12 PRINCIPLES OF CREATING YOUR OWN FUTURE

Principle 1 – Your potential is unlimited

Your mind has all the power you need to get anything you really want in life. Your ability to harness the incredible, creative and constructive capacities of your thinking determines everything that happens to you.
Your mind is the most powerful force in your universe. Your brain has a microchip as big of a football stadium but to some of us, we only use up to size of a peanut.

Many people think that they are not smart enough, creative enough or talented enough to get the things they want. But the fact is that most of these beliefs have no basis in reality. They are simply not true. As Henry Ford said, “If you believe you can do a thing, or you believe you cannot, in either case, you are probably right”.

Principle 2 – Clarity is Critical

We must know what we want. The primary reason for great success is clear, specific, measurable goals and plans, written down and accompanied by a burning desire to accomplish them. Knowing what you want dramatically increases the probabilities that you will get it.

The primary reasons for underachievement and failure is fuzziness and confusion about goals. Failure comes from the inability to decide exactly what you want, and what it will look like, when you want it and how you will attain it. As Zig Ziglar says, “The fact is that you can’t hit a target that you can’t see. If you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else. You have to have goals”.

Clarity is a critical luck factor. The clearer you are about what you want, the more rapidly you will attain it. When you are absolutely clear about your goals, you activate all the powers of your mind to help you to achieve them. You develop a better sense for the specific activities you can engage in to move you faster toward them. You can make better and faster decision about the allocation of time and resources. This is true in both personal and business life.

Principle 3 – Knowledge is Power

The future belongs to the people with the critical knowledge of how to get results, and those who are adding to their knowledge base every day. The learning process stops at our death bed.

To move ahead faster, especially in your financial life, you must remember that to earn more, you must learn more. You must make a point to read at least one “knowledge book” a month. If you want to increase your income and your earning ability, you have to learn new information, ideas, and skills that you can apply to your work to create values for your company and its stakeholders.

You don’t need to be genius to be successful. You don’t need to graduate from Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford or Harvard to be successful in the information age. What is important is the maturity and the quality of your thinking. The quality of your thinking is determined by your commitment to continuous learning. The more you feed your mind with new knowledge, new insights, new ideas and new information, the more you magnetize your mind.

To expand your knowledge is to read. Perhaps not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. According to the research, the highest paid Americans read an average of two to three hours per day. Where are we?

If you go into the home of a wealthy person what is the first thing you see? And the answer is a library!
The wealthier the home owners and the larger the home and the more likely it is that they will have a fully stocked library.

If you go into the home of poor people, what is the first thing you see? That’s right: The biggest television they can afford – Plasma/LCD – 48 inches or more.

Principle 4 – Mastery is Magical

There are two mental illnesses that are rampant across the globe. The first is the something for nothing disease and the second is the quick-fix or get rich quick scheme.

The something for nothing disease is contracted by people who think that they can get more out than they put in. They think that they can put in a dollar and get two dollars back. They are constantly looking for opportunities to get something they want without paying full price.

The second mental illness is the quick-fix disease. This is contracted by people who are looking for fast, easy ways to achieve their goals. They look for short cuts to acquire new skills that actually take a long time to master. These people become suckers for the latest get rich quick idea; and in the process get themselves burnt.

The achievement of mastery in any field requires months and years of hard work on yourself and your job. Every extraordinary achievement is the result of thousands or ordinary achievements that no one ever sees or appreciates. Every great accomplishment is the result of hundreds and perhaps thousands of hours of painstaking effort, preparation, study and practice that very few people are even aware of.

Principle 5 – Attitude is Everything

Attitude is the most important word in any language. Attitude is more important that facts. It is important than the past, than education, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gifted ability or skill. It will make or break a company, a home, etc.

One of the ways to assure that you have a great life is for you to be liked and appreciated by everyone with whom you work. You will get more opportunities and steadier promotions. As a result of your positive mental attitude, the people around, above and below you and your same level will want you to succeed and will do everything possible to help you.

A person with a positive attitude can make more progress in a couple of years than a person with a negative attitude would make in 10 or 20 years. Take full control of your words and actions and make sure that everything you do is helping you. Resolve every day to behave like the kind of person you want to be thought of and spoken about by other people.

Principle 6 – Relationship are Essential

The Law of Relationship explains one of the most critical success factors of all. It says, relationships are essential, the more people who know you and think of you in a positive way, the more opportunities you will have to achieve your goals.

The quality and quantity of your relationships with other people will determine your success as much or more than any other factor. Every important change in your life will involve other people. If you want to achieve big goals, you will need the active involvement and cooperation of many other people.

Principle 7 – Money Matters

One of your most important goals in life is to be financially independent. Having enough money is essential to your enjoying the freedom, happiness, opportunity and fun self expression that you want in your future.
Virtually everyone who is successful in America started with little or nothing at all. Less than 1 per cent of financially successful Americans started off with a family inheritance of any kind. Bill Gates who dropped out of Harvard to start his own business at the age of twenty and now he is the wealthiest man in the world.
People without money are like people who have not eaten for a long time. They become totally preoccupied with food. They can think of nothing else. In the same way, people with financial problem think and worry about money all the time. They have little emotional of spiritual energy left over to spread on the world around them. How do you expect them to lead their family and companies?

