The three things that must be part of your plan for success

Think of success as the mission and your life as the missle.

In order to fire the missle and know with certainty that it's going to land where you want it to, there are three things you must make part of your plan for success.

They are:

1. Your Target
2. Your Map
3. Your Fuel

Plus, there's a secret ingredient that must be included or all three of these things are useless.

Your Target

If all you do is fire a missle without asking where it's aimed, what's the likelihood it's going to impact in a place that fits your purpose?

Next to none.

You might end up taking out your next door neighbor or your own rose bushes.

And yet, this is what happens to most people when they decide to succeed. The number of people who set out determined to accomplish something great is huge. The number of people who actually achieve a great goal is very, very small. Why?

The problem is that most people have formed their goals in the negative. What does that mean?

Most people haven't decided what they want. They only know what they don't want. They haven't decided to "become wealthy." They have only decided to "not be poor." The difference between those two things might seem like pure semantics until you do the math and realize what a great gulf there is between poverty and prosperity. You could be, relatively speaking, quite far from poor, and yet nowhere near riches.

Or to use another analogy, it's the difference between deciding you want to be in the Bahamas and saying you don't want to be at work. If your Target is, "I don't want to be at work", think about all the other places you can end up that certainly aren't "at work"... and definitely aren't the Bahamas!

If you have framed your goal in the negative, this is not a target. Just because your missle isn't aimed at the neighbors doesn't mean it's aimed anywhere useful.

While it's certainly helpful to know where you don't want to go, what you don't want to do, and who you don't want to be, at some point, you must recognize that aiming away from something still aims you toward something, and that may not be anything you're interested in. Just because you aim away from something you don't want anymore doesn't mean you'll automatically aim at something you do want.

Plenty of people leave jobs they hate and end up at jobs they hate even more. Why? Because they suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Because God and the Universe hate them?

No. Not even a little.

Most people bounce from one awful situation to another because they've spent their lives focused on what they don't want and haven't identified what they do want.

So take a moment and honestly ask, "What do I want? Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be?"

Once you know what your Target is, next you'll need your Map.

Your Map

Your map is your understanding of where you are, where you want to be, and what it's going to take to cross the distance between those two points.

For example, if you know you're in London and you want to be in Paris, but you have no idea how far it is to Paris or even what direction you should set out in, how likely is it that you'll make it to Paris? It's not impossible... but it's not likely.

Or let's say you entered the workforce without a high school diploma and you've decided you want to climb the heights of academia and earm a PhD, but you have no idea what kind of colleges are available to you or how long you'll need to be in school. What's the likelihood you'll be called Doctor one day? It could happen. Maaaaaaaybe.

The point is that your Map is only as effective as your knowledge about the journey you're going to have to take to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Why? Because the journey from high-school dropout to PhD follows the same principles as the journey from Las Vegas, Nevada to the top of Mount Fuji. You need to know where you are, where you're going (not where you're not going - because knowing you're not going to Istanbul is still a long way to the top of Mount Fuji), and what kind of journey you're setting out on to get there.

So figure out where you are, measure the miles it's going to take to get from here to there, plot out the time it's going to take, and then, find the fuel you'll use to get there.

Your Fuel

Your fuel is the energy, the inspiration, the drive you'll use to power yourself across the distance between where you are and where you want to be. This is an element of success that is as important as it is often ignored.

The fuel you'll use for success is of ultimate importance. You must choose your fuel wisely. Why?

Because it's like starting a campfire. If you need the fire to burn all night, but you choose the thinnest, driest brush as your fuel, the fire won't last the hour before you'll be forced to find a whole new fuel.

Or if you're going on a marathon run and you fuel up on a Honey Bun, how likely are you to make it across the finish line?

The fuel you choose must be lasting. It also must be healthy for your whole life.

Why?

One person chooses to build a business into the most successful of its kind because they want enough money and power on their hands to make Solomon blush. Another person chooses to build a business because they know with more success they can make an even greater contribution to the people in their life.

Some people fuel themselves through anger, envy, or revenge and even when they make it to their target, they find no fulfillment. They end up asking, "Is this all there is?"

Don't let that happen to you.

Choose a fuel that deserves to be burning at the core of who you are. Choose a fuel that honors you and the people you're blessed to be in contact with. Choose a fuel that brings you closer to your Creator.

Plus, there's a secret ingredient that must be included or all three of these elements are useless.

The secret ingredient

Your Target, your Map, and your Fuel are useless without the secret ingredient:

Honesty.

For your Target, your Map, or your Fuel to have any meaning, you've got to be absolutely honest about who you are and what you want from your life. When you determine your Target, Map, and Fuel, it's neither the time to delude yourself into thinking you're already at the pinnacle of perfection, nor is it the time to fool yourself into thinking you're a failure at every level.

Don't lie to yourself. That just delays you from achieving true success. The truth is, you may be far closer, or far more distant, from your target than you originally assumed.

Be honest about the gap between your desires and your destination and you'll be that much closer that much sooner to bringing your dreams through the window of your mind and out into the waiting world.