Success begins with the desire to be successful and the conviction that you can be successful. Then, and only then, do you make plans to reach that specific objective. After you make plans, you must be willing to commit to them. But no responsible person makes a commitment until he or she has a reasonable plan of action to fulfill that commitment.
For example, I watched two of my daughters try to give up the habit of cigarette smoking. Over and over again, they put down the cigarettes just to pick them back up again. It wasn’t until they made a firm decision that they wanted to quit that they made a game plan on how to go about it and then set a date to lay the cigarettes down once and for all.
Suzan, my oldest daughter, sought the help of her physician. She was given nicotine gum, a mild tranquilizer, and instructions to see the doctor once a week and call if she felt that she wanted to light up.
Julie, my youngest daughter, started telling everyone she saw that she was quitting smoking six weeks in advance of the date she had chosen. She then sent for literature and started a Nicotine Anonymous group that met once a week in her home. She wrapped silver duct tape around her last pack of cigarettes, wrote “God and I can do this” on the outside, and made a commitment that if she decided to have a cigarette, she had to get it out of that pack.
Both daughters were successful because they were first convinced that they needed to quit; they then developed the desire to quit and, after a lot of trial and error, made and committed to a workable plan to quit. Their plans were as different as they were, which makes another important point: Your goals have to be set by you, and you are the only one who can make a plan to reach them in a way that is both comfortable and natural for you. I have yet to meet anyone who quit smoking because their wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, doctor’s, friend’s, child’s goal was for them to quit.
Look at the hallmarks of success that both daughters had to employ to successfully give up the cigarette habit: hard work, conviction, integrity, consistency, faith, connections, character, commitment, discipline, humor (I won’t go into it here, but things got pretty funny sometimes), and lots of persistence- -remember, they both quit several times before they were successful.
Regardless of the kind of success you are seeking, the hallmarks of success are essential to attaining that success.
Zig Ziglar is the Chairman of the Board of Ziglar Training Systems. Subscribe to his free newsletter at www.ziglartraining.com. He can be contacted at 800.527.0306, or by email at info@ziglartraining.com. This article was reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
