Regardless of whether your dream is to own a horse ranch, build a billion-dollar business, or solve world poverty, we all crave to achieve outstanding success in life. No one wants to live a boring, mundane, and tedious life that has no meaning, right?
The question is how do you achieve that? How do you become successful in life? How do you turn your goals and dreams into reality?
Well, in this guide, I will share with you 10 ways how you can turn your dreams into reality. If you follow these 10 pieces of advice, you will greatly increase your chances of success and living your dream life…
1. Define the Success You Want
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Napoleon Hill
First, you have to define the success you want. Most people don’t do this, and that is why they lack clarity for what they want.
When you have no idea what kind of success you are looking for, you will never attain it because your mind will be confused.
The more specific you are with what you want, the easier it is that your mind can formulate a plan and take specific action steps to get there.
In his classic best-selling book, Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins explained how writing down what he wanted has helped him create the life of his dream…
“Eight years ago, in 1983, I did an exercise that created a future so compelling that my whole life changed as a result. As pan of the overall process of raising my standards, I established a whole new set of goals, writing down all the things I would no longer settle for, as well as what I was committed to having in my life. I set aside all my limiting beliefs and sat down on the beach with my journal. I wrote continuously for three hours, brainstorming every possibility of what I could ever imagine doing, being, having, creating, experiencing, or contributing. The timeline I gave myself for achieving these goals was any time from tomorrow to the next twenty years. I never stopped to think whether I could actually achieve these goals or not. I simply captured any possibility that inspired me, and wrote it down.
From that beginning, I refined the process six months later when I was invited along with a group of parapsychologists to the USSR to study psychic phenomena directly from university experts throughout Russia. As my group traveled the country, I spent many hours on the train from Moscow to Siberia and back to Leningrad. With nothing to write on but the back of an old Russian map, I wrote down all my long-term goals for my spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and financial destinies, and then created a series of milestones for each one, working backward. For example, in order to achieve my top spiritual goal ten years from now, what kind of person would I have to be, and what things would I need to accomplish by nine years from now, eight years, seven years, and so on, reaching all the way back until today? What specific action could I take today that would lead me on that road to the destiny of my choice?
On that day, I set specific goals that transformed my life. I described the woman of my dreams, detailing what she would be like mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. I described what my kids would be like, the huge income that I would enjoy, and the home that I would live in, including the third-story circular office area that would overlook the ocean.
A year and a half later. Life magazine was in my home, interviewing me as to how I had made such incredible shifts in my life. When I pulled out my map to show them all the goals I had written down, it was amazing to see how many I’d achieved. I had met the woman I described, and married her. I had found and purchased the home I’d envisioned, down to the finest detail, including the third-story office in the turret of the castle, overlooking the ocean. When I wrote them down initially, I had no assurances whatsoever that these goals could be achieved. But I had been willing to suspend judgment for a short period of time in order to make it work.”
This is why it is important to get specific with what you want to achieve. Hence, define the success you desire so that your mind can come up with a plan to achieve it.
Read: How Do You Define Success And The Real Meaning Behind (Must Read)
2. Set Goals and Make Plans
“Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don’t have a plan.”
Larry Winget
Once you have identified the success you want, it is time to set goals and make plans to make what you want more tangible.
Most people have heard about goal setting, but most of them don’t do it. They thought that setting a goal meant having a clear idea of what they wanted in their mind. Wrong! Setting a goal means writing it down and making a solid plan to achieve it.
Just like how Tony Robbins wrote down his goals on an old Russian map, he identified how he wanted his life to turn out and then make plans to achieve it.
You should do the same.
Check out my ultimate guide on how to set goals and achieve them. In the guide, I shared the speech from Thomas J. Watson, who grew IBM to a multi-billion=dollar business:
“IBM is what it is today for three special reasons. The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream — my vision — was in place.
The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company that looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done.
The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.
In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.
From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.
Every day at IBM was a day devoted to business development, not doing business.
We didn’t do business at IBM, we built one.”
