Your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career and life success is one of the success principles that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. You take personal responsibility for your success when you set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them, and when you choose to respond positively to the negative things that happen to you on your road to success.
Last week I picked up a copy of Sales Force XP (Xtra Performance) magazine in the Continental Air Lines Presidents’ Club. I like this little magazine. It had some great common sense tips on career and life success for everyone – not just sales people. But after all, we’re all sales people in that we have to sell ourselves everyday – more on that in a future post.
I was particularly taken by an article entitled “There’s No Secret to Hard Work,” by motivational speaker Larry Winget. Larry is from Oklahoma and he is a pretty plain spoken guy. In the article, he took on the bestselling book and video The Secret. Read on to see what he has to say…
“People are scrambling to find some secret that will help them be more successful. In fact, the bestselling book on the planet for the past two years is a book called The Secret. When it comes to this book, The Secret is a total load of crap! The Secret cheats people out of the real gratification and success that comes from having put forth good old-fashioned hard work. People are quick to tell me how ‘lucky’ I am. Well, I guess so. But it sure seems to me that I worked my ass off every day to get so lucky…I deal with people who are waiting for success to come up and bang them on the head instead of going out and creating their own success…Work is the secret. Work is what ‘attracts’ success. Work is what makes you lucky.”
As I’ve said, Larry is a pretty plain spoken guy. And I agree with what he has to say. The Secret is based on the Law of Attraction which goes something like: A) Identify what you want in your life and career and ask the universe for it. B) Believe you will get it. C) Receive what you want.
In previous posts I’ve mentioned that there is a missing step – B1 if you will. B1 is the most important step. It is “Work hard to make sure you get what you want.” Larry and I are in agreement on this point.
The very first principle in Larry’s book 18 Guiding Principles for Success, Happiness and Prosperity is…Take Responsibility.
I agree. You are the only one who can make you a success. I am the only one who can make me a success. Don’t get me wrong. Unlike Larry, I think there is something to the Law of Attraction. I believe that you need to clearly identify what you want, and sincerely believe you will get what you want. However, like Larry, I also believe that without hard work, you will never attract the success you want without the commitment to taking personal responsibility for your success.
The common sense point here is simple. Successful people commit to taking responsibility for their own success. They are successful because they work hard at being successful. You can attract success by A) Identifying what you want in your life and career and asking the universe for it. B) Believing you will get it. B1) Working hard and smart in order to get what you want. C) Receiving what you want. Don’t forget B1 – the work part. Successful people are successful people because they are willing to put in the time and effort necessary to succeed in their life and career. Take personal responsibility for creating your own success. If you don’t, no one else will.
That’s my take on personal responsibility, hard work and success. What’s yours? Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
Bud, I think some people are working hard but not clear about their goals and the steps they need to take to get there. Other people are clear about their goals, but have not devised a plan of steps to take in order to get there. Still more people have goals (vague hopes) which they HOPE will materialize by falling out of the sky (and sometimes they do)!
My father always taught me, “God helps those who help themselves.” Nothing wrong in making your goals clear and hoping for them. But it never hurts to help that along by making a step-by-step plan for success and committing to follow it each day.