I was recently “tagged” by the folks at Breathing Prosperity, who passed on the “Success Tag” message to myself. It’s slightly different from usual “blog about yourself” tags as it’s aimed at getting people to share their success tips. Here’s my take on it…

1. Define Your Success

Everyone has their own idea of what it means to be a success. For some it might be a fancy car and lots of neato toys, for others it might be serving others or putting a smile on the face of someone they care about. Defining your success if vitally important, because if you don’t decide what it is, someone will do it for you.

You only need to look at modern advertising to see this in action. You’ll be never be happy without Product X, Product Y will make you better and so on.

By deciding on what will make you successful, you immediately create a way of finding out what won’t make you a success.

2. Set Your Priorities

Make it a priority to achieve your goals. Success is very rarely achieved overnight, and it takes time and energy.

Some tasks are really boring and unpleasant, and sometimes you will just want to sit down and do nothing, and you really want to do something, but always be looking for the things that will bring you closer to achieving your goal and that will bring the most benefits.

3. Commit to Paper

Once you’ve decided on your goals and prioritised them down, write them down on paper. I recommend paper over electronic storage simply because its more portable and flexible. You can easily pull out an index card to read on a train or bus, or when you have five minutes of spare time.

4. Review Your Plans

This is a vital part of achieving any goal, but it is very easy to overlook. The more often you review your goals, the more they become embedded in your daily thoughts. You should aim to read your goals at least once a day, and review and rewrite them as often as necessary.

Making constant, small adjustments is much easier than making a few very large changes.

5. Take Action

Take action, any action, that will bring you closer to achieve your goal.

Notice I say “any action”, and not “the one single perfect action that will solve everything”. It’s extremely easy to get into the trap of putting off action because you want to make sure you do everything right. There is seldom one perfect action that will complete a goal, so take it one step at a time.

Whilst it’s important not to rush blindly into everything, it’s equally important not to procrastinate too much on tasks. If you break your goals into small chunks, you can do a little bit of action every day.

Back in October of 2006 I wrote a review of “The Secret”, and the film has gone on to become a worldwide success. Several of the contributors have been interviewed on high profile US shows, such as Oprah and Letterman, and the DVD is cropping up in “regular” stores.

With this increase in interest, now is a good time to take a second look at The Secret. What is it all about, why has it become so popular and how can it be applied to your life?

What is “The Secret”?

The Secret is the idea that “thoughts become things”. It might seem like common knowledge that we must think about things before we create them, but The Secret takes that one step further. One of the key ideas in the film is the “Law of Attraction”, which states that like attracts like. For example, thinking about positive things will attract positive events into your live. 

The “Law of Attraction” itself has been around for much longer than the current hype of “cosmic ordering”. The film mentions it has been used by many famous thinkers high achievers, and that it has also appeared in biblical stories.

The law of attraction is also known as the “intention manifestation” model. This model of thinking states that thinking about something (putting out an intention) will cause what you’re thinking about to manifest in your life.

Even if all of this sounds a little far fetched, I still recommend checking out the film because it contains some great tips on setting and achieving goals. It also has an extremely positive attitude, and you can’t help but become more enthusiastic about your goals after watching it.

Why has it become so popular?

There’s been a huge online buzz behind the film, and word of mouth has really helped to spread the message. Several high-profile personal development bloggers have also spoken about the film, particularly Steve Pavlina and his wife Erin. Along with the online buzz, several of the film’s main contributors have also appeared on some high-profile TV shows.

Marketing aside, what is it about the film that has made it resonate so strongly with its audience?

The film itself is well presented but has a very “genuine” feel to it. It contains a good dose of humour, and all of the speakers seem very warm and natural. There’s no blatant self-promotion that can sometimes creep into personal development material.

Of course, the main feature of the film is that it makes some very large promises.

Promising that applying a single principle can make anything certainly gives the film something to live up to. Possibly the only message more popular than “get rich quick” is “get everything you want easily”.

Despite the fact that the intention/manifestation model sounds like an easy way of getting anything you want, putting it into practice can be difficult at first.

At the simplest level it’s just a case of thinking about what you want. However, there are a few subtle additions that are quite important. It requires a constant effort and a sense of clarity in order to be successful. Despite the film framing these practices as a “secret”, they’re fundamental to any form of achievement, regardless of the beliefs behind it.   

Applying The Secret

How do you apply the Law of Attraction to your everyday life?

Create your picture of clarity — Before you can start, you need to have a clear vision of where you want to be. Like any goal, you must be specific and write it down!

Visualise your success — Visualise your goal as already achieved. Spend some time to make the visualisation powerful, and visit the scene every day. It’s even better if you can combine the vision with emotions from a previous victory. Strong, positive emotions make a visualisation much more powerful.

Constantly review your “intentions” – This is one of the most important parts of goal achievement - you must constantly review your goals if you are to achieve them. You should aim to read through your goals at least once a day. The more often you check your goals, the more deeply rooted into your routine they become.

Does any of this work?

Does setting clear goals and constantly visualising the results help you to achieve what you want? Absolutely! Is it because your thoughts vibrate with the universe and it delivers what you desire? That’s up to you to decide.

Whether you think it’s an amazing secret or a load of mumbo-jumbo, I recommend taking a 30 day trial of the techniques to see if it works for you. Approach it with it with an open mind, more importantly don’t let it put you off using visualisation in your goal setting.