What is your plan of action in life? After the part where you graduate high school, maybe go to college or learn a trade or start working at a job, what do you see yourself doing next? What is you current life situation? What do you wish you were doing? How can you make those two things into the same thing? Do you know what you want or just have a vague notion of the course you will choose? Have you written your goals down on paper, entered them into your computer or tapped them into your mobile phone? Do you have short-term goals? Do you have long-term goals? How do you go about accomplishing what you want to do?
While searching for the answers to questions like these, I was directed by a friend to a book that would be a life changer for me. This resource helped me to process my separation, taught me how to live on my terms (wherever that is possible as a single mother of two boys), and plan for my future. It was the first book that I’ve read that felt like an instruction manual in living a successful life. The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer, became my trusted guide. The book is separated into six sections, beginning with the fundamentals of success; and followed by how success can be interwoven into transforming yourself, building a team, and improving relationships. The last two sections examine the connection of success and money and using technology as a tool to increase your success.
There are a handful of books I’ve read in the last few years that I would recommend for anyone to read (I’ll review some of the others in the future). For me, The Success Principles tops the list. Jack Canfield is an ultra successful author and editor (credited with over 40 bestselling books as part of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series), speaker, and corporate trainer. In The Success Principles, he discusses 67 different principles to help people make personal progress and find success in life. I’ve carefully selected the top 10 success principles from the book that I found most helpful in planning my life and setting goals and summarized them below along with my own observations. If this material resonates with you, consider purchasing the book to access the full details of each principle and the specific actions you can take to make the principles work for you. The principles are presented in the book along with real life examples from Jack Canfield’s experiences or anecdotes from his broader personal and business network of successful achievers.
Click the cover image to get your copy of The Success Principles on Amazon.
Note, I’m using the chapter titles from the book for each of these principles, so that you can cross-reference this article with the actual book, e.g, if the third tip seems the most useful to you, you can find that title, “Chunk it Down,” in the Table of Contents and read that specific section of the book to learn additional details about the principle.
Top 10 Success Principles: Planning for Your Success
1. Be Clear Why You’re Here
Whether or not you believe you were born with a life purpose, it is worthwhile to define what you believe your purpose in life might be. What do you feel like you are here to do or what would give your life greater meaning if you were doing it? As George Harrison sang in his song “Any Road,” “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.” If you don’t have a destination in mind, it doesn’t matter what you are doing along your life path. Canfield writes about living your life “on purpose,” explaining that this “means you’re doing what you love to do, doing what you’re good at, and accomplishing what’s important to you.”
The book provides two exercises for helping you find your purpose. The first recommends listing the times you felt the most joyful and alive and recommends thinking of ways you might be able to make a living by doing these types of things. The second is the Life Purpose exercise, which he borrowed from, Arnold M. Patent, author of a book called You Can Have It All. This is a step-by-step process in which you build a purpose through naming personal qualities, how you express those qualities, and define what an ideal world looks like to you. Finally, you combine these into one full sentence to state your purpose. Through doing this exercise, my life purpose was revealed as this:
To support and help others be their creative and authentic selves and live in a way that all feel embraced and elevated.
Squintillions allows me to be “on purpose,” helping others live their best lives through advancing their knowledge and hopefully, my readers are feeling supported and elevated in life by the content they read here.
The book recommends that you read your life purpose statement every day. Mine is written on an index card in the drawer next to my bed and for a long time I would read it every night before going to sleep along with some of my goals. You might also wish to write your life purpose statement down and post it somewhere where you will see it regularly, such as the refrigerator, next to your computer, clip it to the visor in your car, or incorporate it in the lock screen photo or wallpaper on your mobile phone.
2. Unleash the Power of Goal Setting
By now, I think most people are on board with SMART Goals — setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and include a time frame. This principle on goal setting explains about a study with 297 participants who were organized into 5 groups. The result was that those people with the most involvement with their goals (thinking about and writing down goals, sharing with a friend, and making a weekly progress report to a friend) had a higher success rate (76%) over the group that only thought about their goals (43% success rate) of reaching their goals.
Therefore, the book recommends writing down your goals (use index cards, a notebook, a goal binder, notes in your wallet, and/or kept in your phone) and re-reading them three times daily. You can also write down the goal end dates on your wall or desk calendar or enter them in your phone calendar. Set up reminders on your phone to check in with yourself on your progress. I initially wrote my goals on index cards and kept them in the drawer next to my bed. When The Success Principles was written, there weren’t so many phone apps to choose from based on goal setting. There are plenty now; check out this summary of “5 Best Goal Tracker Apps for 2019” from Livewire.