And this is why you want to set goals and create plans for the success you want to achieve in life.
When you have a goal and a plan, you can then work on them and start making progress every day to create the dream life you want.
Remember, if you want to achieve outstanding success, you need to start creating it right now, not 20 years from. Success is created today. And that’s why you need to have a plan to make it happen.
3. Develop Passion for What You Do
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Steve Jobs
Yes, to achieve outstanding success, you must do great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you don’t have passion for what you do, you will give up.
Watch this video below and see how Steve Jobs, the legend who founded Apple explained why having a passion for what you do is extremely important for success…
In short, if you don’t have passion for what you do, you will never persevere and you will quit when things become tough.
This is especially true when it comes to achieving outstanding success because it can be hard and uncomfortable. So without passion, you will never stay long on the journey.
Here are some useful resources to help you develop a passion for what you do:
- Why Passion is Important for Success
- 10 Motivational Questions that Reignite Your Drive and Passion
- 7 Clear Signs That You Have Discovered Your Passion in Life
4. Work Hard and Take Massive Action
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Lao Tzu
No matter what you want to achieve, you need to take action to make it come true. Without action, nothing’s going to work.
A dream without action will remain a dream. And a plan without execution will lead to failure.
Most people live in mediocrity and they fail to achieve their dreams and goals because they lack action. They know what they want, they have goals, and they have plans, but they just don’t take enough action to materialize their dreams.
Success is going to come to you through luck. It is not like you wake up the next morning and found that you have a million dollars in your bank account.
No, success doesn’t work that way.
You have to work for what you want in order to get it. A wise man once said…
“If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”
So, don’t just dream about what you want, take action.
Take action and follow the Rule of 5 and you will have no problem turning your dreams into reality.
5. Challenge Yourself to Do the Uncomfortable Every Day
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
Tony Robbins
Do you know the difference between ordinary people and extraordinary people? The difference is the little “extra”.
That means you have to challenge yourself to do the uncomfortable.
James Clear, the best-selling author of Atomic Habits wrote in one of his blog posts where he asked a gym coach, “What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else? What do the really successful people do that most don’t?”
At first, the coach said something you might expect: genetics, luck, talent, but then he went on to say something unexpected: “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”
That’s right, achieving outstanding success is about challenging yourself to do the uncomfortable. And you will have to repeat the process over and over again.
And this is also why you need to develop a passion for what you do. Again, without passion, you will give up faster than you expect when things become tough.
Therefore, every day, you have to challenge yourself to do the uncomfortable…
- If you want to become a writer, challenge yourself to write 1,000 words every day.
- If you want to get back in shape and get fit, challenge yourself to exercise for 30 minutes every day.
- If you want to become a successful YouTuber, challenge yourself to publish a video every day.
Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian ever. But do you know that his success doesn’t come easy? He has to challenge himself to do the uncomfortable every day. This article on Owaves.com wrote…
“Since the age of seven, Michael Phelps has been swimming competitively and even went through a five-year streak during his teenage years training every single day, 365 days a year. Sundays, Christmas and Thanksgiving included… and twice on his birthdays, according to life-long swim coach Bob Bowman.”
Success comes with a price. You must be willing to pay the price in full to achieve it.
6. Constantly Improve Yourself
“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
Zig Ziglar
Achieving outstanding success is all about becoming a better version of yourself. You don’t have to compete or win over others, you just need to be better than yesterday.
You see, no matter what you want to achieve in life, there will be someone who has already accomplished that. And all you need to do is to find out the way to get there.
For example, if you want to lose weight and get back in shape, someone else has already done that before. So what you need to do is to learn from that person and replicate his or her strategy.
There are thousands of books and courses and workshops ready to teach you what you want to achieve.
The best part is that you don’t have to figure out everything on your own. You don’t have to make silly mistakes and you can shortcut your way to success through learning and constantly improving yourself.
Hence, make it a commitment to learn and improve yourself every day.
Read: 10 Practices How to Improve Yourself Every Day
7. Learn to Live with Failures
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.”
