Principle – 7

It’s only after the fact, after you’ve accomplished something, that you can call it a success.
Before the fact it’s a hope, or if you do it right, a goal.
Setting goals is actually defining success before it happens.
Goals give you something to aim for, something to direct your efforts, something to motivate you, and something to keep you on course.
The first point about defining success is the simple act of doing it.
The mere fact that you define success before leaping into an activity goes a long way toward ensuring that you will, in fact, be successful.
So look ahead and consciously decide what success means to you and to your business.
And yes, you need to consider two kinds of success – success for your business, and success for yourself.
What is success for you?
Success is what you say it is.
Well, it’s not quite that simple.
Yes, you should define success in a way that’s meaningful for you, but be careful.
Most of us define success in conventional terms – wealth, possessions, status, acceptance from others, health, inching the other guy out across the finish line, going to the moon, getting an A in algebra, curing cancer, learning to play the guitar – anything you accomplish can be defined as a success.
Stripped to the essentials, success is nothing more than setting a goal and achieving it.
What if the goal isn’t right for you?
Is it still success?
Most people would say yes.
If your goal is to make a million dollars by the age of thirty, and you do it, would anyone deny your success?
If your mother and father want you to be a doctor, and you do, isn’t that a success?
Yes, of course, these are examples of success…but maybe not.
There’s a deeper experience of success.
Each of us has an inner drive that motivates us.
It’s something that was shaped in our earliest days mainly by our relationships with our parents and our earliest experiences.
It’s something that’s so basic to us it seems inborn, an innate part of our characters.
It’s also something that operates mostly at an unconscious level, and it needs to become a part of our conscious awareness so we can factor it into our decision making, and use it to tap into our passion and motivation.
We call it “Core Purpose” because it is core to your personality and it shapes your sense of purpose in your life.
It’s not mysterious, most of us need a bit of thought in order to get a clear, conscious understanding of it.
The main point about Core Purpose is that the goals you set for yourself and your business can’t conflict with your Core Purpose or you’re setting yourself up for failure or an unfulfilling life and career.
We deal with Core Purpose in depth in the Full Spectrum Business Development Program, so we won’t explore it any further here.
What is success for your business?
Again, success is what you say it is.
And again, it’s not quite that simple.
Defining success for your business should be done in a way that actually launches you toward that success.
Goal-setting is an important part of that, so are setting a vision and mission for the future of the business and deciding on how it will operate and how the people in the business should behave.
In the Full Spectrum program, we ask you to define something called “Strategic Intent.”
As the name implies, Strategic Intent is a clear statement of what the business will become in the future when it is successful.
Strategic Intent sets the stage for success and puts your business on the right path to succeed.