There are two more recommendations in the book on goal setting. One is to set a “breakthrough goal” — a goal that would represent a giant step forward in your life. The progress you gain from reaching it would be life changing and create new opportunities for you. My breakthrough goal is to reach financial independence by the time I turn 50 (yes I have that written out with a date and amount; I’m not gonna tell you when though, let’s just say the clock is ticking louder every day).
The second suggestion is to create a list of 101 goals that you want to accomplish at some point in your life, sometimes referred to as a “bucket list.” Keep your list somewhere safe and as you reach each goal, cross them off and write victory or some other note about the accomplishment. And of course, remember to review it regularly. For an example, have a quick scan of Jack Canfield’s 101 goal list.
3. Chunk it Down
What does that mean? I’m guessing readers with English as a second language are scratching their heads at that phrase. This principle is about taking your big goal and making it easier to reach by breaking it down into smaller, manageable tasks. Let’s say your goal is to become a millionaire in the next 10 years. That’s a lot of money! I’ve chosen a money goal because it clearly demonstrates the breakdown process. First, figure out your current monetary assets. You probably don’t need to earn one million dollars in 10 years, maybe closer to $950,000, since you already have savings, an emergency fund, a few investments, and some may have the additional benefit of equity in your house. How much do you need to earn each year now? $95,000. How much per week? About $1,827. Per day, you are down to $260. That seems more feasible!
Now you have something concrete that you can aim for and work toward. If you can’t save that much daily from the job you have (most people aren’t earning that much, especially after subtracting for the cost of living and taxes!), you know that you have to look at other options:
- Figure out how much you actually can save daily.
- Start a side hustle or a second (part-time) job.
- Figure out ways to build a passive income stream.
- Make sure the money you already have is earning a good interest rate (if your savings account pays less than 2% interest, your savings is in the wrong place) or decent returns on investments.
- Sell items in your house that you don’t use or enjoy. Before moving last year, I had a garage sale and after moving, I put some of the random items I found during the moving process up for sale on eBay.
- Look at your expenses and see what things you can cut back on that are low value to you.
- Reduce monthly bills — call your Internet/TV/phone provider and negotiate down your rate — and drop monthly services that you aren’t using. I dropped cable TV a couple years ago, when I realized my family was mostly watching programs on Netflix or YouTube. Do you still have a landline? Do you ever use it? Look at other monthly charges to your accounts too — I just got rid of a monthly Dropbox payment because I seldom used the account.
Maybe you will not reach $260 every day in savings, but some days you will. The point is you have to take action and breaking it down into small steps will help make it possible and seem less overwhelming. If you reach 3/4 of your goal in 10 years, you might be slightly disappointed you didn’t make it on time, but you will know you are well on your way and in just a few extra years, if you continue what you are doing, you WILL obtain your goal. If you do reach that goal — fantastic — celebrate your success, (but don’t spend all that hard-earned money in one place)!
What is the process necessary to chunk it down? Start by making a daily to-do list. Brian Tracy recommends you plan out 5 things you want to accomplish for the day, pick the one thing you absolutely must get done, and do that one first. You can find out more about his system for maximizing your time in his book Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time. When you have finished working for the day, move any uncompleted tasks to the next day’s list. It can also be advantageous to plan your following day on the night before. Have your to-do list and any tools you need to get started, ready and waiting for you in the morning. Of course, remember to cross off items as you complete them; doing so is satisfying and is a visual representation of your accomplishments.
4. Take Action
Taking action is one principle that some people struggle with — you have the idea, but you don’t know how to get started, so you don’t. Or you have a plan outlined for what you want, but you don’t have the money you need to implement it, so you stall. Or you feel you are missing some skills that you need to get to your goal, so you give up. Don’t let these things hold you back, instead add them to your process, e.g. take that software training course you need or spend a weekend tinkering with it, then implement the software in your business, instead of letting lack of knowledge of a program stop you.
Here’s an example to bring home the idea of taking action. Despite what Professor Harold Hill says in The Music Man about his “Think System,” you cannot learn to play a musical instrument just by thinking the tune. You have to learn where the notes are in relation to what keys you are pressing or strings you are plucking. You have to take action. Even if you play by ear and don’t ever learn how to read music, you still need to get your hands on the instrument.
