THE THREE PILLARS of your success

There are three primary aspects of your life that will determine whether or not you are successful in your endeavors. You will not be successful if you have only one or two. You must have all three working together. Consider them like the three legs of a "stool of success." These are ability, attitude and motivation. Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. Engaging in any business endeavor lacking any one of them is similar to driving a vehicle that has one of the plugs not firing. To those who have never driven such a vehicle, I can safely tell you that it’s not fun. Not only does the vehicle shake you and vibrate like a cellphone, but it also consumes fuel in a fashion you have never seen before.

Lets take a closer look at the three aspects starting with ability. This is the level at which you are able to actually do things, it is your skill level. If you have a high level of skill, that's good. And the better you get, the better it will be for you. To the degree that you can perform your actions at higher and higher skill levels, the more and more success you will find in your chosen field. On the other hand, motivation is the level at which you are able to find "a reason to act." This is the internal drive that you find that enables you to exercise your abilities. To the degree that you can find a way, or ways, to keep yourself motivated, you will see yourself right in the thick of things, carrying out your actions to the best of your abilities and succeeding accordingly.

Your third pillar for success is your attitude. This is the mental state that you have while carrying out your actions to the best of your ability. It is the way you view the world around you and choose to see it, either positively or negatively. To the degree that you can maintain a positive attitude about yourself, others, and the circumstances you find yourself in, you will see yourself achieving greater and greater things.

Never delude yourself into thinking that you can get away without any one of these three aspects. Yes you can achieve success, but it will be very temporary since it will be built on a weak foundation. The greatest teacher of all times, our Lord Jesus Christ, taught on the importance of building on a firm foundation and emphasized that anything built otherwise will neither withstand nor pass the test of time.

If you have high skills and motivation but a rotten attitude, people will stay away from you and your business and this will hinder your success. With a good attitude and motivation but poor skills, people will like you, maybe even befriend you, but go to someone else with the skills they need. What if you have great skills and attitude but no motivation? Well, you'll be sitting on the couch like a lazy slug while the go-getters are out there making your money and achieving your dreams. You see, it takes all three. To conduct an audit check on how you are fairing on the three pillar of success, there is need to ask the following questions on these three aspects.

Ability: How highly skilled are you? Is your skill level holding you back? How so? What could you achieve if you just took your skills to the next level beyond where they are right now? How would improving your skills improve the bottom line of your success?

Motivation: How motivated are you? Why do you answer that way? What would your spouse or close friends say? Would they say you are as motivated as you say you are? Why or why not? Why do you have the level of motivation that you have? What could you do to find a higher level of motivation? What would happen if you became super motivated for the next period of your life? What great things would happen?

Attitude: Do you have a good attitude or a poor one? How would you rate yourself? What about when things go wrong? Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? What would happen if you took your attitude to the next level for the next month? What if you just chose to have an incredible attitude? What would be the ramifications?

Booker T. Washington expressed it best when he said “The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts." This is so true. People will judge you on what you accomplish, not what you know or what you talk about. In fact, if you know a lot or talk a lot but do not accomplish anything, people will wonder what happened. So the question is whether or not you will take the actions necessary to deliver on your potential. To do so, you will need to focus in on the three legs of the stool of success: Your ability, your motivation, and your attitude.

Take some time this week to give some serious thought to these three areas. Your success depends on it! And when you have done some reflection, put the conclusions you come to into action. Make a decision today to go all the way to the top.