results. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. You need to do an analysis to determine a realistic amount of time it will take to reach your specific success. As you go through your Business Plan you may find times that dates have to adjusted but even if there are changes, keep it realistic. Otherwise, you will become frustrated and quit!

32. Don’t Make Quick Decisions

When things in your plan need to change, unless necessary, do not make quick decisions. Just as it took time to plan in the beginning, it will take time to change. You want to make sure you are making the right decisions when changes come up. Do your research just as you did in the beginning and then make educated choices.

33. Conduct Research

It is important to know what you are getting into. First, you will want to conduct research as far as the business, industry, or interest associated with your particular success. Second, the research will help you stay up to date on trends, which may or may not require you to make adjustments in your own goal. For example, if you were interested in opening a particular business focusing on a specific technology and that technology took a turn to another direction, new advancements, you may need to change the direction you were going for your own business. Unless you kept up on research, you would not know when a change was needed and therefore, would end up building a business already headed for failure.

34. The Right Marketing

When you get ready to start marketing your business or idea, never rely on one method of marketing. It is important to look at several options since nothing will last forever.

35. Have Fun

When people start into the process of being successful, whether for personal growth or starting a business, they may start by incorporating fun, but within a very short time, they realize it is hard work and the fun simply falls by the wayside. If you look at some of the most successful people in the world such as Sam Walton, Oprah Winphrey, or Ross Perot, you will find common threads that run between all of them. First, they started with nothing; second, they are all multi-millionaires many times over, and third, they have fun. They enjoy life, the people around them, and even find enjoyment in the challenges. This one element is often forgotten. This is a crucial element for success and should be a part of your plan.