The importance of taking action is emphasized in The Success Principles, because when you do so, “You trigger all kinds of things that will inevitably carry you to success.” This statement refers to such things as learning by experience, coming into contact with others who have similar goals, and getting feedback on what you are doing. I’ve experienced all of these things when creating the YouTube channel that complements the Squintillions site:
- First, creating quality YouTube videos certainly has a learning curve, and I’m still in the stage where I am learning all the time. After a couple of months of creating videos, I realized that I needed to switch to a different video editor than Movie Maker as it doesn’t have all of the functionality I want in an editor. I started using Shotcut, which has its own learning curve. I’m continuing to discover additional features with each video I create.
- I’ve started having contact with other beginning content creators in the financial education and investment niche and feel like a supportive community is forming.
- I have also received valuable feedback on how to improve my videos (such as creating video transcription of my script and making custom thumbnails).
I knew that I could have waited until I was more competent in video recording and editing before launching my YouTube channel, but I decided the best way for me to learn would be by just doing it and learning the lessons as they presented themselves.
Starting a project before you 100% know how to do it is addressed under the Take Action principle of the book under the heading “Ready, Fire, Aim.” Yes, I typed that in correctly. Some people desire to be in a perfect situation before they take action, but sometimes the best thing to do is to just get moving and correct yourself along the way after you get some feedback on your first attempts (shoot the target, see where it hits, adjust and shoot again — this time getting closer to the bullseye). The book also covers the idea that mistakes are learning opportunities. You learn what doesn’t work by making the mistake, so you can get on the path toward what might work. Also, if you paid attention to the previous section, you know how to begin taking action: by chunking it down and creating your to-do lists!
5. Experience Your Fear and Take Action Anyway
Just about everyone is afraid of something; that’s part of what makes us human. I frequently struggle with anxiety and fear of things that might happen in the future, so I understand fully that fear can overcome people and hinder them from reaching their goals. In The Success Principles, a few techniques are discussed to help dissipate fear, including:
- Imaging what scares you and replacing it with a positive image, such as instead of worrying about failing a test, imagining that you pass it with no mistakes — and the teacher even writes a complimentary note!
- Focus on the physical sensations you have when you feel fear and then switch to thinking about the feelings you would rather experience like confidence or happiness, so that you might switch from the sensation of butterflies in your stomach to feeling uplifted and energetic.
- Remember previous times when were afraid of something, but did it anyway. One of the side benefits of being an anxious person, is that there are many examples to draw upon of overcoming fear! I will never forget standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building for almost an hour and then returning there again at night, when I vacationed in New York a few years ago. I felt the fear and did it anyway. I still have a fear of high places, but knowing that I can work through fear, helps me know I can do it again. The photo of the Empire State Building below is purposely large to give a sense of the height of the building.
- Finally, if you constantly worry about future activities going wrong, the book recommends developing a mindset in which you have “high intention and low attachment.” This means that you do everything you can to achieve your goals and then release yourself from any attachment to the end result. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things don’t work out the way we want them to. When that happens, be open to how the shift in the result might turn into a new, maybe even better, opportunity.
If fear and anxiety have a stronghold in your mind, you may wish to read the book, “Feel the Fear …and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. I also want to acknowledge that Anxiety Disorder is a real thing and taking the steps I’ve talked about may not be enough to help you overcome it; I speak from experience. If you feel like you are having more than your usual share of anxiety and it seems greater than you feel you can handle, please consult with your doctor or a therapist.
6. Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Successful people don’t give up, even in the face of rejection, roadblocks or setbacks. Concentrate on upcoming tasks that will help you reach your goal and don’t simmer over past failures. The Success Principles recommends staying on track by setting aside some time at the end of the day, “To acknowledge your successes, review your goals, focus on your successful future, and make specific plans for what you want to accomplish the next day.” You might do this in conjunction with reviewing the to-do list you had for the day. Thank yourself for completing the tasks you finished, give yourself a mental gold star, smiley face, or pat on the back. Maybe throw in a fist-pump if no one is watching.
Another option the book discusses is to meditate on a specific evaluative phrase, such as “show me where I could have been more ______________ today.” Fill in the blank with a pertinent quality, such as effective, helpful, assertive, loving, kind, etc. Allow time to create your own personal feedback, but in a peaceful and calm, observational, but non-judgmental way. While you’re in the meditative state, consider areas from the day that you could improve on and visualize what you might have done better. Finally, think of tomorrow and the things you need to get done. Imagine performing each task to the best of your ability and with the optimal use of your time. While you sleep, your brain will work on these thoughts subconsciously to help you make them happen the next day. I also use this time to say any positive affirmations that help me process life, such as “Whatever happens to me, I can and will handle it.”