There is a plenty of guidance around you to help you to achieve financial independence. You read numerous rags-to-riches stories books and magazines. There are millions of people who have started with nothing and
made it to the top financially. Follow the principle of emulation. This principle says, you will be successful in proportion to which you find out what other successful people are doing and then do the same things yourself over and over again

Principle 8 – You are a Genius

Your mind is your most valuable asset. It can make you rich or poor, happy or unhappy. By applying your intelligence properly, you can create a wonderful life for yourself. There is not a problem you cannot solve, an obstacle you cannot overcome, or a goal that you cannot achieve when you begin tapping into the incredible powers of your amazing brains.

Your brain has 100 billion cells. Each of these cells is connected and interconnected with as many as 20,000 other cells. Each of these connections and interconnections is capable of a new idea or insight. This means the possible number of different thoughts and ideas you can generate is a number greater that that off all atoms in the known universe.

Average people use only 10 percent of their brains. For some, they may use only 0.1 percent of their brains. The remainder goes unused and unappreciated, usually for the life of the individual.
Unlocking the powers of your mind is the key to creating your own future. You are a potential genius. You have all the brainpower you will ever need within you, right now, to achieve any goal you can set for yourself. The answer is in your hands not in anybody else.

Principle 9 – Results Determine Rewards

People say you are lucky; you are the blue eyed boy of certain individual, when you achieve great success faster and easier than other people. But everything that happens is based on probabilities. Successful people are always taking actions, large and small, to increase the likelihood that they will achieve their goals. They attribute their success to their own personal characteristics/ competencies and especially to their willingness to work harder than other people. They establish excellent networking with people who will assist them to achieve their goals. People who fail always ascribe their lack of success to bad luck and blame it on other people and circumstances.

The ultimate success principle is your ability to get results for which people are willing to pay you, advance you, promote you, open doors for you and move you up into the top levels of your profession.
The principle of results says, “Your rewards will always be equal to the quality, quantity and timeliness of the results that you achieve for other people. Your financial rewards in life will always be in direct proportion to the value of the contribution that you make to others, as they value it.”

Like a company, your personal reputation is your most valuable asset as well. Your reputation, your brand is defined as the way you are perceived by the people you work with and for, and by your customers. Your reputation is summarized in the words people use to describe you when you are not there. Everything you do to improve the quality of your reputation improved your perceived value, and the value of what you do. And perhaps the most important part of your reputation is your ability to get the results for which you were hired.

Principle 10 – Seize the Day!

The Law of Probabilities makes luck predictable. The Law of Probabilities simply says that the more different things you try, the more likely it is that you will try the right thing at the right time and in the right way. This is why ‘action orientation’ is a characteristic of all highly successful people. The more action you take, the more likely it is that you will experience what other call luck. The more you try, the more you will eventually triumph.

Action orientation requires organizing your life in such a way that you get more done, faster, in a shorter period of time. The quality of initiative separates the most successful people from the least successful. The top performers in every study seem to demonstrate much higher levels of personal initiative than the average performers. Top people are much likely to accept responsibility and take action when they see something that need to be done. They are more proactive than reactive. They move quickly, usually without detailed discussion, analysis, or – waiting to get permission.

There are seven ways to increase your productivity, performance and output immediately. These are techniques practiced by the highest paid people in the field. They are as follows:

1. Work faster
2. Work longer and harder
3. Do more important things
4. Do things you’re better at
5. Bunch your tasks
6. Do things together
7. Simplify your work

Principle 11 – Character Counts

Character is the greatest guarantee of performance and success. You can never achieve on the outside what you have not earned on the inside. If you want to change your outer world, you must begin by changing your thinking, by reprogramming your subconscious mind. You must build within yourself a structure of values, beliefs, and inner convictions that are consistent with the kind of life you want to enjoy on the outside. You must develop your own character.

Self-discipline is the iron quality of character. It is the foundation stone of integrity and courage. Your level of self-discipline has a major impact on what you accomplish in every area of endeavour.
There is a direct correlation between self-discipline and self-esteem. The more you discipline yourself to do things you have resolved to do, the more you like and respect yourself. And the more you like and respect yourself, the more capable you become of disciplining yourself to do the things that you know you should do.

Principle 12 – Fortunes Favors the Brave

Winston Churchill once said, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend.” The development of self confidence, courage, boldness and willingness to move forwards towards your goals, with no guarantee or certainty of success, is the essential requirement for high achievement. With courage, you can do virtually anything in life. And without it, none of the other qualities will help you.
Once of the hallmark of brave people is that they make a habit of confronting their fears whenever they arise. When you confront something that is making you afraid, and you move toward that fear, the fear diminishes and loses its hold over you.

One of the symptoms of fear is worry. Worry is sustained form of fear caused by indecision and doubt. Worry is thinking about and imagining exactly the things that you don’t want to happen. But when you take action towards your goals, your worries disappear and your entire attention shifts to the results you are trying to accomplish. You are on your way!

Perseverance, persistence, determination are the essential qualities that make you a successful person. Other competencies such as patience, resolution, analytical thinking, conceptual thinking, integrity, self control, organizational, commitment, self confidence, backed indomitable willpower and unshakable persistence that will ultimately guarantee your success in future

12 principles of creating your own future is authored by Brian Tracy. A self-help author who has recorded many of his works as audio books, he has also presented topics about leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness, and business strategy in seminars. Currently he is the Chairman of Brian Tracy International based in California, with affiliates throughout the United States and 31 other countries and he is currently a much-sought-after speaker.