Maya Angelou
Do you know that failures are inevitable? As long as you are taking action and making progress, you will surely encounter mistakes and failures along the journey.
Albert Einstein once said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
No matter what kind of success you are trying to pursue, you will make mistakes and you will fail. But the key is not in NOT making mistakes or NEVER failing, but to learn from them and bounce back quickly.
J.K. Rowling was the first billionaire author in the world through her book, Harry Potter. But do you know that she had to go through several devastating life events before she successfully published the first Harry Potter book?
She suffered a divorce, the death of her beloved mother, had no money, and had to survive on government welfare.
But despite all those setbacks, she pushed on and decided to continue to pursue her dreams of becoming a successful author.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from J. K. Rowling:
“It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
Thus, don’t be afraid of mistakes and failures, embrace them and learn from them.
How successful people become successful? Right decisions.
How do you make the right decisions? Experience.
And how do you gain experience? Through learning from mistakes and failures.
Read: How to Overcome Tough Times and Succeed (5 Principles To Overcome Setbacks)
8. Make an Impact
“Life is about making an impact, not making an income.”
Kevin Kruse
It is true that we all want to achieve greater personal success in life. We all want to be financially successful, to have a great relationship, and to have a great family.
But if your mission involves others, you will feel even better. You will be more willing to work harder when you are making an impact, not just an income.
Adam Grant, best-selling author, and psychologist once conducted a study on a group of employees at a university call center who were required to make calls for a fundraising campaign.
Grant discovered that when the employees understand and realize how their work has helped students change their lives because of the scholarships they have raised, they became more motivated.
Do you know why people prefer to work at SpaceX than an ordinary company? Because working there means striving for a worthy and meaningful purpose. Take a look at SpaceX’s mission below:
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”
Elon Musk
The more meaningful, exciting, and impactful your mission, the more likely you will attract the right talent to work for you.
John Sculley was the CEO of Pepsi Co. when Steve Jobs approached him and tried to recruit him. Jobs was known to the world for being a legendary visionary, and he was someone who believed that what he was doing in Apple was incredibly important to the world.
And this led Jobs to approach Sculley. And you know what Jobs told Sculley to get him on board?
Jobs asked Sculley, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
Of course, Sculley was moved and decided to join Apple after that one simple, but powerful question.
This is why you want to strive to make an impact, not just an income.
Read: The Power of Having a Purpose Driven Mission
9. Make the Journey Fun
“Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?”
Richard Branson
Having fun is one of the most important keys to success, but it is also the most underrated. Think about it, if you dread going to work, do you think your performance will be affected? Of course.
But what if you are having fun at work? Don’t you think that will make you want to go to work more? In fact, you can’t wait to go to work because it is so exciting and you’re having so much fun doing things you love in a supportive environment with people you like.
It is the same when it comes to personal success. You want to make the journey fun. If the journey isn’t fun or exciting, you’ll never enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, you’ll never want to do more of it, as a result, you’ll never become successful.
This is why it is important to choose a goal that is fun and pursue something that you are passionate about.
If you want to learn how to have more fun and enjoy your journey to success, I recommend you read this book below:
10. Don’t Give Up Until You Make It
“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
Vince Lombardi
The moment you give up is the moment you have lost. As long as you don’t give up and quit, you stand a chance to win.
Most people are quitters. They quit whenever they face difficulties in their journey.
This is why success is so difficult. And this is why success is only reserved for those who don’t give up.
Anyone can start a new project, whether that is to write a book, to start a blog, to kickstart an exercise plan, or to become a YouTuber. But only a few will stick to their plans. The majority will give up and quit.
So, if you mastered the art of never giving up and beefing up your determination, you will become unstoppable.
The first rule of success is to not give up.
Read: 7 Steps How To NOT Give Up On Your Dreams
Conclusion
And these are the steps on how you can achieve outstanding success in life. It is not easy, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible.
No matter what you want to achieve in life, you can do it as long as you follow these tips above.