If you are a visual learner, you may find that having something physical to look at during your visualization time allows you to focus more clearly on the result you desire. Canfield included another principle in the book dedicated to thoroughly explaining visualization, “See What You Want, Get What You See.” This principle has a lot of information packed into it and one of the suggested ideas is to create a vision board. Some people love creating vision boards and others do not believe they work, but I have to say, I found the activity useful for helping me decide on what areas of life I wanted to concentrate on for building my future. One of those areas was travel. The photo below shows part of one of my vision boards (my vision was so immense, I created two boards in March 2017). There is a nice picture on the lower right of the Grand Canyon that I printed out from the Internet (no copyright infringement intended, if it wasn’t under Creative Commons). I hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon at that point, but wanted to see it. When I had the opportunity to travel there on vacation in December 2018, I turned my earlier vision into a reality (see my personal photo at the end of this article). The photo on the lower right of the vision board is one that I took from the my visit to the top of the aforementioned Empire State Building to remind myself that I can plan wonderful vacations!
7. Transcend Your Limiting Beliefs
Humans spend so much of their days living life by habit. What’s your morning routine? What do you do for lunch when you are working? What do you always do before bed? Some habits are good, because it frees us from having to make the same types of decisions over and over, for example Simon Cowell always wearing a black T-shirt. Unfortunately, sometimes we get so stuck in our habits, that they can impede our route to success.
The Success Principles drills home the point that whatever habits you have right now, are leading to the results that you are currently experiencing. For example, if you include cardio in your exercise regimen three times a week, it probably isn’t difficult for you if you have to run to catch a bus. Good result! If you sit down at work all day and then sit and watch TV or read all evening, you’re probably gonna miss the bus. (I know, some smarty pants is thinking, “That’s why I drive!” The proverbial bus, people!) Some might worry about being able to handle challenges or changes in structure, but when you believe that you can handle it, it helps remove the fear of the unexpected. This is one of the reasons the affirmation I quoted in the previous principle is powerful for me.
The book shares a useful methodology for overcoming beliefs that limit you from getting what you truly want. The four steps from The Success Principles are:
- “Identify a limiting belief that you want to change.” One limiting belief I had to overcome when starting this blog was, “Nobody’s interested in your opinion.” That one went hand-in-hand with the similar thought, “Why would anyone want to take advice or recommendations from you?”
- “Determine how the belief limits you.” Those beliefs limit me because they keep me from expressing myself and (even worse!) stop me from living my life purpose.
- “Decide how you would rather be, act, or feel.” I want to feel confident that what I write or say has value and will be helpful.
- “Create a turnaround statement that affirms or gives you permission to be, act, or feel this new way.” My turnaround statement is, “When I share my knowledge, I am enlightening others and connecting them to valuable information that will enhance their lives, and in doing so, it allows me to fulfill my life purpose.”
The topic in this paragraph is covered under a different principle “Believe in Yourself”, but I feel that it fits here too, as so many of us limit ourselves by saying the words, “I can’t.” Are you an “I Can’t” King or Queen? Start noticing how many times you say the words, “I can’t” during the day, when what you really mean is, “I won’t,” “I don’t want to,” “I don’t have the knowledge or skills to do that, yet,” “I don’t like that” or even, “I’d rather be doing something else.” You see, sometimes our attitudes also create limiting beliefs. Start developing ways that you can say “I can” or start being honest with yourself and others about why you “can’t” and replace that word with ones that ring truer.
8. Learn More to Earn More
I am a lifelong learner, so this principle was most certainly going to be added to my top 10 list. Some of my favorite ways to learn are by reading books, news articles, and blogs; watching educational YouTube videos and documentaries; and “attending” webinars. The Success Principles recommends learning strategies including: cutting down on TV viewing in order to spend that extra time reading books in your field of work, as well as the works and biographies of successful people, learning to read faster, and reading one book per week. I tried reading a book each week, but I am a slow reader and could only keep it up for seven months; it is more like a book every two to three weeks now, depending on the number of pages. Attending conferences, retreats, and training courses, combines learning and networking in fun, experiential, and therefore memorable, ways. Another caveat is to “be teachable;” I particularly like this tip from The Success Principles, “You need to let go of already knowing it all, needing to be right and looking good — and open yourself to being a learner.” I know a few people who should really take that advice to heart!
Another topic covered under this principle, is to be ready when opportunity presents itself. Like an understudy in a play, you never know when the actor playing the role you’re covering is not able to go on stage. In a recent community theatre performance of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell became ill during the middle of the show, so in that same performance, the alternate girl took her place. Your turn to step in might happen when you least expect it. What will you need to know to be prepared? What if your boss is sick and can’t attend the meeting with the important clients who flew in from overseas? Would you be ready to take over leading the meeting? What steps would you need to take to move up to the next level in your field? Start preparing now!
9. Fuel Your Success with Passion and Enthusiasm
This principle is about kindling your passion. The Success Principles makes it clear that success doesn’t have to be defined by how much money you make, but that if you love what you do with a passion, then you have found success. My 12-year-old son dances. It is his passion. He has been doing it since he was three years old. Let me tell you, it takes a lot of passion (and self-confidence) to override being the only boy in a room of girls learning ballet and jazz (raise your hand if you’ve seen Billy Elliot). I believe a lot of people feel a similar passion in the hobbies they enjoy. Now how to find that level of passion in your career?
First you must answer the question, are you doing what you want to do? If you had enough money to live comfortably, would you be doing the same thing? If not, what would you be doing and why? Answer the questions and you may find what you are passionate about. You may also contemplate: are you fulfilling your life purpose? What should you be doing to make that happen? Activities that you are passionate about are things you would do for free. For me, writing articles such as this one and the others on Squintillions, are meeting my needs for my life purpose and indulging one of my passions — writing.
10. You Get What You Focus On
There is a section on success and money in the book, which was instrumental to me in changing how I handled my money. It walks you through discovering your net worth, estimating how much money you will need to retire, figuring out how much you’re spending, and advises becoming financially literate by reading financial books. This principle inspired me to educate myself further on financial issues, take action to get the best possible returns out of my money, and to diversify my investments. I began reading books on handling personal finance and investing, such as David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich. Soon I was practicing the ideas I was reading about. If you want to see some of the other books that have inspired me, be sure to check out the Squintillions Resources page.
People are also encouraged to be mindful of their money and since the writing of the book a number of mobile apps have become available to help you with money management or budgeting. Check out this list of recommendations of the “Best 15 Money Management Apps That Make Financial Planning Easy” from Lifehack. I like to use the Mint app as a budget tracker and to keep an eye on my multiple investment, checking, and savings accounts, the two custodial accounts for my sons, as well as my three credit card accounts, and regular bills, all in one place. It is neat to check in every few days and see my current overall net worth and review my spending. You can also see how stock market fluctuations impact your own investments. Accounting for fluctuations and my own spending, my net worth experienced a 3% change over the summer between the highest point on July 15 and the lowest point on August 17. I’m happy to say that I’m back in the high range for my net worth at the beginning of September thanks to the market trading relatively high.
I had included some money-related visuals on my vision board to remind myself to save money and to plan for future expenses. I wanted to remember to contribute to the college accounts for my two sons. Since I have been out of the paid workforce for so long, my IRA’s value is lower than I’d like it to be at this point in my life. So I’d visualize keeping track of that account, making my yearly allotted contribution, and taking retirement needs into consideration when saving and investing any money. The million dollar bill on the board is a challenge to myself to save large amounts of currency.
I have been genuinely inspired by this book, which I first read at the beginning of 2017. Since, then I’ve since read it through twice more, taking copious notes, and completing many of the recommended exercises and action items. I even attended one of Jack Canfield’s “One Day to Greatness” Seminars, in which attendees worked through some of the exercises in The Success Principles, which were embellished by completing them with a partner. It was a great opportunity to meet other people on the personal development life path and inspiring to hear from so many people working to achieve their goals.
If you read the book and find yourself connecting strongly to the information and are looking for further guidance through Jack Canfield’s training brand, I recommend participating in his webinar “6 Steps to Achieve Any Goal and Create an Extraordinary Life.” You might want to attend one of his “One Day to Greatness” Seminars, in which attendees work through some of the exercises in The Success Principles alongside other participants. I attended one a couple years ago and enjoyed it. If you want much more in-depth training, the next step is to purchase his “Breakthrough to Success Online” course. I’m working my way through “Breakthrough to Success Online” (there is a lot of content!) and will certainly be writing about it in the future. Disclosure, I found when I was researching this topic, that Jack Canfield Training Group has an affiliate program, which I have signed up for, and I may receive a commission if you purchase a training course through his website by following my links.
Take time to develop and implement your life plan, consistently read your goals, and review regularly that you are staying on track. Reassess annually that the goals you have previously set are what you continue to wish to obtain. Put in the groundwork and soon you will be on the path to your personal success and living your best life.
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